FIUTS Pen Pals

Yesterday, I finally got to meet my little pen pal Bethany.

Bethany and I had been writing letters and Emails back and forth as part of the FIUTS Outreach program with the White Center Elementary School. Most of the children are considered materially or socially less fortunate and have a slim chance of going to college. By meeting somebody at a university (and from a foreign country even), they get introduced to this form of higher education, which might help them to lose at least some of the unknown big world of ACADEMIA.

Wednesday lunch is a great opportunity to come together, so we met the kids there to have peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches.



As I knew from the letters, my little "midgit" is a little shy and not very talkative. When she saw me first, she blushed and turned away. Since I knew she would be hard to crack, I had brought her a camera in order to engage her in an activity and possibly some conversation.



We did manage to talk about her last holiday, locate Long Beach on a map and took a couple of pictures together. Like me she prefers to be behind the camera rather than in front of it.

Rica from Japan had similar difficulties with her little pen pal Zainab, who happened to be Bethany's best friend. We joined froces and learned to write our names in Japanese and Arabic (Zainab's mother tongue).



For Shaun from Australia and his little pal, the connection came a little more natural, it seems ;-)



However, when Bethany got to show off her new name sign (in three languages and with little drawings on it) to her friend Mariah, she bloomed. Mariah teaches Bethany some Spanish and so I learned how to say "can we go out to play" in Spanish: "Podemos ir jugar afuera?"

Dad visit

Dad Visiting

Two weeks before the end of Winter Quarter, I had a very special guest here in Seattle. Admittedly, it might not have been the wisest choice to have him here while I had to work for school like crazy, but we still had a very fun time. Most of the time we went out together we took pictures.



We took the Ferry to Bainbridge Island on Tuesday after his arrival (which was adjacent to my return from Nashville)



The ferry ride in itself was a lot of fun and we had a little picknick on the island. And of course some good ol' conversations from man to man.

I was pretty busy on Wednesday, but Thursday we made it downtown and took a stab at the Seattle Art Museum before I had to do my big presentation in my film class. It was funny discussing art with him once again. We have a very different taste and approach to art, but it is nice to discover the similarities and differences and discuss the viewpoints.

That night we went for a FIUTS Benefiz concert and I saw to it that Papa Britz (as my roomies called him) would get himself on the dancefloor - where he was actually doing really good!



On Friday, after an Odysee in court and on the buses, we took the Underground Tour of Seattle, which is amazing. The Old Man had a close encounter with the "crapper", although I have no idea why he would want to clean his glasses in that ;-).



At night, it was time for a plunge into more new experiences. I finally managed to get Kamil AND Hermina together and Jenna joined us for my Dad's first Mexican food.

Saturday was probably our best day together. After I had shown him MY and THE center of the universe, we went on a hike through the neighborhoods of Seattle to Discovery Park, which is an amazing site!

Apparently, my Dad had been watching me taking pictures and adopted my weird camera positions.

We took great pictures at the site ...

. . . and had the most delicious honey smoked salmon snacks there.

I think it is funny how obsessed he has gotten with photography after I started it, yet he still maintains his own style. We have a different way to look at the world, although I think we can get an idea of how the other one sees "the picture" by now. I was actually surprised by how well we got along considering how thickheaded we have both been in the past.

It was a great visit and I am glad that he had made it over. I think I was able to show him a little bit of my life and how great it is - and maybe I was also able to grind down some of his (what I think is unfounded) Americanism in this awesome city!

Fulbright Enrichment Seminar: Nashville, Tennessee

Fulbright Enrichment Seminar Nashville

Mutual Understanding: Mission Possible
Robert Altman has shown the morode conditions of Nashville's society - time for Fulbrighters to clean up ;-) .

For four days, Nashville, Tennessee was the meeting place for 140 daring Fulbrighters from 69 different countries exploring "Social Entrepreneurship", businesses that incorporate social responsibility into their business plan in order to save the city of Nashville and the whole world!

In order to get to Nashville, I took a red-eye (overnight) flight, which was delayed by a sudden snow "storm" - a couple of snowflakes that Seattlelites unfortunately don't know how to handle since it barely snows here. All odds were against the mission.



With a couple of hours delay, I arrived in Nashville and went to explore the city. Altman had not exaggerated. Crime and offence were all around - and so was the sound of country music from speakers at the traffic lights. We were terrified!



Together with a friend, I investigated among the locals, but they remained silent as to who pulled the strings of these criminal wheelings and dealings.



Finally, we came across some clues that suggested a critical underground movement.



They helped us to identify the source of the troubles that Nashville had slided into - until it finally became the "buckle of the bible belt".



Shocked and appalled, we gathered the Fulbrighters in the conference room of the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Nashville and went to develop a plan. Our strategy was clear: Social Entrepreneurship was the mission!



After we heard a talk about the concept and the theory, we collectively decided it would be best to go out and explore the possibilities of applying social entrepreneurship to the city.

We soon found a place to mix with the locals and in order to gain their trust, we engaged in one of the local extravagances: country dancing. This evil vice soon took over some of the Fulbrighter's minds, enhancing the already present red-eye effect among them.

However, the strategy worked and we were introduced to the leader of the underground movement: Ernesto!

Under the cover of an after-school program for children at the Preston Taylor Boys & Girls Club, Ernesto runs a secret network that reinstalls order and justice in the community.

He encouraged us to participate in his conspirative movement and we spent an afternoon working closely with local kids hiding in the the underground movement and spy system from the ill-treatment of society.

We encouraged the children in their work and Ernsto really made us part of his project; it was amazing. We became an integrated part of the subversive element.

In turn, we shared our experiences from all over the world with this great man and his fearless crew, introducing them to the beauty of our own countries.

After a day of hard work, we deserved some rest and nourishment: The Tennessee State Museum had agreed to host our Fulbright troops for a reception, but suspicious of the venue, we continued our research in the country bars with live music.

Saturday morning called for action. Subdivided into eight different groups, we met up to develop strategies that would safe not only Nashville, but the whole world! Public Health, Economic Development, Education and Environment were the main issues we wanted to adress.

In my group, we focused on environment and came up with a sustainable business model that adressed Student Housing Administrations under the cover of Financial Consultants with the secret goal of subversively influencing their students to produce less waste and use less energy by educating them. We would slowly undermine the vicious system of pollution under the name EnSol!

After saving the world - one Fulbrighter at a time - we went to trace our defeated enemy's history in the Museum of Country Music. Under the innocent cover of music, the vices had slowly found their way into Nashville's society.

Guns and steel came to dominate a city that had been peacefully humming and chiming to the clicking of country boots on the streets.

Dancing and celebration followed our success and each of us swore a sollem oath never to forget our fruitful days in Nashville, the amazing community we had formed, the wonderful people we had met, despite the fact that we had to part.

We would stay connected to create more mutual understanding all over the world and save it one Fulbrighter at a time.

(Harmonius cliché group photo to be posted soon)

President's Day

In celebration of America's president (originally of George Washington's Birthday), I spent my day out side on the front porch reading about public space and democratic values in urban planning. I'm sure Mr. President would appreciate that!


I want to dedicate this picture to Sarah, who is covered in Snow in cheltenham, England!

Recently, I have had several conversations about the influence of Obama's heritage and his skin color.
The other day somebody told me about condoms that were given out during the campaigns and the boxes had the candidate's heads drawn on them. Suggestions for the content was: Hillary's condom contains an almost painfully warming lube, McCain's condom definitely needs to be of wrinkled texture and Obama's has to be chocolate brown.

It reminded me of the excited comment by a black guy on election day: Barack Obama, oh yes baby, they gonna haf te paint de white house black now!"

"In honor" of America's first black President, our toaster has set its default on the production of black toast lately. I feel we will have to impeach this toaster - a black president is a sign of progress... not only for this country... black toast on the other hand is a bad omen across all national, cultural, racial and social groups!

"The public" has already called for action on this matter:

Valentines Day Bike Extravaganza: Chilly Hilly on Bainbridge Island

Every February on a Sunday bike riders from the Puget Sound area meet up for the "Chilly Hilly" on Bainbridge Island for a mass riding. The Island will be jammed!

So we (Kamil, Maggie and I) decided to use this encridibly "sickening hallmark holiday" to get our romantically unentangled asses on our bikes and circle the Island where boats get stuck ON piers.

Now, Islands are supposed to be flat, small and pretty convenient to travel on, right? Bainbridge doesn't go by these rules. It is supposed to be a beautiful touristy island, but it also has it's little brutal ways of sneaking up on you.

The hills come across pretty tame in the beginning. Sure, we went up and down for about two hours, but nothing worth mentioning. That had nothing to do with us not finding the right track or anything of course!

After a while, however, the hills got hillier and hillier and after almost five hours of riding we had gotten pretty sick of hills.
See the chart from the Chilly Hilly website to get an idea why:

We were on our way back when we saw our return ferry coming in from the city.

Our last energy went into a frantic sprint to get the ferry...of course there was yet another hill... and yet another... we made it just in time! I have no idea how we managed to ride our bikes back to Fremont, but I have this funny feeling my thighs will tell me the story tomorrow...

Pimp my Place: México in Fremont and my cool roomies

AMPUniverse:
I have been here in my new place Fremont now for a while. Time to introduce the inhabitants and space of the AMP (Amanda-Maggie-Paul) Universe! Since you already know me... sort of... here are my new roomies:

Amanda is very calm and quiet. She likes to keep the apartment clean and tidy and leads us with a good example on that. She studied philosophy and religion, worked in bioengineering, used to be a baker and now she does contract work in book keeping. She is very athletic and regularly bruses her butt on a snowboard. Although her taste in music is sometimes questionable (Timberland? Really now?), she is really cool and laid-back... at least when not working ;-).

Maggie is a little more lively. We seem to have quite a lot in common... except for one tiny little flaw that she has: She's vegetarian! However, I'm trying to be very tolerant about it - although I can't help myself and offer her meat every time I get a chance. Maggie used to work in PR and is now doing time work jobs to keep afloat in the economy. She introduces me to new music and makes fun of me all the time. We have this little brother-sister vibe going, although it is yet to be determined who is the older sibling ;-).

My room:

In memory of my Mexico trip, I have decided to dedicate my room to travel.

Unfortunately the ceiling won't support somebody to sleep in the hammock, but it still makes for a nice atmosphere.

The cover makes for a great "wallpaper" - and it covers the ugly yellow beghind it ;-).

FIUTS SnowShoeing & roomate dinner

The weekend was fun.

On Friday I went to the U to get my driver training on the automatic 12 person car ship. It was horrible at first. Although I could keep my foot stable, I always grabbed the air for the stick to shift in the first hour.

Later we had a driver meeting with Nicole and it turned out that Myrna (who I had met previously at the Gala) and Ruben (whom I had never met before) and I were the only facilitators on the snow shoe trip and that we were actually supposed to lead it. We went to Shureshot afterwards to evenly distribute the kids for the next day and give our vans a tiny level of uniqueness.

The trip itself was stressful, but a lot of fun. It took us a little to get to Steven’s Pass, but in the end it all worked out. The snowshoeing was great.

There were a lot of Singaporians on the trip and when we returned to our starting point and still had time, we started building a snowman and had a snowball fight with them.

Many of the kids had not seen snow up until ten days before when it had snowed in Seattle.

Sunday was a fun day, too. The first week in my new place had felt a little awkward and so I had decided to try and break the ice with a little dinner. Boy, if I had known what trouble I’ve gotten myself into living with a vegetarian!! Instead of cooking one of my famous meat meals (see the por shoulder roast I made the other day)

I made some vegetarian spinach lasagne. The Lasagne and the wine helped a little in warming them up and we talked and laughed a lot that night. Ever since I feel much more comfortable, more home in my new place!