My sister's adventures in Wadeye, Australia

All pictures taken by Victoria

This is a recent email from my sister about her first week working in a clinic that serves Australian Aborigines in the city of Wadeye, in the Northern Territory, and her unfortunate experience with being robbed. She seems in the good spirits though.

From Wikipedia:

Wadeye (pronounced wod-air-yer) was formerly known (and is still often referred to) as Port Keats. The town is remote, situated on the western edge of the Daly River Reserve more than 200 km south west of Darwin, with road access being cut off by flooding during the wet season. Year round access is via light aircraft or coastal barge only. At the 2001 census, Wadeye had a population of 2,322.

[…]

Wadeye is mainly inhabited by Indigenous Australians. It is the largest indigenous community in the Northern Territory. The inhabitants include seven language groups, the main language that is spoken being Murrinhpatha.

It reminds of my time in the field, and I thought I would share her adventures…

*****************

Hey guys,

Sorry about the scare last night.

So just so everyone knows what happened:

I was woken up by my bedroom door creaking.

By the time I realized I was awake, I jumped up and ran to the front door-- which was wide open.

Then I started noticing things were missing: the TV, my pens, sugar.

Then I called [007 in Africa], who told me (very sensibly) to call the police already.

I called the police, they came over, with my TV in tow (found on the side of the street as they were driving over!)

Today I called University of Darwin to tell them what had happened. I also went back home and jimmied the lock... the door opened easily. Also my set of keys didn't include a key for the padlock. I called the university back, who said they're already sent a man to fix all of these things.

I also filed a police report. Everyone at the clinic was really supportive, and tonight I am crashing at a young nurse's house, whom I met and got along with really well over the weekend. If or when I go back, another nurse told me that I could borrow her dog until I feel comfortable (yay).

Soooo that's where everything stands with THAT. About the community itself, I am going to be a little lazy and copy and paste from another email that I've just written:

"I've been lucky here so far. I went to check out the footy [soccer] yesterday and met the village elder, who's invited me to go fishing today (it's too rainy though-- got to watch out for crocs, so maybe next week). The nurses and doctor at the clinic are truly phenomenal. It's so inspiring to see what they do -- for so many people -- with so little. It's funny; people who come out this far are either really great, or seriously sketchy.

I had dinner with some local white people, only to realize quite early on that although the wife was lovely, the husband was 1) Christian fundamentalist, and 2) exceptionally racist. Some gems of that evening include:

"Yeah [my wife] has been trying to learn the local language. Me, I couldn't care less. I don't think they should be teaching it at school at all. I mean, who speak Murrinh-patha anyway? It's useless. They should just speak English, it's the dominant language anyway."

(I stayed mostly quiet because I'd just landed in town and I was at their house, although I did mention that he should be wary of saying such a thing to anyone Polish, for instance).

Here's another local [friend 1] who set up the footy games 3 years ago. It's amazing how the town's changed since then; Wadeye use to be dangerous. I mean, it's still not rainbows and butterflies, but at least on the weekends everyone rallies around their teams, gets exercise, and has something social to do. They still do riot over footy... but far less than they used to riot over, well, anything. There are also some gangs in Wadeye, and a lot of the things we see at the clinic are fights over girlfriends and ex-girlfriends, in young adults. We also see a lot of sick, sick babies. And, of course, everything else: fractures, diabetes, foot sores, heart attacks...

[Friend 1] loves it here. He's been adopted--literally. He has a skin name and a totem and an indigenous mother.

As for the Intervention [name of the project] so far? I've heard mostly good things. It was bad at the beginning-- undoubtedly, especially for everyone who remembers the stolen generation-- but from I've heard said, there's been a real effort to speak to local elders, see what they feel is needed, and work locally. It's also poured in a lot of money in general, which was seriously lacking before then (the [Government from the Northern Territory] is pretty shocking). However, it has added a lot of bureaucracy and heaps more agencies, which can be a hassle. I'm keeping my ears open to try to get a better picture of what's really happened with the Intervention.

Love,

[007 in Africa’s sister]

Linking Family Trees

There are two or three people in my family that are very interested in recreating their family trees, reaching out to the far ends of the world to discover new branches and information about relatives.

My father is South African, and my mother is French. Upon hearing that my dad's family may have a French branch to it, I wrote the following:

From: 007 in Africa
Sent: 12 February 2010
To: A variety of people
Subject: RE: DNA Testing easy in USA

Please tell me there won't be a chance my parents are related....

*Shudder*
007 in Africa

She quickly replied:

From: My aunt
Sent: 12 February 2010
To: 007 in Africa; a variety of people
Subject: RE: DNA Testing easy in USA

Be sensible – it’s impossible. You’ve studied genetics and should have realized ages ago your father is not from this planet. I suspect he’s actually an orphan my parents found in Roswell, USA, sometime in the fifties and adopted. He’s odd, but we still love him very, very much. (Only aliens listen to Mahler for relaxation)

Peter says now, at last, he understands why I always spend so much time in the kitchen.

Love you all lots!
Your Aunt

The Shovel Brigade

Yesterday afternoon, a lady with a small car tried to drive down our unplowed street. Very bad idea. Five big guys (including a policeman) came to her rescue, shoveling the road so she could drive 1 meter, and get stuck again. They repeated this pattern 4 or 5 times.

It was obviously frustrating work and the guys worked really hard and diligently to get the car moving, shoveling and pushing the car along the way. It must have taken at least an hour to get the car moved 10 meters.

Until a big white van drove down the street and stopped right behind the car. It beeped a couple of times, seemingly irritated by the situation, having only waited one minute for her to budge. The policeman irritatingly shook his fist in the van's direction, shooting at the driver.

Then all of a sudden, the van's door opened, and 5 guys with shovels come out. They added their manpower to the team, and got the car freed in less than 5 minutes.

The men then dispersed swiftly, in every direction. It was such a weird scene, I felt like I was witnessing a swift, efficient mobster operation of The Shovel Brigade.

We're Running Out of Food

I use to scoff at people who panicked at the thought of snow, running to the store for food, toilet paper and water. Well, I'm not so proud now. I still have a good amount of food, but would kill for cereal and lettuce. Except my friend sent me these pictures of the Whole Food in 14th and P street:

My roommate and I have invited him for a walk and dinner to chase away the cabin blues. She still has lentils and flour, so she's planning to make curried beans (chick peas, and kidney beans) and roti. We're scraping the end of our fridge for this meal.

Apparently, we're due for snow again, and then we'll really start to go for the canned food.

Pictures taken by Peter Mamacos.

D.C. Snowpocalypse 2010

But only dad was around for the second heavy snow, otherwise dubbed the D.C. Snowpocalypse.

I enthusiastically (some would even say a little too giddy - like my roommate who was not going to be convinced to put her nose outside) started off my day, hoping to walk from Columbia Heights to Georgetown and back (I succeeded the 8 miles)...

These are the treacherous stairs from my apartment to the street. What you can't see is how steep and how many steps there are to the bottom. Looks waaay easy to climb down than it was.

View of my street, Girard Street to 14th street. Great plowing guys.

Statue of some proud, crotchety old man in Dupont Circle.

David and Goliath, seriously. This little bitty jeep pulled out a huge-ass truck with a cord. It was an impressive feat.

View of Reservoir Road from Wisconsin Avenue.

The Georgetown Cafe

A snow bicycle.

"I'm going sledding. Get out of my way."

Rock Creek Parkway.

"13 seconds, 13 seconds! Cross the road buddy!"

I think this is what L. Frank Baum had in mind when he wrote about the "cowardly lion."

First Heavy Snow

Man! We've had some pretty heavy snow here in D.C. The first heavy fall was during Christmas. Here's how my family coped with it:

My dad was glad for the exercise...

My mom was proud to show off her share of the work.

My sister was stoic, having recently come back from 4 years in Montreal.

And my brother was surely and unamused.

Another One on Our Side!

Back in the day, when I lived in Congo, I told Carl the Pilot that I had just recently become a naturalized American citizen. He immediately said "Yes! Another one on our side!" while pumping his arm in victory, with a large grin on his face.

I looked at him quizzically, and he explained that he was always excited to hear that good people became American. I laughed at this explanation, envisioning him as a captain in the Second World War, proud to find more recruits for the war, or perhaps a high-school team captain who gets to choose his teammates and picks the best of the bunch first.

Anyways, every time someone tells me they just got naturalized, I say "Yes! Another one on our side!"

My colleague's Albanian dad just passed the test (minutes ago), and of course, I sent her some congratulations, along with my usual motto.

For her though, it must be particularly special, as she and her siblings have been raising each other alone in the United States for more than 10 years, while her parents worked in Albania to provide them with a better future.

One Where I am Evil

Another one of colleagues tells good stories about her dreams:

Source

Ok, been wanting to tell you about my insane dream, but you been soo beezee :) (it’s a good thing)

Had a dream we were here at work, and I was telling you how dry my hair was because of the stupid organic gel ive been using (from whole foods), and then you were like, ok let me take a look, so you take out scissors and cut my hair!!!

I was yelling, and started running away, and was cursing, and you were completely indifferent, as in whatever, I did you a favor. Then for some reason we were on the 3rd floor at [office location] and there was a festival, and an old school mate I had a crush on (gorgeous large African American male) came up to me while you and I were talking about the whole hair situation, put his derrière in my face, and started dancing.

The end

A common element of these two stories is that they both finish with "The end". And they are both crazy of course.

Herb, the Albino Frog

A colleague of mine sent me this story, about her cherished family pet. She was reminded of it when we were discussing the frozen geekos in Florida that literally fall from trees and go into hibernation.

A welcome respite from work, especially in the midst of the terrible news from Haiti's earthquake... I added a few paragraph breaks, for ease of reading, but otherwise, the story remains untouched:

This is pretty amazing and it is interesting how reptiles can survive so much!

That reminds me of a funny story (something about getting older makes me want to tell more stories, so listen up youngins :). We had a big fat albino frog named Herb for years. I planned to get rid of the aquarium because it was so much trouble once all the fish and the frog died.

Well, the fish died and Herb lived on for years and years. We thought, “Is this frog going to live forever?” Then, one day, I guess when he had enough of being alone, he jumped out of the tank and hopped off, I guess looking for love or wanting to commit suicide…. Our dog Rudy went chasing after him and we thought he probably ate him for snack.

We didn’t see a trace of him for days. Then Rudy guided us to a corner one evening and there was Herb stiff as a board covered with dog hair. Rudy was a good dog. I guess he preferred to play with Herb rather than eat him.

John took Herb to the sink to rinse him off and was going to give him a proper burial in the background. However, once the water covered him, he started to stir and then he woke up! John cleaned him off and put him back in the tank where he lived another 2 years!

Finally, one day we came home and there was little Herb floating in the tank with his little arms up in the air……He finally died of old age and I finally got to put up that damn aquarium.

End of story……

Hold Please – Putting You Through to the Eighties

Why is it that every time customer service puts me on hold, like I am right now, the background music is some cheesy mix of elevator Jazz, and “sexy” saxophone that is very reminiscent of eighties soap operas?

Seriously, who chooses the music? Arrrrgh!

Homelessness and Nestlessness in Winter

As I'm walking home from a cheerful evening of crabs legs and after-dinner drinks, I grab a bus, and then a metro home, walking in the unusually frigid winter air.

I see five homeless people, bundled in swatling mutlicolored covers, trying to sleep by the metro's escalators, where the artificial heat of the Mcpherson Square station cuts the sharpness of the cold a bit.

Oddly, there is a family of ducks, male with brilliant green plumage against his dark feathers, and three duller females, also catching some Zs on the concrete sidewalk, slightly apart from the slumbering humans, as if wary of them, but trying to benefit from the heat as well.

Meat Thermometer and Blistering Cold in D.C.

It's currently unusually cold here in D.C. (about 28 degrees Fahrenheit, but feels like 20), and has been going on for a few days. I've developed an angry rash on my upper legs, from the bitter wind carving cracks in the upper layers of my dermis. When complaining about how painful the cold was, my colleague said "wait, is it as painful as being in a refugee camp in Darfur?"


Wow, thanks for putting that into perspective.

2010 New Year's Resolutions

Economical Brain

A few days ago, my father and brother were discussing the relevance of London as a financial center, and the many ways to pronounce languages. I was mentioning how my friends complain about French, and used the sound "oh" as an example. In my mind there were 4 ways to spell the "oh" sound in French (eau, au, o, ot). In true one-up-manship, my father said "well there are actually 13 ways to pronounce the sound 'oh' in French."

A little deflated, I turned away from the conversation feeling much less knowledgeable than both of them.

Until I started reading the new issue of the Economist. Which happened to have: 1) an article on the relevance of London as a financial capital, and 2) an article on difficult languages to learn and pronounce (with the anecdote about the French "oh").

Bwwwaha, I'm on to you now! And I must remember to read the Economist before family dinners.

Creative

Washington D.C. got plummeted with snow this weekend. And as per usual, Washingtonian were completely unprepared for the slush, wetness, and ice that came with it. At the end of the second day, snow plows had still not cleared my house, sitting on a relatively large side road. Friends from Toronto and Montreal anxiously called me, to make sure that I had enough food and proper winter gear (I had neither).

However, despite our relative inexperience with snow, let no one say that we are not willing to help ourselves.

As I was walking past a sex shop in U street, I saw a shop keeper in sweats, scraping the icy surface in front of his store...with the empty plastic casing of a dildo.

Now, that's pretty creative.

Awkward conversation with mom

A few months ago, I reported that a quote of mine ended up in a book called We Feel Fine. Having just received the book in the mail, I spend a good twenty minutes flipping through it to find my quote, and proudly show it to my mom.

Impassively, my mom takes a look at it and says "your picture is right next to the quote: 'I feel weird having phone sex' ".

I feel weird having my mom read that out-loud.

Making Great Green Spaces and being famous in interim

So, yeah, I never post anymore.

But when I DO post blogging entries, it's for very important topics. I would like to share an important initiative going on in Washington D.C. right now:

Everyone can name great public places, such as parks, squares, and outdoor markets found in cities across the country. But what makes these places work? Why do people seek them out and congregate there in large groups? And what makes some of public spaces “greener?" In an effort to provide a “decoder ring” to reveal what makes these places so successful, the National Building Museum presents a series of mini-documentaries that identify the specific elements that help make Great Green Places.

http://www.nbm.org/media/video/great-green-places/barracks-row.html

So, what's so special about Great Green Places you ask?

Well mainly, I appear in 0.5 second of the video - you can see me on the screenshot on the front page (girl smiling idiotically with pink skirt and brown belt, almost completely hidden by girl with red and black shirt. Which incidentally happens to be my friend. I'm going to have to have a talk about not stealing the limelight).

Also, if you're courageous enough to watch the video, I can be seen in all my glory at 2:26.

I'm so bloggostistical!

Pathetic

I just signed in to Netflix, to read this:

Unique for You

007 in Africa, we think you might enjoy the following movie:

Can't Get a Date

Our best guess for you 3.8 out of 4 stars
Customer average rating 3.2 out of 4 stars

Hum, yeah...

On Becoming

For some strange reason, I've been spending a lot of my time on youtube, looking at people's video diaries, as they transition from male to female; and female to male.

These individuals are usually reflective, often funny, many times insightful.  Concerned with recording their transition, they get excited about voice changes, body fat redistribution, hair changes; or sometimes record the sadness of not transforming quickly enough.  It becomes a rite a passage of sorts, and is fascinating to see their physical changes, and the intense elation that comes with finally becoming something they've always felt cheated out of.

The journeys are hard, physically painful and slow.  The operations are gruesome, and take away the very parts they were born with.  But I've never heard it described with such poetry and spirituality as Unmeasuredinstances does:

And you feel reborn.  And I remember thinking, Oh My God, this is real.  This is real.  It was the sweetest sleep of my life.  I can't tell you how important that process was for me.  A sense of being born, a sense of spiritual awakening.

Makes me understand the intense joy of Becoming.

The Fake Girlfriend

Today, I went for a long bike ride to look at Open Houses in Washington, D.C.  I went with a male friend who's looking for a place as well.

We stopped off at Firehook near the Capitol, where intense young people worked on their computer trying to catch up on their policy work.  On the street and in the coffee shop, we met three of his acquaintances.

This is the conversation that ensued, as soon as they were out of out of earshot:

007: Wow, your friends are ridiculously good looking

Friend: ...

007: Next time, how do I stand next to you, but make it clear we're not dating.  I mean, they probably totally discounted me, because they thought we were together!

Friend: No, you can't make it obvious!

007: Why?

Friend: Because I like having a fake girlfriend!

Random Observations

Thank you Mr. Fruit Man
I know I’ve already talked about him before, but the fruit guy in front of my office is awesome. He comes to D.C. early in the morning with his truck, unloads his carts full of trail mix, apples, cherries, grapes, plums, bananas and pears, and transforms his carts in vending tables.

This morning, I made a special trip to the ATM to get some cash and bought:

-1 apple
-3 plums
-3 peaches

All for $3! OK if you hail from the 1950s (when a cup of coffee cost 10 cents), that’s pretty shocking. But believe me, nowadays, $3 dollars for 6 pieces of fresh fruit is amazing.

Kitchen Appliances - not a bad invention after all
Also, as a follow-up to my post about the utility of kitchen appliances, two nights ago I was preparing meringues with the remnants of egg whites. I measured the sugar and crème of tartare…Only to find out that my roommate had taken the electrical beater to her fiancé’s apartment. I was left with a whisk to beat the eggs into stiff mounds.

After 20 minutes of near constant beating, I realized it was an uphill battle, placed my sloppy mix into the oven, and cooked the meringues for one hour. Needless to say, meringues without an electrical beater aren’t meringues…they’re more like a thin layer of protein and glucose, attached firmly to aluminum fold.

This is not how my meringues turned out at all
Source

I'm going to be in a book!

Two guys, Sep Kamvar and Jonathan Harris, are publishing a book about "emotions", as reported in various blogs on the internet. They contacted me about my quote on May 8, 2006, a follow-up to a post on May 4, 2006:

Due to popular demand, I am reporting today that I do not have that weird worm-like feeling in my throat.

Though I am flattered that my picture will be in a book, I am a little alarmed that:

1) it will be the smallest picture on the page,

2) it will appear in the "weird" emotion section, and

3) my face will be plastered and obliterated with a quote about worms.

Anyways, if you see the book, entitled We Feel Fine: an Almanac of Human Emotion (scheduled to be released on December 1st, 2009), check out page 145.

I think I remember who took that picture in the first place, I'm going to have to thank him promptly and invite him to the launch party in New York.

Accumulating Stuff

I just came back from a lovely 2-weeks vacation to France (Lyon and the South), Croatia and Slovenia, but lost my camera there and unfortunately cannot share some pictures...

I'm glad to be back in D.C., but I now have to face impending deadlines and stresses I conveniently forgot about during my leave. One of my two roommates is getting married in September, and understandably, she will be leaving our apartment in August.

I am planning to buy a house in the next few months, and thus must:

1- Sort out my finances

2- Reapply for pre-approval

3- Find a house

4- Go through the buying process

5- Move

Oddly enough, the moving part has me the most worried. I am finding myself confronted by two opposing problems:

1-Not enough stuff

Roommate-who's-getting married is, little-by-little, moving her stuff out of our house, and into her fiancé's. And suddenly, we have no more blender. And vegetable peeler. And vanilla essence. And a small strainer.

And though I joked with her that she had more cooking utensils than Julia Child, I'm suddenly realizing that I DO need a blender, vegetable peeler, vanilla essense, and a small strainer.

2-Too much stuff

I'm trying not to put off the inevitably painful task of sorting through my closets and packing up some boxes. These are some of the items that are crowding up my closet:

-various garden tools and plant foods (I never garden)

-tons of Congolese Kuba cloths (I have no more space on my walls to hang them)

-liquors and other strong alcohols (I always end up serving wine with dinner)

-natural cleaning products (they don't work very well so I've switched to industrial-strength ones)

-waxing kits (I generally end up going to a salon to get my legs professionally done).

My room looks spotless, thanks to my huge closets. But I never open them in public, and the amount of stuff they hide will make moving monstruously difficult.

Sigh.

Father's Day

It was Father's Day yesterday. And though I don't often give him a pat on the back, encourage him in his endeavors to paint or refinish a cane chair, I admire my father very much. Maybe it's about time we thank our dads as much as we thank our moms, for sticking through with us, as we grow up to be adults.

Yet, not everyone is this lucky. Some fathers are no longer with us, and some fathers are not able to take care of their children. Obama wrote a beautifully touching letter this year about how fathers, or the absence of them, really shape up people's live:

[...] on this Father’s Day, I think back to the day I drove Michelle and a newborn Malia home from the hospital nearly 11 years ago—crawling along, miles under the speed limit, feeling the weight of my daughter’s future resting in my hands. I think about the pledge I made to her that day: that I would give her what I never had—that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father. [...]

It is especially powerful because he never had a father, and that makes him even more resolute to be there for his children. Watch his advice to fathers on this father's day:



He's redefining father's day: it's not just a thank you for those dads that are there, but a plea for those that aren't, to step up to their roles as parents.

Remembering the Holocaust

By now you’ve heard, of course, of the crazy man who shot and killed a guard at the Holocaust museum. The shooting happened just a few blocks from my work, so there was a frenzy around the National Mall. The incident was racially motivated, and the man lived his life eaten by hatred and anger.

Today, CNN.com released this amazing 20-mins interview with Eva Schloss. Eva is an 80-year old Auschwitz survivor, and she talks about her experiences of the Holocaust and her relationship with Anne Frank.

“For me, it’s a great insult, because I was there, experienced it, I lost my family. How can people say it's not true? And I think there should be a law to forbid to deny the Holocaust. Because it's not freedom of speech, it's really libel. Because it's proven that it is there. The Germans themselves took documents and photos, and they recorded every day (we got from the Red Cross the dates that my father and brother died). It was recorded by the Nazis. And where are those 6 million Jewish people?"

I call that interview pretty good timing.

On Drones and Cops

Source

I was going to write a post about how people in the metro are complete drones. Here they are, standing in the metro car, sporting their Ann Taylor Loft dress and flip flops, or beige slacks and leather satchel. They slowly move out of the train, and towards the escalator, queuing up nicely by the walking zone or the standing zone. They don’t smile, they don’t acknowledge other presences, and they rush towards the gates, and drop their newspapers mechanically into the recycling cans.

Every morning, I fight an irresistible need to go “Baahhh, bah!” like a goat, as I standing on the moving stairs. But I suspect that no one would even flinch.

As I was walking by my office this morning though, I saw a cop and smiled at him.

Cop: “Ma’am, can I ask for your help?”

I looked at him with raised eyebrows.

Cop: “I need to put this in your bag” as he shows me a can of diet coke.

I stutter and shift on my feet several times, thinking of the stories of unsuspecting tourists stuck in some overseas jail because they accepted to store similarly innocuous items in their suitcases. I look at his uniform several times, trying to see how official it was.

Cop: “I need to test the guards, I’ll be right behind you”.

An image of me in shackles surrounded by dozens of cops forms very clearly in my mind, so I say:

Me: “OK, sure”

I drop the can in my bag, and walk in the building. I put my bag on the x-ray belt, and flash my badge. The guards say nothing, and let me go on my merry way.

The policeman catches up with me in the elevator, and thanks me profusely. He asks me for his can back, and I say jokingly:

Me: “What, I don’t even get to drink it for my troubles?”

He unscrews the top, and shows me that the Diet Coke can is not a can at all, but a receptacle of some kind, stuffed with tissue. A young man who was riding the elevator with us blanches and quickly steps of the elevator. I try to probe a little more, but all I get is that this is connected to the Holocaust museum shooting that happened this week (about 6 blocks from where I work).

This is more excitement than this drone can take!

On Ambition

I went to dinner with some pretty ambitious folks last night and it was nice to hear of all the places in which they'd studied, traveled to, and experienced.

And though my job is not nearly as glamorous as my last one, I am relishing my newfound evenings and weekends, and reveling in going to happy hours with friends, and signing up to dance classes.

Yet, I feel vaguely dissatisfied that I'm not jet-setting to exotic places, getting a second Masters or a Ph.D. or doing a job where I save children and puppies. I felt slightly ashamed that I didn't display more ambition.

But sometimes I think: isn't it just as ambitious to build solid friendships, fall in love with a vibrant city, take some time to reflect, and balance it all with a job that still pays the bill?

Awesome Job by my Bank Account

My bank account did an amazing job of monitoring suspicious activities on my account. Last week, I bought a wedding present for a friend in the U.K. I rarely buy from overseas, so they sent me this message:




Dear Ms. 007 in Africa;

On regular basis, our Security Department review credit card accounts for activities that may be outside members’ normal purchase patterns. This is done in order to provide protection against the possible unauthorized use of members’ credit card accounts.

They have been unable to contact you to verify a recent transaction appearing in your credit card ending in XXX. Consequently, our Security Department has placed protective restriction on the account until you call or email us to verify the transaction(s) and confirm possession of your credit card. Please reply to this email or call our Security Department immediately at the number (555) 555-5555 (toll-free); if overseas you can call (555) 555-5555 in order to verify the following transactions(s):

05/19/09 $YY.YY “Randomwedding registry.COM” LONDON (GB)

To unblock your account, please provide the last four digits of your social security number and date of birth. Please disregard this email if you have already contacted us. If you have not been engaged in the above transaction(s), please contact our “Lost/Stolen Department” at the number 1-800-555-5555.

Please help us to serve you better letting us know of your travel plans at creditcard@randomaddress.org.

Thank you very much for your assistance. We regret any possible inconvenience caused you by this effort to prevent the unauthorized use of your account.

Sincerely,
Card Services



I have to say, I'm impressed!

OnBeing 2

And here is Gladys Mitchell, remembering Martin Luther King Jr's and his legacy, in 3 minutes 48 seconds.

http://specials.washingtonpost.com/mv/onbeing/53/

OnBeing

Check out this series from Washingtonpost.com where they interview kooky people with interesting points of view: OnBeing.

My favorite so far is an interview with Edward Fahnbulleh, a janitor from Liberia, who works two jobs because "he's not tired yet", and he can give money back to his friend at home to build a school and pay teachers. He seems like he's just having the time of his life!

http://specials.washingtonpost.com/mv/onbeing/69/

Portrait Project

I just learned that some pictures I took from the Congo, and later donated for a Silent Auction, sold at Buy-Out price. OK, so it was for my high school, but still, I'm encouraged to continue taking pictures. I'd really like to start with a portrait idea I have in my head.

I would like to take pictures of my friends. I'm not talking about the kind of pictures that you would put in your yearbook (looking stiff, a little fake, and overdressed), but rather, the ones that display people's personalities subtly, and in a simple and repetitive way.

I'd like my friends to pose against a white sheet against the wall (or on the porch), and a small chair. We'll see how it turns out.

I like how portrait photography can either be highly polished like that of Annie Leibovitz or raw and honest like Diane Arbus.

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My Favorite Place by My House

This is the Hi Market right around the corner from my house. It always makes me giggle when I walk by it. True to its name, it sells salty snacks, sports juices, and cigarettes.



This is the basketball court and the super bright kids' park I can see from my barred window. Sadly, a lot of drug deals and shootings happen right there, as it is surrounded by a lot of low income housing, dark street alleys, and has a number of unkempt yards that are ideal for stashing drugs.

I (heart) D.C.

I think I’m a D.C.ophile. 


For one, I always talk about how great D.C. restaurants are, express wonder over the funky home furnishing in people’s windows, and I smile idiotically at mothers pushing their hip-hop 2-year olds in strollers.  I think I really annoy my friends from N.Y and California, who just shake their heads at me with a smile that says “poor girl, she doesn’t know what she’s missing”. 

But really.  I sometimes walk home from work, a 1.5-hour stroll, from the heart of the business district, to my ghetto neighborhood I call home.

I walk from the Capitol, through Gallery Place Chinatown, trying not to bump into the hoards of Capitol fans (hockey) in their identical red sweats and baseball caps.

I then snake around through Mt Vernon Square/Convention center, with all its chichi new modern condos. 

(there are modern condos and yet these store fronts are rotting and deteriorating in the snow and the tropical heat of D.C.)

I follow through in Shaw/Howard University and wave to the babies in their strollers, and the old men chewing sunflower seeds on their stoop.  I slow to a crawl to look over a prim lady’s yard with wind catchers and plastic flowers.

I get out of people’s way on the busy U street,

(View from the top of a hill overlooking U street - see the National Monument in the background)

(A dilapidating house sits right across from this one with blue accents around the windows)

(Examples of nicely refurbished Victorian homes)

And I stop at the yellow house with pale ivy across from the community center.

I’m home!



Sigh, (I heart) D.C.!

 

Office Woes

Cubicle Emergency
Yesterday, I walked into the office, to find my cubicle locked. I never lock my cubicle, and unfortunately, my three copies of the key were in a drawer… in the cubicle. Thankfully, I had arrived a full 40 minutes before most of my colleagues.

The administrative assistant was also there, and had forgotten *her* keys at home today. She told me of a trick: “borrow the janitor’s ladder from the main closet”. She helped me to position it just so (making sure it was fully opened, and angled over my desk). She then averted her eyes as I climbed it in my short dress, and hopped over the wall, on the floor, and opened the door of my cubicle.

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A few lessons learned:

1-Always be nice to your secretary. She’s a great resource, but she can definitely make your life difficult if you piss her off (those pens you like so much? Sorry, she conveniently forgot to reorder them from staples)
2-Always call your secretary “an administrative assistant”. There’s nothing she hates more than being called a secretary
3-Give one of your colleagues an extra set of keys to your cubicle
4-Ask your colleagues for their innovative solutions. When I was recounting my story to my cubicle-mate, she told me she had fashioned this hook-thingy from a wire hanger, for an identical cubicle emergency. Brilliant!

The Treats Lady
Today, the Treats lady came to my cubicle for a chat. You know who I’m talking about – every office has a nice lady that brings impossibly sweet things to endear herself to colleagues. I always dread our chats because I invariably have to choose from her stack of rich blueberry muffins, and oily lemon-poppy-seed cake.

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I don’t really have a choice, because if I refuse, she will be irreparably offended. So I choose the healthier of the two options (was the lemon-poppy-seed cake the best option since it had lemon – a fruit – and poppyseed – a grain?) and am now devouring it at 9:48 a.m.

Sigh, so much for my diet.

Margaret Wertheim: The beautiful math that links coral, crochet and hyperbolic geometry

Did you know that crocheting can be made into a huge, artistic coral reef, explain hyperbolic space, and help people understand abstract mathematical concepts?

Margaret Wertheim, a science writer, demonstrates how this "feminine art" can do all of that.

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Never underestimate the strange, innovative ideas people come up with!

The Euphoria of Being an Adult

Do you ever get this intense feeling of euphoria from doing things by yourself? I’m not talking about refinishing furniture, building a bookshelf, or cooking a perfect Julia-Child soufflé. I’m just talking about getting that feeling when you throw your lights in the washing machine, go to Giant to pick up those ingredients for dinner, or write your monthly rent check.

It happened to me yesterday. I was riding on the metro, and suddenly felt so proud of waking up on time, dressing professionally, and taking the metro ride to work…by myself. I’ve been doing all these things for years, yet, once in a while, I can’t believe I’ve actually made it adulthood, and don’t need my mom and dad to hold my hand anymore.

Who had the Majority in Congress

Here's a snapshot of who had majority in Congress since Roosevelt:

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933 to 1945) was a Democrat
1933-1945 - The Democratic Party controlled both houses of Congress

President Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) was a Democrat
1945-1947 – Democratic
1947-1949 - Republican
1949-1953 - Democratic

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) was a Republican
1953-1955 - Republican
1955-1961 - Democratic

President John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) was a Democrat
1961-1963 – Democratic

President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969) was a Democrat
1963-1969 – Democratic

President Richard Nixon (1969-1974) was a Republican
1969-1974 – Democratic

President Gerald Ford (1974-1977) was a Republican
1974-1977 - Democratic

President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) was a Democrat
1977-1981 – Democratic

President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) was a Republican
1981 – 1987 - Republican
1987 – 1989 – Democratic

President George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) was a Republican
1989-1993 – Democratic

President Bill Clinton (1993-2001) was a Democrat
1993-1995 – Democratic
1995-2001 – Republican

President George W. Bush (2001-2009) was a Republican
2001-2003 – Democrats and Republicans split control of the U.S. Senate 50-50

- From January 3 to January 20, 2001, with the Senate divided evenly between the two parties, the Democrats held the majority due to the deciding vote of outgoing Democratic Vice President Al Gore.
- Beginning on January 20, 2001, Republican Vice President Richard Cheney held the deciding vote, giving the majority to the Republicans.
- On May 24, 2001, Senator James Jeffords of Vermont announced his switch from Republican to Independent status, effective June 6, 2001. Jeffords announced that he would caucus with the Democrats, giving the Democrats a one-seat advantage, changing control of the Senate from the Republicans back to the Democrats.
- The November 5, 2002 election brought to office elected Senator James Talent (R-MO), replacing appointed Senator Jean Carnahan (D-MO), shifting balance once again to the Republicans -- but no reorganization was completed at that time since the Senate was out of session.

2003-2007 - Republicans
2007-2009 - Democrats

President Barack Obama (2009) is a Democrat
2009 - Democrats

Sources:
http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm
http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/appfacts.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress

How the Budget of the U.S. Government is Decided

The President’s budget is a mix of Obama’s wish list, and the recommendation of various Departments, agencies, and coordinating offices. Here's my (limited) understanding of how the U.S. Government decided its budget.

First Monday in February
Obama must submit his budget to Congress (Congress is composed of the Senate and the House) no later than the first Monday in February 2009. It represents a broad framework for his agenda.

April 1
Congress responds to the President’s Budget with its own version. Both the Senate and the House must submit their markups by April 1, 2009 (today). At this point, the budget is still a resolution and not law. It includes input from the administration, constituencies, and Members of Congress.

Depending on which party is in leadership, Congress’s budget can be either very different or similar to the President’s. Currently, the President is a democrat, and Congress is democratic as well (to give you an idea of how often Presidents and Congress were ruled from different parties, see next post).

It’s a little tricky to draw up a budget since it must reflect
- Budget rules,
- Actual revenues, and
- Mandatory spending (programs for which the Government is obliged to pay)



June 10
The Appropriation process begins – this is basically a fight over small non-defense discretionary spending.

Congress annually considers 11 or more appropriation measures, which provides funding for numerous activities. These measures fund national defense, education, homeland security, crime, but also government operations for the federal agencies. Congress has developed certain (arcane and complicated) rules and practices for the proceeding for these measures: this is the Appropriation process.

House and Senate Appropriation Committees control about 40% of the total deferral spending for a fiscal year, and the House and Senate Legislative Committees control the rest.

June 15
Congress completes action on reconciliation legislation

June 30
House completes action on annual appropriation bills

At the end of the process, Congress develops a Conference Report, a report accompanying the bill which explains much of the bill language and gives specific directions.

Finally, if passed, Congress sends the report to the President for signature.
At this point, the President can:
- Veto the bill. In that case, the process must start over again
- Sign the bill into law. And that’s our Government budget for the year

October 1
Fiscal year begins

Here is President Obama’s proposed budget, submitted on February 26, 2009

New Secretary of Health and Human Services Hearing

It's happening now: http://help.senate.gov/Hearings/2009_03_31/2009_03_31.html

Committee: Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Title: Hearing for Secretary of Health and Human Services-Designate, Governor Kathleen Sebelius
Date: Tuesday, March 31, 10:00 a.m.
Place: Hart 216

Senator Kennedy is introducing her now - his speech is a little labored, it's kind of sad but valient.

International Women's Day and Gender

International Women’s Day was on March 8, 2009 this year, and I’ve shockingly missed it this year again. I marked it three years ago, in Congo.

Fortunately, my sister who is a medical student in Australia, also works on Diffusion Science Radio, a very cool website that diffuses weekly shows on brainy, nerdy science.

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Here’s a great podcast she helped produce, for International Women’s Day 2009:

http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/gender-curie-franklin-and-carson/15184631

International Women's Day 2009 with Victoria Bond and Ian Woolf
Gender bending stories:
- Phthalates feminize boys
- Half-boy, half-girl bird brain
- Sixth sense switches mice gender
- Gender gene identified
- Gender and sex identity development
- Gender development disorders
- Turner sydnrome
- Kleinfelter syndrome
- Hermaphroditism and gender assignment
- Testosterone receptor insensitivity
- Women in Science: Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Rachel Carson

Presented by Victoria Bond, Produced by Ian Woolf

La Grande Anthologie de la Science Fiction

I grew up with a whole library of strange books at home. My mom was interested in French fiction and non-fiction, reading books about escaping from turbulent relationships, the French Kings’ legacies, and women marrying Iranian men and struggling to get their daughters back to France. My dad was more of an Anglophone reader and introduced me to short stories about Englishmen ill fitted for the Indian Colony, books about spies, and science fiction. Their tastes in books have both evolved, and my mother tends to read stories on culture and religion, and my dad is all history and disease these days.

Still imprinted in my mind, are his amazing books on science fiction. Before the age of 12, I didn’t really ask myself what it would feel like to be the last person on earth, or how radiation might mutate my neighbors, or what would happen if my robot-servant decided to go rogue. But boy, when I picked up those science fiction books, I was plummeted with a myriad of outlandish scenarios that blew understanding of life right out of the ballpark.

I fondly remember 4 or 5 books that belonged to a collection called La Grande Antropologie de Science Fiction. The stories were often kooky, with odd conclusions and parting words. For example, when meeting aliens, apparently “two heads are better than none”. This refers of course, to the fact that conversing with a two-headed being is easier than conversing with a no-headed being. The books dated from the 1970s, so they had this intoxicatingly pleasant musky smell, and the pages were brittle and yellowed.

One day, much to our collective (my brother, sister and I) horror, my mother decided to take the books to church and donate them to the church Bazaar. We cried and moaned, blamed and tore our hair out, but alas, those books where for the benefit of others now.

After a lot of digging, I just found that there are a few remaining copies on the internet! French Wikipedia says the following (paraphrased):

The Large Anthologie of Science Fiction is a collection published by a French company Livre de Poche in the 1970s, by Demètre Ioakimidis, Jacques Goimard and Gérard Klein. The collection was initially composed of two series, one with 12 volumes and the second with 24 volumes. A third series dedicated to French Scifi had 5 volumes.

Each volume has short stories organized around a main theme.

First Series (1966-1975)
1-Stories of Aliens
2-Stories of Robots
3-Stories of Astronauts
4-Stories of mutants
5-Stories of the End of the World
6-Stories of Machines
7-Stories of Planets
8-Stories of Special Powers
9-Stories of Tomorrow
10-Stories of Travel in Time
11-Stories of Going Backwards
12- Stories of Galaxies

Second Series

1-Stories of ESP
2-Stories of Survivors
3-Stories at the End of Time
4-Ecological Stories
5-Stories of Colonizers
6-Stories of Space Travels
7-Stories of Doctors
8-Divine Stories
9-Stories of the 4th Dimension
10-Stories of Immortals
11-Stories of Androids
12-Stories of Supermen
13-Stories of Creatures
14-Stories of Future Societies
15-Stories of Strange Worlds
16-Stories of Mechanics
17-Stories of Rebels
18-Fake Stories
19-Paradoxale Stories
20-Stories of Mirages
21-Stories of Year 2000
22-Stories of Catastrophes
23-Stories of Future Wars
24-Stories of Mechanics
25-Stories of Sex-Fiction



Third Series
1-Worlds of the Francs
2-The Hallucinated Hexagone
3-The Exploded Frontier
4-Mosaics of Time
5-Divergant Horizons
6-Story of Science Fiction

I bought two books at an exorbitant price, and am now voraciously reading through my Stories of Aliens. In this economy, it seems silly to spend so much money on used books, but who wouldn’t do the same to recapture one’s youth?

Gigapan

What is it?
Gigapan is a program that allows you to create amazing panoramas, with intricate number of details and an amazing level of granularity.

Case in point
This is a picture of India, which shows a beautiful Golden Temple on the water. But wait! You can zoom in, and zoom in, and zoom in again, until you get to see people in front of the monument, in colorful clothing and regalia. Amazing!




GigaPan panorama by Matt Deans

How’s it done?
Panoramas are usually constructed out of 10's or 100's of individual pictures. Each picture is zoomed in to see a small area, and these pictures are assembled into a single panorama using "stitching" software. There are several ways to capture pictures and stitch them. The GigaPan project has developed an automatic system for capturing and stitching pictures, but you can share panoramas from any source on this site.

What’s the Best Gigapan?
Here’s an breathtaking image taken during the inauguration of Obama. At first glance, it’s a well taken picture of the capitol, and the crowds around it. Until you start zooming in, and see every single person in the crowd. Wow!

http://gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=15374

WikiTrap

So, I was looking up a biography of Rush Limbaugh on wikipedia, because he's been quoted as making incendiary comments lately (what a shock).

Did you know he was partially deaf? So it made me want to look up Cochlear Implants (which are really cool devices that consist of a tiny microphone and a receiver implanted on the skull which transmits radio waves to the cochlea).

Then it showed a link to deafness, and of course, I had to look up Hellen Keller. She in turn is connected to a number of really interesting people (did you know that her mother sent her to Baltimore to get more information about her deafness after reading a collection of anecdotes by Charles Dickens?). She met really interested people later in life, such as Ann Sullivan (which had a really tragic childhood in Ireland and the United States).

Then, what the heck, it seems like looking up the entry to American Sign Language was important, and I learn lots of interesting facts about Home Signs, the Old French Sign language, and Scarlet fever (which, by no coincidence I'm sure, caused a number of child to become death and blind, and some became both, or DeafBlind).

Now, I really want to learn sign language. Wow, all that from an entry about Rush Limbaugh!

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