kodwo in jeffersonia

'food for thought so get a buffet plate...

2012-02-03T14:29:00.002Z

...the lyrics are so phat you might gain weight'

those are lines from digable planets' 'where i'm from'.

i've always liked that song, from the first time i heard it, back in the early ninties.

one of the reasons i like it, is because i can't really relate. i can't say that where i'm from we do this, or we do that, as the digable planets do in that song. there really isn't a 'we' in where i'm from; at least not a consistent 'we' that has been in the different places i've might say i'm from.

i think i get asked where i'm from at least once a week since being in this job, and it's such a tough question to answer, because i don't really think i'm from anywhere.

i'm most recently (sort of) from california. when i say that, people start talking about if i can handle the cold weather. then i have to say that i lived in michigan for seven years and the weather in edinburgh is not really that bad. this often leads to me going through where i've lived in the u.s. by saying i went to high school here, university there, worked there. then they ask 'but where were you born?'. when i tell people i was born in nigeria, that opens another can of worms, because i don't look, or sound, like a nigerian. at that point, i have to talk about where my parents are 'from', which is actually an easier question for me to answer.

all told, this leads to a multi-minute answer to a question that most people around here can answer in a word or two. throw in that i've been heavily influenced by my mother's culture, but have never lived in it, and the answer is even longer.

don't get me wrong, i actually like having this conversation with people, if they don't mind listening. i like talking about where i've lived, and i've liked everywhere i've lived, to some degree (De Kalb, IL isn't a place i'd recommend anyone go on vacation to), and brings back fond memories of those places.

in the end though, i feel like i never have answered their question because i'm not 'from' anywhere - i'm from everywhere.

maybe from now on, i should just say i'm from jeffersonia, then they'll think i'm some kind of nut.

both sides now

2012-01-13T15:05:00.003Z

going into high school, i told my mother that i wanted to join the school's 9th grade choir. she told me (although she brought up several times after, that she never said this) that i couldn't sing. i never felt angry at my mother for saying this - when you have a son that is so incredibly shy that everyone worries about him, the thought of him standing in front of an audience, singing, doesn't sound too good.

i joined the choir, and i did well. in my second year, and for the rest of of high school, i was in the school's top choir, which was pretty highly regarded in maryland in the early 1990s. i got solos, was told by choir judges that i was a very good soloist; had the most embarrassing moment of my life when my voice cracked in the middle of the 'beauty and the beast' duet. to this day i feel that my duet partner held it against me for the rest of her high school career, because it made us both look a little bad.

someone in high school once said that the reason i never talked (and i really never talked) was because i was saving my voice to sing. i was in 3 musicals, and if you ask people from my high school what thing they would most associate me with, i would guess that most would say singing, if they remember me at all.

i probably would have minored in vocal performance, if i went to a smaller school. but i didn't. i went to a university that had a fairly good music reputation, and i ended up singing in the low-level choir at michigan state. even in that choir, there were guys who sounded (and looked) like opera singers. my singing career ended when i left college, and i haven't been in a choir since.

in an effort to get to know people in edinburgh, my office mate suggested rock choir. a choir that doesn't have very high expectations for its participants (no audition and you don't need to know how to read music). i thought it would be fun because i would not feel like i was competing with the person next to me, and rock/pop music is more fun to sing. never having sung in any kind of pop choir, that appealed to me, because i wanted to sing stuff i would actually want to listen to. i was hoping that by joining a choir, i would meet people who were different from most of the people i interact with at work; people from another side of life, i guess. i'm not really sure what i had in mind, just something different.

i signed up for a taster session and made my way there. we were going to be doing one song that night, 'both sides now', by joni mitchell. i thought this was an ironic song choice. i wanted to see a side different from the people i worked with. also, thing song always reminds me of my childhood because my dad had a judy collins version of the song that i heard many times as a boy. music from my childhood always reminds me of my mother, the woman who said i couldn't sing, but was also the person most proud of me when i did.

i sang with the choir, sitting behind some people who were so into it that they has sweatshirts that said 'www.rockchior.com'.

i decided not to go back.

it turns out that both sides were the same side - when i walked into the room after signing in, after committing to be there for the next hour and a half, i scanned the room, and scanned it again, not believing my eyes. there were about 50 members of this choir, and all of them were very similar to the people i interact with at work every day - they were all women, every single one of them. so i sat there, sang 'both sides now' as the sole male voice in the choir, the only one from that side of the gender divide, and decided that rock choir is not the choir for me.

flatland

2011-12-20T14:13:00.003Z

after work yesterday, i went to see 'hugo'. it was playing at the only theater within reasonable walking distance from my office and i'd heard good things about it. the movie didn't do much for me, but i appear to be in the minority, and this blog is not a review so i won't say much more. i was forced to see the movie in 3D because the theater gave me no other choice - it was only showing in 3D at that theater.

i don't like 3D movies (i may be in the minority about this too) and i don't understand what people get out of seeing a movie in 3D.

i've probably seen a dozen movies in 3D since the new 3D craze started, where every kids movie seems to have a 3D version. the thing is, i don't remember the 3D-ness of any of these movies.

i'm pretty sure i saw 'up' in 3D. that i have to say i'm 'pretty sure', tells me that the 3D-ness of the movie didn't stay with me. i know i saw 'avatar' in 3D, but i again don't remember the 3D-ness of the movie while i watched it, but the throbbing headache the 3D-ness gave me after, that lasted the rest of the day. in fact, for the most part, if i remember that i saw a movie in 3D, it is because i ended up getting a headache - yes, i'm one of those people who get headaches from 3D movies. i medicated myself before seeing 'hugo' because of this. if you have to take medication before you see a movie, it sucks when you walk out of it a little disappointed.

even without the headaches though, i don't think i've been blown away by anything i've seen in a 3D movie. am i missing something? the object that gets thrown at the camera gets old after the first time. the bubbles, or snow falling gets old - snow seemed to fall endlessly in 'hugo' (who knew it snows that much in paris? no one. because it doesn't). i find that kind of stuff a little annoying.

maybe i'm just a guy who doesn't like this (not-so) newfangled technology, or gets annoyed that i get headaches watching movies when people around me don't. maybe i'm behind the times, or don't want to spend that extra money to wear glasses that feel uncomfortable over my glasses, but i like my movies to look like what they are; images flashing on a flat screen.

that cold and damp feeling

2011-12-13T12:46:00.012Z

a few weeks ago, while i was in baltimore, i was listening to the men in blazers podcast. a listener had written in asking why it was, that in open air football stadiums in the u.k., spectators were usually under some kind of cover where in many u.s. open air stadiums, spectators have to deal with the elements.

the humorous answer the men gave was that in the u.s., you can go home and have a heater in your house that actually keeps your house well-heated, but in the u.k., people who get stuck in a cold rain have been known to be cold and damp, for months.

i've had conversations with people, both before and since moving here, about how hard it is to get warm and dry after getting cold and wet in the u.k. i first heard it from a co-worker at de anza when i told her i was moving here; lauren mentioned the other day how she feels like her nose is always running (as is mine). there is just this cold and dampness that seems to stay with you all winter. you get chilled to the bone and can't thaw out until spring.

when i tell people from scotland that i moved here from california, one of the first questions i get is 'how are you coping with the winter weather?' the weather itself is not that bad - michigan winters are far worse, and even baltimore winters are worse than the winter weather i've experienced in edinburgh over the past 2 winters.

the difference is, both in michigan and in baltimore, i could always get warm in those places. here, getting warm means going into our flat that rarely seems to get above 18C (65F) at it's warmest, and this is after running the fireplace for several hours. even in my office (the warmest room i'm ever in) it often takes the bulk of the workday for my feet to warm up from the walk to work that morning. i then have to head home when they get cold again and stay cold til i've been under the duvet for an hour, when i go to bed.

one of the problems with our flat is the high ceilings - they are about 12 feet high. when we moved into it in august, i would look up and think 'what awesome high ceilings'; now i look up and shake my fist, envying the heat that sits up there while we shiver feet below, wishing we didn't move into a place with such high ceilings. we are currently thinking of moving into a more permanent place and we've now put high ceilings as a immediate 'no', when we look at places.

our high ceilings in warmer times (photo by lauren hall-lew)

thinking back to the men in blazers, the idea of going to an outdoor sporting event (even if it's to see hibs) at this time of year doesn't at all appeal to me. even going to a place like the 'winter wonderland' set up in the princes street gardens, for an hour, doesn't sound all that appealing, because i know i probably will not be able to warm up until some time after winter is over, after feeling cold and damp, for months.

winter wonderland in princes gardens

get me through december

2011-12-01T14:06:00.003Z

i got an email today about a secret santa thing people at work want to do. my first thought? please god no - there's no way i'm doing this. it was voluntary, thank goodness, so i will not be taking part.

i've never been a big fan of holidays; it throws off my routine, and everyone around me always seems so much more excited about them than me.

i see people get excited about thanksgiving, or 4th of july, while i think to myself what am i going to do with myself on that day? i've never liked doing the traditional holiday things, like eating, or seeing fireworks, or parades.

i feel like getting excited about holidays the same way i feel about eating meat - i don't care if you want to do it, i just don't want to.

because of this anti-holiday guy that i am, december can be rough to get through - traveling (which i don't particularly enjoy), gift-buying (which i don't particularly enjoy), socializing (which i don't particularly enjoy), and general merriment.

i'm a little grinchy, to be honest.

the thing that i actually grew to like a great deal, about the month of december, was the annual mom birthday-gift-buying battle, and the mom birthday-gift-giving that happened on her birthday.

my mother's birthday is on the 25th of december and as an adult, i've seen that date far more as being my mom's birthday, than christmas.

the battle would begin by her saying she wanted nothing for her birthday. i would ignore this, then spend weeks trying to find the gift for the person who wants nothing. i never really enjoyed this, but did enjoy the back and forth we would have on the phone as i would try and get something out of her that would give me a hint about what might be the gift to get her that year.

i also always liked watching my mother open her birthday presents, somewhat embarrassed, saying 'thank you, uncle don' to my uncle, her brother-in-law. i liked the way she reacted to everyone making a fuss about her birthday, because she really wished we hadn't - really.

this will be the second year where that battle doesn't happen; where i won't hear my mother say 'thank you, uncle don'.

so, while i hope everyone has the december they wish for, and wish nothing but the best for you and your family this month, the grinchy, anti-holiday guy, just wants to get me through december, so i can start again.

giving cheers

2011-11-23T13:01:00.004Z

as a boy in nigeria, i was surrounded by friends who did not speak english at home; in fact, they spoke a variety of languages. that’s what happens when you live on university housing, with people from all over the country (that has over 500 languages), and the world.

because of my semi-multi-lingual background and my being married to a linguist, and thus becoming an acquaintance of more linguists than any normal person probably should, i think i think about language more than the average joe, or morag.

i grew up hearing words that didn’t quite have an english translation, that were used in certain situations. sadly, i can’t remember any of them at this writing.

now, in scotland, i’ve had to learn when and how to use new words and one of them in particular, i’ve had a hard time figuring out when exactly to use.

i can now say i know what ‘hogmanay’ is, and how to pronounce it somewhat properly. i know how to say the word ‘ceilidh’, as long as i don’t have to read it – every time i see it written it takes me a second or two to figure out what i’m reading. i know when to use ‘wee’, although i almost never use it. i know how it feels to be ‘chuffed’ or ‘gutted’. but ‘cheers’ still gets me – it’s a word i hear used more than the rest of these and i’m in the position to use a lot, but i’m still working on exactly when and how to use it.

in my view, ‘cheers’ is like ‘thank you’-lite. i think it's even lighter than 'thanks'. when someone holds a door for you (which is what got me thinking about writing this blog, at the gym last night) you could say ‘thanks’ or ‘cheers’. when you get your change and receipt from the grocery store teller, you could say ‘thanks’ or ‘cheers’. where i’m not so certain is where the line is drawn – the line where you don’t say ‘cheers’, but do say ‘thank you’.

i would guess that that if you get a really awesome gift from someone, something you really wanted, you wouldn’t say ‘cheers’; you would say ‘thank you’. you wouldn’t say ‘cheers’ to a doctor, or anyone, who saved your life, you would say ‘thank you’. the question for me is when is that point where ‘cheers’ just does not cut it? when you come off almost making light of the situation by saying ‘cheers’ where you should be saying ‘thank you’.

so during this holiday week in the united states, when you are spending time with your family (which i won’t be, unfortunately), give cheers for the year you’ve had, and the people you love, and have a happy cheersgiving.

the envelope fairy

2011-10-14T15:40:00.004+01:00

a little over a week ago, lauren and i were walking along a busy street when i saw 3 teenage kids running across the street. it looked like 2 of them were chasing the third. they caught up to him and started beating him up - punching and kicking him on the ground. i started walking faster toward them and saw another guy run across the street to get to them. by the time we got to him, his attackers were gone, so we helped him up and helped him gather his things.

i was really bothered by this, not just because of the beating, but because of where it happened. it was a few steps from a bus stop where at least 10 people stood, watched all this happen, and did nothing. i’ve been mugged before, and was not helped during the mugging. people who helped me up afterward told me they didn’t help during the mugging because they were worried the guys might have a knife and they didn’t want to put themselves in danger. i can understand that to some degree, but that all these people at the bus stop made no attempt to help the kid after the attackers had left, has really been gnawing at me - no one seemed to want to be the responsible person and help the kid out. they waited for the us, who were further away, to do anything.

over the last year, i’ve been struck by how much i’ve seen people wait for someone else to take care of some problem they have; to take responsibility.

i first noticed it with the snow. when it started snowing (and didn’t seem to stop) last november and december, i twice got into conversations with people where i mentioned that i was surprised nothing was being done to clear the snow, even as it was falling. both times i got a ‘what?!?’ kind of response. like, why would anyone want to do that? people were waiting for the snow to melt, for nature to take the responsibility of clearing the streets. of course, this didn’t happen and eventually, the transport minister stepped down because he wasn’t responsible enough to clear the snow.

at my job, i deal with people who are on the peripheries of my regular work. one of them once said ‘i don’t want to be responsible’ for something they were clearly supposed to be responsible for. there have been a number of back and forth issues i’ve noticed, that could have been done by someone, but didn’t, or got passed around so much until someone eventually took care of it, because no one wanted to be responsible.

i see my job as being a helper of students, which i very much enjoy. there have been so many times students have said i was the only person that had bothered to ask what their problem was before shooing them off, telling them ‘i can’t help’ without even hearing what they needed help with.

last week, a student came to my office because she had some questions about an area of the university i’m unable to deal with. i told her where she needed to go to deal with that kind of issue, and she was told they couldn’t help her. she came back to my office, so i called that office. they said they were the only office on campus that could help her, so she went back to the office and was able to get help the second time. why couldn’t she get help the first time? because someone in that office didn’t want to be responsible.

about 6 weeks ago i noticed an unopened envelope was in the hallway outside our flat. after it hadn’t moved for a week, i picked it up. it was addressed to our neighbor’s flat, but not to his name. i put it on his welcome mat, thinking he didn’t realize it was addressed to his flat. the next day, it was back to were it was in the hallway again - i put it back on his welcome mat. next day, hallway, then back to his welcome mat. he then put it on the edge of his welcome mat, where i felt it wasn’t blocking the way. it sat there for several weeks. it’s like he thought some envelope fairy would come and magically take away the envelope.

last week, i noticed the envelope was gone. the police knocked on our door that night. our neighbor’s flat had been broken into - ‘broken into’ is a strong phrase here because there was no forced entry. the cop said to me, ‘make sure your doors are locked when you leave home’. i’m guessing someone not responsible enough to deal with an envelope addressed to their flat is also not responsible enough to lock their door when they leave home. why a thief would also take an envelope is beyond me, but fairies might come in all shapes and sizes.

as i write this, there is another envelope on the ground floor of our flat, addressed to an address on the third floor. i’m too lazy to walk up an extra 2 flights of stairs, but i’ve seriously thought about putting it on that person’s welcome mat, to see what comes of it.

i can’t believe it’s a scottish thing, or a uk thing, because all the people i’ve worked closely with, and know on a personal level, are very responsible people. maybe i’m just becoming a bitter middle-aged man and maybe this has been happening around me for all of my life, and it’s just never bothered me before. or maybe, i’m one of the responsibility fairies - the people who say ‘someone’s got to do it, so it might as well be me.’

It doesn't rain as much as you'd think

2011-09-27T14:03:00.001+01:00

At several points in the past few months I've posted pictures on facebook showing something I saw that caught my eye. On more than one occasion people have cracked a joke about how sunny it is in the picture.

I get the feeling that people in the US think it is gloomier in Edinburgh than it really is.

Over the past month, in an effort to not feel trapped in my office all day, I like to eat my lunch on a bench somewhere nearby. During this time, there have only been 2-3 days where I couldn't do this because of rain. Is balmy and warm when I sit outside? Not in the California sense of balmy and warm, but we are quite a bit further north than California, so it wouldn't be expected to be t-shirt weather in September (although it's supposed to be t-shirt weather tomorrow).

I found a chart that listed the number of rainy days in Edinburgh per month. It looks like it's about 1/2 the days, but there's rain and then there's rain. Most of the rain we get is not like a Baltimore thunderstorm on an August evening, or like the California winter rains that come in January or February. Most of the rain is more like a drizzle, or a light shower, that doesn't go on all day. There have been quite a few days where I've been walking around, on a sunny day, and have felt a drizzle, sometimes lasting 15-20 minutes. Days like that are great for rainbows, and I don't think most people would consider that a rainy day, but I'm sure it's listed as one.

Are there clouds in the sky in Edinburgh? Of course, but they are not gray all the time, as people may believe. We don't live in a gloomy, depressing city. I'm looking outside right now and I see white clouds, and a blue sky. Today is the kind of day people in East Lansing, Michigan look for on a football Saturday - a crisp day where it's cool enough to be jacket weather, but not cold enough to be coat weather; where it's warm enough to enjoy a football game, but not so warm that you want to leave after the first quarter.

Is the weather always like this? Of course not. You can't expect to have great weather all the time - no one can. We have bad days and good days; we have sunny days and rainy days; we have cold days and warm days (though never as warm or as cold as the mid-Atlantic states).

a rainbow in a moment of sun, cloud, and drizzle (photo by Lauren Hall-Lew)

Edinburgh is probably not the city you think it is, weather wise; it doesn't rain as much as you'd think.

10 years is a long time

2011-09-11T20:04:00.009+01:00

I was watching the news today, talking about 9/11, and how people on United 93 called their family members. I only got my first mobile phone a few months before 9/11. At the time, I was surprised to learn that phones would be able to get a signal mid-flight. Ten years is long time.

I don't want to talk about what I did that day - everyone has their story, and I see no need to tell you mine. What I'm most struck by today, is just how different my life is now than it was then.

Ten years ago....

I hadn't started teaching at De Anza, I hadn't started the PhD I never finished, and I hadn't even thought of getting the MBA that I did finish.

I didn't have dreadlocks 10 years ago, and had no plans to grow them out again (I was in the 3-year hole between both rounds of dreads). I had no chickenpox scars, hadn't separated the shoulder that bothers me every time I go to the gym, had no idea how painful lower back pain could be, and I had only one tattoo.

I didn't know my wife existed ten years ago, much less that she would end up being from my father's home town. I didn't have any siblings-in-law ten years ago; two fewer people who called me 'uncle', one more person that called me 'grandson', and one more person who called me their son.

I wonder where life will take me in the next 10 years.

Fi with uncle Jeff (2002)

Maya with uncle Jeff (2008)

flying through the workday

2011-07-23T17:52:00.002+01:00

i’ve been at this job for a little over a week. so far i’ve basically done three things: dealt with disclosure forms (criminal background checks), written letters verifying that students are indeed students, and added students into courses for the upcoming semester.

i guess i should say what i do, but i feel like i just did. i’m a student support officer at the moray house school of education, at the university of edinburgh. i’ve been told that the job goes through an annual cycle - right now, we are dealing with incoming students, which is why i’m working on criminal checks and enrollment. i’m not sure what exactly i will be doing once classes start - that’s one of the things that makes me excited, but nervous, about the job.

the building my office is in

most days, i feel like my job is like a transatlantic flight. first, in terms of length. my work day is 7 ½ hours, similar to a transatlantic flight, but also the flow of the day matches my experience on long flights.

when i get to work, there is a flurry of activity; things have come in that need to be dealt with, overnight emails are responded to, and there is just this energy in the office. much like the first hour or two of a transatlantic flight - the safety information, the anticipation of the flight taking off, the take off, the leveling off, the ‘now you can use approved devices’, and the first meal (if there’s more than one) or drinks. then, you hit the middle several hours of the flight; the dull hours.

i’m restless during those hours, hoping there is something decent to do on the multi-media screens these flights have. maybe a decent movie, maybe an episode of ‘how i met your mother’, just to kill some time. work is similar in the middle hours.

not much happens after my coworker leaves at 12.30 (she works ½ days). i eat my lunch then i sit and wait. i listen to my now dwindling number of podcasts, hoping a student comes by with a disclosure form, to give me something to do. a call may come in, which is a good and bad thing - getting a call gives me something to do, but i hope the person on the other end of the line doesn’t have an accent i might have problems with. i play around online a bit. all of this is like finding that not-so-crappy movie, that ‘how i met your mother’ episode to help pass the time.

then, the last hour arrives - 3.30. only one more hour to go. i start counting down the minutes to get out of this seat, this room, this building, this plane i’ve been on for the past 6 ½ hours. i watch the clock, watch the location of the plane get closer and closer to my destination, listen to a podcast or two, knowing that when the podcast ends, there will only be x minutes.

the plane decends, the day ends. the servitor in our building comes through to lock things up, the flight attendants come by one last time. i deplane, i walk out of the building, into the mass of people at the airport, or on the royal mile. i make my way through the people, looking for the bus, or car that will take me home. the flight is over, the day has ended - i’m homeward bound.

the cake that looked like a train

2011-06-05T07:03:00.007+01:00

I was talking to my sister, Emily, on her birthday the other day. I brought up that I didn't remember anything about my 30th birthday (it was her 30th birthday) and it got me thinking. I generally don't remember my birthdays. I've never been the kind of person to celebrate birthdays (I told my family that this year, the only thing I wanted for my birthday, is nothing), so birthdays never stick out for me. I've spent the last few days trying to remember birthdays past, and this is what I remember.

34 - I remember this birthday only because I spent it traveling from Edinburgh to Towson, by trains, planes, and automobiles. I forgot it was my birthday, until I landed in JFK that night and the immigration guy wished me a happy birthday. I spent the last minutes of my 34th wandering around Reagan National Airport, trying to find a place where I could sleep on the floor.

33 - I remember 33 because it was the first day in what was the worst year of my life. The day itself was not particularly memorable. Lauren and I went to Stacks, and I was again disappointed by what I got there (I know people love that place, but it's never done much for me). We also saw 'Up'.

28 - I decided to fast on my 28th birthday - no food for 24 hours. Some people are gluttonous on their birthdays; I decided to be the opposite. Of course, this lack of food gave me a migraine and I ended up feeling really crappy.

25 - The third of what I like to think of my international birthday trilogy. I was in Vancouver. The highlight of the day was dinner. I was in a class and a number of us went to dinner that night. There was a sexist/racist guy in our class, who acted like he wasn't either of those things. After a few stories from him that were filled with racist and sexist comments, we all attacked him for his comments - he dropped out of the class.

24 - I woke up in Barcelona on that day, and went to the beach very early. I climbed up a lifeguard tower and looked over the quiet Mediterranean. I called my parents that evening from a pay phone at the base of Las Ramblas, and talked to my mother (my dad wasn't home from work yet).

23 - I spent the day getting from Tikal to Antigua, Guatemala. I called home on a rainy night in Antigua and made my first of three international birthday calls to Towson.

18 - I actually don't remember my 18th birthday, just that it was the day before my high school graduation and so it was completely overshadowed.

13 - We lived in De Kalb when I turned 13, but happened to be in Towson on my 13th birthday, checking out the city we would be moving to. My family ate ice cream in the Kenilworth Mall. To this day, every time I go into the Kenilworth Mall, I remember that - I'm glad the ice cream store is still there.

You get an idea of how excited I am about birthdays

(I remember nothing of my 7th, not even that I had a party)

5 - I turned 5, five days after Emily was born. I remember feeling kind of jealous. I was going to have a special Superman cake (a blue cake with the Superman logo on it) that my mom and aunt had worked on. I still got the cake, but my mom was in the hospital still. There is this picture of me, wearing a Superman t-shirt, next to my cake. It's my favorite birthday picture.

3 - I don't remember my third birthday, but I remember it through pictures. It was one of the few birthday parties I've had. My mom made a cake that looked like a 3-car train, with cookies for wheels. There are these pictures of me with the cake, where I look like I don't quite know what's going on exactly.

Emily mentioned on her birthday that, every important day in her life these days, reminds her of our mother. I think that's why I just want my next birthday to pass, uneventfully. On my last birthday, I was so busy in transit that it never really struck me that it was my first birthday without my mother. I know that won't happen this year. I plan on calling Towson, as I've always done, but I probably will not be calling the house on Bosley Avenue this year, but my dad's office. And I won't hear that familiar Ghanaian accent wishing me a happy birthday, reminding me of birthdays past, and that cake that looked like a train.

please let the sun go down on me

2011-04-29T07:36:00.000+01:00

Back in late October, I wrote a blog post about the limited sun we got in the sky back then. Now, in late April, we have quite the opposite. A couple of days ago, Lauren said to me ‘it’s light so late in the evenings’; it was 8:36 pm. I regularly hang clothes out to dry at ‘night’, even though it’s still light outside; after the hour-long washing cycle, after I took a shower, after I rode the ½ hour home from work, after I left work at 5:30 pm. You get the idea, I’m hanging clothes outside at 8 or 9 pm, to dry. I’m the odd guy in our building who hangs clothes outside overnight, but I know that, come 6 or 7 am, the sun will be out again, and the clothes will get dry while I’m at work.

Of course, there is the downside to the light. I’ve had problems sleeping for 20 years, since I was a teenager. I’ve had problems falling asleep, problems with waking up in the middle of the night, and the problem I have had over the last several weeks - waking up too early.

For most days over the last 3-4 weeks, I have woken up at about 5:30 am, after sleeping about 6-6½ hours. I can usually get by on 6 hours sleep for a few days in a row, but a few weeks is starting to take it’s toll on me. What is the cause of this lack of sleep? The light. I’ve never been able to sleep when it’s light outside. Even when I have experienced my worst jet-lag, I’m only able muster an hour, or so, during daylight hours.

So I wake up at 5:30, lay there for a while, and usually get up at 6, not sure what to do with myself - no papers to grade, no exam questions to write, no student emails to respond to. It’s during these early morning hours that I miss teaching the most.

I am able to get through the day without feeling particularly tired, although my body tells me that I am, with an eye twitch that lasts for days, or sore muscles that didn’t get enough rest. I get home and feel fine, but in an hour or two, I’m exhausted. I often feel like I could go to bed at 8 pm, but I don’t. I worry that if I go to bed at 8, I’ll wake up at 3, and who wants that, really? Instead, get through the evening in a tired stupor, going to bed at 11 or 11:30, and get my 6 ½ hours for the night. Sometimes I can’t fall asleep because I’m worried I won’t be able to sleep - lack of sleep caused by thinking about lack of sleep.

I’ve been told it will get to the point where it is light at 4:30, and dark at about 11:30. I’m sure many people like the idea of having 19 hours of daylight, I’m dreading it, much like I dreaded getting only 6 hours of light back in December. Oh, to live on the equator.

the worst performance ever?

2011-03-30T21:58:00.003+01:00

it's interesting to see what words people search that lead them to my blog. if you search "put on track pants" "didn't have any", a blog post of mine is the first to come up. why someone would search those two quotes together, is beyond me.

in an effort to not offend people in my city, who are members of a certain non-conservative church, that starts with U, i'm going to be a little careful with my words here. i would hate for them to come across this blog post in a search.

a couple of months ago, i had this feeling i've had in times past, when i feel like i should do something to improve my spiritual life. i did what i've done in the past; i found a place to go on a sunday morning. i told lauren about this and we went to the U's church. as i have in the past, i didn't get out of it what i had hoped. i would kind of zone out during the sermon, not remembering anything about it, and didn't get much of the socializing i attempted to do with people afterwards. lauren seemed to get more out of it than i did.

a couple of weeks ago, the minister invited people to attend a dinner and movie viewing, that was scheduled for the next friday. sitting there, i got the impression that the movie was a documentary about a famous scottish poet, whose first name is robert and whose last name rhymes with 'ferns'. did i mention that i zone out during the service? it was presented at the fringe festival a few years ago, so it must be reasonably good, right?

we got to the U on friday evening, and the dinner wasn't bad, considering it was free. we ate, had awkward socializing moments - including being told we couldn't sit in some seats, because some people knew some people who 'might' want to leave early - didn't seem very welcoming.

after dinner, the movie started. very early on, i could see it was not a very professional movie - there was a shot of the building we were sitting in, a zoom in to a pigeon walking on a sidewalk, the quality was at about the level of my flip camera - i would've thought a fringe movie would have better quality, but i would give it a chance.

soon after the pigeon shot, i realized it was not a documentary, it was a recording of a play that was done at the U, about the famous poet. the next shot was the cast 'behind the scenes' as the show was about to start. this seemed unnecessary to me as a viewer, because they were not saying anything backstage that seemed all that relevant - this lasted for about 5 minutes.

then they started walking out of the room, into the main performance room, which was the main hall of the U. ok, i thought, but why is the camera just following them, hand-held style, but not in a good way.

the play started. i thought the camera would be placed in a position centered, so the viewer would get a good view of the stage. instead, it was at the far right or left of the first pew - the only fancy tech thing of the recording was switching from one horrible angle to another.

now, the actual performance. picture a bunch of 11 year olds doing a play, where lines are forgotten, scripts are read on stage by cast members, and you have an idea of the performance. add to it the poor sound quality of the recording, the bad camera work, and we have a winner - the worst performance i've ever seen. i've seen my sister do performances when she was 8, i've worked at summer camps where kids put on performances, i've seen 'showgirls', but this was, by far, the worst performance i've ever seen.

after sitting through this for about 1 1/2 hours, watching a number of people doze off, the minister of the U looking bored/shocked with how bad it was, the woman in front of me take off her glasses for long stretches of the film, i started reading the program. the group was an inclusive one - no one is turned away. if you don't turn anyone away from your performance group, can you really expect strangers to pay to watch you perform (there was a £6 charge when they performed during the festival)?

the play came to an end. a sense of relief came over me, thinking the dvd would stop; it didn't. we then were given the opportunity to hear the thank yous from the director, from the performance on the dvd. to top it off, at the point, the camera was pointing at the director's knees. the dvd continued, the thank yous continued, i leaned into lauren - "i think we should leave". we got up, walked out, being the first people to leave.

walking out, lauren said something that made me laugh on the inside. she wasn't in the best of moods, so i didn't. she said "i can't believe i missed 'american idol' for this" - i should mention, this was the 'american idol' results show, shown 20 hours after the results are out because UK t.v. shows 'american idol' the day after it airs in the US.

so, if missing a show that is not particularly great to begin with, that you can probably find online, showing results you can definitely find online, that happened nearly 24 hours before. if this is something you regret missing, the thing you are missing it for, probably sucks.

i'm not sure if we'll be going back to the U.

525,600 minutes

2011-03-21T05:36:00.013Z

my mother and I, at my wedding reception

I really thought I would be further along in the grieving process by now, a year since my mother's death - however, I feel like I'm in the same place I was last April, a month after she died.

I attempt to put on a good face when I talk to to people in my life, but they don't see me in my times of sadness and frustration, wondering why I'm 'stuck'. I do that alone, feeling like they have all moved to a place I haven't yet.

I live in a constant state of sadness, anger, and guilt over what I should have done for the sake of my mother before she died and what I should have done for my sake, in the year since.

Several months after she passed away I decided to write about what I was going through around the time of her death. I thought this would help in the grieving process, but it didn't.

I'm hoping in this post, that sharing a small piece of what I wrote will do more for me than writing it did. Below is the story of one day, the day I went home to see my mother, for the last time.....

March 18, 2010

As I was waiting to get onto the bus, Lauren asked me what my mother's full name was; Lauren wanted to dedicate the Twi book she was working on to my mother. I teared up, as I had done a number of times in the previous few weeks, knowing that I would be going back to Towson on March 18; knowing that this would be the last time I was going home to see my mother.

I don't remember much about the bus ride to the airport, or boarding the plane, or what movies were playing on the flight, and what movies I may have watched. I do remember that the flight was delayed for an hour in Heathrow, because of some kind of technical problem.

Two things stick out for me on this flight. I had developed a fear of flying at some point in my 20's, but had no fear as I sat on the plane. I remember thinking that no amount of turbulence on this flight would even begin to compare to what my mother had been going through over the last few months. I remember thinking that I was so much luckier than so many people who, like my mother, were suffering in that moment as I buckled in to fly across the Atlantic.

The other thing I remember is the guy from Kenya I was seated next to. He had no bags with him, which worried me a little - who doesn't carry anything on a transatlantic flight. After we were in the air, he borrowed a pen from me, and we started talking. He showed me an old picture of him with dreadlocks, which he no longer had; he told me about his turbulent flight from Nairobi to London, and how he had lived in Baltimore for a few years, but wanted to move back to Kenya.

He seemed like a nice guy, and when he asked if he could get a ride into the city after we landed, I didn't think much of it, and said I would ask my sister after we landed. He used my phone once we were on the ground, and then we both went through customs. After we met up again, we both complained about the treatment we got from the customs officers at BWI - they took a bunch of spices he had hoped to bring from Kenya; I was asked "How did that happen?" to my being born in Nigeria - I considered going through an explanation of how it happens that children are born to the officer, but I was nervous about seeing my mother, knowing she was in bad shape.

I talked to my dad soon after landing. He seemed to want to talk about everything but my mother - the flight, the customs people, the delay we had in Heathrow. To this day, I don't know if he was doing this because he didn't feel comfortable talking about it, or if he was trying to shield me, for one last time, from the shape my mother was in. Part of me would have liked it if he would have been a little bit more graphic about her condition; a bigger part of me is glad he never did. I can't imagine what the experience was like for my father to go through that with my mother, and in the months since I have grown to admire my father more than anyone I know. We've always kind of teased my dad about his geekiness/nerdiness but, because of what he went through, I have come to see my father as the toughest man I know.

Emily picked me and the Kenyan guy up, and we dropped him off at a parking garage his cousin worked at. We then headed to Towson. Emily had not said anything about our mother until after we dropped him off. She tried to prepare me for what I would see, and said she was worried about me, because I hadn't seen the slow deteriation of our mother. She said she would rather be in her position than my own, because she had seen my mother on a daily basis, slowly get worse - I hadn't seen our mother in two months.

I now think of Emily much the same way I think of my dad. I wrote a blog once on how, even though she was the youngest of our clan, during the last months of my mother's life, you would've guessed she was older than her big brother and sister, who are 5 and 16 years older than her, respectively. I remember thinking on that drive back how much I admired my little sister, and how much braver and tougher she was than me. I don't think I could've handled taking care of my mother the way Emily did and for that, the rest of my family will be eternally grateful.

I got home, but I didn't want to go upstairs. I was scared to see my mother in the condition she was in. I talked briefly to my dad, but then had to go up there, to see my mother. I went upstairs, not sure what what to expect. It was not good; she was lying on the bed in an L shape on her side, mumbling incoherently, her eyes were somewhat glazed over, kind of staring into nowhere. She was tiny compared to the person she was last Summer, the last time I saw her completely healthy. She was lying in the bed, seemingly unable to move much.

Emily and my dad said "Jeff is here, Jeff is here". Her sister, Mary, who had arrived from New York that same day, said to her in Twi "Jeff is here, Jeff is here." My mother, in the midst of her mumbling, then said the last word I would ever here her say in English - she said "Jeff".

Many people have said to me over the months since she died "remember the good times you had with her", and I do, and remembering those times bring some level of comfort. But every single day, I see what I saw that night, sitting on the edge of my parents' bed, my mother, not the person she was, and we, unable to do anything about it. I hear her saying my name that last time. And every time I remember that night, I am filled with unbelievable sadness.

my mom and my niece, Maya - Summer 2009

It's hard for me to think it's been more than 525,600 minutes since my mother took her last breath. I still feel her around me all the time, hearing her voice in my head multiple times a day, when I'm doing something in the kitchen that's not the best idea, or when I'm feeling alone in the world. It's a nice feeling, but it's also a reminder that I won't hear her actual voice again, just her voice in my head - that feeling is not so nice.

In the past year, music has affected me more than it ever used to and I've been brought to tears every time I've heard this song. It makes me miss the nearly 34 seasons of love I had with my mother, but also makes me happy. When the soloist breaks out her powerful voice, I think of my mother. No one would call my mother a powerful gospel singer, not by any means, trust me. But she shared love, gave love, and spread love - she always wanted everyone around her to be happy; to be loved. If lives are measured in love, Alberta Ohenwah Shirley lived longer than anyone I know.

The Hearse

2011-02-21T21:39:00.002Z

The man stood there on the sidewalk of the street, blowing his nose with a napkin from the restaurant he had just walked out of. "Woman's Work" by Kate Bush was playing, as it muffled out the street sound and the sniffling of his nose. Although there were a lot of cars driving by at high speeds, there was almost no one on the sidewalk, and he tried to get across the street when he saw someone coming his way, as to not make eye contact with the person.

On closer look, he was not just blowing his nose, he was crying, tears slowly coming down his cheek, him wiping them off of his face before they dropped to the ground. He didn't want to be asked if he was okay or to explain why he, a grown man, was standing there, crying on a street after just walking out of a restaurant. He made his way to the other side of the street before a man, talking on his phone, made it too close to him.

As he crossed the street and composed himself, Aimee Mann's “Wise Up” could be heard. As he was walking down the street he saw a Mercedes hearse drive by. He didn't remember the last time he saw a hearse, and thought it was odd that on this day, of all days, was the day he saw one. It had clear windows, so he could see the light brown coffin in it, yellow flowers on the top.

10 minutes earlier, I was sitting in that restaurant, eating an Egg McMuffin. I don't remember the last time I had an Egg McMuffin. Sarah McLachlan's "Do What You Have To Do" was playing in my ears.

I listen to that song every 21st of the month, as I sit in McDonald's, remembering my mother, doing what I have to do. The song always makes me cry, and it usually takes a song or two after it ends on my itunes genius, to recover. As I start to tear up in the restaurant, I get up and walk out, sometimes before I'm done eating, and I become that man, standing on the sidewalk of the street, blowing my nose with a napkin from McDonald's, missing my mother.

Hibs

2011-02-03T14:51:00.012Z

A few months ago I was reading "Why England Lose?" a pop-economics/psychology book about the beautiful game.

One part of the book (I can't remember if it was an entire chapter or just part of one) focused on how people become fans of a specific team. There were a number of reasons - family, friends, community, following the crowd. The one that stuck with me is the person who becomes a fan of a team because that team is the first exposure they have to the sport, or the league, even if this happens after they are adults.

Before I moved to Edinburgh, I knew almost nothing about the Scottish Premier League. If you ask an average American soccer fan to name two teams in the SPL, and they'll probably say Rangers and Celtic. If you ask them to name three, I'll bet most can't. If you would have asked me last summer what European league Hibernian and Motherwell were in, I wouldn't have had the foggiest idea. I now know, as do you, that they are in the Scottish Premier League.

The SPL gets completely overshadowed by the English Premier League in the UK, and with good reason - the teams aren't particularly good. Other than Rangers or Celtic, I doubt any of the SPL teams could win more than 1 or 2 games out of 10, played against an average EPL team.

In moving to Edinburgh, one thing I wanted to do was support a local team. Rangers and Celtic were out, because they're both in Glasgow, the football hotbed of Scotland. With my lack of SPL knowledge, I wasn't even sure there was a team in Edinburgh that was in the SPL - turns out there are two. Hearts and Hibernian (or Hibs for short). I wasn't thrilled at the thought of supporting a team I had never heard of, and didn't really pursue becoming a fan before I got here.

On one of my early bike rides/getting lost episodes, in my first few weeks in Edinburgh, I ended up on the eastern end of town and saw that a lot of things were painted green - pubs, and other buildings in general. It wasn't the dark Michigan State green (which I bleed, by the way), but more of a lighter green. I learned on that day, that I was in Hibs country. I became one of those people who become a fan of a team because of 1st exposure. I was about a block from an SPL stadium for the first time, surrounded by the team's color, and I became a Hibs fan - sort of.

I don't know if it's because the team's color is green, reminding me of my beloved MSU, or if it was that first exposure, but I now care about Hibs. I'm as big a fan as one could be who has never been to game, never watched a game on TV, and doesn't know a single player on the team. I still care about Hibs, even though just about the only things I know about them is their team color, where their stadium is, and the fact that they stink this year. I cringe and think "damn you Hibs" every time I see they have lost another game, and fall lower and lower in the league table.

The thing is, if I had happened to be riding my bike on the west side of town that day, near the stadium of the "other team" in Edinburgh, I'd be excited. Hearts are in third place in the SPL right now, which is a big deal. In the 12 years of the SPL, Rangers or Celtic have won every single season, and only once did one of them not come in second. If your team is not from Glasgow, you're hoping for third place, where Hearts sits right now.

I can't bring myself to be a Hearts fan, and cringe just as much when I see them continuing to win games and I do when Hibs loses. I don't like watching Hearts climb up the league table, holding on, very comfortably, to third in the league.

Instead, I support lowly Hibs. I'm a Hibs fan; I've said it. We stink, we may get relegated, but dammit, we're Hibs!

A Long December

2010-12-31T22:39:00.004Z

I've always liked the song "A Long December" by Counting Crows. The line 'maybe this year will be better than the last' is sung several times, looking ahead to a better tomorrow, a better year to come.

2010 was a memorable year for me. I moved to the UK - twice, saw a lot of family, was an extra in a movie, traveled across the Atlantic six times, and ended the year a wiser person. I wish 2010 never happened.

The year began by me going on leave from my job, moving to Oxford. This was my first move to the UK. The second was the move from the US to Edinburgh in late August. In both cases, I felt like a complete outsider, a lonely man in a lonely place, with no sense of belonging. I still feel that way, several months after moving to Edinburgh. I've moved a lot in my life, but these moves have been among toughest for me (moving from Nigeria to the US as a 12 year old was tougher).

I saw a lot of family over the past year, but how I wish the circumstances were different. With my mother passing away in March and having funerals in the US and in Ghana, I interacted with more family in 2010 than in any other year of my life. Unfortunately, most if this interaction was filled with sadness for the small, powerful, and well-respected, woman my mother was, to everyone in our extended family.

I was happy to be cast as an extra in a movie only a few weeks after my mother died. It was a distraction from the pain I was going through and took up many hours of my day, for a week. The thought of seeing myself on screen, even for a movie so bad I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, pepped me up a little. The movie ran out of money and was never finished; the money I was owed for a week of being an extra never came to me. My chance to be in the big screen vanished.

I traveled a lot in 2010, but not by choice. Between moving, my mother's passing, Lauren graduating, and my mother's Ghana funeral, I racked up more air miles than I have in any other year. I also contracted the chickenpox in the midst of one of these trips. I now have permanent scars on my body, and still don't feel like the person I see in the mirror is me.

All this travel not only led to illness, but bad travel experiences. Two of my six transatlantic flights were canceled, leaving me in a tough spot to get to where I was trying to go.

I was talking to someone a few years ago, shortly after their mother had died. They said that they felt like a wiser person after the passing of their mother. I didn't get it at the time, but now I do. When my mother died people tried to compare what I was going through to them losing a grandparent; those two things are not at all similar, and I felt somewhat insulted when someone tried to use that to relate to what I was going through.

With my mother's passing, I've lost that protector that mothers are - the mother bear protecting her cub. Even though I'm an adult, I now feel like I have to fend for myself more, pick up some of the wiseness that only a mother has. I feel like I've become a wiser person.

I'm looking ahead to 2011, not because I have anything great on the horizon, but because, to paraphrase my dad from a conversation we had in mid-December, 2011 couldn't possibly be any worse than 2010. That's something to look forward to, I guess.

I want to end this blog by hoping that 'maybe this year will be better than the last' and wrap up my last 2010 blog post with something I wrote shortly after my 34th birthday, looking ahead to, what I thought, would be a better future...

"It didn't immediately occur to me on my birthday that it was my birthday. I had to get from Edinburgh to Towson over the next 30 hours, so more pressing things were on my mind. When it did occur to me, at some point along the trip, I was tired and wanted to get home, which in this instance was Towson. Even though I was tired when my birthday crossed my mind, I was happy; 33 was over. The year that took me from the job I loved and took the person I loved more than earth from me. The year where I never felt settled was over. I looked ahead to the new life that lay ahead of me. The life without my mother, the life where I would keep trying, for my mother's sake, to be the best person I could be."

Edinburgh Snow (or Edinbro Snow or Edinburgh Snurgh)

2010-12-15T21:27:00.009Z

picture I took from the top of Calton Hill, looking over Edinburgh

I've lived in cold winter climates for about 40% of my life, having lived in De Kalb, Illinois for one winter, Towson, Maryland for five, and East Lansing, Michigan for seven. This winter is my first "cold" winter in a city outside the United States. My readers in California might think they have a cold winter, but trust me, you don't. If the phrase "salting the sidewalk" doesn't mean anything to you, or creates an odd image in your head, you've never lived through a cold winter.

That being said, I am left to wonder if the people of Scotland know what it means to salt the sidewalk, because getting through the snow we had here a couple weeks ago left me thinking; this country has a long way to go, when it comes to winter preparedness.

The snow started on a Saturday night, less than an inch came down by my estimation. Nothing was done at that point, in terms of clearing the streets. Understandable, I thought - this kind of snow fall basically clears itself by people moving around in it. Then, the big storm came.

I would guess about 7-9 inches (I'm using odd numbers here, because I find that snow measurements are almost always in terms of even numbers, which has always bothered me). At this point, I began to wonder why nothing was being done to clear the snow - no plows anywhere to be seen, so one shoveling their walkways, and yes, no salting of sidewalks was going on. In fact, I didn't see a shovel for the next several days. I did get a lot of beautiful pictures though, as I walked around town, through the uncleared streets and sidewalks; you can see them here.

The snow fell for several days, a few hours each day. The airport closed (actually the airport was open for part of that time, but the runways were closed - the airport wanted all of us to know this). Lauren had a flight that was cancelled, and over the weekend, it was said that on Monday, things would be better.

Still no shovels. Still no plows, but somehow, things would be better. It wasn't.

The forecast changed, and even though schools opened on Monday morning, they were closed a few hours later. Snow fell on that Monday like it had not fallen during the entire storm. People were stuck on the major freeway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, for many, many hours. The freeway was eventually closed for 40 hours.

Still no shovels. Apparently there were plows somewhere (I would hope on that freeway), but I didn't see any.

What I did see was lots of people pulling around their kids in sleds. How is it that people can be prepared enough to have pull-sleds for their kids, but not a shovel? People were using brooms to try and clear the now frozen snow on their walkways and cars; a woman across the street was attempting to use a dustpan as a shovel.

Getting around was impossible because none of the streets has been cleared, and, of course, no salting of sidewalks had happened. The city was now covered with a 6-inch coat of ice. The city was virtually shut down for a week.

People were mad now; they were calling for the transport minister to step down (he did a few days later), they were complaining how there were not enough grit bins in neighborhoods so people could put grit on the sidewalk (I've learned that gritting sidewalks is done here, as opposed to salting them). The army was called in to Edinburgh, to help deal with the ice-coated city. The only ones who didn't seem to care were the neighborhood cats, who continued to be around as they had when there wasn't any snow, continued to walk along their "cat path" in our front garden, except now the path was through snow.

the cat path, after the snow started melting

I sat at home and thought to myself, why didn't anyone start clearing the snow as it was falling? Why was there this wait to start to do anything?

When the snow started to melt, it melted quickly. Slush filled the streets, big pools of water everywhere. The snow cat someone made in our back yard turned into nothing more than a clump of snow, and our front garden was green again within a couple of days.

In the days when the snow was melting, I was talking to someone. I said I didn't understand why no one tried clearing the streets earlier, why there was this wait for the snow to stop before doing anything. She looked at me in this way; in a way of someone hearing about something amazing for the first time, and said "I hadn't thought about that. That would have been a really good idea".

Maybe I should become the transport minister because Edinburgh has a ways to go, when it comes to dealing with snow.

Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me

2010-10-21T16:36:00.009+01:00

the sun over Edinburgh, at one of it's highest points, on 21 October

It hit me the other day - I've never been as far north as I am now. I remember being in Amsterdam in the summer of 2000, feeling like I was so far north that the sun would never set. Amsterdam has a latitude of about 52 degrees North; Edinburgh's latitude is almost 56 degrees North.

I've lived in many places, but never with latitudes even close to where I am now. Zaria (11° N) was close enough to the equator that I don't think I ever realized there was any difference to the length of days during the year. De Kalb (42° N), Towson (39.5° N), East Lansing (43° N), Oakland (38° N), and Mountain View (37.5° N), while having latitudes that span over less than 6 degrees, don't have vastly differing lengths of days in the winter. Edinburgh however, is going to be a new experience for me.

Over the past few weeks, we have been getting less and less sun. We get about 4.5 less minutes of sun each day over the last week, which may not seem like a lot, but when that translates to over 30 minutes of sun is lost in a week, it's something to think about. Today, we are scheduled to have a little over 10 hours between sunrise and sunset; in a week, it will be just over 9 hours and 30 minutes.

The sun makes it's way across the southern sky, seeming to move very fast, as shadows change a lot in a matter of minutes. The sun never comes close close to being "overhead", and it looks like perpetual morning or evening with the long shadows cast all day.

my long shadow at 12:30 on 21 October

the low-hanging sun casting long shadows at 1pm on 21 October

When we moved into this flat, the landlord told us that most of the windows faces the south, like it was a selling point. At the time, I thought "so what?". Now, I know. If our flat has a northern view we would never see the sun. Instead though, we get bright rays of sun (for a few precious hours, and only when it's not cloudy) in our flat.

I remember moving to De Kalb from Nigeria. I was prepared cold, as much as a 12 year old from Nigeria could be, I was not prepared for the darkness. I have the same feeling now; people say "are you worried about getting through the cold winter?" (not knowing I lived in Michigan for 7 years), and I say "not at all; I'm worried about getting through the darkness". I knew winter was coming when Lauren made the purchase I was dreading- she bought a SAD lamp. The darkness was coming.

According to this site, on December 21, the shortest day of the year, Edinburgh will have just under 7 hours between sunrise and sunset, from about 8:45 AM to 3:45 PM. That's kind of scary to me, and I'm not planning on being here on that day, but will be in town close enough to that day to wake up to darkness, lunch with a low lying sun, and dinner with darkness.

I'm already looking forward to the day when I start to dread summer, when the sun will never seem to set.

The Nigeria I Knew

2010-10-01T15:55:00.005+01:00

The Nigerian Coat of Arms

Nigeria and I have this odd relationship. I was born there, and lived there until I was a little over 12.

The thing is, I feel like I have no real connection to Nigeria anymore. Neither of my parents are Nigerian, so there is no Nigerian cultural tradition, or food, that we would partake in, after we moved to the US. I don't look Nigerian, and have even had to defend that I lived there a couple of times to Ghanaians, who refused to believe that I, the Obroni with dreadlocks, would have ever lived in the most populous country in Africa, the nemesis of Ghana.

I also don't speak with a Nigerian accent (although my West African accent comes out when I speak to Africans). I often get this surprised look from people when they ask where I am from, after I tell them I spent the first 12 years of my life in Nigeria.

I haven't been to Nigeria since 1991, 19 years ago. Much more time has passed since the last time I was in the country than the time I spent there, but I still feel an intense nostalgia about the country, the Nigeria I knew.

I remember the songs we sang in elementary school, about independence day, about the bad shape of the economy in the early 1980s (my dad still chuckles at the thought of having 8-year olds sing about the bad economy). I can still feel my bare feet running along, playing football with a half-inflated ball, or anything round we could find, the feel of the bike I got when I was three and rode until it was unridable (it was, literally, broken in 1/2 by twins I knew). I can still hear the sound of the call to prayer from the Mosques, and the excitement of getting out of school early on Fridays, because the muslim kids had to go to Mosque that afternoon. I remember being called a Fulani, because of my skin tone, and how I felt that was more insulting that calling me Oyimbo (white person).

Unfortunately, Nigeria rarely gets positive stories about it in the media these days; it's looked at for its corruption, the oil industry, the crazy terrorist. It's negative stories have affected me, because of the place of birth listed in my passport, being questioned about my Nigerian-ness by security officials as I pass through airports.

That's not the Nigeria I knew. The Nigeria I knew was a place where I could run around and play all day, where my parents never had to worry about my safety when I was outside, even at night. The Nigeria I knew is where mothers were called "Mama so-and-so" - my mother was "Mama Kodwo".

So I hope that today, the day Nigeria turns 50, people don't see Nigeria as the place they read about in the news, but, for at least one day, see Nigeria as the Nigeria I knew.

Happy Independence Day!!!

Six Months

2010-09-21T09:23:00.002+01:00

I have had a difficult time sleeping over the past week. I lie in bed most nights, and see this image of my mother; she's in the kitchen, wearing one of the pairs of coolots she owned, with a sleeveless shirt on, cooking something in the kitchen. She is singing, or talking to someone on the phone. I think to myself, "mom is probably making dinner right now". Then it hits me - she's not.

Being in Edinburgh has created this distance between my mother and I that I don't particularly like. The last time I talked to my mother, I would have never guessed that I would be where I am right now, and so I feel like it's this place that she never would have associated with me; like she's not with me here, like she was in Towson, or Oxford, or Ghana. I thought I would go through a catharsis of some sort when I got here, being away from my family, and having "me time" as so many people had suggested I needed to have. I haven't, at least not in the way I imagined; instead I just kind of go day to day, still worrying about my family, and not feeling like I have time to myself, even though I spend most days alone. I spend the days tired and nights restless, unable to sleep.

Six months ago, at about this time (4:30 am Eastern time), I finally fell asleep. I had been awake overnight, by my mother's side during her last moments of life. Looking back, I realize I was going to sleep early that morning, at about the time my mother typically would wake up, to get ready for the job she had for over twenty years. She was given an award for twenty years of service, only a few months before she died.

As a teenager, I avoided telling people what my mother did at all costs, and avoided associating myself, in any way, with her job. I was embarrassed by my mother's job, and didn't want anyone to know what she did. I never even went to her job, unless it was absolutely necessary, because I didn't want anyone from my school to see me there and make the connection between me and her job. I was a stupid teenager, and have lived to regret my actions.

On April 21st, exactly one month after my mother died, I happened to be driving by a McDonald's, and decided to go in and get something. Being a vegetarian, McDonald's is not a place I frequent very often, but it felt like the right thing to do on that day.

So today, I plan on doing what I've done on the 21st of each month for the past five months; I plan on going to McDonald's, the place my mother worked for over twenty years; the place that gave her a 20-year award, much nicer than any award I will probably ever receive for service; the place where I have a hard time ordering because of my vegetarianism; the place I avoided going as a teenager; the place where I see my mother in every employee; the place where I feel like I need to go every month, to honor my mother.

And maybe, I'll sleep better tonight.

My Mother's Ghanaian Funeral

2010-08-31T09:57:00.008+01:00

Today would have been my parents 36th wedding anniversary. I doubt that last year, on their 35th anniversary, either of them would have had any thought that I would be using the phrase "would have been" to describe their anniversary this year. I dedicate this post to my parents, Larry and Alberta, who made me the person I am, and the person I hope to be.....

In December 2002, my family went to Ghana. My mother had a big party to celebrate what I thought was her 54th birthday (it was actually her 60th, but that's for another blog). As the party was dying down, a little old lady said something to my mother that made her laugh. I found out later that the little old lady had said she hoped that when she died, my mother would host her funeral, because my mother knew how to throw a good party.

In Ghana, a good funeral is also a good party.

My mother died 5 months ago, when we had a funeral and burial for her in Maryland. A few weeks ago, we had her Ghana funeral.

I learned in March, when my mother's US funeral was going on, that Ghana funerals cover 3 days:

Saturday - We Bury

Sunday - We go to Church

Monday - We talk about the Money

"We" means the family; both immediate and extended, and in Ghana extended family is really extended.

We Bury

We were asked to take clippings of my mother's hair and nails to Ghana with us, to be buried in the family plot. This was put into a small coffin that my older sister, Affie, had arranged. As a family, we drove from Koforidua, where my sister lives, to Aseseeso, a small town that is the traditional family town of my mother, where the family plot is.

In the US, at funerals people tear up, a few people sob or cry, but for the most part, emotion is held in check. In Ghana, emotion runs high.

Women typically wail, loudly, screaming at how much they miss the departed, asking to go with them. I saw some of this at my mother's US funeral, but with only two Ghanaian relatives wailing, it just seemed odd.

While we were in Ghana, wailing had been going on, off an on, in the days leading up to the burial - when we arrived in Koforidua, in the morning before heading to Aseseeso, and when we arrived in Aseseeso. It got to a fever pitch, however, when the graveyard workers started to cover the coffin. It seemed that all the women were screaming, my older sister hurling herself at the grave, asking to go and be with my mother. She had to be physically restrained, otherwise I think she would have dove into the ground.

It was a lot more emotional for me than the crane that was used to put my mother's coffin into the ground in the US.

Men are not expected to show weakness, but me, my dad, and my uncle (who had really stressed being strong, and who had had a contentious relationship with my mother) were all in tears.

Within 30 minutes however, the mood had completely changed.

People were boisterous, hugging each other, smiling, and laughing. If an American had come onto the scene at this point, they would never have guessed that a burial had just taken place.

We got back to Koforidua in the early afternoon, where loud music was playing, tents and chairs had been set up, and a lot of people were coming to visit - and to party. My family sat in a row, shaking hands of visitors, who seemed to come in big groups - one group numbered about a hundred by my count. It was a lot of hand shaking of strangers, who may not have not even known my mother, and a lot of hand sanitizer use by me.

After greeting people for about an hour, the immediate family went into the house as the loud music went on outside. Between songs, people would take the microphone, announcing who they were and how much money they were donating to the family. This went on for about 5 hours, until it got dark.

The beauty of the "We Bury" day is the outfits. Everyone is wearing black, dark brown, or dark red; funeral cloth. It was really a sight to see all these people, very similarly dressed, marching through Aseseeso to the family gravesite, at the gravesite, and mingling afterward. I again was struck, like I often am when I go to Ghana, at just how much family I have, and how few of them I know.

Photos from the day by Alan Lew - more photos by Alan can be found here

We go to Church

On Church Day, we again wore similar outfits, but this time, they were white.

It was decided that a short memorial would be held at the church where my parents were married, 36 years ago. Because Ghanaian church services can go on for hours, we were told by one of the church's members when to get to the church. We were also told when we would be able to leave.

The church was huge, and packed. My family was asked to come up to the front, twice; the first time was for us to introduce ourselves and the second was for my dad to present a gift to the church.

The memorial was good at the church, although I liked the US memorial service better. The minister did not personally know my mother, so what he had to say didn't have the personal touch the minister in the US had.

After we were told we could leave, our family had many pictures taken in the yard of the church, with the minister, and with each other. Again, it was this big group of people, with similar outfits, almost all related to each other in some way or another. My dad was the gutsiest of all of the men in the group, wearing a traditional outfit - he looked better in it than I thought he would, to be honest. I still couldn't wear it though - one of the many reasons my dad will always be more African than me.

My family, after church

The afternoon of Church Day was almost identical to the afternoon of Bury Day - we sat and shook many hands, music was played, money was donated. I was actually persuaded to dance on Church Day, and the people who asked me were surprised at how quickly I took to the dance - I guess I got it from my mother.

The thing that stood out for me that afternoon had to do with one of my aunts.

My aunt is part of an organization/club that helps out each other, in times of need. A stream of women came in, almost all of them carrying food, or other products on their heads. One by one, they came in, to music, put down the item they were carrying, and started dancing in a circle. In the end, there was a lot of food and household items, with elegantly dressed women dancing around all of it. After the food was taken into the house, the women danced out, in line. It was beautiful.

My aunt's organization, dancing in

More money was donated to the family, and in the evening, the tents were taken down, the speakers taken away, and the party portion of the funeral was over.

We talk about the Money

All the money that was donated over the previous two days had to be divided up somehow.

The siblings of my mother, and Affie, argued about money on that morning, in addition to other things. I was not involved in this, and don't really know how it was settled. What I do know is that I heard a lot of yelling in the compound as I sat in my room. This lasted for a little over an hour, and then everyone seemed happy.

As the yelling stopped and the happiness started, Affie came in and got soft drinks for all of them. She told me she was giving them cold drinks, because they all needed to cool down after the heated argument.

I never have found out who got what. I hope Affie did not leave that meeting empty handed, because she arranged almost everything that weekend.

So the funeral was over, and life would soon get back to normal, at least as normal as it could be without my mother around.

During the weekend at some point, I happened to see the little old lady from 2002. I chuckled to myself when I saw her, remembering how much she had enjoyed my mother's birthday party, but was also saddened to know that my mother would never be able to host the little old lady's funeral, as she jokingly had hoped.

I thought to myself, would my mother have liked the funeral Affie had arranged for her? I had a one-word answer to myself - Yes.

My First Week in Edinburgh

2010-08-28T12:28:00.005+01:00

I've now spent one week in Edinburgh. It's been a tough week, a fun week, an interesting week, filled with trying to understand people when they talk to me, dealing with weather like I've never seen before, weird navigation, and being hit in the face, again, by my inability to make friends, and a feeling of loneliness. This is going to be my home for the unforeseeable future and I'm excited, and scared.

Navigation

I was welcomed to Edinburgh by getting traffic ticket. The navigation device we had used to get from Oxford to Edinburgh told us to make a right turn, where we were not supposed to. I heard a car honk at me, and about 30 seconds later, saw the police car in my side mirror.

In the end, it was a small fine, and the cop was almost apologetic, blaming the GPS device as I had, but saying a camera had caught my error, and so he had to give me a ticket. I shook his hand, he gave me directions to where we were headed, and we were on our way. It was not the warmest of welcomes, but at least I can say I got to sit in the back of a cop car for the first time.

My navigation woes continued when I walked, and biked, through town over the next week.

Edinburgh is a two-level city. Some streets are at a lower level than others, and without looking at a map carefully, mistakes happen. I was trying to get from one place to another, on my second day here, and had planned to turn right at an intersection. When I got to the location of the intersection, I realized the intersecting street was a good 100 meters above me, essentially a bridge over the street I was on. I've had this problem happen a few times, because the maps I have do not make it obvious that one of the streets is a bridge.

I also saw there was a bike path below a street near our flat. It took me a few days to figure out how to get to it, but when I did, it was awesome. It's the peaceful way to get downtown, where you don't run the risk of getting hit by a bus (which almost happened to me). I did almost run into a couple of dogs on this path though, on my bike. One little dog was so excited to see my front tire, I had to slam on the brakes and jump off the bike to avoid running it over. It then decided to follow me, it's owners running after it, as it ran after me.

bike path under a street

My worst navigation mistake was turning right, instead of slight right, on a walk home. This took me to an industrial part of town, taking me an extra hour to get home (it takes nearly an hour, when I don't make any mistakes). To top this off, I had bought a shower curtain rod that day, was walking around Edinburgh neighborhoods with a 6-ft pole with me.

One of the added problems to navigation is the sheer number of people everywhere. It is festival month in Edinburgh and, according one source, the population of the city is tripled during August. Crowds are everywhere, and I'm never sure what side of the sidewalk I should be walking on, because so many of them want to walk on the right. I feel like you can tell who is a UK resident by what side of the sidewalk they walk on, but even then, some want to walk on the right.

Street performers downtown

Weather

I've heard many people use the phrase "give it a minute, it'll change", when talking about the weather in their city. In none of the cities where I've heard this said, have I literally experienced weather changes in a minute - in Edinburgh, I have; several times.

The first day I wandered into Old Town, I decided to sit in a park after the 45-minute walk. It was sunny, so I planned on sitting for about 20 minutes. In about 2 minutes, it wasn't sunny anymore, it was gray. A minute after that, it was raining. I got up to get out of the rain, but a minute later the rain stopped. A couple of minutes later, it was sunny again. The pattern looked like it was going to repeat itself about 5 minutes later, so I decided to just sit through the rain - this time, the rain went on and I eventually went to shelter, watching it rain for 20 minutes. A couple of minutes after the rain stopped, it the sun was out.

It's going to take me time to adjust to this kind of weather. I will have to carry an umbrella around with me, and I'm never sure how much layering of clothes I should go with - almost every time I've left home, I've been very cold, only to be really hot when I got back home. This is partly due to the walking/biking that warms me up, but I still feel like I never know how much warm clothing I should have with me.

I've been told that the weather doesn't change much during the year. I guess if weather changes so much in one day, overall yearly weather patterns might be a bit too much to handle.

Loneliness

I'm a hard person to get to know, so I don't make friends easily. In college, someone told me that when they met me, they found me very intimidating partly because I don't talk much, but also because of my hair, and the big Ghana flag I had hanging in my room scared them off a little.

I've never moved to place where I didn't have school or work lined up. Most people I know in my life, I've met through school or work. Coming here is different, and I worry that I won't meet any people who I don't meet through Lauren.

I'm not the kind of person to strike up a conversation with a stranger, so I think it's going to be tough. I've spent my first week here walking around town, talking to almost no one, and I think the thought of not getting to know people is what worries me most about this move.

I've had people ask if I was worried that I don't have a job lined up, or if I'll understand people when they talk to me. Neither of those worry me now that I'm here - Lauren has a job, and most of my family speaks with accents that a lot of people find hard to understand, so neither of those are major concerns. I don't like the idea though, of not knowing people in the city I live.

So my first week is over here. I've learned to carry a map and an umbrella with me at all times (though I've also learned to get through the day without either). If only there was a "social-Jefferson" I could carry around in my backpack. One who would help me get to know some cool Edinburghians? Edinburghites? I don't even know what they're called...

I See 'Em - Four!

2010-08-01T13:54:00.003+01:00

I spent last week working with the Fourth International Conference on Ethnomathematics (ICEm-4). My dad hosted it, and I volunteered to help out.

I was mainly involved in two things - registration and technology.

Registration

Many of the attendees were not from the US, so they could not get checks very easily to pay for the conference. This meant they had to pay cash. Paying hundreds of dollars in cash, in a foreign country, could not have been the easiest thing for them. They would have to find an ATM, hope it would work for them, and would allow them to pull out enough money to pay for their bills, then get that cash to me.

I ended up handling about $13,000 in cash, which I had to take to the bank on the last day of the conference; this was kind of a scary thing to do - I've never held that much cash.

Of course there were the glitches with registration; people wanted to stay longer than we had thought, or shorter, or came later or earlier than expected. All this affected how much money they owed. There were also name tags that went missing, receipts that were not good enough (which my dad dealt with, not me), and other requests of verification of attendance at the conference.

Most things were resolved by Wednesday, the fourth day of the conference, but Sunday and Monday were spent running around, with a piece of paper listing who owed what, and me constantly jotting down random things on my iPod touch to make sure everyone had what they were supposed to have and that everyone was kept happy.

All in all, I didn't have too many problems with the administrative side of things. Technology, on the other hand, had more glitches.

Technology

Initially, the only technology I knew I would dealing with, was setting up a Skype connection to Portugal, on the Wednesday of the conference. I had gone to the room where this was going to happen the week before, and checked the sound and projection hookup, as well as the internet hookup. It all checked out fine. I didn't expect many other tech issues, but of course, they came up.

The big tech problem of the first day, was video recording. I had agreed to record each plenary talk, which kicked off each day. On the first day, I had thought about audio (I made the speaker use a microphone, so my flip camera would pick up the sound), and found a good location for the camera. It never occurred to me though, to find a place to put the camera on. I spent an hour that morning, trying to sit as still as possible, holding my camera - my arms got very tired that morning.

I had decided to carry my computer to the conference every day, just in case someone wanted to use it. I have a mac mini, not a laptop. It's about the size and weight of a laptop, but has no screen. I was amazed at how few people (including the tech workers at the conference site) had never seen one before.

Set-up problems were relatively minor; there were a couple people who didn't seem to want my help, when they clearly needed it; people who didn't feel comfortable using a mac (completely understandable).

An odd problem that came up was from a person who was using one of those notepad computers, which have screens that can be flipped and then written on. For some reason, her screen got stuck in "writing" mode, so it was rotated by 90-degrees. Neither I nor a tech guy who was working in the facility had ever seen this problem before. In addition, the computer user was Greek, and all the instructions were in Greek. The tech guy and I looked at it and both said the obvious line, which I will not repeat here.

The biggest tech issue that came up (and is still somewhat of an issue) was that of posting power point slides and videos online.

On the first day, at the first talk, someone in the audience asked the speaker if the power point could be posted somewhere. The speaker said they had no idea how to do this. I felt like everyone then turned to look at me, like in a movie, or a dream. I said I would put power points online, if they were emailed to me.

Then the emails started coming; "I can't send the attachment, it's too big". I kind of felt that if it was too big to send to me, it would probably be too big to post online, but I did get some flash drives from people, and shrunk their slides. At the time of this writing, I've posted 27 presentations, and expect to post more.

Posting videos is tough. We live in a youtube world, where a lot of people think you can post any videos you want on youtube. Well, you can't post 2-gig videos on youtube, I'll tell you that much. I had to find a website that would host large videos, and had to do some work reducing the file size of the videos. In the end, I found a site, but have not had time to reduce the sizes of the videos.

I worked conferences for a couple summers while I was in college, and I worked this one last week. I really like working conferences - I like the cool people you meet, and the uncool people you'll never have to see again. Given the chance, I would gladly do this kind of job full-time, but we'll see what happens when I get to Edinburgh.

I'm moving tomorrow - traveling to Ghana for a week, Oxford for a week, then up to Edinburgh. My last week in Towson was spent working on ICEm-4. I can see my end in Towson, I can see my start in Edinburgh, and I can see the 2 places I'm going to be in between. I see 'em - 4.

Back to Childhood

2010-07-12T14:41:00.008+01:00

my mom cutting my hair

I've been taken back to childhood over the past couple of weeks.

About two weeks ago, I noticed a few pimply-looking things on my body. I thought it was heat rash, a mild rash I had every summer during my years in Towson, these little water-filled things on my body that never amounted to anything much, and went away once the hot, humid, weather passed. What I had this time was not a heat rash; a few days later I was diagnosed with chickenpox, an illness most people come down with when they are children.

One year, while we were living in Zaria, every friend I had came down with the chickenpox, but, for some reason, it skipped our house. Neither my sister, Emily, nor I, came down with it. I always attributed this to my awesome immune system, which I still brag about.

After I had moved away from Towson, sometime while I was in college or living in California, Emily told me she had gone to a doctor, who told her that she had had chickenpox. This, of course, surprised me. I now assumed that we both got a mild case of the chickenpox that year, back in Zaria. I still thought I had an awesome immune system, because now my thinking was, my immune system was so awesome that I got the chickenpox, and didn't even know it. I guess my immune system was weakened at some point.

The nurse I talked to was positive that I picked it up in my crazy traveling, from Edinburgh, to Oxford, to London, to New York, to Washington, to Towson, and then to Mountain View and back, a few days later. I slept little for a couple of weeks and was in closed spaces with a lot of strangers; a bad combination. I was now going to be trapped in the house, during the hottest, most humid days, Towson had seen in a long time; with a one-room air conditioning unit that was used to attempt to cool down an entire floor (it brought the 100F+ temperatures outside to 90F inside - not the kind of relief I was really hoping for).

Trapped in the house, I decided to do something productive.

I had started putting together a DVD of my mother's memorial and burial services several months ago. I recorded everything that happened, got Lauren to interview people to talk about my mother; it was good, but it was missing something. The whole thing seemed a little depressing, so I wanted to put together a slideshow of pictures of my mother, covering as much of her life as I could. I thought this would be a good time, sitting in the house, with my mother's presence everywhere, to look through the many photos in a gigantic tupperware bin in the basement.

I was taken back to my childhood.

As expected, I found a lot of pictures of my mother. Pictures of a woman who looked almost unrecognizable to me, taken when she was very young, to the woman I saw last year, goofing around with my niece. What I didn't expect, was to see pictures of me, from times I barely remember, had forgotten entirely, or was too young to possibly remember.

Pictures of me as a college student, the first time I grew out my dreadlocks, pictures of a trip to California with my family, when Emily got pooped on, twice, by seagulls, in a matter of minutes; pictures of my chubby 13-year-old self, who was a stranger in this country; a picture of me holding my teeth in my palm, waiting (I guess) for the tooth fairy. Pictures of me and my mother; her cutting my hair, which I still think of as the safest feeling I've ever had; my mother and I playing in some body of water. Pictures of my father and me; me standing with my dad when I was four; my dad holding me as a baby. Pictures of my sisters and I; Affie, my older sister, playing with me when I was in diapers; Emily and I, when she was in diapers.

Affie and I

The picture that struck me most, that I came across, was one of all five of us, in Arizona, the only year all five of us went from Zaria to Arizona. What struck me about this picture, and all of them, to some degree, is just how normal our family looks in it. I always think of this multicultural life I've lived, and how different my family is from most families in the world, but in the end, we're pretty normal. We all laughed (except Emily) when the seagull pooped on her twice, and we all cried when my mother died.

I'm now getting over the chickenpox, my body covered with hundreds of scabs, but I can now go out into the world; the adult world, maybe now leaving that part of my childhood behind. It's rare for someone to say they were glad they got sick, but I'm glad I got the chickenpox, and I kind of wish I have some permanent scars, to remind me of those two weeks, when I was taken back to my childhood.

my mother, Affie, and my father, look on, while Emily and I play in the water

Kodwo Ink

2010-06-28T03:02:00.001+01:00

Soon after college, I started carrying around a print-out in my wallet. It was a print-out of a Gye Nyame, a very popular Adinkra symbol in Ghana. I wanted to get a tattoo of the Gye Nyame, and thought that by carrying around the print-out, I would eventually have the nerve to get it done.

I didn't know too many people with tattoos in college; I don't know if it was a generational thing (it seems like every college student today has tattoos), or if I just happened to know people who were kind of prudish about that sort of thing. Because of this lack of tattooed friends, I didn't really have anyone I felt comfortable asking about the tattoo process.

So, I carried around my print-out in my wallet, for several years.

I turned 25 in June 2001. I happened to be in Vancouver for that birthday. I was in an odd transit from the place I had called home for seven years, Michigan; to the place I would call home for 8 years, the San Francisco Bay Area. The transit included driving to Oakland, flying to Vancouver, staying there for a month, then 6 weeks in Massachusetts, 2 weeks in Baltimore, then back to the Bay Area.

In Vancouver, I was taking a class, and met some cool people. At some point, I let it slip at that I always wanted to get a tattoo; I told them about the print-out in my wallet, and that was it - one of them immediately told me I had to go to "the best place to get a tattoo in Vancouver". She said she expected to hear back from me about it by the next time we had class, otherwise she would drag me there herself.

I went to the tattoo place the day after my 25th birthday. The guy working there had that stereotypical tattoo artist look, with the big loops in his ears that had stretched out his earlobes, a few tattoos, a shaved head, and he was really skinny; he was a really cool guy. He looked at my print-out, said he had a better one in the back (it was much better than the copy I had been carrying around for several years), and wanted to make sure I wanted to go through with it. I set an appointment for the next week, when I got this.....Gye Nyame, means, literally, "take God", or "God is great". I've never taken the literal meaning to heart. To me Gye Nyame means be humble, there is something out there more powerful than you. I like my meaning, and I've tried to live by it.

In 2006, I turned 30. I had been itching to get another tattoo, another Adinkra symbol. This time I wanted to get a Kwatakye Atiko, a symbol for bravery and valor. I had been having a number of problems with my ankle that year, a recurring injury from soccer. I played through the injury time and time again, aggravating the injury on, at least, a weekly basis. I decided to get the tattoo just above that troublesome ankle. I was in San Jose at this point, and the tattoo artist I went to was no where near as nice as the guy in Vancouver, but he was good, and I got this....
Yesterday, I got my third tattoo. This tattoo means more than either of the previous two did, but I wish I wasn't getting this tattoo. I'm getting this tattoo in honor of my mother.

Last Christmas, with mother's health beginning to fail her, my younger sister, Emily, decided to get a set of necklaces for the women who are direct descendants of my mother. She got 5; one for each of my sisters, one for each of my nieces, and one for my mother. It had a design on it that looked pretty simple and I asked what it was. She told me it was a Tabono, an Adinkra symbol I had never heard of; a symbol of strength, confidence, and persistence.

When my mother died, I knew I had to get a tattoo of the Tabono, because, in my eyes, my mother was one of the strongest, confident, and persistent people I know (she might have been a little too persistent about some things, to be honest). I told Emily about this, and yesterday, on the day when Ghana beat the USA in the world cup, we got similar, but not identical, tattoos.

I don't know if this will be my last tattoo, but I would like to think it is. I would like to think the last tattoo I get is the most meaningful, not one that I got because of an itch I had, or one I carried around on a ratty piece of paper in my wallet for several years.

USA, the football nation

2010-06-27T19:08:00.003+01:00

American sports fans are fickle. Second place is always forgotten and I think, in the end, that may be why the USA will never warm up to football (the kind actually played with your feet). America is a long way from being number 1 in the world in that sport and US sport fans are too impatient to be fans of a sport when they don't win all the time, or in this case, where they don't win at all, on the world scale.

In the aftermath of USA beating Algeria, when there were pretty big news stories about the win, videos posted on youtube, and people I know, who no nothing about football, all of a sudden becoming fans of a team they know little about, the US became a "soccer nation", for a few days at least.

Don't get me wrong, I was jumping out of my chair when that goal in stoppage time went in, but to be honest, I was doing it out of the excitement of the goal; I would have jumped out of excitement if Algeria had scored at that time, too. It would have been a thrilling win, regardless of who won the game at that point.

I was surprised by how much coverage football got over the next few days and even though I'm happy the sport I love most, was getting so much exposure in this country, I was left with a series of what ifs...

What if Robert Green, the England goalkeeper, had not let a goal in by the US, thus changing the points/goal differential scenarios for the US. If everything else had remained the same, would there be such hype about the US beating Algeria? or would anyone really care?

What if the disallowed goal against Slovenia would have counted. All else remaining the same, how much would Americans care about the Algeria game? The Algeria game would now have meant less, and probably nowhere near as many people would have stuck around to watch the 0-0 affair into the 90th minute.

What if the US was beating Algeria 3-0, 80 minutes into the game (which easily could have, and some would say should have, been doing at that point in the game); would everyone all of a sudden jump on the US soccer team bandwagon?

Personally, I don't think so. I think if any of the three would have happened, there wouldn't be the frenzy over football by non-football followers, and there wouldn't have been the let-down, when US lost to Ghana. America was celebrating a moment, not celebrating the team.

In my opinion, the USA-GHA game should have ended 2-1, or possibly 3-1, in favor of the USA, but the Ghanaian goalkeeper was on fire. I think football, like hockey, can turn on the strength of a goalkeeper. The Ghana goalkeeper was excellent, the USA goalkeeper was just okay, and in the end, I think that was the difference in the game.

Where does US soccer go now?

I go back to my first sentence. American sports fans are fickle. I have heard almost no one congratulate the US on getting to where they did. Yes, I realize they could have gone further, but at least acknowledge the comeback they were able to go through to win their group when getting to the knock-out round was in doubt; acknowledge that winning their group for the first time in 80 years was an achievement. Instead, I've seen (mainly non-football people) complain about how it sucked that the US lost, and, in effect, whine about it.

How far did these fans really think the US was going to go? Did they think the US would have gotten by Uruguay? Past many of the other world class teams? I don't know. What I do know is, the US lost to Ghana four years ago, so the assumption that they would get by Ghana this time (which I heard people say, even after they lost to Ghana yesterday) was a ridiculous assumption to make.

As someone who has loved the game of football for all of my life, I hope it is able to grow beyond AYSO and adult leagues, and can grow to the point where college teams get at least as much coverage as college lacrosse teams. Sadly though, I do not see that happening in a long, long, time.

So I hope American sports fans can become less fickle, and leave behind the mentality where second place is forgotten, much less only getting to the round of the 16 in the World Cup.

Global Citizen

2010-06-21T02:27:00.005+01:00

Customs officer: So you were born in Nigeria?
Me: Yeah.
Customs officer: How did that happen?

A lot of smart-ass answers could be given at this point. I could've gone with my grandfather's line: "Because I wanted to be close to my mom when I was born" all the way to the birds and the bees response: "When a man and a woman love each other...."

I didn't go with either of these, of course; I just said "uh....my parents lived there at the time."

This was a conversation I had a few months ago, upon returning to the US from England.

I'm a global citizen, more so that most people. I live in a country I was not born in, was born in a country neither of my parents were born, and will be moving to a country where I have no family.

Even though people talk about the world being smaller, there are still many people who don't go very far from their roots.

When I lived in Michigan, almost everyone I knew was from the state and planned to stay in the state after college - I was neither from there nor wanted to stay there after college. At the time, I thought it was odd for people to not want to move away from the place they'd always been, but I've come to realize that I may be the odd one.

Many of the Californian students I taught at De Anza didn't seem to have any desire to leave, even the Bay Area, much less the state. Mind you, living in the Bay Area is probably considered a nicer place to stay than Michigan by most people, but still....

We went to Ratingen, a suburb of Düsseldorf, to visit some distant relatives of Lauren, a few weeks ago. I was surprised to see how close all the members of the family lived to each other. Cousins would hang out on weekends on a regular basis, because they lived in the same town. Grandparents could drop by anytime to see their grandchildren. I've only lived in the same town as any of my cousins for the last three years I lived in Nigeria; I've never lived closer than 600 miles to any of my grandparents.

I guess it might be me though; my sister lives only a few miles from my dad, who can see his granddaughter pretty much any time he wants.

Why do I bring all this up? Lauren was offered a job in Edinbu rgh, and it looks like we're going to be living there for the next several years. Who knows, maybe one day, we'll have a child who has a similar conversation with a customs officer, as they travel the world.

Lauren and I, in Edinburgh

The Non-Food-Blog Food Blog

2010-06-09T13:50:00.007+01:00

I know a few people who have food blogs; they write about a certain type of food they made, maybe put the recipe up, some pictures of the finished product. While I like these people, food blogs don't really appeal to me, mainly because I'm not a food person. I'm so not a foodie that there have been days where I wonder why I'm getting a migraine, then realize I haven't eaten all day and it's now 5pm.

That being said, this blog is about food. I'm not going to blog about how to make a caramel covered whatchamawhozit or whocaresallini with basil sauce, but I will talk about food. Ghanaian food, to be more specific.

I've been eating a lot of Ghanaian food since I came to Towson in March. Before anyone says something like "oh, you're doing this to feel closer to your mother" let me say that that is not the reason for my recent Ghana food consumption. It's because it's easier to come by Ghanaian food in Baltimore than in either San Jose or Oxford. You can't get Abenkwan base at the local Sainsburys and the last time I checked, Safeway did not stock shito.

In the process of looking for cheap flights to Ghana, I discovered that there is stretch of road in Northern Baltimore where there are three West African stores in less than 1/2 a mile. Two of these stores are Nigerian, so I haven't really gone to those, because everyone knows that Ghanaian food is better than Nigerian food. I have gone to All in One, the Ghanaian store, several times since being in Towson.

Having better access to ingredients, and just for my own food education, I've decided to try an make more Ghanian food while I can get it. So far, I've made Red-Red, Fufu, and several stews.
I grew up eating Ghanaian food - Red-red, Fufu, Kenke (which I actually don't like), and Garri, with palm nut soup, groundnut soup, kontombre, and other stews I can't think of at the moment.

Kontombre I made, with boiled yam

I always liked Ghanaian fare to typical US food - I didn't have pizza until I was 12 and to this day, I'm no fan of the classic mashed potatoes and gravy - it does nothing for me, and has no flavor.
Several weeks ago,I made Fufu for the first time. Real Fufu is hard to make. It involves taking boiled (West African) yams or plantain, and pounding them.

As a kid, I knew Fufu as "pounded yam". Technically, Fufu is pounded plantain, but no one seems to differenciate. According to my dad, my mother stopped liking Fufu when she was old enough to be asked to pound it, and I can see why. It's a lot of work, but I never understood why my mother would pound it for the rest of us, as she ate un-pounded boiled yams.

I (thankfully) didn't have to pound the Fufu I made, because we now live in a world with Fufu mix - not as good as the real thing, but I'm not about to start pounding yams and plantains, and don't have the large mortar and pestle needed to do that in the US.

Lauren and Affie making fufu

I've also been eating Ghanaian bread on a daily basis. I know I've mentioned this in some blog post in the past, but there's no bread like Ghana bread. The bread I get from the All in One Ghanaian grocery store is better than any bread I have had in the US. The thing is, the bread in Ghana is SO much better than the bread at All in One. I feel like the day is not complete if I don't eat Ghanaian bread and I'm already not looking forward to the day when I don't have such easy access to it.

Ghana Bread

I have grown to really like the owners/workers a the All in One Store. They always greet me so warmly and ask how my dad is doing, and how plans are going for our trip to Ghana. In Ghana, even though my family is always welcoming to me, non-family never treats me with genuine kindness, and I've always felt less Ghanaian in Ghana because of that. In this store, I feel like I'm Ghanaian, which is great. It also is this cool feeling of being in two parts of the world at the same time, like walking through the Asian grocery stores in the Bay Area - in the store you're surrounded by everything foreign, but look out the window and see America.

Ghanaian food will always be my first food of choice; I just hope that in the future it can be part of my diet a little bit more than it has been over the last 15 years.

Robert Shirley

2010-05-11T21:43:00.003+01:00

Today would have been my grandfather's 90th birthday.

I've always felt this bond with my grandfather, partly because I was named after him; my middle name is Robert.

My fondest memories of my grandfather revolve around a trip I made to visit my grandparents, when I was in college.

He took me to an Optimist Club meeting (he was a big Optimist Club guy). It was me and a bunch of retired guys, and they were all so eager to talk to the 20 year old college student. My grandfather looked so proud.

We also went to Red Lobster (the only time I've ever been to Red Lobster). He insisted I get a piece of Oreo cheesecake, after eating a big lunch. I did, because he was so insistent. I got sick after that, and haven't been to Red Lobster since. Anytime I see a Red Lobster, or an Oreo cheesecake, I think of him.

He also said something to me on that trip I will never forget.

Most people don't say "wow, you look like you dad", because I don't particularly look like him. On that trip, as I was sitting in my grandparents' living room, talking about whatever, he, out of the blue, said "you know, when you smile that way, you look just like Larry". That was the first time anyone told me that I looked like my dad, and it meant a lot to me that my father's father was the first to say that to me.

My grandfather was a quiet man, but you listened to him when he talked, not because he was my grandfather, but because what he said usually was something to remember, or important. I'd like to think I'm that way also. An MBA professor of mine told me once that he wished I talked more in class because what I said, the few times I spoke, was important for everyone to hear.

In grad school, a couple of years before my grandfather passed away, I yelled at a co-worker for her being annoying. Several people came up to me after and said they were so glad I did that, because she was getting on everyone's nerves, but when you get the quiet guy angry enough to tell you to shut up, they listen.

I never heard my grandfather yell at anyone, and I can't imagine what that would sound like, but I know if he did, everyone would listen.

Thinking of you, grandpa Shirley, and here's to hoping they "let us in the Lotus Inn".

Emily and Veronica, with Grandpa

Mother's Day

2010-05-09T12:53:00.008+01:00

My mother and I (1976)

This is my first Mother's Day without my mother. I realize though, that the last time I spent Mother's Day with my mother was 1994, before I went off to college, so the holiday has always been a call, where I say "Happy Mother's Day" and then going on to talk about other things.

I don't think my mother really liked Mother's Day, at least she always seemed to bring up how much she didn't want us to make a big deal about it.

Every year, in late April, I would be talking to my parents on my weekly Sunday call to them, when my mother would say something like "Don't get me anything for Mother's Day this year, I don't want anything, expect peace on earth." I always had this idea of getting my mom a globe with peas glued to it, you know, "peas on earth". I feel like my dad may have given her something like that at some point, for some birthday or holiday.

Peas on Earth

This request every April was always followed by one of the following: me saying "it's too late, I already got you a gift", or (and this was more common) her comment would remind me that Mother's Day was around the corner, and my mind would start to race, wondering what I could get for the woman who wants nothing.

This year, as most other years, I didn't realize Mother's Day was coming, but this year, I didn't have my mom to remind me; I had my dad. I had no idea when Mother's Day was until my dad mentioned last week, that he needed to get a gift for my sister, celebrating her 3rd Mother's Day. I've seen cards in Target, ads for Mother's Day brunches, but it never occurred to me, like almost every other year, that Mother's Day was approaching.

In a way, I'm glad I can never seem to see Mother's Day approaching because then, maybe I won't feel the pain of not having my mother around on that day, when I would call, like I did every year, and say "Happy Mother's Day", and talk about the day for 10 seconds, then move on to talk about other things.

Like I said, I don't think my mother really liked Mother's Day, and she wouldn't want us to spend too much time making a big deal about it.

My mother and I (2007)

Extra! Extra!

2010-04-27T00:12:00.007+01:00

A few weeks ago, I was looking for a temp job and a place to play soccer. I found a place to play soccer, but the temp job was more elusive.

I then came across an ad on craigslist (one of the best sites in the world, in my opinion) looking for soccer players to be in a movie about the life of Jay -Jay Okocha. It was soccer, it was temporary; 2 birds with one stone. Thus began my stint as a featured extra in a movie.

Day 0 - The "Audition"

I had to drive 30 miles to a soccer complex to try out. I thought 20-30 people would show, but there were 8. I actually thought I was at the wrong location until the director showed up. Asking people, who probably have jobs, to show up on a Monday at 10am, for the possibility of making very little money doesn't bring out tons of people, I guess.

The movie required 3 groups of players - members of a German club team, members of a Nigerian team, and members of a Turkish team. The players chosen to be on the German team would get paid, everyone else would not. Four of the eight who showed up to the tryout were black, 3 were white, and me. The director said "all the white guys will be on the German team, all the black guys on the Nigerian team". I asked about me; he said "you're with the white guys". Apparently, I can pass as white, or some non-black ethnicity on a German club team - one of the few times in my life being mixed has been an advantage. We were told to be on set (the soccer complex 30 miles away) at 8 am the next day.

Day 1 - The cold and the rain

At about midnight, I got an email saying we had to be there at 8:30 the morning of the first day of the shoot. It was cold and rainy that day. "It rains and is cold in Germany", said Gil, the soccer choreographer. He had a point - we were supposed to be in Germany, but that didn't make the day any more enjoyable.
We were under the kind of tent you see at flea markets, with sides put up around 3 sides. This didn't do much to stop the wind. A gas-powered space heater was put into the tent, which we (some much more than others) gathered around. One guy suggested we get a giant blanket that we all wrap ourselves in - that's not the kind of thing to say to a tent full of soccer-playing guys; everyone kind of gave him a look after that suggestion.

I was involved in 2 scenes that day.
The first involved me playing defense, but not getting the ball away from the players with the ball. This is not natural. Even though I mostly played forward and midfield on Red/Blue Storm in San Jose, I feel like I'm best as a defender, and being told to defend, but not take the ball away, was frustrating.

The other scene I was in is pictured below:
In this scene, one of the stars of the movie Jimmy (who's a really cool, down-to-earth, guy), is getting out of his gear after practice. I was sitting on a metal bench, wearing shorts, with one of my cleats off, in 45-degree weather redoing the scene at least 5 times. Each time, I would start untying the second cleat, taking it off, stand up, and then put on track pants. I loved those track pants because they were the only leg covering I had had all day. The thing is, every time "cut" was said, I had to take them off again, back to the metal bench, with my shorts on.

The day ended right after that scene was done. I left for home at about 6, and I don't remember a hot shower feeling so good.

At 2 AM, I got an email message telling me to be on set at 7:30 the next morning.

Day 2 - "We're talkin' about practice, man" - Allen Iverson

I got to the set at 7:30 that morning. I did nothing until after 9. I don't know if this is a movie thing, or a this movie thing, but I learned that being there an hour late really meant you were early, and being there on time meant you were crazy to lose sleep and make the 35 minute drive to Bel Air. Of course, most people were there when they were supposed to be, but things never seemed to happen until much later.

We filmed practice on Day 2. Before we could film practice though, we had to practice practice. Practicing practice doesn't take any less energy than actually practicing, so jumping over things and doing high steps doesn't seem any easier after the 6th or 7th time. After that, the cameras started rolling and we had to do it "for real". I was exhausted, and realized how much older I was than some of the other soccer-playing extras.

We also filmed some reaction shots to the coach. If I am to get a close-up in this movie, it will be in this scene. The frustration I had in this scene came when I was told I was nodding "no" when I should be nodding "yes", to a question, whose obvious answer was "no". I kept nodding "no", because that would make more sense to anybody except the person who told me to nod "yes", and there were no complaints.

The only time my voice may appear in the film happened on that day - I shouted "Goal!", after Jimmy (I never can remember his character's name) scored a goal in "practice".

At 5:15, we (the soccer extras) were told we would be needed for one more scene. We sat and waited, and waited, and waited. At about 6:30, we were told to get ready, at 6:55 they decided to scrap the scene and told we could go home. An hour and half a sitting around....for nothing. I began to wonder about the organization and planning ability of the filmmakers.

The late night email came again, a little earlier this time - 12:30 am; we were asked to be on set at 7:30 on Day 3.

Day 3 - Everybody Quits

I arrived on the set 30 minutes late because I knew I wouldn't miss anything by getting there on time.
I got there to find very few people around, nothing set up on the field for filming, almost no one from the crew, but actors were ready to go. I went up to the soccer extras, wondering what was going on - a bunch of people, including the assistant director, had quit. The AD had a bunch of people who worked under him and they were all gone too.

Needless to say, the day started slowly. I had told myself I would leave if nothing had happened by 10 (two hours after I had arrived). Stuff started to happen at 9:30. People picked up the slack, and it ended up being the most productive day I witnessed on the set.

We got a new AD, a soccer playing AD, and filming seemed to go smoother and quicker than it had the first two days. He seemed to have the attitude of getting things done and moving on, and it worked. The director was barely on set that day, and, to be honest, I think that's why things went so well that day.

The scenes I was involved in that day revolved around an argument that the main character (played by Emeka Ike) has with a teammate, on the field. We again had to fake-play soccer. Because there were so few players, the entire scene had to take place in the penalty area of the field, without any attempt to score a goal. Can you say unrealistic? Looking back on it, I think it should have taken place anywhere but in the box, since being close to the goal didn't have any real bearing on the scene, but who am I to talk? Just a lowly featured extra.
We got out of there reasonably early that day, at about 6 pm. The soccer players would not be needed the next day, so it felt like the first Friday of the school year, when you know you won't have to go to school the next day. I was eager to get home that day.

Day 4 - The Day Off

Day 5 - When 11 hours = 45 minutes

Filming was now was moving to Coppin State University. We were told to be on set at 8:30. I got there at about 8:45 and there seemed to be a number of people around. We were supposed to be filming game sequences today, so there were a few new extras to fill out the crowd - not enough to fill out the crowd however, because 5-6 people are not quite enough to fill a soccer stadium, or a section of a stadium, or one of the bleachers in the section of the stadium.
We sat there until 10:30. Then a call came in; soccer players were not needed until 2, then the soccer choreographer came by; soccer players would not be needed until 3. Thank goodness for sisters with cars - mine came and picked me up, and I went back home.

I was back at the set at 3:15. My sister, brother-in-law, and niece hung around, possibly to be used in the crowd scenes. They sat around for a while with me and left at 5:30, feeling that they had better things to do with their time. At 6:30 we were asked to go to wardrobe. Finally, I thought, we'd be filming a game sequence. Nope - we filmed another practice scene. At 7:30, we were told we were done for the day. The total amount of time I was in costume was 45 minutes.
No one seemed to know what time we were supposed to be on set the next day, so I went home. I got home that night at about 8:15, and got a call at 10:30, letting me know that soccer players would not be needed the next day. We would get a call in a few days, I was told, to film some bar/club scenes. I asked if I could be given a more specific date; the person on the other end did not know.

Days Since

A couple of days later, I saw this on craigslist:
I got an email from the casting assistant that day, letting the cast know that filming would be put on hold for the next two weeks. I emailed her back, asking when we would be getting paid for the work we had already done. She said that was one of the reasons the film was put on hold; to sort out that kind of thing - who should be getting paid, and how much. It seems to me that kind of thing should be sorted out before filming started.

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog about being in limbo. I deleted it because I felt like the point I was trying to make wasn't getting across. My experience with this movie very much echoes the limbo I have been feeling in my life over the past 6 months.

When I left the set each day, I was never sure about when I would be wanted on set next, getting early morning emails telling me to be on set only a few hours later. When I was on set, it was never clear to me when I would be needed to do anything.

It has been a week since I heard anything about the movie (though I did hear through backchannels that the production will be moving to LA). I don't know if or when I will be needed to do anything more for this movie. I don't know if or when I will be paid for the work I've done already. I don't know if or when this movie will ever be shown to an audience.

While people may like working in film, it's not for me. I don't like limbo, I haven't liked it for the past several months in my real life, and haven't liked it for the past few weeks in my fake one.

I like knowing what I'm doing in my life and when I'm going it - I'm the kind of person who starts planning a class several months before stepping into the classroom (as I'm doing now for a class that starts in late June).

So I sit here again, as I sat here several weeks ago, only now I have a new experience I'm not sure I enjoyed or not. I just hope that some day, I have something tangible to show that I was a featured extra in a soccer movie.

I am my mother's only son

2010-04-05T15:40:00.004+01:00

My blog posts are a way for people to get to know the "real" me; not your teacher, your colleague, your teammate, your classmate, an acquaintance, or your friend's husband. I like to think my blog posts come from a personal space, that many readers didn't know about before.

That being said, I'm not ready to go there for this blog post; not yet at least.

My mother died on March 21.

I was hoping that this blog post would be a chance for me to write about what was going on with me, both physically and emotionally in the weeks leading up to her death, and the days since. Though I have started to write that blog, it will take me some time to complete. I very much enjoy writing blog posts, but that one still feels too raw; I am overcome emotion after writing just 1-2 sentences.

I hope that posting will come, because it is something I really want to share, but for now, I have a video.

This was me at my mother's funeral. The audio didn't come out very well and would appreciate any help/advice on improving the audio.

"My name is Jefferson Kodwo Robert Shirley. I am my mother's only son"

What do those who can't teach do?

2010-03-08T22:05:00.004Z

Is it bad of me to not want to do something I'm supposedly good at?

In the Fall of 1998, I was in my first semester as a graduate student instructor when I was observed for the first time. The observer said I was a born teacher; that day changed the path of my life. The thing is, I never wanted to teach before that day, and there have been many days since then when I have felt I was not in the right profession, somehow. Like there is some other Sliding Doors version of me doing something different.

I don't really want to teach while in Oxford, but everyone keeps saying "you shouldn't have a problem finding a job teaching math(s). Math(s) teachers are needed everywhere". Because of this, I have applied for some teaching positions.

One school asked me to come in and teach on Friday for 20 minutes, followed by an interview. Because of the lack of real interest I have of teaching in the UK, I didn't prepare very much. I figured I would use compound interest to develop the number e (non-math people can ignore the last sentence).

I taught, had the interview, found out the job starts in mid-April, when I'll be in the U.S. So I said I hoped they found someone good, but if they needed a volunteer to help out in the school, let me know.

They offered me a teaching job. One of the teachers who observed me said she was "blown away" by my teaching. To be honest, I don't see how anyone could be blown away by teaching I did that day.

Apparently, a relatively inexperienced teacher had to take on some additional classes several weeks ago and had been overwhelmed. They wanted to know if I could take over 2 of his classes (12 hours a week) for the last 2 weeks of the 12-week term. Most of the time would be spent reviewing what the students have covered during the term.

I was offered the job less than 48 hours before they wanted me to start at the school. I should have said no then and there, but I didn't. Instead, I took the 7 small textbooks they gave me and said I would look through the material.

A few hours later, I realized I should have said no earlier. One of the classes was filled with physics formulas that looked familiar; I had seen them in my physics classes - 15 years ago. In addition problems were worded very differently from what I was used to, leaving me wondering what some questions were actually asking the student to do.

I then looked through the materials for the other class. It had material ranging from what I learned in middle school, to 2nd semester calculus. While I can teach all of this, it was unclear how in-depth one could possibly get covering this material in 12 weeks - much less review all that material in a week and a half before a big exam.

I decided then that I didn't want this job. Students were going to be taking exams in two weeks that would have a lot to say about what universities they go to. I don't think the American with no experience teaching mathematics in this country should be the one to lead their review for these exams, when he had less than 2 days to prepare.

I emailed the school, letting them know that I would simply need more time if I were to try and wrap my head around the English mathematics curriculum. Part of me felt bad for the students - maybe I would have been a better teacher than the one they had, but I can't believe that someone in my position would be any better than the teacher they have been working with for the past several weeks.

I also felt, I shouldn't put these students (who I don't know) ahead of myself, to do something I don't really want to do, just because I'm supposedly good at it.

The Oscars

2010-03-02T21:48:00.006Z

It's Oscar week again, and like I have done for the past several years, I'm ranking the nominees.

One of my favorite scenes of the year
It's a little tougher this year, because the Academy has upped the best picture crop to 10. Needless to say, seeing 10 movies is more difficult that seeing 5. Amazingly, I had seen 6 of the 10 before the nominations were announced, but had to figure out how to see the last four in Oxford without spending money. I used somewhat illegal tactics to see the last 4, and thus didn't see them in the theater.

Here are my rankings, from first to worst.

The Hurt Locker was my favorite movie of the year. I would have felt that way, even if it didn't get a best picture nod. It was kind of buried in the early summer crop of movies, so I was somewhat surprised to see it receive the accolades it has at the end-of-year awards. I usually am not a big fan of war movies, but this one really got to me; the tension the movie creates was great, but what I liked even more was the love the main character had for his job. It kind of reminded me of me (except the whole bomb defusing part that I don't have to do on the job).

Inglorious Basterds wasn't on my radar for some reason, until my friend Jason raved about it (I'm sure it's his favorite movie of the year). Another summer movie that was very good. If you don't like violent movies, don't see this, but if you like phenomenal acting, Chrisoph Waltz can't be beat. He gave the performance of the year, in my opinion. If he doesn't win the best supporting actor Oscar, the entire academy should be shot by Nazis.

Precious brought me to tears. This was a tough movie to watch because it reminded me of a few of the students I've had over the years. While Christoph Waltz gave the performance of the year, Mo'Nique gave the female performance of the year. A scene where she confronts her daughter's social worker was fantastic. While the movie as a whole was very good, the ending of the movie did leave me a little bit disappointed.

Avatar is the most technically amazing movie ever made. The special effects blew me away, but I just didn't like the story. It was too simplistic of a story, but I guess when you're spending gazillions of dollars on special effects, you can't expect a spectacular story also. Still, I was impressed with the special effects enough to say it did deserve a best picture nomination.

I liked District 9 a lot more than I thought I would. I liked the story, which I didn't think I would going in, I liked the acting of the title character, who starts and ends as two completely different people, literally. I kind of think he should have gotten a best supporting actor nod, even though he was clearly a lead actor. I don't think this movie would have gotten a nomination if there were 5 nominees, but it was in my top 5 of the list presented.

Up in the Air was over-hyped. Was it good? Sure, but not as good (in my opinion) as all the ads made it seem. I had read the book a few weeks before seeing the movie, and that may have tainted my view. The story diverged enough from the book, even introducing a major character that doesn't exist in the book, to leave me disappointed. I did really like the scenes with the people, many of them non-actors, reacting to losing their jobs and how they have survived since. I would love to see a movie of just those interviews.

Up was cute. Cute movies, in my opinion, shouldn't be nominated for best picture. Was it good? Yes, but it didn't have an affect on my like other movies. I happened to see this on my birthday last June, but it just didn't stick with me. I'm sure it will win best animated picture, as it should, but it's out of it's league in this crop.

So I have to admit, I liked The Blind Side more than I thought I would. It was the last of the 10 nominated movies I saw (I just saw it a couple of days ago) and I had been putting it off because it just seemed like a sappy "based on a true story" movie. It was that, but it was good. Should it win best picture? Absolutely not, but it was better than I expected.

I didn't realize that A Serious Man and A Single Man were two different movies until a few weeks ago. A Serious Man got the best picture nomination, and it was just alright for me. It had it's moments, but I'm sure I won't remember much about it in a month. Like some other Coen brothers movies, I thought it was trying too hard to be cool, like you needed to be in to get it. I guess I didn't. As odd as this sounds, the ending of this movie reminded me a little of the end of No Country for Old Men (another Coen brothers movie). I loved that movie, I didn't care much for this one.

I think the premise of An Education kind of creeped me out; 30-something man going after a 16 year old is not really my idea of a movie I'd want to watch. I know it got a lot of accolades, but I just didn't think is was more than "good", except for Alfred Molina, who was very good. I was somewhat disappointed, because I thought I would like it more than I did.

accreditation means everything

2010-02-23T16:13:00.004Z

For anyone who works in higher education, you know that accreditation means everything. A university could have all the Nobel laureates in the world, but if it's not accredited, any degree the university grants is basically worthless.

A little over a week ago, in my continuous job search, I came across a position for an Education Development Director. It said almost nothing about the job, but the title seemed pretty cool, something that might combine my education background and my MBA. I sent off my CV, not really expecting to hear back, because I don't have much of a "director" background, but what the hell.

I heard back from them the next day, via email, asking me if I could come in for an interview the day after that. I was excited, wondering what the job would entail. I immediately wrote back saying I would be there at the designated time.

I few hours later, I heard back from them, asking me to look at their web page in preparation for the interview. They worked for 2 groups/clubs and the role of the EDD would be to keep help organize group meetings, help the groups grow, and generally, keep the group members happy. I was asked to be able to be prepared to talk about an initial strategy on how to do this. At this point, the job didn't seem as cool as I had thought - it sounded more like a glorified secretary - but the title still sounded cool, so I started looking at their website.

The first thing that struck me was the annoying music on their website. I have a thing about business-type websites that play music; if you're not in the entertainment business, I don't need to hear music on your website.

I decided to look into the education group first. It is a group made up of university presidents (rectors). When I looked at the list of members, I recognized none of the universities (or higher places of learning) these rectors represented. Many of them were from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, so I just thought it was because I don't know those regions very well.

Then, I saw one member from North America, Vancouver University. I'd never heard of Vancouver University; I'd heard of UBC, in Vancouver, UVIC, kind of, but not exactly, close to Vancouver. So I went to Wikipedia.

Vancouver University was closed in 2007, after the president (who was listed as being a member of the Club of Rectors) died. It also mentioned that the university was not accredited. That's when a red flag went up. How many of these universities are accredited???

I then looked up the university of the president of this club, International University of Vienna. Again, according to Wikipedia, it was not accredited in Austria, where it is based. Some more research revealed that the university has accreditation in Alabama. A little bit more research revealed that a lot of these diploma mills set up shop in Alabama because of lax, or unenforced accreditation laws. The degrees from these schools are of no value to anyone other than the schools themselves. I found several lists from other states in the US that do not recognize a degree from the International University of Vienna.

At that point, I decided this was not a job I wanted, but would go to the interview anyway; I wanted to tell the company what I found out, because, after all, it was their suggestion that I research the groups.

The interview lasted 15 minutes.

I went to the designated location and was told it would be a Skype interview - which was great, because I wouldn't have to shake anyone's hands after I told them off.

The interviewer (who I think owns/runs the company) didn't even have the title of the position right, calling it "director of development", forgetting the word "education" and reversing the words "development" and "director".

I told him they needed to clean up the inside before they could get new members, mentioning that a member had been dead for over 2 years. I also said they needed more "brand name" universities, if they really wanted to grow - he said they were hoping to get more American universities (I laughed on the inside - no legitimate American university would join this group).

I asked him to tell me more about who could join the business group the company worked with.

He said, "Any business, as long as it is legal, of course".

I jumped in at this point, "Speaking of legal...."

I told him what I had found out about the president of the Club of Rectors. He responded by saying that the school is accredited in Alabama. I told him that being in Alabama doesn't make the school's accreditation valid anywhere else. He didn't seem to have an answer to that.

I explained that if a student got a degree from that school and wanted to go somewhere else for grad school, it wouldn't happen; they might probably even have problems getting a job, if that school were on their CV. I told him that it would be virtually impossible to get any legitimate American universities involved, as long as the group's president was from an unaccredited school.

At some point in here, I told him I had no interest in the job. He said several times that he would have to bring up this accreditation issue with the president of the club - I doubt he ever will.

I've considered contacting the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce, to let them know that one of their members works with a somewhat shady group, but I don't really think that would be worth my time.

After I told him I had no interest in the job, I told him that I had worked in education my entire career, and will probably work in education again, and because I've worked in higher education, I know that accreditation means everything.

Give my brother back his watch, or else....

2010-02-14T21:23:00.007Z

I have two sisters - one older and one younger.

Affie is technically my 1/2 sister, but when someone is around from the time you're born, it's hard to think of them as being 1/2 a relative. She's 11 years and 10 days older than me, but even though there is a big age difference, it's never been a problem. Affie has always had my back, once threatening the mother of a classmate, who stole my watch. I've seen her not back off in an argument with a man at least a foot taller then her (she's 4'11") and probably double her weight.

Emily is 4 years and 360 days younger than me (16 years and 5 days younger than Affie), although, at times, people have thought she and I were twins. For the longest time, Affie and I always saw her as the baby. We have made fun of her when she couldn't speak with a West African accent on a trip to Ghana, but we've always looked out for her, the way older siblings always look out for younger ones - "don't pick on my sister, only I can do that."

Things are a little different now.

My family has been going through some tough times over the past few months. For the purposes of privacy, I'll leave it that. It's been difficult for me to put on a happy face over that time. Getting through the holidays, moving to Europe, and meeting a few new people. It has been difficult trying look one way on the outside, while feeling very much the opposite on the inside.

During this time, I've had the support of Lauren, which has been great, but when I've wanted someone to turn to, it has been my sister. Not my older sister, as one might expect, but my younger one.

She has become like the older sibling, and I'm not sure when this happened. Was it when she got a leadership position at a childcare facility, dealing with parents who are more difficult to deal with than their kids? Was it when she had a child of her own, who had to go through an very tough 1st year of life? I don't know. What I do know is, Emily has been the rock in our family, who seems to be the most calm in the storm, the sibling who I now look up to, who I feel now has my back at least as much as I have hers, the 2nd older sister I never had.

you're sitting in a chair - in the sky!

2010-02-10T15:49:00.003Z

In the Fall of 2003, I walked into a Bank of America in Oakland. I wanted to open a checking account. In less than an hour, I walked out of the bank, with an account and a debit card. The woman who set up the account was apologetic for not being able to get me a debit card with my picture on it, because the camera was broken. I was told I could come back in a couple of days, after the camera had been fixed, to get a new card, with a picture.

In January 2010, I walked into a bank in Oxford, hoping to get added to Lauren's already existing checking account. I walked out in an hour, with nothing. Four weeks later, I still don't have a debit card, and I wouldn't want to think about how long it would take if I wanted a picture on the debit card that I don't have yet.

What has bothered me most, during my time in Oxford so far, is how much waiting needs to be done for things that, to me, shouldn't take so long.

The National Insurance Number

The day after I got here, I found out I needed to get a National Insurance Number. I was told of a place to go to start the process. When I got there, they didn't have forms for me to fill out, they had a phone number for me to call (why not have forms there?). I called and was asked for some information. I gave the information then was told I would be sent a form (it arrived a week later).

The form asked me the same questions I was asked on the phone - why ask them on the phone then? I filled out the form, waited another 10 days to get the NI Number. With the letter that has the number, I'm told I will have to wait 6 - 8 weeks to get the official NI Number card. Lauren filled out her paper work in October - still no card for her. So I wait....

The NHS Number

Every resident in the UK is entitled to healthcare (unlike another country I am very familiar with). To get registered with the National Health Service, I was told to go to a medical center and I would be given a form to fill out; it's just that simple. I went, was given the form, but then was told I needed a letter for Lauren's college stating that I was going to be in the UK until October 2011.

I don't have a problem with this except, I have a visa that says I'm in the UK until October 2011 - anyone can write a letter, only the government can issue a visa. I got the letter, went back, and now I wait to be given a number.

The Gym Membership

The MSU gym had one requirement - be a student. The De Anza gym required you to take a class to become a gym member, then register for gym use every quarter. The Wolfson College gym required me to go to a gym induction. This makes sense, I thought, you don't want people hurting themselves, right?

I signed up for the induction, which is only offered once a term. I felt lucky to be one of the 15 people who can go through an induction (over 25 people showed up and no one was turned away). At the induction, we needed to sign a sheet showing we were there - again, this makes sense. You should get your gym card in about a week, I was told. Well, not exactly.

A week came an went, then I heard, through the grapevine known as my wife, that I had to go and get another form, fill it out and sign it, and then wait a week. Why not have these forms at the induction? Why not tell us we need to do this at the induction? So I wait for my gym membership card, as I get flabby.

The Bank

When we met with the bank guy, he was very customer-focused, making sure we were happy. He said some things needed to be checked, so I could not be added to Lauren's account on that day, which seems fair I guess, but I don't really know what is so important that needs to be checked and why a week would be needed to do the checking; we would be putting our money into your bank. We have no credit line, so we can't really overdraft - what needs to be checked?

A week later, he called us, saying everything checked out okay. We then needed to make an appointment to come in and complete "paperwork". "Paperwork" was us sitting in his office while he did a bunch of stuff on his computer, and then us signing a couple of times - we were there for about 45 minutes to sign papers that took us about 45 seconds.

The debit card would be mailed, he said; it would get to me in about a week. A week came, a week went, no debit card. I got a courtesy call from the bank and I mentioned, in passing, that I still didn't have my debit card. The woman on the other end was shocked to find out it was never actually sent. "I'll make sure it gets sent out", she said, "you will have it in about a week". It has been over a week (11 days to be exact), and still I wait for my debit card.

I remember leaving that Bank of America in 2003, a little upset that the camera wasn't working so I wouldn't have a picture on my debit card that day (I never went back to get one with a picture). Looking back, what was I so upset about? I had access to an account 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Why did I care at all about a crappy picture on the card.

Now, even though I rant about having to wait, every time I get frustrated with the waiting, I ask, what would Louis CK say to me? And I think of this clip...

A Ramling, Semi-Pointless, Blog Entry

2010-02-04T22:39:00.004Z

So I've decided to move my blog. I got so frustrated with Wordpress that I decided to move this blog to Blogger. Wordpress looks slicker, but not being able to have things look the way I wanted them to, having blog posts have different font sizes, not getting photos to look like I wanted them - it became too time-consuming.

Speaking of time consuming, I've had little to do over the past week.

I had a "get to know you" session with a company that seemed somewhat interested in me. I can't say I was thrilled with the opportunity, mainly because it was kind of far. Also, me having to go to the US in April and in June was kind of a turn-off for them, so I guess it ended up working out best for both parties.

The whole April and June trips have made the job hunt somewhat more difficult. Who would want to hire a person who would end up missing 3-4 weeks during their first 4 months on the job? I wouldn't.

I think if I had known about the April trip (Lauren is going to a conference in Baltimore, and being that my family is there, it makes sense for me to go), I think I would have stayed at De Anza for the Winter Quarter, and started my leave in April. It would have made more sense, and made me more money. But, what can you do, right?

I've looked at a lot of jobs here, and the one thing that has struck me, is how much lower salaries are here, when compared to the Bay Area. Of course everyone talks about how expensive the Bay Area is, but rents in Oxford are similar to the Bay Area and transportation costs a hell of a lot more, so I've been surprised at how low some salaries are.

On the other hand, I think groceries are cheaper here. I have always loved going grocery shopping - I think it's genetic - my dad is also a fan of the grocery store and even has a "system" that I won't get into here. The combination of knowing the conversion rate, the knowing the math to do the conversion quickly, and the enjoyment of walking around grocery stores, has told me that groceries are cheaper here, for the most part. I've started to mentally log which stores have the cheapest fill-in-the-blank. I still have a way to go before I can tell you which store has the cheapest shampoo, but I'm sure I can get there in a few months.

The highlight of my week so far was winning a copy of the novel Push (which the film Precious is based on) from a website and movie theater promotion. It's the third time I've won something in a city-wide contest (in high school, over one summer, I won $103 and movie tickets to a movie I never bothered picking up, from two different radio stations). Anyhow, as my blog readers know, reading is not really my thing. I'll read this book though, eventually, because I've been told from several people that it's worth the read. One of the recommenders was a counselor who worked with a student I had a few Quarters ago. They recommended I read the book because the student was very similar to the main character in the book so, if nothing else, I'm curious about that comparison.

I feel like this has been quite the rambling blog, making little sense, and probably putting you to sleep, so, for no reason whatsoever, here's Charlie Brown (I've had Charlie for years, and I say where ever his is, is home).

A Small Sense of Feeling at Home

2010-01-26T21:21:00.000Z

I've been in Oxford a little over two weeks now.

I have to admit, I've not gotten to know the city as much as I thought I would have at this point. It's cold here. When your choices of transportation are walking or biking, and you don't have to be anywhere, it's difficult to muster up the energy to go out into (literally) freezing temperatures. The weather has very much impeded my desire to explore.

I worry that I'll become like the Ghanaian relatives I have who live in the US, who rarely leave the homes they have lived in for years because they feel like such outsiders. I don't want to become that person, but it's tough to "get out there" when it's this cold outside. Even with the cold though, I try to make it a point to go somewhere, anywhere, everyday.

Today, I walked to a grocery store, looking for cooking spray (like fake meat, I'm beginning to wonder if it exists in England). I made the 10-15 minute walk to the Co-operative grocery store in Summertown, the closest "commercial" district in our area. A commercial district by suburban Oxford terms is a couple of blocks of businesses, run mostly out of buildings that are no bigger than a reasonably sized house. The grocery store is, by far, the largest business in that area, and it's much smaller than the average US grocery store. A suburb in Oxford terms, is 1/2 a mile away from the center of downtown.

On my way home, as I stepped out of the store, I was trying to dig my ipod out of my coat pocket, when I looked up. I felt, for the first time since being here, a sense of being home.

It's hard to feel at home in central Oxford. Knowing that some buildings in the town have been around since before Europeans knew the earth was round, kind of makes that difficult to do. I was telling Lauren the other day that I didn't feel like I lived here; I felt like I was on vacation. It's still bizarre to be walking around "your" town, surrounded by grand, stone, buildings. I so strongly disbelieved in the wall of a building the other day, that I walked up to it and had to touch the wall for myself (it looked like fake stone from a distance).

St. Michael's Tower - The Oldest Building in Oxford (built in approximately 1040 - yes, it is almost 1,000 years old)

Today however, in Summertown (which is not populated by old, stone, buildings), I felt at home, and it was a good feeling.

the book I did not have and the vague idea of what to teach

2010-01-21T17:50:00.000Z

I was supposed to have a job interview today that never happened.

Over the weekend, I was browsing the job ads and came across a job for a "temporary" mathematics teacher, to cover "sickness" - it was unclear what was meant by temporary (a day, a week, a month, the rest of the school year?) and sickness (cover for anyone who is sick, cover for a specific person who was sick?).

I don't really want to teach while I'm here, but I figured, it's temporary. I downloaded the application.

It said the applicant needed a National Insurance Number (I don't have one yet) and a DFES teacher certification number (I have no idea what that even is). I applied anyway, stating in my cover letter and application that I had neither of these and would understand if I was to be ruled out immediately because of this. I got a call the day after I turned in the application.

"Can you come in to interview tomorrow?" I was asked. I could not. I said I could come in the day after.

I was told I would have to teach a class for 35 minutes. I asked what I would be teaching that day and was given the answer "well, they just started statistics". Anyone who's taught (and especially those who've taught statistics) knows that is about a vague an answer as could be given.

I was to go in 45 minutes before the class when someone would give me a better idea of what I would be teaching that day and then I would have to prep. 45 minutes to prep from a book I did not have, on a somewhat vague topic, at a 9th grade level (I've never taught 9th grade), at an elite independent school (I have little experience teaching at elite private schools), in England (which I assume has a different style of teaching than in the US).

Not the type of students I have experience working with

I was nervous as hell. How was I to make sense of all of this, with only 45 minutes to prepare for a 35 minute class?

It never happened.

I got to the school at 10:25 (I was told to be there at 10:30) and waited, and waited, and waited. If it got to be 10:45, I would only have 30 minutes (at the maximum) to prep for a class I did not have a book for, and had only a vague idea of what I would be teaching.

At 10:50, I left.

I told the receptionist I had to go. He said "she'll be here shortly" - he had said this exact phrase to me when I arrived at 10:25. I said "she should learn to keep her appointments" and walked out.

If this was just an interview, I wouldn't mind waiting. But, with 25 minutes before I'm to teach a class that I did not have a book for, and only a vague idea of what I would be teaching, I would do a horrible job. I would probably end up not getting the job, and thus wasting several hours of my day.

I felt it was better to waste one hour of my day, and end the feeling of being a nervous wreck instead of wasting several hours of my day, feeling like a nervous wreck, only to be rejected a day or two later.

I still do not know what book was used, and only a vague idea of what was to be taught. But, at this point, I don't really care.

One Week On...

2010-01-19T18:46:00.000Z

I've now been in Oxford for one week.

It was snow-covered on the day I got here. Snow everywhere, and because the Brits apparently don't get the concept of clearing streets and sidewalks when it snows, getting around was very difficult. The main roads (from the airport to Oxford) seemed clear, but I was half-awake on a bus, so I don't really know.

Lauren met me at the bus station and we were able to get through the snow to Wolfson College, where we have an apartment for the next several months.

Our apartment is just to the right of this picture.

We headed out the next day to see the town - Lauren showing me her office, and other sites she frequents. On the way home, as we were almost back, she asked what I thought of what Oxford looked like. It was hard to answer at that point, because everything was white (snow, not people, although it is a lot whiter here than the Bay Area). I realized that in a few days - rain was in the forecast, which would get rind of the snow - everything I saw on my first couple of days would look different because it would be green instead of white.

We went walking again over the weekend and I was completely turned around, partly because we had gone a different way and partly because everything looked different without the snow. I met some of Lauren's American Oxford friends, who seem like good people, and started to get my bearings of, at least, the few blocks around Wolfson.

I've made it to the point now where I have ventured out pretty far without Lauren - I walked for over 2 1/2 hours straight yesterday - seeing the university part of the town, the "bad" part of town (about as "bad" as El Camino in Mountain View - not bad at all), wandered into a place with a sign that said "private", and pulled a calf muscle along the way.

Today, I got a bike. It's a dumpy bike, from guys who sell fixed-up, beat-up bikes and it made me so happy. It has a rusted handle-bar, the tires (or tyres as the Brits would spell) look like they're about to split with cracks, but I don't care! It was cheap by Oxford standards, and it's amazing how much faster things go by when you're on a bike, as opposed to walking.

My awesome two-toned bike

Tomorrow, I go to the Newcommer's get together, a group made up of people who have been brought to Oxford by their partners. I'm not sure what I think of it based on the literature I've read. The group has an English language conversation group, which makes me wonder how many will be shaky with the language. It should be good though, for me to meet people who aren't Lauren's people. I need that, to feel more like my own person.

There have been some snags since I've been here - I had to wait over a week to get onto Lauren's bank account, I'm still waiting to get a National Insurance Number, which will then allow me to get a job, and of course, waiting for my computer monitor to arrive so I could feel somewhat more connected to the world.

I can't say I really like it here, at least not yet. Something about sitting around all day in a relatively small town, without access to a number of university facilities, without much money at my disposal to do things, along with the cold weather and limited transportation has led to a lot of down time. I find myself listening to a lot of podcasts and I think I've played every sudoku game on my ipod. Getting a job would help with a lot of this (except the cold weather part) so I hope I get my NI number soon and hope a job comes soon after.

Pack Rat

2010-01-11T20:43:00.000Z

I've spent the past 4 days unpacking. Not unpacking at a destination I'm moving to, but at a stop-over, in Towson, Maryland.

The big container, "the cube", that had a bunch of our stuff in Mountain View was delivered to my parents' house on Thursday morning. As I saw the truck pull up, I had a sense of relief and anxiety. It had arrived, I was relieved; it had to be unpacked, I was anxious.

If my parents lived in a flat area and I was dumping all the stuff into a garage, that would be one thing. My parents' house is on a hill up from the street, which involves climing up 18 steps to get to their front door....

The plan was to put some of our stuff in the basement, climbing down 12 steps...

...or the attic, climing 14 steps to the 2nd floor...

...then a ladder-type thing to get stuff into the attic...

If all the stuff we were moving was sheets, towels, and pillows, it wouldn't be a problem. But we're moving books, and bookshelves, and furniture, and more books, and a heavy sewing machine, and a heavy printer, and even more books. None of this was going to bode well when it came to climbing up and down stairs.

To top off the anxiety I was feeling, the newscasts were going wild of a snow storm headed to the Baltimore area starting on Thursday night and going into Friday morning. Needless to say, unpacking was going to be oodles of fun!

I started unpacking almost immediately and took my first break a 1/2 hour into the venture. I noticed that walking up and down stairs was giving my left knee some kind of pain. Walking stuff all the way from the cube to the attic or basement was not going to be a good idea.

I came up with a plan: I decided that during the day I would take stuff to the first floor, and dump it in the living room, forming 2 groups - basement and attic. Anytime I needed to go upstairs or down to the basement, I would take a box with me. At night, I would move boxes into the attic from the 2nd floor where I had piled them in my sister's old room.

Day one was frantic. With the "big" snow storm (it wasn't very big) on its way I wanted to get as much stuff into the house as possible. I spent Thursday evening attempting to balance boxes, while walking up the ladder-thing to the attic. It's a minor miracle the only injury I had was scraping my back against some metal thing on my way up to the attic.

Day two was "snow day". All of 1-2 inches of snow fell and did nothing to affect my unpacking, other than making sure I didn't put boxes in the snow. Day two ended up being the most productive day of packing. I estimate that I unpacked somwhere in the neighborhood of 26 boxes (I'm not being specific by saying 26, I just don't see why 25 needs to be so special all the time). I moved stuff into the attic and into the basement; I was a machine. By the end of the day, I could see the end of the unpacking, which, hopefully, would be done by Day three. I was wrong.

I was lazy on Day three. I moved stuff to the attic, and got a bad scrape on my pinky which discouraged me from packing much on Saturday, so I went to see a movie instead. Up in the Air just might be the most overrated movie of 2009, and diverges so much from the book that I left the film dispointed.

Because it was Saturday, my dad was able to help, and we were able to move our mattress and box spring (do box springs have springs in them? I've never had one that does) into the house. This was the biggest thing that needed to be moved, so it was a relief to get that done.

I probably could have moved everything into the house by the end of Day three, but I was just not in the mood. Instead, I played with my neice, made nachos for the family, and made a make-shift lamp shade collar for Geordi, who has been licking a surgery scar periodically over the last few days. At the end of Day three, while watching "48 Hours Mystery", I made the decision to empty the cube on Day four.

I finished packing on Day four. I had 13 boxes left at the begining of the day, in addition to some furniture pieces and our futon (which my sister was going to take directly from the cube). In the morning I was able to get all 13 boxes into the house, putting about 1/2 of them in the basement and the others into the attic. In the afternoon, I brought in the furniture peices. I spent the evening moving furniture pieces into the attic and then I was done.

Today is Day 5. The day the brings the next leg of the journey. Tonight, I hop over the pond and begin life as Kodwo in Jeffersonia.

When the Lights Go down in the City

2010-01-01T17:25:00.000Z

This blog is a break from the De Anza Math Teacher blog, because I am taking a break from being a De Anza math teacher. I'm in the process of moving to Oxford, England and, as I write this, I'm on a flight from San Francisco to Washington DC, with Geordi at my feet, not feeling his best, doped up on pet Zanex, prescribed by his vet. The move has been stressful since I decided that I would follow Lauren to Oxford, back in the late summer, but the overwhelmingness of the move came to a head over the past week or two, and taking Geordi on this flight has been part of it.

In fact, that's kind of where the most recent stress of the move begins.

Geordi is going to be staying with my parents in Towson, Maryland while we are in England (and possibly longer if all parties like the living situation). We looked into a variety of ways to get him across the country and settled on an overnight flight with Continental's program that ships pets in cargo.

Then came December 21. On December 21, two medical things were supposed to happen - my mother was scheduled to have a pretty complicated medical procedure done at Johns Hopkins and Geordi was scheduled to get a health certificate that would allow him to fly. My mom's procedure when relatively well. Geordi on the other hand...

Getting a travel certificate should be routine. The vet looks at him, says he's okay, signs a form, we leave. Not so easy. Geordi had a rotten tooth that had to be extracted. They could do it that day the vet said, sure we said, they pulled it, we brought him home with some medication and we thought all was good.

December 22. Geordi gets blocked - he can't pee. We rush him back to vet, they want to keep there for a few hours and they discover he has a bladder stone. Surgery. Fantastic! I see my wallet getting lighter by the minute.

Also on the 22nd, a big cube was to be dropped off for us to load up our stuff in. They were to get there between 12 and 4, so we sat and sat and sat, until 3:45 when the guy showed up. I was hoping to start loading that day, but there was other stuff that needed to be done....

Lauren's father's family was scheduled to arrive that evening, so we had to go get a minivan from a rental place, and pick them up in San Jose. Packing didn't happen that day.

On the 23rd we got word the Geordi would be allowed to come home on the 24th. This threw a wrench into our plans because we were supposed to go to Sacramento for Lauren's family reunion. I would not be going on that trip now, because I would need to pick up Geordi and care for him.

With the help of Lauren's family, we were able to do some loading of the Relo-Cube that was to take all of our stuff to Towson. The family left that evening and I was in the apartment alone, for the first time in over five years.

My Christmas Eve day was spent packing, getting Geordi from the vet, more packing, and yet even more packing. My nervousness really kicked in that day because the day before we got word that I would have to take Geordi on my flight with me, and seeing him after surgery made me worry about what a difficult task that would be.

On Christmas day, Lauren's family returned, and we did more packing - in fact, the rest of the weekend was spent packing, getting things in order to leave the Bay Area, and more packing.

The 28th of December was our 3rd anniversary. We spent our anniversary cleaning. I spent about 2 hours cleaning our oven and fridge only to have the apartment manager glance at them and say they were clean. I was hoping for a more detailed inspection after all the work I'd done. We finished loading up the cube that evening and the cube was ready to be picked up.

For our anniversary dinner, we went to IHOP. IHOP always reminds me of my college roommate, Arwin. He said he liked IHOP because "it's cheap and it's good". IHOP was the first place I ate when I moved to the South Bay; I was hungry and saw one and went in to eat. It was fitting that my last food outing in the South Bay was also at IHOP (though not the one I ate in 8 years ago).

I'm out of the Bay Area for a while, and Geordi has now made it safely to Towson.

The toughest part of the flight with Geordi turned out to be taking him out of his carrying case and walking, with him in my arms, through security. He was quiet the entire flight (thank you Zanex!) and on the 1 1/2 drive from the airport to my parents' house.

I'm in Towson for the next 10 days, getting Geordi used to my parents and my parents used to him, seeing my family, and feeling nervous about the next big step - moving to Oxford.

Lights by Journey