Pictures and a poem

Title is self-explanitory! The long-awaited pictures and a little poem from San Salvador.

San Salvador at dusk.

Marketplace in San Sal Centro

Danny with kiddos at Open
School. Friendly game of
ball and chain quickly became...

...dog pile!

Wall of civil war victim names.

Iglisia de Rosario

Inside Iglisia de Rosario

Like a Mayan temple for Christ,
half-domed wheel slicing east to west across
San Salvador.
Rainbow glass across its belly
shows the birth and death of every day.
East to west, blood to blue, fade
to gold and grey.
Mountains are my cathedrals,
leave me open to the sky,
embrace the energy of creation, sacred or secular.
But when I must remember the people,
my boundaries, my roots,
give me this church
where vines crawl through grated windows
in the half-light of stained glass,
and the sounds of the city echo across the dome.
The glory of earth and growth
capture the orchestra of the human condition.

My classroom in Suchitoto. Sometimes I have trouble concentrating on Spanish!

In Suchitoto, the stairs leading to my room.

My room in Suchi.

Mama Nena making pupusas over a wood fire.

My host sister and brother, Jhosseline and Nelcito. Nelcito is just learning how cute he is and that if he laughs with mouth wide open, so will we!

Giant moth!

I hiked a few hours to this waterfall. Apparently you can jump in from the side, but I wouldn't want to!

Me and waterfall.

Me and more waterfalls! These rocks are volcanic hexagonal pillars, just like the Giants' Causeway in Northern Ireland! Just like Devil's Tower! I ran into two Canadians and an American in Suchi, and we got the local tourist police to bring us to these falls (apparently there is a dangerous patch between them and Suchi). Then on the way, we picked up a whole gaggle of students visiting from a town across the lake and had a grand time fitting about 25 people on a police pickup truck. I would have taken a picture, but I couldn't move!

Making pupusas!

That's all for now, amigos. Hasta luego!

Lys

Some chewy pontification

Dark air rushes through the bus window, melted cheese, bean paste, seedy brothels, cheap beer. Permanent sign on the wall, "Girls over 18 needed. FREE FOOD!" This is one of the dangerous places, we should sit in the middle of the bus. And I am always safely tucked next to the window, blasted by exhaust, music pounding, music that beats your heart to its own rhythm.

This is one of the dangerous places, with music that threatens to make your heart skip tracks. After a moment of silence or intense sound, I may find myself back in the same song, a few seconds on. Or I may find myself in a new song entirely. One brimming with the acuteness of immediate life and death. Maybe when your death walks close beside you, its shadow makes life the brighter. All jokes here are about death, the way the closer you are to a friend, the more pointedly you jest them, the more honest your jokes become.

Death is close here. Danny explains the shadows it casts, translates through the haze of my pointless phrasebook Spanish. She lost her brother to the gangs this spring. Those guys, they're cool. But their brother got mixed up with some bad characters and disappeared a few years ago. The guy in the hammock who painfully blinks swilling out of his eye has just survived meningitis. I was out of my body, he tells us, I heard voices calling. I came back.

It sounds like you still have something to live for, Danny says.

After years working here, Danny knows many of their stories. The adults shake his hand, smile. ¿Daniel, qué tal? The children, less restrainted, flying and hooting like winged monkeys to latch on to his shoulders, waist, legs, ankles. ¡Buuuuurrrriiidge! Or the cool pass of the Salvadoran fist bump from the boys. These teenage boys are the focus of the open school at La Chacra Parish. When families are fractured and traditional role models -- parents, police, professors, politicians -- are absent or fight against you, it is no surprise that teens search for identiy, community, and safety in gangs. The open school is trying to rebuild something from the foundations of community still standing after the civil war.

And the people of the parish that we meet radiate the feeling of community. (Or so it seems through my rose-colored glasses, my sunglasses stowed away to leave my eyes open and uncovered. Look honest, look friendly. Try to look bad-ass and you might get shot.) This sense of belonging is what I have missed since leaving the intentional communities in England. I have been here less than a day and already a group of girls detatch themselves from Danny to throw their arms around my waist. Through curious gazes, the women assess me honestly. Pretty, you could almost be Latina. Nice eyes. Voice like gravel. Incomprehensible Spanish. But open. I feel a rhetorical nod of approval.

They return to frying pupusas or plantanes, children chase a hard plastic ball along the abandoned train track. The human and animal smells swirl within a thickening of the air, a dense network of ties among people that wraps like a hammock around the stacked buildings, swaying in the motion of so many lives.

I wonder if I am the sensitive one, seeing community everywhere here because it is what I am searching for. Why do I find community in a place so grasping for family and community that children turn to the family of guns? Is the gringo life, the American dream, so devoid of extended human connection that even this small gossamer community can draw me in, fill that space? Or is it the Salvadorans who are sensitive, so dependent on the human web that a few broken strands can lead to systemic failure?

Or maybe it is not related so much to country as to condition. My cynic's lenses see the web of the "American dream" attached at many material points, the stuff on which we build our lives. Break a strand and I will buy you a new one. This web is resiliant, but perpetually lonely.

Then there are webs entangled in the human experience, each line tying one life to another. When something (i.e. the war in El Salvador) tears through these life-lines, the whole ephemeral structure tumbles in on itself. Those at the center draw closer together, but those at the fringe are left dangling, grasping at that breeze of passing lives for what once connected them to the world.

And what can I do? Where do I fit? My song is playing with motifs of family, stability, and security. I could play out my life this way. Why give up these things to drown in the flood of "what could be done"? In San Salvador, each street needs a year to be cleaned, each river a lifetime. Each life needs something I almost certainly cannot give. But I tremble when I think of an indefinite return to my secure, and isolated, steel web.

My time in El Salvador must be a journey of balance. My current song is not yet over, and I do not think I am ready for a drastic skip in the record. But I can allow a change in the rhythm as a new motif takes shape. My heart skips a beat and returns with a side of salsa.

¿Quién dijo que todo está perdido? Yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón.
Who said all is lost? I have come to offer my heart.
-Fito Paez(?)

With love,
Lys

Abroad again!

Hi everone!
Well, I am off travelling again. I was lucky enough to find a good job in Laramie with the Survey and Analysis Center (a department of the University) and I will start full-time work there in August. The great part is that they first let me take the time to go travel in El Salvador for three weeks! So here I am, travelling, again. I will begin with a quick rundown of the past few days, and then in separate posts (so as not ta overwhelm y'all) pontificate a little on some of the thoughts that have been running through me brain since I arrived. Unfortunately, I do not have a connection for my camera (d'oh!) so the pics will have to wait.

I took the red-eye out of Denver at 1am on Thursday and after a perfectly smooth trip arrived in San Salvador at around noon. I caught a taxi to my friend Danny Burridge's 'bourgeois' house in Miralvalle (a district of San Sal). Danny was one of the on-site coordinators for the NEVOSH delegation I did with Grandma Ann in January. He's been living in El Sal for about five years, recently working with at-risk youth in La Chacra, one of the primary gang areas in San Salvador. Thursday evening I met some of Danny's anglophone friends (who are here working for various NGOs) for a political discussion. What a bunch of interesting, intelligent women (oh, and Danny)!

Friday was somewhat more adventerous. Because Danny is associated with La Chacra Parish, the gang members know him, so he's probably in less danger than anyone else careless enough to wander into the area. And, banking on safety by association, I was able to accompany him to the Open School there on Friday. The only attack we suffered was from a gang of excited children who rushed us when we arrived at the school. I escaped with only three or four girls hugging me happily, but Danny was buried under a pile of kiddies screaming "Buuuuurrrridge!" I could probably spend pages writing about my afternoon in La Chacra alone, but your time is sacred, and most importantly, I could not do justice to the experience.

Saturday, one of the part-time residents of the 'bourgeois' house, Eduardo, was kind enough to drive me up into the volcanic mountains surrounding San Salvador to show me La Puerta del Diablo, the devil's door. There are a couple rocky crags you climb up that offer a stunning view of the city to one side and the ocean to the other. Or so I am told. Unfortunately, the whole area was in cloud. We had a great time climbing around and eating pupusas (kind of a stuffed tortilla and the token food of El Salvador), but did not see much of the countryside. That evening I helped Danny and his friend Danielle do some studying for the GRE, though it was mostly drinking beer and eating pizza and lauging. Then we braved a drenching rain storm to go dance to a live salsa band at Cafe la T (get it?) I still cannot move my hips well enough to really salsa, but maybe one day I'll get there.

Sunday, I set out on an adventure of my own. Danny helped set a little agenda of busses and walking through more or less safe areas of the city. I visited a few markets, the city center, and a park with a wonderful art exhibit themed "Dependence and Independence" and a wall (possibly a block long) listing all the names of civilians who were murdered or who disappeared during the civil war in the 1980s. I also visited the cathedral and an amazing modern church (Iglisia de Rosario) in the center. A full, interesting, and uneventful (in a good way) day.

Today I took a bus to Suchitoto, about an hour and a half north of San Salvador. This is where I will be spending the bulk of the next three weeks at the language school Pajaro Flor. I went straight to the house of my host family. Mi madre es Nena, y mis hermanas son Mariela y Josylina ( really do not know how to spell their names), y mi hermano es Nelcito. (There, the extent of my Spanish, with out accents since I haven't figured those out yet). Mi padre, Nelson, will apparently be home this evening. The family runs a pupuseria (pupusas every night for dinner, hoorah!) and are extremely welcoming and patient with my terrible Spanish. I have my own room, perched above the little courtyard. It is lovely! I also managed to find the school where I will be studying, and it is incredible. The "classroom" is outside on a terrace overlooking a lake surrounded by mountains. More pictures to come!

Well, I am going to leave this stuffy little internet cafe and go back outside for more exploring! I just wanted to say I am here, safe, and having a wonderful time.

Until next time!
Lys

One week gone

Words from beyond Danish land!

Although ironically, the only Danish I had was at the US delegation booth. One of the great things about the conference was all the free food. Lunch at the Holland Climate House, canapés at the EU delegation offices, dinner from a buffet at a side event, coffee and Danishes (all day every day!) at the US offices, etc.

The free food took the edge off an otherwise emotional week in Copenhagen. Now I’ve had an exhausting trip home, during which I managed to type up this post but not send it (you would think that one of the six airports would have had working wireless!) The flurries in Copenhagen turned into a raging blizzard that led to two nights sleeping in airports, a string of delays and breakdowns, and about 55 hours total of travel time.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about! I'm here to talk about negotiations, marches, action, non-action, violence, and desire for violence. So obviously, I survived the protests Wednesday, but not entirely unscathed. Physically, I am unhurt, but I think my faith in both high-level negotiations and direct action will take awhile to recover. It all really kicked off on Saturday...

Saturday was full to the brim of crazy. I spent the morning at KlimaForum, the "People's Climate Forum" for all those not invited to the COP15 or disenchanted with capitalism, corporations, big business, big government, nuclear power, neoliberalism or any other range of charismatic mega-concepts that could be tagged onto COP15. KlimaForum was the hub, the brewing spot, for many of the direct action events in Copenhagen. A giant march was planned for Saturday afternoon/evening going from the centre of town all the way to Bella Centre several kilometres away.

Reactions inside Bella Centre as live footage fed onto a big-screen TV: So are these guys with us or against us? Most people believe climate change is a real threat, and most people think that’s a bad thing. So why would anyone march against COP15? Even from where I stood, straddling that suddenly tangible UN police barrier between government and public, I couldn't accurately respond.

So I went to find the answer. Outside, tens of thousands (100,000?) pooled in front of Bella in the chilly blue light that illuminated the blades of the centre’s wind turbine. Messages from the speakers:

• “We want an agreement that is fair and binding!” – Mary Robbins
• “Climate justice now!” – Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of the Earth (FOE)
• “Revolution! Smash capitalism!” – Ian Terry
• “Nuclear power will kill us all! We should kidnap these negotiators and feed them cat food!” – Helen Caldicott

So Mr. Suit, are they with you or against you?

And who, for that matter, am I with? That night, walking away from the action, I thought I was more with negotiators. No one I’d talked to on the “outside” had any viable suggestion on what to do. Kidnap the negotiators and feed them cat food? Yeah, that will stop climate change. Smash capitalism? To what end? And how? And would that really cause more good than harm in the end? While I think direct action can be successful when used against discrete problems, perhaps global problems really do need global solutions, supported by grassroots but fed by the head.
Then the negotiations further faltered, the NGOs were restricted, numbers capped to make room for the staff of the heads of state. Civil society was shut out to make room for the presidents’ hair dressers and cocktail mixers (literally). Leading to the situation I described in my last post.

I left for Bella Wednesday morning (just after finishing the post) with my NSEP cohort Nick. Initially I was frustrated – we were slow moving, the metro stations were shut, and the coffee man took fifteen minutes to make a bagel. I kept thinking, “C’mon! We’re missing the action!” It was true – we missed the action by moments, thank goodness. We got to the group seconds after police began to encircle the actionists, to corral them between encroaching riot cars, police lines, and a swampy irrigation ditch. I considered jumping into the fray but decided better after I saw police club a cameraman who was attempting an escape after being unlucky enough to get caught behind lines. The demonstrations remained peaceful (if vocal); however, despite this restraint, minutes later clouds of caustic teargas erupted in the middle of the crowd.

Safely upwind and across the deep muddy irrigation ditch I could only look on feeling sickened and useless. Once things calmed, someone managed to build a little bridge across the ditch and we joined the group. We heard that Friends of the Earth (who had simultaneously staged a walk out from Bella) were banned from the conference but forbidden to join the group on the outside. Then conference directors threatened a media ban because the media was “encouraging the protests...”

Suddenly I was sympathising much more strongly with the demonstrators. What more can you do when you feel your voice is not being heard, that you are shut out in the cold, tear-gassed and clubbed? For those experienced actionists reading this, I’m sure you’re saying... Well duh. But for me it was a new sentiment. For me direct action had always been just one tool in the kit, sometimes more effective than others, rather than an expression of desperation.

Later that day my newfound solidarity sparked an argument with an ex-military Yale student who had joined me in watching the live web stream from the plenary. He commented that FOE and the actionists were asking for it (the tear gas, etc) trying to stage a simultaneous walk in/out. It was illegal after all to breach a UN secured border. I tried to explain the desperation, the fact that it was a peaceful demonstration. But he recounted the intimidation one feels when being marched upon, how easy it is to panic and throw gas canisters (or shoot someone). Marching like that, he reiterated, was asking for trouble. What did we expect?

So Mr. Yale man, is a girl in a short skirt “asking for it?” Are we to pardon actions driven by the base instincts, by lust or fear?

Not to say I have no sympathy for any member of these conflicts. Diverse groups - the police and demonstrators, the developed and developing countries, the north and south - came head to head, driven by fear, frustration, helplessness or hopelessness, desperation, and obligation. What did I expect?

I In fact, I had few expectations for COP15, but I had hopes. In my naivety, in my idealism, I hoped people would be able to work together. That maybe they would be bonded in their fear, frustration, and desperation when faced by a massive global threat. I hoped negotiators would somehow find a way to act for the greatest global good. I hoped demonstrators would find constructive ways to be heard, to voice their support for fair and binding agreements or viable alternatives to them. I hoped the USA would lead even without the blessing of the Senate. I hoped the world would mourn the failure of COP15. Instead, negotiators promote COP16, the demonstrators celebrate (the failure of big business/government?) and the rest of the world seems more or less indifferent. The real audacity of hope is that you’ve got further to fall when your champions let you down. Maybe we do just need another year – I hope we have that long.

-Lys

It's getting wild out there...

Hi all,

Wednesday morning in Copenhagen, and things are getting wild. Negotiations and everything they stand for appear to be breaking down. The weather seems to want to reflect the turbulence -- snow started falling last night and continues down in whirls today. I am half way through another blog about the past few days, but I feel I need to say something now, before the thick of the insanity and the blizzard set in.

Let me try to explain.
First, the process is losing transparency. One of the things I've consistently been able to say to COP skeptics in favour of the negotiations is that they are based on consensus and that they are more or less transparent to the public. Negotiation rooms in Bella make up a fraction of the total space -- the rest is dedicated to NGOs and the press, allowing them to spread their message and receive that of the delegates. Starting yesterday, however, numbers of NGO members allowed inside were cut by three quarters. NGOs must now have two badges to get inside Bella and three needed to get into most plenaries. Today in addition to the badges, they are capping the number of people that can enter and they are no longer allowing anyone to register, even speakers for events! Meaning that unless you are there at the crack of dawn, you will be left in the cold. Literally. Queues to get inside Monday and Tuesday were so long that many people waited ten hours trying to get inside.

Not only are negotiations being blocked from outsiders, even insiders are being left in the dark. Multiple meetings are being held at the same time, meaning delegates cannot attend every session they need. This is just one manifistation of the next major problem...

Second, negotiations themselves are breaking down. Apparently, plenaries went until well after 2am last night as delegates struggled to get around seemingly irreconcilable differences. Heads of state are due to start arriving today and will expect some kind of coherent text to be presented to them. However, last night when delegates were presenting their "progress" to the chair, they instead essentially made a plea for help. As my friend Rosa reported, their words were, "Mr. Chairman... Please, explain to us where to go." (http://adoptanegotiator.org/2009/12/15/mr-chairman%E2%80%A6-please-explain-to-us-where-to-go/) Things are not looking good for Kyoto or her COP15 daughter...

The third issue: the natives are restless. The natives of Cophenhagen are restless. After a massive protest in Christiana (a portion of Copenhagen that ceded from the city in the 70s and later from the EU) yesterday spurred police to enter the compound for only the second time in decades. The residents, generally outside the reach of the police here, are not pleased... The NGOs and delegations representing indigenous people (and all the other NGOs!) are restless. After putting in vast amounts of time and monetary resources to get here, they are standing in the snow, blocked from negotiations. The "people" of the people's forum, KlimaForum are restless. This alternative forum has been the hub of much of the direct action here in Copenhagen. With the rising tension and with the feeling that nothing is being accomplished (even now with only three days to go), the people have staged a massive action set to decend on Bella this morning. Long queues of cold, angry NGO members plus masses of burning angry activists plus a police force stretched too thin as it is.... things could get ugly.

I will report more when I can... but everyone, we need your good energy here! Hopenhagen and all it represents is crashing into despair...

With love,
Lys

Memories of Michaelmas, Comments from Copenhagen

Friends and Family, lend me your ears!

My first term (called Michaelmas) as a second-year MPhil has officially come to an end. It was much busier than I expected, but that is only to be expected (hmmm...) The exciting news is that I am now in Copenhagen observing the COP15 events and side events. I wish I could say I was here for one exciting cause like lobbying a minister, tracking a negotiator, or organising a demonstration. However, I can only honestly say that I am here to learn what I can, experience life on both sides of the UN Police barriers, and report back to you all.

First, an update on the past few months...

1. Research/courses: Research is progressing, if slowly and wanderingly. I turned in my first official written work... 5000 words on methods. Response from my adviser, Sarah Whatmore, was generally positive but intimidating in that she strongly suggested I do some more interviews outside the community and also reminded me of the timeline I have... i.e. running out. For more on all this exciting stuff (including my exciting but massively time consuming GIS work), check out my research blog at www.alywex.wordpress.com.
2. Rugby: Our bad luck and losing streak continues. First, our men's team lost their Varsity (Oxford/Cambridge) match last week. My team continues to do poorly in our matches, at least partially due to an unnatural number of injuries -- casualty count up to two broken legs, broken hand, and countless smaller injuries that only mess up a few games for the person. This includes the broken nose and cheek bone I got three weeks ago. Can only wait for the gargoyle face to go away... wait, that's just how I look. Damn.
3. Rowing: After I got the hang of it, my beefy rugger legs earned me a spot on the 1st novice boat. I got to participate in one regatta. We won our first race there by miles (well, meters) as you can see in the video (I have a braid and red cap). You can also see that we are definitely novices, haha. Unfortunately, (un)luck of the draw for our second race pitted us against the team that went on to win and we lost to them (though only narrowly). I've been enjoying the early mornings and team camaraderie, but next term the big race is on the same weekend as my varsity rugby match, so I will probably only be subbing. Ah well.

Now on to the juicy stuff! Copenhagen! I will break this up into a few posts so as not to be overwhelming. I arrived on Friday, the fifth day of negotiations here. I arrived in the morning, exhausted from a few weeks of increasing sleep deprivation. It was a bit like a technicolor dream, walking out of the secure area into a sea of signs like Nigerian Delegation, YUNGO, BINGO, RINGO, ENGO meeting points, and the ever helpful "Information." I went directly to the conference centre, the Bella Centre, and queued for about an hour to get registered. This was not bad compared to the four hours the Monday arrivals experienced.

Structure

Considering how many people are here, everything has been remarkably well organized. Here, your badge is everything. It determines if and to what events you can attend. I am a lowly yellow NGO observer (Oxford is a RINGO, or Research/Independent NGO). There are also orange media badges and pink party badges.

The conference centre is in a number of temporary (i.e. removable) carbon-zero buildings. There are tons of wind turbines around here, one (symbolic?) one next door to the Bella Centre, others further away next to their smokier counterparts (see pics). Decor is a bizarre mix of open ceiling modern/industrial and "nature." There are giant bamboo trees in the main hall and little saplings (instead of cut flowers) on cafe tables. When we (I had met up with a fellow NSEP friend, Nick) made it inside, Nick and I were fortunate enough to find yet another NSEPer who is now working for Birdlife International. He showed us around and helped us get our bearings. The centre is organized into several halls. One is for observing organization stalls and side events. Another is for the actual negotiations -- there are two main negotiation strands. One is about what to do with the Kyoto Protocol (the CMP) and the general conference of the parties (COP). Then, there are press conference rooms, delegation offices, cafeterias, and massive banks of computers (the one I'm at is of about 450 or more) with free printing (environmentally friendly?) There are so many events going on at once that it would likely take a year to see and do everything. So Friday afternoon I went to a few side events, browsed NGO stalls, scored a free dinner from a delegation, and stumbled back to my sleeping place for the evening (the floor of a friend's guest room).

First Impressions

My first impressions were pure awe and hope at the numbers and diversity of people attending. Groups of Bolivians in traditional clothes and bowler hats with laptops wrapped up in bright woven blankets, indigenous leaders from Amazonia with face paint, feathers, and briefcases, youths in suits, youths in sandals, youths with dreadlocks wearing suits... To be honest, my first day here I was oblivious to the negotiations themselves. There was so much else to do and see! It turns out negotiations had been suspended at that time due to demands put forth by Tuvalu and the small island nations. Yet another NSEP student from last year is an official adoptanegotiator.org tracker, and she has a great blog tracking official negotiations here. This is her video from Friday.




Well, this should keep you reading for awhile... upcoming blog for Saturday in Copenhagen. Previewed: KlimaForum, anarchy, marches, Development Forum, more marches, life on both sides of the police barrier, and the famed NGO party! Until then... be well. Send good vibes to Copenhagen, negotiations are looking dire.

Lys

The Master Fall in Oxford

Hallooo to you!
I know I'd promised to continue on my updates from the summer, but I think that it is futile at this point. Just know it was a great summer and the biggest important bits were my visits to my study sites (read more at my research blog alywex.wordpress.com) and meeting my new sister Mebbie who I absolutely fell in love with. There are not words to describe...

Back in Oxford, there have been several highlights worth noting. I went to an absolutely amazing Josh Ritter concert with some fellow Marshall folk in September. I'd known about Ritter (a singer/songwriter from Idaho) for a few years, and although his concerts came highly recommended I had never been. Who knew I would get the chance in England of all places?! I have been listening to and learning his songs non-stop since then.

Then there has been rugby rugby rugby! We had a good preseason tour, made better by my amazing social sec skills. The theme I decided was pirates vs ninjas and there were many grueling battles between the two parties accompanied by two matches and some fun nights out. We had our first official league match last week against Exeter. We lost, but we saw some great play and I think when we meet Exeter on our home pitch in a month we will have no trouble crushing them.

Since I was already in Exeter last week for rugby and therefore practically next door to one of my communities and the friends I'd made there, I stayed on for a few days to try to get some more work (and walking in the beautiful autumn woods!) done. It wasn't a good time for an extended stay at the community, so I stayed with Neo (another WWOOFer from this summer) and his family just across the hill from the community. He showed me beautiful forests with changing leaves and ancient stone circles on the tops of clear, moorish hills. All within sever miles of his home! No pics of my own, unfortunately, but here is a borrowed one from discoverdartmoor.co.uk so you can get the idea. The ones I saw weren't fully restored like this one, but that gave them a genuine, mystical feel, especially with the mist and wind... Dartmoor (Devon in general!) is an amazing place... the first place in England to which I've felt truly connected. And although my time at the community was limited, I did manage to set up a time to come for a longer visit. I also left some cameras there for my participant photography project. Hopefully they will be a hit and I can follow up on the photos when I go back in two weeks. So a successful trip, all in all.

The academics side of it all has been quite fun, as well. I have been able to spend a lot of time finding the readings I want, analyzing data I gathered this summer, etc. I have desk space in the DPhil research room, so I feel like a proper researcher now! Also, this term I have to take one more elective class and write an essay for it. None of the electives fit with my dissertation, so I decided to do GIS/remote sensing because it will be an important skill. Hopefully I will even figure out a way to use it for my dissertation! Unfortunately, it takes a massive amount of time -- lots of reading and something like 20 hours of lab work each week. But it's really nice to have a change of pace. You can also see my lab write-ups and reading summaries on my research page.

Finally, in all my spare time I've decided to try rowing. It means I will be seriously fined by the rugby team, but I thought that while at Oxford I should at least try the main Oxford sports. I've got rugby well covered, so why not try rowing for my college? It actually fits quite well with rugby... one or two rowing sessions in the mornings, and a gym session that happens to be on my non-rugby training day. I've only done one outing so far and managed to make a general ass of myself, but I'm not giving up yet. If I'm lucky, I will get to participate in one of the rowing regattas this fall (the yellow boat here is Linacre overtaking another college... it shall be me!) I dig the early mornings -- they get me up and active and ready for more reading and research...

Last year at this time my "three R's" were reading, reading, and rugby (rrremember?) I guess this year they have multiplied -- reading, research, rrriting, remote sensing/GIS, rugby, Ritter, and rowing. Yahoo!

Well, back to the GIS grindstone...

Embrace the changing seasons, it's a fabulous time of year!

Falling leaves love,
Alyssa