What transpired on the week-end

I spent the last few days in the semblance of a ghost town. The only real conversation I had with members of the community was with a man who claimed his name was Karl, and that he was a Marxist. I declined his invitation to dinner; he laughed like a maniac and left.
This Marxist, I have observed, has attached himself to a girl who is very fond and proud of her pink clothes collection; perhaps his sacrifice, for it is one to rid the population of this girl, is his first contribution towards the common good. Before it, the pink-wearer, aptly named Madeleine, had come and presented herself, and a friend of the same kind, to me. She had sat down and crossed her anorexic legs appropriately, and had spoken of little things. She is Australian, she says. And in a way she is, but I prefer to see her as a blight on all of us, not just on Australia. But this gentle Karl has wooed her with his maniac laugh, and his constant flow of insults, and now she does not come to my door anymore.

As I said in the previous post, most of my friends went home for the week-end. At this hour, none of my suitemates are back. But the building is filling up. Two friends, from all I know in Davis, stayed back:
Thomas, of which I have extensively talked about. He was my host for the first few weeks of my stay in the US. He is going to Australia for a year soon; off to Wollongong on exchange.
Hayley, a girl which I have briefly mentioned before; she is a potential snowboarding partner. A charming girl working hard to get into vet school.

I spent Thursday, the actual Thanksgiving day with Thomas. He took me to his grandmother's place, where we had a family dinner. And what a family! It is a credit to Thomas that he has come out alright. His mother came out briefly, to demand that we turn off the lights. When she saw me, she came and gave me a hug; a strange kind too; she snuggled up against my chest, and held herself tightly for a few seconds. I did not know what to do. Thomas was ashamed but I did not want to give him reason to be, so I was very civil to his mother, without returning that same longing contact. She did not have dinner with us; instead she stayed in her room, in the dark, and watched TV, while Thomas, his grandmother and I ate in the living room. Thomas' grandmother is the picture of the benevolent loving woman. She can't shake hands; it makes her emotional; she kisses people. She walks slowly around the house, preparing food, petting the cats, arranging the table, and making sure that Thomas has all he needs. She speaks slowly, and then only to say pleasant things; when her daughter comes out and turns off the light, she calmly lets her, and turns them back on after she's left.
Thomas said: "I have a simple family", and he does, but of what contrasts! His grandmother practically raised him; he tells me that he goes home to see her. He calls his mother 'Jill', and his grandmother 'Grandma'. His sister is off somewhere in the army. His father his elsewhere again. I don't really remember where. But Thomas has come out the stronger for all this. He stands upright, remains largely unphased through most situations, and knows when to offer a helping hand.
Dinner itself was largely uneventful; I ate the American way. I stuffed my plate with every dish but pie; mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, fruit salad, olives, bread, and more than I can recall. Apparently, had I been a good American, I would have had a few servings; one was more than enough. I couldn't move for a few hours afterwards.

It was when Thomas dropped me off that I met Karl the Marxist. The rest of the days were spent largely by myself, and sometimes in the company of Hayley. A very pleasant company for sure. My plans of going snowboarding never came through; and for the better, since I went to a traditional thanksgiving dinner instead.

Now since I have started this post, and through the many interruptions that have come my way, three of my suitemates have come back. There is noise in this place. And it finally dawned on me that I really should be doing some homework. Ah well, I am sure that I'll find time to do it all.


Something else: something a bit random: browsing through the firefow crew's picks, I have found http://www.bartleby.com/ Entire books are available for free; and good ones too, mainly classics.
I have been reading Pride and Prejudice; it is very enjoyable. Jane Austen makes usual events very interesting; she understands the motives and drives behind all our little actions, and she exposes them shamelessly. It is like watching a play, and knowing the why of everything.

Thanksgiving week-end

Hi,

I came back from school today to find my suite empty. Where a few hours ago, there had been a couple playing, a friend listening to music, and another writing poems, there was nobody.
Nobody on a Tuesday.

It is thanksgiving week-end and people go home to their family. This is one of the sacred holidays. Families have an early dinner together; this is a rare occasion to enjoy food, and talk as a family.
You see all these TV shows that picture the thanksgiving dinner as a touchy time for a family; they aren't used to so much closeness, it seems. And when a three hour seated dinner, with the TV off, comes along, they don't know how to interact.
No one in my suite watches much TV. I am glad, because here TV occupies a special place in a household. It is as much an expression of freedom as a car; not having a TV is met with an incredulous look; well what do you do when you're bored?; I walk past your windows, and I see your TVs on; someone watching; a mind gone, stolen by the small screen.
But interestingly enough, in social contexts the TV is forgotten, even though it remains on. Dinners are eaten with the TV on; I can't do that myself. My eyes are attracted to the movements on the little screen; my ears chose explosions over dinner conversation. I have not learned to split my attention the way people do here. I must appear at times rude; I answer my hosts absent-mindedly, and I know that they have made an effort to accomodate me. But the TV booms louder than they. Asking them to turn it off would be another faux-pas. Like telling their third child to stay quiet.
This long week-end is the first real break we got since the start of the quarter. Since I do not have class tomorrow, I have 6 days off. It is like mini-holidays. In a lonely suite.

I know one person who is not going back for the week-end. I hope we will go snowboarding together on Thursday. I would have to share the slopes with the thanksgiving families; dodge the unstable meandering women, the show-off men, and the kamikaze kids. Skiing or snowboarding in such cases takes on a whole different feeling. It is not me against the mountain; it is me and the mountain against them, the ones defiling it. I do not like slowing down; and so I get to slalom through a dynamic race; one that shifts somewhat randomly. Intermediate skiiers are the most dangerous; they believe they are good, and they believe they are in the right.
Not everyone goes skiing. These intermediate skiiers are upper middle-class god-fearing white families, who hold the firm belief that they are better than most. And indeed they usually own the flashiest car, the prettiest front lawn, and the greatest number of columns on the facades of their greco-roman mansions. In truth they are the lucky mediocrity; the ones that have made it to the top of the rest. Being the king of the nothing means a lot here. It is the revised American dream. The benefits of corporate, suburban, consumerist America.
And these consumers bring their business to the slopes enough time to believe that they are good. But you are a danger I tell you. You forget that you are sharing the slopes; that others exist. That snowboarders aren't punk kids; that falling isn't a crime; that remaining an intermediate skiier is a choice and not a given. Turning slows you down; go straight I tell you. Fear less, and let the slope take you. Let the wind rush past you; let it encase you in its semblance of protection; let it deafen you. Hear nothing but the thud of your pulse. Thud it says, you are scared. Thud, it says again. You are going fast. Can you see? Thud. Are your eyes watering. Thud, Thud, Thud. You fell. Well get up and try again. Next time you won't fall. You'll make it all the way down, and look back behind you, proud; I did that. I can't do it, but I did it. I went faster than I ever did before. I could have broken an arm. Hell, I could have broken my neck. I am going to do it again.
I will migrate to the lonely black slopes. These people are afraid; that is why they hide behind their trucks, their columns, their neat front lawns, their secure jobs, their smiles, their facades. They see a little black diamond and they dare not approach. There I will sit and look at the lake. I will get up and attack the mountain again. You and I will battle.
Until I reach the bottom, and see the line to the chairlift.

Third time in three weeks

And I have done it again. For the third time in a row, I have gone snowboarding this week-end. The good news is that this time, I went with someone of my own level, and I was able to push myself a little.
The first week I went, Ronald, an Australian I met, came with me. Since there were only the two is us, I felt obliged to stick with him. But he had grossely overstated his ability, or there had been some kind of misunderstanding. His idea of an intermediate skiier didn't correlate with mine. As a a result, I waited for him more than I actually snowboarded. He estimated his fall count to 50. By the end of the day, I had only tackled a couple of mogul runs.
The second time I went, I took a deutsch friend: Renske. One to add to my address book: a charming girl, with a sense of humour, and an open personality. Away from home, I have mentioned before, fellow countrymen become instant family. Other internationals, ones in the same mess, become fast friends. They know; we know together. That second time skiing, we went with another new friend. An American I met in a group. A guy I called on Friday, and who said: stuff all this work I have to do, we're going. And so the three of us went. The guy wasn't bad, but he was more interested in jumps that in boulders and trees. Still together, we raced down the mountain. We had to wait a little for Renske, who had admitted she wasn't very good, and who was truly trying to get better. By the end of the day, she was going down moguls! Still I was waiting.
Yesterday was different. I went with three others. I got a call on Thursday: "Albert, we are going snowboarding on Saturday: do you want to come?" I said yes, and off we were. The driver was a guy from LA, driving all the way up to see the girl who invited me. A bad situation it seemed at the offset. Thrust in to act as a buffer of sorts. It shows you how much I want to go snowboarding; I take dodgy rides. In fact it wasn't like that. Although the guy probably likes the girl, he is hiding it well and is very friendly. We took some other girl: a young and innocent freshman. She and I sat in the back of the car; all my Australian friends, if you feel lonely, come to the United States. You will be hot property; a silly accent makes me dark and mysterious. Exotic (laugh on Mathilde). I was nice to the girl. It happened that she was a bad snowboarder and that on the first run, she caught an edge on a flat and slammed her head on the ground.
On falls: falls are painful when:
1) You go slow
2) You hit a tree
3) You get hit by someone else when you are going slow and they are going fast
Hence, you can undertand why beginners get into more pain that advanced riders: they are afraid to go fast, when it is easier to fall and hurt oneself at low speeds (like on a bike).
Since she was falling a lot, Jimmy (the other guy) and I went off to test out our machoness. We raced down the groomed section, and we took on the moguls and the boulders. Moguls are bumps; going down them is like doing a set of squats. We did that all morning; when we needed a rest, we tested out how fast we could go.
To do that, pick a steep slope, preferably groomed. Point your snowboard straight down, bend your knees, and go. Speed is thrilling; I know that I probably won't fall, but I am very afraid of it nonetheless. Doubts creep in; when I change edge, for example. But my body and board haven't betrayed me; faithfully they keep me alive. I mentioned that falling at high speeds does not hurt; sliding into trees at high speeds does. There is always a constant blur of them on either side of the slopes. The speed becomes a thrill when I focus on what could go wrong.
Eventually we met the girls. They were at the top of the mountain in the first aid hut. The freshman girl had kept on hitting her head on the ground and had a mild concussion. She got towed down the mountain behind a snowmobile.
Talking to Jimmy, we found that we both had had concussions snowboarding; I can't remember my first jump ever, and he had a similar experience. Page (that's her name) has joined our ranks.

Enough about snowboarding...

A week's worth

Hey all,

the election is not a hot topic anymore. Political issues are not discussed here anymore. Instead we now talk about the weather, and midterms, and papers due. I only have two midterms left, and they both should be easy. The workload is greater than it is in Australia, but the work itself is easier. I find myself cruising through classes. But I sleep less than usual doing the work in time. In time usually is the night before, or if it seems really easy, a few hours before the due time.

We have started our marketing campaign. Good Credit + Knowledge = Power is our slogan. We had our first event last week and thirty people came. That is thirty in five hours. And today we had our second event: I would venture that less people came today. Probably because I told less of my friends to come. The campaign is not going too well at this time. I am learning the hard realities of working in teams. Academically, I am sure that these people would perform. But when asked to accomplish real tasks, and to meet certain objectives, they freeze, afraid of taking an initiative. At the same time, they dislike being told what to do, and they resent not knowing what they should be doing.
A conversation I had with a girl in charge of Personal Resources today illustrated that. She started by bitching about the group coordinator micro-managing, and when I asked her why she hadn't done what she was meant to do, she talked about her heavy timetable. I asked her a few simple questions about her tasks, like "do you know what we need to do to send mass emails?" and she answered that she didn't. She didn't have time and so had done nothing, and yet was bitching about the coordinator, who herself was working at least two hours a day on the project, slogging through reluctant administrations.

The advertising department talks about cute animals and other images we could use. And when they didn't meet the deadlines we had set them, they stopped doing anything altogether. Their job, done by someone else to meet the deadline, was over, they seemed to think. Advertising is a little more than about creating cool images: it is especially about publishing the ads in time for events, and whenever appropriate. It is about finding where to advertise. They learned all that for the last test; have they realised that theories can be applied? The bottom line: no ads have been published…

But I am learning much from these small failures. Firstly, not everyone is suitable for a job. Selection is crucial. Secondly, managing a team requires certain skills. I work hard to acquire these skills. I would say that setting goals, establishing hierarchies, and involving members to motivate them, are important. Thirdly, expectations must match realities. I expect more of these people than they can feel they can do, and there is their limit. Not what I think they can do, but what they think they can do when confronted with a situation.

Enough said about that. On Saturday I again went snowboarding. I can truly push my board further than I can go. It is not the board which doesn’t hold, but me who can’t keep up with the board. This means that I see myself racing through trees and slaloming between boulders in the near future. I got stuck between two major boulders at one stage, and instead of pointing my board down and going with it, I slid down, and then kept on going. It was one of the last runs of the day; I was tired; but still next time, I will jump from the top of the boulder and hope for the best. I hope that next time, I will have a proper snowboarding partner, one that can follow me wherever I go and one that is not obsessed by jumps and rails.

I have met a girl who might meet this profile. Tonight she invited me to the movies. To the movies. I felt eminently American for a little while then. She has an American accent, drives an SUV, and goes to the movies. We saw the Incredibles; it was better than I thought it would be. It is a movie about superheroes coming out of forced retirements. It is part of the new wave of comedy, and is sensibly politically correct. Go see it if you want something light and amusing.

Well enough said for tonight, my eyes are burning of tiredness,

until next time,

Albert

The BBC's view on the campaign

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/3992067.stm

Opportunities

I am now at my twelfth educational instituiton. Every change offers new opportunities. Realising that has made this trip very interesting so far.

I have started a project in marketing. 13 of us market credit education, and citibank as a responsible lender. Together, we spend time bickering. In little groups we decide what will happen.
http://citibankproject.blogspot.com/
And tomorrow is our first event: we will have a workshop style place where we will teach students about credit. We offer them free food so that they want to come in.
I am in charge of strategy for this campaign, and I've found it very interesting. I've looked at our group's resources, strengths, opportunities and weaknesses to work out the most effective strategy. An effective strategy maximises the number of impressions given specific resources. Impressions are estimated by surveying the student population after the campaign, and finding out how many know of our efforts.
Managing people is harder than I thought. No one likes receiving orders, but no one likes to do any work, and no one does any work unless they are given orders.

Saturday I went snowboarding. One of the resorts I have a season pass to opened early. The snow cover was decent, and I was able to test my new board. I am not going to go into much detail. That would make some of you envious otherwise. Apparently the season will be great this year.

In the spring I am going to go to Washington DC. I had an interview for it today. They had fourty applicants for fourty-five places. They like to act like they can choose among us. And we pretend along with them. But they have a quota to fill and we know that. Going to DC is another of these great opportunities: I intern into a company/organisation of my choice, for four days a week, write a long paper for one day a week, and visit the rest of the time. And all that in the pleasant spring climate.

Post Election

Something interesting happened. Something that shocked California: California's glamour did not woo America.
America the rebel, has not followed California's lead. America has voted for Bush. America has voted against abortion (prolife is the positive term), for the war in Iraq, for tax cuts, against medicare, and for religion.
And it seems that this has come as a surprise to the rest of the world. The result clashes with the view we get back home. What view do we get, you ask? We get what California wants us to know, we get what New York broadcasts. And what other view is there, then? The view of deep America: the states hidden between the two coasts. The states that drive the economy, and represent the real America. The church going, god fearing America. The America that doesn't travel.
Some fun statistics: 90% of Americans do not own a passport. 50% of Americans have never travelled more than 70 miles from their birthtown.
And where do you think these Americans live?

Bush's campaign was simply brilliant. It was nice to be here and see it happen.
Bush sold himself as: prolife, religious, righteous, moral, with integrity, driven, steady, safer.
And in all these points he was undefeated.
By the time America went to the poll, Bush was the choice of America's heart. Kerry embodied anti-bushism. And with Bush standing for such values, Kerry had little chance.

Bush's campaign was run by Karl Rove: here's what the BBC had to say about him:

KARL ROVE

Republican campaign mastermind Karl Rove helped return George W Bush to the White House. The 54-year-old has charted Mr Bush's political rise since his first election as Texas governor in 1994. Mr Bush has acknowledged him as "the architect" of his latest success. Described by many commentators as brilliant, Mr Rove resolutely focused on the Republicans' conservative religious base.

He went into the campaign intent on coaxing the millions of Christian conservatives who had not voted in 2000 to go to the polls. He consistently played on deepening cultural division by emphasising Mr Bush's religious faith, his position against gay marriage and expanding embryonic stem cell research.

Mr Rove refused to listen to critics who argued that a more centrist position would be need to win the election, and it appears to have paid off. Many voters cited moral values as a top reason why they voted.

I heard an interesting story about the man. Once in a tight election race, he called the FBI and told them that he had found a bug in his office. The media "heard" of it, and soon enough people were thinking back to Watergate. "No," in a redneck accent "we don't want people like that..."
Karl Rove's candidate won the election by a narrow margin. The FBI found out that the bug had been bought by Rove after the election, and the fact was then of little importance.

Check these links out:
http://www.famoustexans.com/karlrove.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove

It has been four days since the results came out, and California is quiet. No one cares anymore. Everyone knew that Bush would get elected.

Aside: California continued its unique position as a leader of not only the US, but a large portion of the innovative world, by voting yes on proposition 71. The state will fund $3 billion towards stem cell research even though it is broke. Bush does not support the innitiative but can't do much.

The Election Campaign

Some of you might be aware that there is a war raging in this country. One between two parties and their partisans. A war that uses real conflicts to inflict blows; a war that attemps to shame its participants; a war that draws from the poor to swing the rich.
Defamatory, Insulting, Lightly Veiled, blows are exchanged, and yet no clear winner has emerged.
That is until tomorrow.

California is a very liberal state; here, everyone puts down Bush. And why is that, you ask? California is very a self-conscious state; very susceptible to world opinion. Arnold is doing a good job, but everyone here is ashamed that he was elected; why, you say, they voted for him. Well, they did, but they like to make fun of themselves. Ah, we are so stupid here, they say. And they all say it, even the ones who voted for him.
California does not support Kerry. California hates Bush. All the tourists agree. And who is Kerry, but Bush's opponent? And the puppet of a massive backlash?

A backlash only tamed by an excellent support team. Yes everyone hates Bush. And yes they all think that Kerry is the one to vote for. But, all that television air is filtered by Bush's team. Nothing illegal. Just pure craftiness.
And so it is that all these Californian liberals have nothing to watch but republican propaganda. Kerry is always shown on the defensive. He does well, but he defends.

During the presidential debates, there was little doubt across the nation that Kerry was dominating. One on one, Bush is reduced to pretentious insignificance. And yet he smiles knowingly.
He knows. He knows that his support base is faithful, and he plays them. Christian, against abortion, against gay marriage, he follows the trend of his party. But he is also a creator. Bush has instilled fear in the American public.
Terrorism: a word that is heard constantly here. From back home, this obsession is a little comical. Here, it is predominent and seminal. His whole campaing stems from a cult of fear.
When Kerry dared insinuate that terrorism has gained too much importance and that the economy deserved more attention, Bush's strategists jumped on the opportunity, and using their vast media connections, inundated the public with a flood of non-sense. Kerry's written words were blown up, and showed to the credulous public as the proof of the man's incompetence.

And can the American public be blamed for its response? Haven't they been brainwashed into mindless acceptance since the 11th of September 2001? Haven't they agreed to the patriot act?

Today the polls show no clear winner. The candidates are spending time in the swing states, claiming votes with their smiles. The election might not be as close as it was four years ago, but at this stage analysts stand divided.

Back to Bush's supporters: they vote. Which is not the case of Kerry's supporters. Hence, in the college world, and on stations like MTV, campaigns have run to "rock the vote", or in other words, to encourage a wider portion of the electorate to go and vote.

The results are coming.