Eight days on the job, three office parties...I think I can handle this pace quite well. My boss has already taught me where to find the best launch site for paper airplanes (a bank of windows overlooking 45th); the proper lunch-break etiquette (leave the building, stay gone at least 45 minutes, don't answer your phone); and his philosophy on authority ('tis easier to ask forgiveness than permission).
Meanwhile, I took my enforced lunch break today and wandered up to 47th, where I'd been told the tree-lined plaza deserved a stroll. As it turns out, Wednesdays bring a produce market to the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza - and even better, the produce market brought romanesco, which I'm taking home for dinner tonight. Delighted with my find, I returned to the office and showed it to the paper-airplane-thrower-in-chief. After I introduced it as a fractal-vegetable, he paused a moment and replied, "You know fractals and you recognized one - you're nerdier than I thought." Coming from this man, I can imagine no higher praise.
Finally, there are two other Americans in this section. As they welcomed me to the minority, one asked where I was from. I replied that Missouri was home, and he burst out: "How the HELL did you get here?!" The other new girl is from Burma - no one batted an eye (though the East Asia desk officer did ask her about her family back home and the current political situation). Here, and only here, Missouri is a stranger place to call home than Myanmar. Go figure.
I love my job.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
Morocco, Postponed
I got a job at the UN...I got a job at the UN!
With that, the original fourcontinents project officially died - we'd already developed a four-friend proposal into a two-author blog, and then my co-conspirator Sarah went off and vanished into medical school. Still, I had hoped to keep up the international spirit with my return to Rabat in October. Instead, I moved to New York and am finding it in some ways more foreign than Morocco. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what it has to do with fourcontinents - I love my job, but I'm not sure it really needs to be written about, and I love discovering this new city, but I feel that this particular adventure has already been told a few times too many (who DIDN'T grow up with the "country mouse, city mouse" fable, after all?)
Fourcontinents remains alive, and I'm sure I'll find things to say, but expect an observer's perspective rather than an adventurer's - turns out I'm not going anywhere too far for a while.
With that, the original fourcontinents project officially died - we'd already developed a four-friend proposal into a two-author blog, and then my co-conspirator Sarah went off and vanished into medical school. Still, I had hoped to keep up the international spirit with my return to Rabat in October. Instead, I moved to New York and am finding it in some ways more foreign than Morocco. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what it has to do with fourcontinents - I love my job, but I'm not sure it really needs to be written about, and I love discovering this new city, but I feel that this particular adventure has already been told a few times too many (who DIDN'T grow up with the "country mouse, city mouse" fable, after all?)
Fourcontinents remains alive, and I'm sure I'll find things to say, but expect an observer's perspective rather than an adventurer's - turns out I'm not going anywhere too far for a while.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Elections!
A good primer on Friday's voting available at Slate: "Why do so few Moroccans use their vote?"
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Update
So it's still six weeks until my return to Morocco, but as at least a few of my American friends still check in here periodically, I thought I'd at least link to others' coverage of relevant news. Recently a newsweekly in Arabic published a supposedly critical editorial and had all copies seized and destroyed, while the editor and op-ed writer were hauled into court and threatened. Actual translation of said article available here: eatbees.com
So yeah, I usually try to play up the good things about my adoptive home - it is a place I love most of the time - you still can't ignore that things like this do indeed happen. Censorship is still an issue. The monarchy might be modern, but it is absolute. This is why I have a hard time with some of the pie-in-the-sky democracy stuff...which I swear I'll get back to soon enough.
Further commentary on the Nichane incident available here: Long Way Home
So yeah, I usually try to play up the good things about my adoptive home - it is a place I love most of the time - you still can't ignore that things like this do indeed happen. Censorship is still an issue. The monarchy might be modern, but it is absolute. This is why I have a hard time with some of the pie-in-the-sky democracy stuff...which I swear I'll get back to soon enough.
Further commentary on the Nichane incident available here: Long Way Home
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Lost in Translation
My family's conversation in the car today reminded me of two of the funnier language mishaps we had while on our vacation in France:
1). While in the Loire Valley, we toured a vineyard named 'Moncontour', just outside of the quaint little village of Vouvray. After a trip through the wine museum, which was surprisingly complex and long, we got to do some wine tasting. The girl who was pouring the wine seemed nice, and after the people before us had left, I struck up a conversation, as I don't seem to have as much trouble speaking in French to people I know I'll never see again anyway. She mostly understood me, and we went through basic stuff, like whether she liked working there, if she was from the area, etc.
We finished our first taste of wine, a white, and my dad asked me if they had any red. I didn't think they did, the Loire valley is known for its whites, but I asked anyway -- but when I did so, the girl shot me a horrified and offended look and said, "Of course not, this is France!". I was a little puzzled at first - there are many good french reds! - then repeated what I had asked, very distinctly...and it turned out she had thought I'd asked if they had any Russian wine, confusing 'rouge' for 'russe'! After I hurried to explain, she was mollified and we ended our visit on a good note -- but eek, never ask a french person at a vineyard about wine from anywhere else!!
2). Fast foward to the very end of the trip, our last night in Paris. We had had a rather exhausting afternoon hauling all of our luggage through the city to find the hostel, and had selected one of the bistros nearest to our lodgings. Unfortunately, our haste to sit down had kept us from really perusing the menu first, and we had a bit of trouble finding something that the more picky members of the family could eat. Finally, my sister settled on a a random addition to the menu, a hamburger with with the very french addition of a raw egg on top. She, of course, did not want the egg, so as I ordered, I asked for "l'hamburger (that was actually the word on the french menu!) sans oeuf" - without egg, which I thought might be slightly bizarre there but certainly possible. The waiter, however, gave me a strange stare and repeated in wonder, "l'hamburger sans boeuf?" -- he thought I had asked for the hamburger without the beef! No, even though we are American, we are not THAT weird, and we soon straightened him out, and everyone, including the waiter, had a good belly laugh.
:)
1). While in the Loire Valley, we toured a vineyard named 'Moncontour', just outside of the quaint little village of Vouvray. After a trip through the wine museum, which was surprisingly complex and long, we got to do some wine tasting. The girl who was pouring the wine seemed nice, and after the people before us had left, I struck up a conversation, as I don't seem to have as much trouble speaking in French to people I know I'll never see again anyway. She mostly understood me, and we went through basic stuff, like whether she liked working there, if she was from the area, etc.
We finished our first taste of wine, a white, and my dad asked me if they had any red. I didn't think they did, the Loire valley is known for its whites, but I asked anyway -- but when I did so, the girl shot me a horrified and offended look and said, "Of course not, this is France!". I was a little puzzled at first - there are many good french reds! - then repeated what I had asked, very distinctly...and it turned out she had thought I'd asked if they had any Russian wine, confusing 'rouge' for 'russe'! After I hurried to explain, she was mollified and we ended our visit on a good note -- but eek, never ask a french person at a vineyard about wine from anywhere else!!
2). Fast foward to the very end of the trip, our last night in Paris. We had had a rather exhausting afternoon hauling all of our luggage through the city to find the hostel, and had selected one of the bistros nearest to our lodgings. Unfortunately, our haste to sit down had kept us from really perusing the menu first, and we had a bit of trouble finding something that the more picky members of the family could eat. Finally, my sister settled on a a random addition to the menu, a hamburger with with the very french addition of a raw egg on top. She, of course, did not want the egg, so as I ordered, I asked for "l'hamburger (that was actually the word on the french menu!) sans oeuf" - without egg, which I thought might be slightly bizarre there but certainly possible. The waiter, however, gave me a strange stare and repeated in wonder, "l'hamburger sans boeuf?" -- he thought I had asked for the hamburger without the beef! No, even though we are American, we are not THAT weird, and we soon straightened him out, and everyone, including the waiter, had a good belly laugh.
:)
Friday, July 27, 2007
Changes
I wrote before that my hometown is down to only a used bookstore and the university bookstore competing with the Barnes and Noble, but driving downtown today I discovered that even the used bookstore is closing - final nail in the literary coffin of this Missouri town.
On the other hand, two new Super Wal-Marts have opened since I left. And apparently we've grown close enough to that magical 100,000 mark that all the national chains are moving in - the restaurants and hotels and clothing stores are springing up everywhere, leaving only quaint downtown with any unique soul. It's all so cookie-cutter clean...
Seriously, I'm alive and well and have checked back in with the family - time to turn around and leave again before all my nice memories of this place get wiped out by progress.
On the other hand, two new Super Wal-Marts have opened since I left. And apparently we've grown close enough to that magical 100,000 mark that all the national chains are moving in - the restaurants and hotels and clothing stores are springing up everywhere, leaving only quaint downtown with any unique soul. It's all so cookie-cutter clean...
Seriously, I'm alive and well and have checked back in with the family - time to turn around and leave again before all my nice memories of this place get wiped out by progress.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Shocking Experience
just a warning: i wrote my blog entry, then went and read katy's recent ones and I feel a little ashamed...the quality and topic of my writing just does not measure up...but its done now, and its late so here goes...sorry in advance
I have returned to the States, and I thought I'd expedite my reverse culture-immersion by heading out to Girl Scout camp right after coming back. I did get over the jetlag first, it always seems to be better coming from east to west, but was still not used to America's wide open spaces, bigger notebook paper, bigger cars (bigger everything!), or people not speaking french.
I was going to camp to help with a rock climbing trip the High Adventure group was taking to the Red River Gorge. I got there in the morning, and after a bit of warm-up climbing at Swiss rock just off camp property, we headed back to camp to pack for the trip (the girls anyway). Unfortunately, as we headed for camp, so did a massive summer thunderstorm...it hit just as we were getting ready to go, lashing the camp with wind and buckets of rain. Trailz (a fellow counselor) got a call on the radio for us to head for solid shelter, so we ran for the nearest real building, the concrete block bathhouse constructed several years ago. With 2 units of girls plus counselors, it is rather cramped and hot, so everyone was perched just about everywhere, with Trailz and I claiming one of the middle cleaning-closet doors to lean against.
As the storm outside raged, we consciously tried to avert electrical dangers; we turned off and unplugged the radio, and after several warnings, managed to get a rather annoying camper from opening and closing the main bathhouse doors (complete with metal handle!) We were sitting around, talking...when suddenly, there was a HUGE CRACK!!, that sounded practically on top of us, a blue flash of light, a absolutely ginormous thunder clap...and a stream of electricity, running through our backs and out our shoes into the floor. !!!
Turns out the interior doors are also metal, although painted, and Trailz and I as well as two campers had felt some sort of shock from the lightning. It was just under the threshold of pain, not quite but definitely something, and it definitely moved from my back to my feet. Our backs tingled for 2 hours!!
Needless to say, we moved away from the door...when the storm ended, we ventured forth to find a tree about 50 yards away had been struck, was completely shattered on one side and fallen limbs were everywhere. Not to mention free wood chips. If it did that to a tree 50 yards away and we felt it, I don't want to know what would have happened if it had been closer!! Welcome back to camp, Gemini!
...and while I've heard of reverse culture 'shock', I don't think this is what they meant!!
I have returned to the States, and I thought I'd expedite my reverse culture-immersion by heading out to Girl Scout camp right after coming back. I did get over the jetlag first, it always seems to be better coming from east to west, but was still not used to America's wide open spaces, bigger notebook paper, bigger cars (bigger everything!), or people not speaking french.
I was going to camp to help with a rock climbing trip the High Adventure group was taking to the Red River Gorge. I got there in the morning, and after a bit of warm-up climbing at Swiss rock just off camp property, we headed back to camp to pack for the trip (the girls anyway). Unfortunately, as we headed for camp, so did a massive summer thunderstorm...it hit just as we were getting ready to go, lashing the camp with wind and buckets of rain. Trailz (a fellow counselor) got a call on the radio for us to head for solid shelter, so we ran for the nearest real building, the concrete block bathhouse constructed several years ago. With 2 units of girls plus counselors, it is rather cramped and hot, so everyone was perched just about everywhere, with Trailz and I claiming one of the middle cleaning-closet doors to lean against.
As the storm outside raged, we consciously tried to avert electrical dangers; we turned off and unplugged the radio, and after several warnings, managed to get a rather annoying camper from opening and closing the main bathhouse doors (complete with metal handle!) We were sitting around, talking...when suddenly, there was a HUGE CRACK!!, that sounded practically on top of us, a blue flash of light, a absolutely ginormous thunder clap...and a stream of electricity, running through our backs and out our shoes into the floor. !!!
Turns out the interior doors are also metal, although painted, and Trailz and I as well as two campers had felt some sort of shock from the lightning. It was just under the threshold of pain, not quite but definitely something, and it definitely moved from my back to my feet. Our backs tingled for 2 hours!!
Needless to say, we moved away from the door...when the storm ended, we ventured forth to find a tree about 50 yards away had been struck, was completely shattered on one side and fallen limbs were everywhere. Not to mention free wood chips. If it did that to a tree 50 yards away and we felt it, I don't want to know what would have happened if it had been closer!! Welcome back to camp, Gemini!
...and while I've heard of reverse culture 'shock', I don't think this is what they meant!!
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