Hospitals

No, don't worry, it is not me who is sick. 

This is the first time I am visiting a hospital (the ward section) in North America and the first time I am visiting an ER anywhere in the world. I list this together with the things that I have abnormally avoided in all the many years on this planet, just only because I live the life of a gypsy, because I left my roots and flew; together in this list are things like, I have only seen a couple dead bodies and none of them my relatives'. I have seen, however, an above average number of dear dogs, goats, fish, birds, cats die - if I am not so abnormal in that aspect I don't know who is...

So, it is this friend, who is diet and fitness conscious, in general of stable positive attitude, almost as much as me, who has got Hep-A; yeah, so life is like that - I have so many overweight friends, so many friends who don't give a damn about what they eat and some mentally unbalanced friends, and this friend is the one to be hospitalized! I must admit it was a bit unnerving to see such a person in so much pain; but she is getting better now. And this hospital allows unparalleled views of downtown as you can see... so what can she complain about, yes? :P

Also here's the menu she got at the hospital - sounds like a feast, yes? But crappy hospital food nonetheless! In her words: 'I don't understand how they can take such great ingredients and make them so untasty!'

Visiting her in the hospital reminded me how much I really liked this act. I remember when I was in my early 20's my mom was in the hospital for about a week and even though I didn't like it that she was sick, I was having fun taking charge of the kitchen, cooking her meals, taking her food to the hospital, visiting her, watching the other patients and their visitors. Now maybe I wouldn't have felt the same way if I was visiting the burn unit or a similar unit where the illness manifests in a not-so-pretty way. I also remember that time two years ago, my mom finally could not take it anymore with my shoulder birthmark and took me to surgery in Sri Lanka;  I had again such a fun time watching all the people and the equipment, the boiler room where they disinfect equipment etc as shown in this entry. Then also I remember going to China's Beijing hospital for my brother's injury and feeling like being his only savior from the mean doctors. I have visited my friend every day up to now and I must admit I find it kind of fun. 

There was this Eastern European(?) grandma in the same room as my friend, who asked me to help her go to the bathroom and when I said I will ask a nurse, because I didn't want to hold her the wrong way and break her bones, she insisted I help her; I brought a nurse anyway and when I saw her nurse was a man, I wondered if maybe old immigrant women were not comfortable with a male nurse helping them pee and this made me ponder if, when I am 100, I will have the same openness about a nurse-is-a-nurse-and-who-cares-about-their-gender. Also as I was going to the 14th floor, some nurse brought an old East Asian woman in to the elevator of the 1st floor and said to her 'ah this is going to the 14th floor' and left her to ride the elevator alone; not entirely trusting the nurse, she looked at the floor-buttons for half a minute and pressed 1 and then 4!! Earlier, having stepped in to the wrong elevator that only went up to the 4th floor and hence had buttons from 1-4, the thought did flash across my mind if I should hit 1 and 4 to go to the 14th floor. I didn't, because my cognitive senses said 'that would be stupid' - so again I pondered, if, when I am 100, my cognitive senses would prevent me from hitting 1 and 4 to get to the 14th floor. I think about old people a little bit, just because I know I will easily pass 100, what with my life style (ok, so I might get Hep-A and the likes, but these don't kill people), and I would like to be graceful, at least till I am 110. I know, right? I am going to be that crazy old woman wearing a wedding dress and swearing up and down the street!! I saw one of these women in Montréal once.

Anyway, hospitals are such great anthropological amphitheatres: all the patients, some in visible pain, some in pain unexpressed, some that seem like they had no problem at all; the visitors, some there out of obligation, some there for love, some there as an outing - 'it's Sunday and let's go see grandma, oh wait she's in the hospital so off we go to the hospital' sort of way, some patients without visitors; the med students, prepping themselves to be the most arrogant group of professionals in the world, already walking a couple inches above the ground, the sexual/romantic tension among the young students barely contained; the doctors, now practicing the most arrogant profession on earth (I must admit though, they are only slightly more arrogant than physicists), the nurses practicing indeed, the second most trusted profession in the world (apparently teaching is the most trusted): so kind, so mellow and so aware of the limitations of their knowledge (like I think doctors should be also, since in my mind, their knowledge is so limited - in a way, arrogant physicists are kind of ok: annoying, but ok, since we are not playing with human lives).

Hospitals, whether in Sri Lanka, China or Canada are such expressions of love, I think; love expressed, love unexpressed or love never received. They have also been, for me, so far at least, places of hope - places people went in feeling sick but always came out feeling better and on their way to feeling as good as new. I guess at this point I must state that veterinary hospitals do not hold the same level of apeal to me - one of my earliest memories was one of our well loved German Shepherds (who actually gave us some top notch puppies that we sold and with which money we renovated our home), dying on the vet bed - consequently I associate vet hospitals with not much hope. I must say, so far, human hospitals have not disappointed me. (sorry if I come across as a selfish bitch - I feel bad for the people who were hospitalized and wish none of my friends would ever be hospitalized, just so to afford me an anthropological experience... I really do wish this!!!).

This also reminds me of one of my favorite excerpts:

"When Gamini finished surgery in the middle of the night, he walked through the compound into the east buildings, where the sick children were. The mothers were always there. Sitting on stools, they rested their upper torso and head on their child's bed and slept holding the small hands. There were not too many fathers around then. He watched the children, who were unaware of their parents' arms. Fifty yards away in Emergency he had heard grown men scream for their mothers as they were dying. 'Wait for me!' 'I know you are here!' This was when he stopped believing in man's rule on earth. He turned away from every person who stood up for a war. Or the principle of one's land, or pride of ownership, or even personal rights. All of those motives ended up somehow in the arms of careless power. One was no worse and no better than the enemy. He believed only in the mothers sleeping against their children, the great sexuality of spirit in them, the sexuality of care, so the children would be confident and safe during the night."

- Michael Ondaatje in Anil's Ghost

Equal Opportunity

North America's west coast, I think, has the most respect to its minority immigrants in the world. From Vancouver General Hospital. I remember going to the Drivers' License office in Los Angeles with my sister and seeing instructions and also the test, given in several different languages: English, Hispanic, HIndi, Mandarin

Montréal

 Ok, so I am fairly certain that I will live in Montréal, or at least use it as a base for all my worldly endeavors. I love Montréal because,... well I love Montréal for a lot of reasons, like this hole-in-the-wall coffee shop that serves great coffee for $2 and if you are nice and the barista is in a good mood you also get free donuts

because St-Catherine turns in to a pedestrian street all summer long,
                         

because I love the beautiful blue skies of the hot Montréal summers (I am not used to the hotness anymore though - spoiled by Vancouver). I remember once someone said he loved the great expansive skies of North America - I never understood that, but I guess they are pretty, specially when they are juxtaposed with pretty pink balls like this... :)                                                                                                

                              because I have great memories of my old home, even though, significantly richer people live there now (notice the gas stove)                                                                     

But I also realize how I hate nationalism and how nationalist Québéc can be. I guess I will have to learn to deal with it. Like these guys did: no where can you put a Canadian flag up in Québéc without risking being stoned to death; but by cleverly lining it with the gay flag these guys actually managed to make it stay up - if you throw stones at them now, it will be a hate crime against gays and that would make you so 1970's and no one wants to be so 1970's. Yeah, I know, if you throw stones at anyone who doesn't worship the language and culture that's Française, that is somehow not a hate crime and you will fit very well in to 2012 Québéc. But, idiots are everywhere - no where in the world will I escape those... so I will come to Montréal despite... I guess...

Carpentry and Homelesness

Setting the bar high for all the rest of us human beings....

Pest Control

So this morning I had a whole bunch of fruit flies, from the left over dried small fish/kombu/bonito flakes I used for the miso soup base, I guess. I just emptied the trash hoping they would eventually go away. Well that eventuality had not yet arrived by the time I got home this evening - there were armies of fruit flies all over the house, out of all places about 5-6 of them were also on my computer!!!! War was waged - three of these make-shift fruit fly traps - glasses of vinegar (I gave them balsamic - like a last meal before you are hanged) + mirin + whiskey even, fitted with these papers rolled in to cones (apparently, they are stupid - the smell attracts them but they don't know how to navigate the double surface of the conical/glass system to get out - according to Google); this is the result two hours later and almost all flies are gone - well at least I am not running in to them as I walk around the house... Ha... ha... ha... who's your mommy now, fruit flies????

Compare that merciless attitude with this: A couple weeks ago, I had a little mouse who would show up at my apartment on a daily basis. Having seen him I took extra care to seal the few food items I had unsealed. He would still keep coming - so my apartment manager brought some of those sticky-pad-mouse-traps and put them here and there in my apartment. I reluctantly agreed, remembering this one time one of my ex's used these to combat the mice in his apartment and we would wake up in the middle of the night to little mouse screams and he would have to go and deal with it - I wouldn't know what he did with them - I want to think he didn't put a hammer to their heads - even though it would have been better than letting them a slow and painful sticky death. I imagined I will wake up and have to deal with squirming little mice in the middle of the house - the apartment manager said I could call him, but I would like to be a big girl who takes care of my problems as best as I can... The mouse still kept coming; and I would be sitting on my couch at night and he would just run around the living room floor (I have my meals in the living room) hungrily looking for crumbs and when he found the tiniest one, he would so happily take it in his tiny hands and eat away. I imagined this little fellow on the sticky pad, his tiny eyes begging for life and I wouldn't be able to do anything at that point, even if I wanted to release him... And here I was, always coming home to a life-less apartment and now here I had some life, sort of like a pet - I couldn't watch him die. It would still be pretty sad if I came home and found this little mouse dead in some other trap, I certainly could not watch him withering away to death on a sticky pad. So I told the apartment manager, we have to plug the holes in the apartment, I'd rather he not come to my place than kill him. And this we did, and I haven't seen him since... and I miss him sometimes, given also he was a pretty well-behaved mouse - I saw no droppings in any of the cupboards or in any food storage places or even on the counter... Yes, I know, I need some pet, in the lines of a dog or a cat, before this goes to the next level...

I also realized today, as I watched some fruit flies struggle their way out of the liquid, and try so hard to dry their little feathers and come out of the trap and finding myself almost reaching out to set them free in recognition of their effort, that teaching in the US has had a larger impact on me than I thought. 'Give points for effort', or 'A for effort' as we used to say, is a very American thing - where I went to school, there were no points for writing down the equation or drawing a diagram - you really had to have the problem solved properly and completely if you wanted to avoid zero - it was a binary system back where I came from...

Still I must admit, seeing them fruit flies fall in the liquid, struggle their way to death by drowning gave me immense pleasure... almost makes me wish I had more fruit flies... Ha ha ha what a bunch of idiots!!!

Change

This is how I remember some of my friends…

but this is what they have become now, well at least for 5 days of the week… I am extremely happy about the people who crossed my life's paths, even the not so nice people… grateful for the friendships that were… and in so many ways just happy that some of them aren't anymore… It doesn't mean the friendships I kept come from people who have never changed… It means they changed at a pace that was conformal with my own change… So I still like them and I am happy they are still my friends… Like my mom says, everything happens for a reason…

this from when we went to pick him up for dinner...

And the place I made old dreams

I loved this place... and still do... So many memories, so much learned... so many impressions...

I used to have a bird feeder in

my last few years in grad school, outside of my office. A couple times, when I had to go out of town I had even asked some of my friends to feed the birds... I went to just walk around the old place with a friend, and there it was, my ol' bird feeder, still hanging... with no bird feed, albeit... My friend joked that it will be around till the building is demolished...

It was such a sweet nostalgia inducing act to go back like that... My friend who I was with, who is not in Minneapolis anymore either, and who had said in the past 'Minneapolis, meh... I can take it or leave it' was feeling nostalgic too. It was a good place to us!

Old Dreams and the friends I made them with...

We are, like I have said before, nothing, without our friends. It was good to go to MN, even in the smouldering heat wave. Coming out of the airport the humidity that made breathing a conscious process, reminded me so much of the summers of MN. It was also a welcome change from the rainy, cold and cloudy Vancouver weather as of late; sorry I can't be grim enough!!! But I must say, three days of that and I was ready for Van again.

It was a decision making trip - a trip that would ease me in to making a decision. Dreams, like language, like culture, like people, evolve and sometimes old dreams die, to make room for new ones. Death, even when it is slow and expected and has been a long time a coming, is a sad process and people do all sorts of things to make the mourning process easier. For me it was comforting to meet the people who shared the same dreams as I did at some point in our lives; it was refreshing to see how their own dreams have evolved and what life has brought them, or they have brought to life.

My PhD advisor, surprisingly quickly calmed down at the prospect of me leaving active physics research and we were able to constructively discuss other options - it must have helped to have his sweet wife, who I always was fond of - but this day she said she wished she had her camera so she could take a picture of me, because I was so pretty :D (yes I know!!! she also suggested I send in a picture of myself with my job applications!!! What a sweet ol' lady…)

It was also nice to meet my former office-mates, all of whom have left academia. Two of them in particular had lost a whole bunch of weight and looked like they were in so much better shape than they were when they were in grad school; compare this with a post or two I made about my meeting my former experiment colleagues on my current experiment and wondering why they had let themselves go like that. It was nice see how they had made good lives with whatever it is that they chose - two of them who were working at the same company, were even running a bet on who would loose the most amount of body fat within a given time - I know so nerdy, but I found it to be cute. Going out of academia, does have its perks it seems. It was also fun to recreate the politically incorrect laughter of our former office. I am in so many ways glad you were my officemates.

But I feel ultra blessed for the few friendships I made out of the realm of my office, and in those friendships is where I truly sought solace this weekend. For everything each of you did this weekend, for being the reflection of our friendships, thank you! You will remain nameless here, but you all know who you are. Thank you for driving all the way to see me and reminding me that I am held in your heart in as high esteem as I hold you and for listening to my new dreams and telling me they are not only not stupid, but also that you will buy my book! :) Thank you for the therapeutic cats. Thank you for the motorcycle ride along the witness to many of my life's baffling decisions, the mighty Mississippi river. And thank you, all of you, for trusting me enough to show me what you can do, what you have done and what you will do in your own lives, for teaching me to think differently; for the laughter, for the snapshot of love we hold for each other in our often unexpressive hearts. I am everything I am, because of my friends!

Tiny Plane

Going home in a tiny plane - well this plane will take me to nearby Seattle and then I'll take a normal plane to go to Minneapolis. I can never tell if this is Che Guevara or Big Foot as Alaska Airline's logo. Look the wheel even came out of the wings… tiny tiny plane… Going home in a last effort to save my old dreams, to see if being in the place that made those dreams for me, will change anything… I think of my marriage… before we really separated, we took one last vacation together, to the south of the US, hoping to find a reason to stay together… we didn't… and almost 7years later, I couldn't have been happier that I didn't find a reason to stay… I hope one day I will look at my Minneapolis trip to find reasons to cling on to my old dreams, and say the same thing….

Can I give my old dreams a honorable burial like my yoga teacher says? Can I offer my old dreams to Agni, so room will be made for the new ones?

Fraser Valley

Looking out, at the look out, appropriately, on to the Fraser Valley, with a friend who tries but fails so badly to pacify my agitated mind…. How did I grow to dislike what I am doing so much? I remember telling someone at the beginning of the year that I must think about what I want to do with my life, or I can become like millions of people in the world who do a job that they hate…. At that time I was sure, that I had about a year before I really hated what I was doing… it is 7 months and I feel like I really can't take it anymore… I am getting this close to resigning without another job… Yes, I know, so many people do it and are fine… and I applaud them… but I am not them… yet…

International Jazz Festival

Vancouver International Jazz festival - can't hold a candle to Montréal's. The music, I think, is not that much worse, but the people… oh the polite anglophones…. just live for once will you!!!??

But I actually totally understand... everybody

experiences fun in different ways... no one's fun is any less or any more than the others'. It's just this kind of laid back fun is not so much my thing....

Railway CLub

Railway club - there's a small train going around constantly on the wall!! This is my favorite French conversation venue. Without French conversation, I would have gone insane in Vancouver…

Once, my housemate in Minneapolis said that she likes to go to church, even though she is not a big believer, just because when she was doing refugee work in South East Asia, she found community in the church. I like to think French serves the same purpose for me. As a group of people French people belong right in Europe, with their extremely nationalist ways and intolerance of anything that is not like them, that stems from their imperialist past. But take Europe and multiply their bad by 10 and you have the French. Me, not a big fan of Europe, certainly not a fan of France or French. Despite, it serves as a community for me, a place, a reason for me to seek out new friends. And in the process I learn, not all French people are fucked up….

Cosmopolitan Vancouver

So the butt is not the premise of the photo - it has photo bombed my discrete capture of internationalism in Vancouver. This woman is from Spain and so are her 2 sons but all of them have been living here for sometime and the boys apparently speak good English and correct their mother often, apparently. The woman was telling this story to fellow passenger from Ethiopia who chatted them up. And then they were talking about people they knew from other countries also, who lived in Van now, and how easily or not so easily they picked up English and what not. Other people either chimed in or smiled approvingly.

Vancouver, the most multi-cultural city I have lived in, the second most cosmopolitan city I've truly lived in, the most beautiful city I've lived in (ok well, almost as beautiful as Kandy), the best foodie city I've lived in and I live so close to the beach, something I've always wanted to… And yet, it never really clicked with me - and it seems like I can't wait to leave - a feeling that I have never had for any city that I lived in.

the future, the past and fun café's

Awww… peacock at Cafe Prado

Then to deaux-soleils where I wrote Research Highlights and Project Proposals and Myself essays for jobs, till the wee hours in the night or morning. This beer in a mason jar juxtaposed with a lesbian folk singer and my laptop and papers is me trying to capture the moment. This, and last night when I sat in West End coffee shops writing more stuff reminded me very much of my thesis days. It was a good feeling. Nothing might come out of these endeavours, but it feels so good to give it my all, the only way I know to do things.

OCD people

This old man, with fat fingers presumably, was texting on his phone with the key beep on. I can see how that can be helpful to tell you that you actually hit the key hard enough that the character typed. But yeah, most of us keep this turned off because it is annoying. So he was going beep beep beep beep all throughout for maybe 10 mins. It wasn't annoying to me, but it did get my attention and I quickly psyched myself to tune it out reminding myself that one day I too will be old and have fat fingers - not really… but I always think I have enough crap in my own life to bother me, so I try to minimize external minimal irritants. This was not the philosophy of one of the younger guys sitting in the back with his laptop, who after 10min.s broke down and said asked if he can please turn the sound off. The old man with fat fingers basically asked him to just shut up. Another passenger chimed in, that he too was bothered. And the old man with fat fingers accused both of them and continued to finish his texting - a big fight did not break out, but there was a lot of tension in the bus until the old man with fat fingers got off a couple stops later.

I thought about how as adults, we can not take things easy, how we insist that every little thing bothers us and how we insist to not get along and just fight for no good reason. There are so many things to speak up in this world, but these two boys choose to speak up against some mildly annoying sound. Instead of offering a solution in the form of a simple, 'I will soon finish', the old man decides to snap. All three of them idiots, and I too am guilty of this behavior at times. We are after all very much animals still.

Girls

I don't get along too well with girls, as you may already know. I guess I had an overdose of girls for the first 18 years of my life, or maybe with a such a statistically large sample, I learned that girls are just these super-soft lovey dovey people, but ultra mean humans… well I imagine not any meaner than guys… but I think with guys, I don't have too many boundaries, well not with most… I love the ability to call their crap when it is time, which I can't bring myself to do to girls - again probably all the cry-baby girls from back during my school days. So all this to say, there aren't too many girls that I have truly felt comfortable with and even fewer whose humor I've identified with. Actually I don't say this too proudly - it does eat in to my abilities at work places.

So, Jiae, is one of them girls who I really like. We first had an outside of regular work interaction, while we were discussing housing situation during long times in Japan and she suggested I sublet my apartment to her. She looked quite decent and I agreed - I wasn't going to sublet the place anyway but thought why not. I must admit I was not completely comfortable not knowing if she would be clean or be careful with things. My doubts were soon out to rest when I got to spend a week with her in Japan - she was super clean without being paranoid about it, but what really impressed me was her ability to figure new machines and stuff by guessing - a true physicist. We never agreed how much she should pay for the apartment and when it was time to pay, I gave her the chance to decide - I thought it would be a good way to gauge her - and she did not disappoint.

We had so much fun in Japan that we wowed to continue to hangout when we got back to Van. This is her first attempt - she cooked Korean food for me. The food was simple but tasty - as I have come to know Korean food, spicy and more flavorful than Japanese food. Soon, this black bean powder, that she mixed with milk and honey, will become a staple in my daily food. I will use it with fruit for a snacky drink and then for breakfast with yoghurt.

I must also say there was some pretty intensive romance that was booming between Jiae and one of my very good friends from my PhD experiment, while she was in Tokai. Well I don't know how much of it Jiae identified with, but my friend was definitely in to her. I was very much hoping that it would materialize in to something, with the secret hope that this would somehow lead to both of them being in my life forever. But it is slowly dwindling now… and except for hints now and then, I haven't had the courage to address this issue directly with either of them… oh well…

too old to work out?

Never too late to start working out… From Second beach area during my evening run… I also saw these Sons of Granville, who I will notice many times hence forth, busking all over downtown… This is from the beach near my home - they have a style that reminded me very much of Apocalyptica

ol' acquaintances

It is nice to be here in Japan, I feel less suffocated than I am in Vancouver. Maybe it is the general composition of people, maybe, and I hate to get on the bash American band wagon, but all the Americans in Vancouver bother me in one way or the other, so maybe it is larger non-American presence, or maybe, it is because I have some familiar friends from my previous experiment.

Yes, I know, I am all kicking and screaming about being dragged out of Vancouver and having to live out of a suitcase, but now that I am here and loving it, I am wishing I could stay here longer.

But back to my old friends - it is always fun to see people I haven't seen for a while. And this is the first time that we are meeting outside of the scope of a collaboration meeting where we don't have to hang out with people from our own institutions. To celebrate, we went out and had shabu-shabu. The three of us are all about six to eight years older than when we first met, and four since we last met. We (well not really me, but…) are a good deal heavier than we were back then - a heaviness reflected in the soft pant that is almost unnoticeable, unless you are actually standing close to each other. We are all less shy and more at peace with each other and are able to have adult like conversations and tease each other without freaking out of the opposite sex.

We had such a great time, talking about physics, talking about our countries, talking about our old experiment and of course about the US, where we met (none of us are American), throwing rock-paper-scissors for shitake's, trying chopstick tricks. Finished the night off at an izakaya that left us running for the last train. Friendship, is indeed a good feeling to have…

Homeless Japanese

Never seen a Japanese homeless person... and when I see the first (and still only) it would be in an ultra rich shopping complex in Mito that has Gucci and Salvatore Ferragamo stores...

Dreamers

Dreamers, like anywhere else... ah, the carefree youth when you don't give a damn for your financial status, so you don't give a damn if you get money for doing something, when you don't give a damn that it is cold outside... why would the Japanese be spared of such beauty? They talk about Japan being a super stressed country where from an early age people learn to earn a living, or make commitments to friends and family about being cool physicists, but still there are dreamers in this world... and, as it turns out in this case, people who are afraid of germs...