Couch Surfing

I got involved with couch surfing while I was in Istanbul and this week I had my first surfer here in Lawrence. If you are not hip to couch surfing you should check out the website http://www.couchsurfing.org/ .  It is a very cool way to travel, and, as my surfer pointed out to me this week, it is not just a way to travel on the cheap, it is a way to immerse yourself in other cultures and make new friends along the way.

My surfer this past week was an inspiration in many ways. She is Brazilian, but lived here 35 years ago while her father was doing his PhD at KU. She was still a child when they left, and her joy and awe at rediscovering the sites of her youth -the apartment where they lived, the nearby park, her elementary school - it was marvelous to witness. I was very sorry that her travels brought her to Kansas the hottest week of the year, and I was often concerned for her health, but she managed very well.

A professor of architecture, a cyclist and swimmer, and a recent breast cancer survivor, my couch surfer is an amazingly strong woman who does not realize what an inspiration she is for those of us who spend far more time than we should sitting on our butts. Since I am a huge Tour de France fan, I have spent most every evening for the past three weeks watching the tour, and it was a joy to have her here, sharing in my love for that particular sporting event. Although we live on different sides of the equator, we even share our favorites for the yellow jersey.

I think I am going to shop for an exercise bike...

Hot times

Suddenly Kansas (and wider areas of the middle of the country) has been captured by a brutal high pressure system which has decided to sit on our heads and spin relentlessly. It is as though an oppressive regime has enslaved the center of the country and is torturing the population while awaiting the delivery of an unnamed ransom payment. The newscast this morning predicted temperatures of 100 degrees or higher for the foreseeable future. And unlike Arizona, it is NOT a "dry heat", the air is thick and heavy all the time.

Not unlike the frigidly uncomfortable temperatures of January, the majority of the population has retreated to within their climate controlled environments, only venturing outside when it is necessary for continued survival... to forage Dillon's or HyVee for food... or to seek shelter at the local theater to consult with our favorite wizard, Harry Potter.

I move quickly from air-conditioned environment to air-conditioned environment... from home to work and back again... from the challenges of of my job to the sanctuary of watching Le Tour d'France... from reality to my dreams of standing in the clean, crisp mountain air, watching the peleton speed by.

Disconnected

I am disconnected. Cut off. There is a line from me to all those I love, but it has been cut and those ends are hanging with unreceived communication dripping from them. Okay that was pretty dramatic, but I thought the metaphor adequately describes what it is like being hundreds of miles from home. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, the students and my colleagues. But every day, at some point, I will think "Oh man, so-and-so would love that!" And yet, whoever that person is, they are far away and so the communication goes undelivered. It is the sharing of life's experiences which is missing. There have been days when the only communication I have is with the check-out person at the grocery store, and days where there has been no communication at all.

When my children were small and they misbehaved, they would be sent for time out and their lines of communication with others would be cut. They were not allowed to talk to others until they had thought about whatever it was they had done. That was the punishment in our house. So I find myself wondering if in some way I am being punished for something I have done. Analytically I don't think so, but at times it feels that way.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for a solitary existence, to be able to silence the cacophony of voices pulling one's attention in a myriad of directions simultaneously. Not that I have been particularly productive, but I do feel that now I can focus on those things which are important. I will spend my weekends this summer writing, preparing the story I must now tell. Disconnection has led to an ability to focus.

Pancakes

This morning I woke up (at 5:41 like I do) thinking, "I want pancakes!" So I washed my face, brushed my teeth, pulled on my jeans and a t-shirt and off I went. Making pancakes for one person just is not possible, so I decided to go out for breakfast. I drove to the local Perkins, just a couple of miles down the street. I have two comments about this experience.
1) A short stack of pancakes and four strips of bacon should not cost 10 bucks. Especially when the pancakes are incredibly bland and they give you faux maple syrup to put on them.
2) On the drive home I saw about 300 people out for their morning run. I'm serious - all decked out in their short shorts or stretchy pants, sleeveless tops and good quality shoes, they were running in a long line. Some of them were pushing babies, others had their dogs and many of them looked to be having actual conversations as they jogged along the sidewalk.
Okay, so now I feel like a real slacker, no more early morning trips to Perkins for me!

1st Semester Completed!

I completed my first semester at the University of Kansas this week. It has been an interesting adventure with a wonderfully smart and enthusiastic staff. It has been my pleasure to contribute to the 2873 consultations with writers that were done this semester, including over 320 online consultations. I have learned so much from the staff, about the practice of writing consultation, about my own practice and about the vibrant culture here at KU. And as always seems to happen with me, every day I learn that I have so much more to learn. 

It is also bittersweet to have to say good-bye to the graduates. On the one hand I am proud to have known them, and on the other hand, I am sorry we didn't get the chance to know each other better. I wish them all the best of the adventure that they are facing at this time in their lives. What a ride!

Spring has sprung!

I have to admit to being a little disappointed when I moved to Kansas in mid-January and was greeted by a blizzard. I thought, "I moved pretty far south, I thought winters would be milder!" But someone I met that first week told me that I would be happier in a couple of months when spring arrived earlier than in Michigan. She was right!

February was very wintry, but March in Kansas is more like April in Michigan - many mornings with frost on my windshield, some days early in the month with snow that stuck and piled up, but also many days where it was sunny and 'almost' warm. I went back to Michigan for my spring break week in late March, and had to face lots of snow and single digit temperatures. I wasn't very happy. And it snowed a bit in Kansas the Sunday before I came back. But that was the end of winter in Lawrence!

Spring arrived kind of abruptly. The Sunday after I returned it was 92 degrees! Holy cow! That was an unusual day, record breaking, in fact. But spring had definitely arrived. The next day there were trees in bloom all over town. There are huge trees covered in white blossoms, the red buds are in bloom and the crab apples are in full bud. Daffodils and tulips are blooming on campus and the students are running all over campus in shorts and flip-flops.

Yesterday I walked across campus in the sunshine and students were promoting their clubs and charities with a basketball free throw contest, boys on stationary bikes raising money for the homeless, and various other fun outdoor activities. I almost died laughing when I saw a campus police officer riding down the sidewalk on his segue! (A thoroughly emasculating device!)

I have had a very busy week, since my boss, the lovely Terese, is in Atlanta at a conference. I taught our tutor training class by myself, have had a steady flow of interns in the writing center (along with a plethora of writers), have been doing formal observations, and yesterday I got to spend an entire class period with Sociology Masters and PhD students. That class is on the top floor of the highest building on the hill. The view from up there was stunning! Even more fabulous for me personally was that I spent an hour with my kind of people. It brought me back to the time when I was in my Masters program, all kinds of wonderful people studying all kind of things that I find fascinating.

But as I drove home from campus last night, I was struck by the feeling of being alone more than usual. When I was in Istanbul there was a small and tightly knit group of ex-pats who welcomed me, and kept me from ever feeling like I was alone. In Kansas though, I have arrived into a society of people who already have their very busy, well organized lives well in place. Out side of my work environment, I am not feeling like I have a 'place' here yet. I found myself missing home, my friends and family last night...

Fat Tuesday

I woke up feeling very strange this morning. The first thought to pass through my semi-conscious mind was that today marks one year since my Dad passed away, and I felt sad. I remembered my sister in-law calling me on the phone, waking up on the sofa in my parents apartment in Tucson and hearing her grief stricken voice telling me that Dad had passed peacefully. Then I thought about going in to wake my Mom, laying down on the bed beside her cancer stricken body and telling her that her husband of 65 years had passed away. "I guess we should get up" she said to me. Then I thought, I can't let the sadness swallow me whole... I get to go to work today, I have to find a way to find some joy....

And then I remembered it is Fat Tuesday. I thought about the Flint tradition of paczkis. I never even heard of these until I moved to the Flint area where on every Fat Tuesday, thousand of these giant jelly doughnuts are purchased and consumed. I don't really know where this tradition came from, but my guess is that the Polish immigrants who came to work int he automotive industry brought them to Michigan. I wondered, briefly, if they have them in Kansas, but I doubt it.

And then I thought about the most fun I ever had on a Tuesday... it was at the Fasching parade in Cologne, Germany. (Koln for the purists.) The whole area has a huge party, thousands of people in costumes - whole families of cowboys, Indians or clowns - gather along the streets to watch the fun. Each little town has a section of the parade - which lasts for hours and hours. The village participants dress in matching costumes, bring their town band and huge ancient wagons filled with the town's favorites who toss flowers to the ladies lining the street and candy to everyone. Every town has its own candy which is wrapped for the event in papers which tout the town's name. I had been told about this so Larry, Nick and I went prepared to grab as much candy as we could. I was thinking probably little squares or maybe 'fun-size' bars of chocolate... which there were... I had not been expecting them to throw 3 pound boxes of chocolates at us! It was the most amazing parade I had ever seen - and I have seen a lot of parades! After about four hours, we were exhausted and ducked into a nearby cafe to sit and watch the rest of the parade go by while we had soup and something to drink.

Now I realize that this parade was not as spectacular or glitzy as those in New Orleans or Rio, but it was the most fun I had ever had on a Tuesday. I have decided that I am going to focus on the Fasching parade today whenever I feel sad.