my second expat thanksgiving

My second Thanksgiving outside of the U.S. of A. certainly lacked the ambassadorial zeal of my first. I was in the Philippines for Turkey Day '05, and I took it as an opportunity to share a bit of American culture with my coworkers. The biggest challenge, as some of my dear readers may recall, was finding a turkey. Filipinos don't have much use for the bird, so I had to travel to a supermarket in a well-heeled part of Manila where the Americans tend to congregate.

No such heroics this time, perhaps because Americans are a dime a dozen in Cambridge and my raison d'être here isn't primarily about bridging cultures (though I suppose that can be part of it too). I was thankful to be invited to a party that someone else was organizing, and thankful that for the first time in four years I was not the one responsible for the turkey. I shared Thanksgiving with about fifteen Americans and a couple of curious non-Americans. We were mostly Williams and Harvard kids, and we space in which we convened is one those delectable Cambridge oddities: John Harvard's room. The founding benefactor of Harvard University was an Emma guy, and each year some lucky Harvard grad gets chosen through an elaborate selection process to live in what was allegedly his room.* Actually it's more like a suite, with a large wood-paneled living room, a kitchenette, a bedroom, and a guest room. The only drawback is that there's no bathroom... in fact, you have to go down the stairs and across the courtyard to get to one, just like in the good old days. But the big perk of being the "Harvard Scholar" is getting an entertaining budget for the year, and ours has been particularly good about spending hers on entertaining.

I volunteered to bring mashed sweet potatoes with maple syrup, and I committed a small act of blasphemy by purchasing Canadian maple syrup, which was all that was available at Tesco. (I wonder if Big Maple has some kind of protectionist racket going....) I tried to atone by buying a bottle of California red to bring for the festivities. The food was great and the conversation lively, though somehow it felt a lot less like Thanksgiving than any other Thanksgiving I've had... including the one in Southeast Asia. We put a little bit of a Cambridge twist on it by having a glass of port with our pie at the end of the night.

While we're on the subject of thanks, I'd like to thank all of you for reading! While I like to tell myself that this blog would still be worth doing even if nobody was really reading it-- since in that case it would basically function as a journal, which isn't a bad thing to keep-- getting the occasional posted comment or mention of the blog in an e-mail or phone conversation helps me to stay motivated. Hope you all had a lovely holiday!

*There's reason to believe the provenance of the Harvard room, like so many other cool stories around here, is bunk. Like the story about the undergrad who demanded "cakes and ale" from an astonished proctor during an exam and cited an obscure, 400-year-old, never-revised university statute saying that gentlemen who sat for exams in excess of three hours were entitled to request cakes and ale. I wish that one were true!

mail from bill gates sr.

We're getting into that gnarly part of the term these days, which is why the quantity and quality of my postings have been going downhill lately. Apologies for that. It seems like everyone here is in treading-water mode for the last couple weeks of lectures, and then there will be lots of essay writing before we all disperse for Christmas.

Anyway, for now I thought I'd share a remarkable piece of mail that arrived in my "pidge" (a.k.a. pigeon hole, i.e. my mail slot) last week. It was a very personalized letter from Bill Gates Sr., the father of the philanthropist and Microsoft founder, in response to a thank-you note that I sent in October. I thought it would be in good form to thank the guy who is paying my bills this year. I wrote the letter with Bill Gates fils in mind, though in retrospect it probably could have read equally well as a letter to Bill Gates père, and in some ways it's more appropriate that way. The elder Gates is famous mostly for being the father of his son, but he was a high-powered lawyer and pillar of the Seattle community before retiring to help run the Gates Foundation.



As mentioned in the letter, Bill Gates Sr. does visit Cambridge every spring, and as an officer of the Scholars Council I'll probably be in a good position to interact with him. Everything I've heard from the other scholars suggests that he's just a terrific man. Bill Gates Jr. is rumored to be planning a visit to Cambridge in 2010 for the tenth anniversary of the scholarship, which would mark his second visit here since the program's founding. It's also rumored that former scholars (I'll be one of those by then) will get subsidized tickets to fly back to Cambridge for the festivities. But then again, it could just be one of those legends that tend to percolate around here...

more election updates

Alaska voters, in the end, opt for accountability. Good on 'em, or should I say us. My personal contact with Mayor Begich was pretty limited, since most of our advocacy was on federal and state-level policy, but I count myself as an admirer and I think he will do a great job.

And on the less-important elections front, I ended up winning the development studies student rep position after all, in spite of my efforts not to advance my own candidacy. The other new rep is a Brit and is also 26 years old, which I think puts us a couple years past the median age of the group. (Probably not the mean, though-- there are a few 30-somethings in the mix.) In any event, I was sorry not to see any developing country representation, but I'm flattered by the election and will give it my best shot. So my trifecta of positions is complete, and one of them is already giving me serious headaches. As my dad pointed out, I've had many models of professional and civic overcommitment, including Dad himself and my former boss from Alaska, so I'm proud to carry on the tradition.

mental health break (7th-grade knowledge of French helpful)

If only my trip to France went like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5hrUGFhsXo

My favorite line is "bonjour, mon petit bureau de change."

quelques dépêches de Paris

I just got back from a trip to Paris, and I really should be doing work... but writing about Paris just seems so much more fun than writing about the development of the state in post-colonial countries. So here we go:

General impressions. We had a crew of six Gates Scholars, three guys and three ladies. I endured repeated insults as the "old man" of the group throughout the weekend, mostly because Europe has decided that 26 is the age when one no longer merits free museum admissions, discounted train fares, etc. We took the high-speed train that goes through the Chunnel and connects London and Paris in less than three hours. It's all so easy it's a little hard to believe that you've gone to another country. Physically, Paris reminds me of nowhere as much as Washington, DC, which is perhaps not surprising because the latter was designed by a Frenchman. Both cities feature wide boulevards, with diagonal streets criscrossing the grid, and long parks that afford clear lines of sight between the major landmarks.

Bad art at Versailles. We spent the better part of one day at the palace of Versailles, the absurdly opulent home of a succession of roman-numeraled Kings named Louis. Versailles is best known for the Galeries Des Glaces, the mirror-lined hall that hosted the signing of the peace treaty that ended World War I. Being a French monarch entailed living in some pretty sweet apartments but also giving up any vestiges of personal privacy. Even royal births and deaths were witnessed by crowds of spectators filing through, to ensure the legitimacy of the line. Versailles is currently hosting an exhibition of the works of the modern artist Jeff Koons, whose work consists mainly of kitschy sculptures. So as we walked through the royal apartments we were treated to such masterpieces as a statue of Michael Jackson and Bubbles the monkey, giant balloon animals, and a bust of the artist himself. I love modern art and I'm all for subversion in art, and I might have enjoyed some of his stuff in a museum, but I found the exhibition to be pretty irritating, especially given the otherwise very earnest curation at Versailles. I asked our tour guide about the exhibit and she briefly rolled her eyes, so I was glad to know I wasn't the only one who felt that way. This is my favorite picture of the weekend:

Other staples of Parisian tourism. OK, I really should do some work, so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking from here on out. We paid an evening visit to the Louvre, which stays open late two nights per week and offers steeply discounted admission (and just as importantly, smaller crowds). Here's me and Mona, who is remarkably small in person and has something that looks like an altar and a communion rail around her:

On our last morning we went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower, which dominates the city much more than I had imagined. It has to be one of the most recognizable structures in the world, but I found that the closer you get to it, the more alien it appears.

We finished with a walk down the Champs-Elysees and the perfect conclusion, a stop into Notre Dame:

from the less-important elections desk

Elections are in the air in Cambridge, and it's not just because of the latest round of regime change in the U.S. (and New Zealand!) After a not-so-suspenseful election, I am the new treasurer of the Gates Scholars Council, which organizes all of the social events, speaker series, publications, and other services provided to and by Gates scholars. I won this post through a Soviet-style election in which I was the only candidate, which was true of about half the Council positions. However, I did win convincingly over RON ("re-open nominations"), who is an option for every office. In my case, RON went down 95 to 1. RON got at least one vote in every race, leading me to believe that either (A) each of the new Council members has at least one archenemy or (B) somebody is making a statement for electoral competition.

After another, only-slightly-more-suspenseful election, I am also one of three Social Secretaries for the Emmanuel College MCR this year. I say only slightly more suspenseful because although there were four candidates for the three slots, one of them chose not to submit a "manifesto" (Cambridgespeak for a candidate's statement), which is tantamount to running for president and not campaigning. The planks of my platform included an Emma community service day, an Iron Chef-style cooking contest between graduate houses, and more opportunities to interact with Master Richard Thomas James Wilson of Dinton and other college muckymucks.

A third election is underway for two student reps to the Development Studies committee. I'm not really interested in this one and did not nominate myself, but someone put my name in. There are ten candidates, and unfortunately only one of the ten represents a developing country. The rest are mostly from the North America, the UK, and the Netherlands. Not to be ungrateful to whatever kind soul(s) nominated me, but I did not vote for myself and am hoping that I will lose. As an aside, I have a colorful tradition of occasionally not voting for myself... there is one particularly embarrassing story from my childhood that my mom likes to bring out if she feels that some embarrassment is in order.

In other news: I'm going to Paris! I'm taking the high-speed train to the City of Lights tomorrow night with a small posse of Gates people. Updates on our très excellente adventure to come soon.

scoundrels!

i. Guy Fawkes -- The night after the election was Guy Fawkes night in England. If you've seen V for Vendetta, you may recall that the character "V" wore a mask modeled after Guy Fawkes, and you may also recall a little rhyme that starts out like this: "Remember, remember, the fifth of November / The Gunpowder Treason and plot / I can think of no reason the Gunpowder Treason / Should ever be forgot."

The objective of the plot in question was to assassinate King James I and blow up the Houses of Parliament in London, in response to the anti-Catholism of the Crown and the government. It failed, and the conspirators were executed. Fawkes was not the ringleader of this band of 17th-century Catholic terrorists, but he was the one caught with the explosives, so it is his name that has gone down in history.

Naturally, Fawkes is remembered here as the villain, not the hero, of 5 November. Today Guy Fawkes night is marked with fireworks, bonfires, and burning effigies of Fawkes. By now the night has lost most of its original political content and is basically an excuse for pyrotechnics and merrymaking. I attended the festivities in Cambridge, still in an exhausted stupor from the election all-nighter. It's a pretty big production here, with roughly 20,000 people crammed onto Midsummer Common and all manner of carnival rides, games, and booths. When you're so engrossed in university life, it's easy to forget that people actually live in Cambridge, so I was glad to share in a local and national tradition.

ii. Oliver Cromwell -- Craving some solitude on Saturday afternoon, I hopped a train for a short trip to Ely (EE-lee), a small town two stops from Cambridge on the northbound line. (The intermediate stop is a conspicuously landlocked placed called Waterbeach.) Ely is famous primarily for its magnificent cathedral, which I did visit, and slightly less famous for being the home of Oliver Cromwell when he launched his political career. If you're not familiar with Cromwell -- and I believe most Americans are not -- he's thought to be part of the reason why the Founders of the U.S. initially avoided a strong executive under the Articles of Confederation.

A half-century after the Gunpowder Plot, Cromwell and his associates actually did succeed in killing the King--this time for being too Catholic. He was a member of Parliament and a devout Puritan who thought King Charles I was introducing a little too much pope-ish stuff into the liturgy and suppressing religious liberty. Cromwell became a leader of Parliament's army during the English Civil War and was one of the signers of Charles' death warrant. The country had a brief period of commonwealth government under an ineffectual Parliament, which Cromwell eventually dissolved, making himself "Lord Protector." He wielded near-absolute power for five years until his death. His son Richard took over before a brief spell before England reverted to the old monarchy under Charles II.

I visited Cromwell's house in Ely, which is now a museum. In various rooms you can try on period dress (with helmets!), vote on whether Cromwell was a hero or a villain (roughly 50/50 according to monthly tallies), and view a bizarre replica of Cromwell on his deathbed. Probably the most memorable part of the visit was a book I saw in the gift shop, called Oliver Cromwell's Warts. The double-entendre refers to both the Lord Protector's moral failings and the actual warts that dotted his face. The book jacket provides a wealth of gee-whiz facts about Cromwell, including a claim that he "once attended a party covered in poo." I would love to know that story, but "poo" was not listed in the book's index, and I didn't have time to look the hard way.

One gee-whiz fact about Cromwell that I can verify is the undignified fate of his earthy remains. Since he died before the reinstated monarchy could bring him to justice, Charles II had him exhumed and then posthumously hanged and beheaded. His head eventually came back to Cambridge, his alma mater, where it was reinterred at Sidney Sussex College. This plaque commemorates the occasion. It is said that only the Master of Sidney Sussex and a couple other college bigwigs know the actual location of the head, but I suspect that's a bit of Cambridge lore -- of which there are many -- that might not withstand scrutiny.

the election from over here

I haven't said much about the presidential election in this blog, but it has obviously been on my mind every single day I have spent here. The level of awareness and knowledgability about the election among my non-American friends and classmates has been amazing, and I have been startled by how much everyone feels is at stake for themselves and their countries. They have watched the Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin SNL clips, editorialized in student newspapers, and followed this fall's debates. Even before I left the States, I knew that the outcome of this election would have an enormous impact on how non-Americans would react to me. The last six weeks have proven that I was not only right, but underestimated the impact.

Yesterday and today, I have been getting high fives and congratulations everywhere I have gone. For the first time in my adult life, there's some serious cachet in being an American in Europe. And I don't think the enthusiasm is excessive. People here are realistic, as I believe I am, about what Obama's election means. Nobody believes he is a messiah, or that he won't make mistakes or always take the course that will make him popular abroad. America's image has gotten so bad under the Bush administration that merely the repudiation of the last eight years is itself a huge relief. There's a recognition, voiced by Americans and non-Americans alike, that President Obama will have very little to work with given the poor economy, the debt, and our military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. But above all, I think people are just impressed with who Obama is. I don't think the phrase "American dream" will be used in an ironic way here anytime soon.

I spent election day in a weird state, full of nervous energy but mentally in a fog. It was the first time I can remember since high school when I worked out twice in the same day, with a swim in the morning and a run in the afternoon. Most polls on the East coast didn't close until 1 a.m. GMT, but luckily I had some evening entertainment to keep me distracted: a James Bond "Casino Royale"-themed formal dinner at Christ's College, to which Emma's MCR was given an allotment of tickets. After that it was back home to change out of my tux and then to the college, where I was hosting the election night party in the MCR.

I stayed up until 6 a.m. with a small but hardy band of Emma folks who wanted to hold out for the speeches. I thought John McCain was incredibly gracious. He could have dodged the momentousness of the election, but he embraced it. Unfortunately, his supporters were ugly, and I think it bodes ill for the Republicans if this is what's left of their rank-and-file. I also thought President-elect Obama's speech was great. I expected I might cry, and I did tear up at one point... I'm a little embarassed to admit it, but it was when he told his daughters that they could have a puppy in the White House. I guess it was a combination of the overwhelming significance of our first black president, my sense that the "moral values" that I subscribe to finally carried the day, and a tender moment that tapped into my own ambitions for fatherhood.

The news wasn't all good-- the loss for marriage equality in California and the congressional races in Alaska put a damper on my glee. But on the most important battle, for the first time since I gained the right to vote, I feel like the good guys won. I am proud and thankful to be an American every day, but today there's just a little bit of extra relish.

quintessential cambridge experience #2: punting on the cam

Punting has to be one of the most preposterous modes of transport ever invented. Among ways of getting from Point A to Point B that are faster and easier than punting are: walking, swimming, somersaulting, and doing that inchworm dance. Punting, one might say, is the ultimate celebration of British inefficiency.

And yet we do it and love it; it's THE activity for tourists in Cambridge. So what is punting, you ask? It consists of guiding a big, awkward wooden boat (a punt) along the river by pushing an enormous pole into the earth at the bottom of the river. It's only possible on an tiny river like the Cam, which can't be more than 20 meters across at its widest and is so calm that standing on the shore it can be hard to tell which way it's flowing. The mighty Mississip it ain't.

Last Sunday I went punting for the first time with Shannon and Christoph from my MCR and Christoph's girlfriend Miriam. I led off as "punter," and it only took a few minutes for me to tell that I was way out of my element. The punter stands precariously on the stern of the boat and tries desperately to maintain forward motion, not crash into the bank, and not fall in the water, while the passengers laugh at his/her misfortune. I did have one scary moment where the pole got momentarily stuck in the mud at the bottom of the Cam and I almost stayed behind with it-- there was a gasp from the rest of the group as I crouched down to steady myself.

Things got better when I had one crucial realization: you need to treat the pole primarily as a rudder, not as a motor. Pushing off the bottom of the riverbed is all well and good and easy enough, but the placement of the pole in between pushes makes the difference between smooth sailing and drunken zigzags. We punted along a famous stretch known as "the backs," a collection of neatly manicured lawns, ancient colleges and chapels, and numerous bridges. Everyone took a turn at the helm, and I'm sorry to report that the two Germans far outshone the two Americans in the punting department. A few pictures of the experience:


Along the Backs.


Christoph and Miriam with the "bridge of sighs."


Shannon and me with King's Chapel, which is Cambridge's most famous landmark.