52. Get a tattoo

I'll always remember my birthday this year  for a whole variety of reasons.  One was because it was a great day.  I don't teach classes on Friday, and started the day going ice skating with Derek  We'd been saying for a year that we'd go, and we finally did it the last day Derek was in Burlington before leaving for his Latin America bike tour.  Then we met Dan and Abby for brunch at Penny Cluse and in the evening Siham and Leah came to town, we had a great meeting of the MDG book group and then Chris took me for a wonderful dinner at Main and Church (neither of us had been and the food is quite good).  Definitely a perfect day.



Last Penny Cluse breakfast with Derek, Dan and Abby

 But the most unusual aspect of the day was the middle of it, when I did the final thing on my original round of 52 New Things -- getting a tattoo. I got mine at Yankee Tattoo in Burlington. Like so many things I've tried for the first time this year, I discovered there's a lot more to it than I had thought.  For starters, you can't just bounce in and get a tattoo.  First you need to look through the work of various tattoo artists and decide who you want to work with, and then do an "artist consult".  There, you decide on the design and set up an appointment for the actual tattoo. 


Here's the design on my arm waiting to be made permanent

  The tattoo artist draws the design and sizes it, and then the first stage of the tattooing is transferring the design to the body, as you can see has happened in the blue ink on my arm above.  The artist who did my tattoo, Liz, was great.  She normally doesn't even work on Fridays, but came in and did the work so that I'd be able to get the tattoo on my birthday.  Here she is getting ready to start in the photo below.

Liz, the artist who did my tattoo

 In case you're wondering (I know I always have), it does hurt to get it.  My friend and former student, Drisk, had told me about the process and what to expect, and he had described the feeling as a very sharp pencil dragging just under your skin.  I think it's more like scratching a double sunburn.  But in either case, it's not very pleasant, but I'd say it's not any worse than getting a cavity filled.  It's also true, at least in my case, that some areas are more sensitive than others and doing the part on the underside my arm was my least favorite. The whole thing took about an hour, with maybe 45 minutes as the actual tattoo process.

In case you've ever wondered, this is what an in-process tattoo looks like

Finished product

They sent me home with a couple bandages and lotion and instructions about caring for the tattoo for the next few days.  Apparently, the most important thing is to keep the area from drying out, and you're supposed to apply lotion regularly.  Today the area stings a little, but otherwise feels fine, so I think I'm good to go.

So, that's the story of the tattoo.  Not as dramatic as I had built it up to be beforehand, but it's on there for good, so it's a good thing I really like it.  And of course, it's a memento of a very different year of my life, (as well as being a constant reminder now to get my arms in shape for my favorite activity that came out of the year -- rock climbing) and I like that a lot.

I think in a week or two I'm going to write a post that's a sort of retrospective of the year, and then of course around the New Year I'm going to write the plan for New Things in 2011.  I know what things have been my favorites through the year, but I'm a bit curious about other people's reactions.  I'd love to know what things sounded interesting and fun to other people and of course, as always, I'm always psyched with suggestions of new things. 

Thanks so much  to everyone who made this a fabulous birthday this year, and also to everyone who has participated in all the New Things I've done this year! It's been a great adventure and I'm looking forward to a lot more.

50. Take the SMC Shuttle to North Campus and 51. Eat Dinner at Knights at the Roundtable

“Objects which are usually the motives of our travels by land and by sea are often overlooked and neglected if they lie under our eye. We put off from time to time going and seeing what we know we have an opportunity of seeing when we please.”

-- Plutarch

So, in my quest to experience new things this year, by far the greatest assistance has come from my students and former students.  And once again they've come through with a whole host of brilliant suggestions of New Things to try, all of them right here in Burlington or at least within an hour's drive. I've gotten a slew of new ideas, and am going to incorporate a whole bunch of them -- from volunteer walking of greyhounds at the rescue to shooting a gun at a shooting range and lots in-between -- in the next iteration of the list.  But last night I did two new things (they went together) that it's ridiculous I've never done until now given that I've been teaching at Saint Mike's for over a decade.  They were both suggested by members of the Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC), who are not only ardent AIDS activists but also share my interest in finding fun new things to do.  Emily had suggested eating at our dinner restaurant, Knights of the Roundtable, much earlier in the semester, and she put in a reservation tonight for some of us to go eat there.  Then during the day Kate suggested that we take the campus shuttle over (it's on North Campus about a mile from the Main Campus), since I had never done that either.

The picture doesn't do it justice, but the risotto was really good!

The SGAC dinner crew -- Ellen, Kate, Mae and Emily

Kate and I were "dinner twins because we ordered all the same things.  Here we are with matching desserts.

At 5:30 Kate, Emily, Mae, Ellen and I hopped on the shuttle and headed over to Sloan Hall.  To eat at Sloan is the same cost as eating in the regular dining hall in Alliot Student Center (one "meal swipe"), but there's a bit of a production to make it happen.  The Knights of the Round Table is only open for dinner Monday through Thursday, and requires reservation, which Emily had made for our party.  Everyone gets one appetizer, one main course and one desert, and there is a rotating choice of about six options in each category. There were all kinds of fun possibilities -- potato pancakes, chili, minestrone, and shrimp risotto were some of the appetizer and entree possibilities and deserts included chocolate bread pudding and seven layer bars with ice cream.  I opted for mixed greens and goat cheese, vegetable risotto, and a dessert panini.  Kate, who was sitting next to me, was my dinner twin, because we got the exact same thing.  The whole thing was profesisonally served up by student wait staff (both of ours happened to be past or current students of mine, Annie and Jackie), and if last night was any indication, the place is very popular.  In fact, I'd say it's one of the best-kept secrets on campus, and between the great food and excellent company, it was a fabulous meal. I'll definitely be back.

Could there be a more Vermont-worthy hat than the one that Emily was sporting in the shuttle on the way back?

Drisk, Anne Marie, Dan and Derek at Dan and Derek's last night out

A final post script to the evening, but relevant to the list of 52 New Things, is a good by to two fabulous former students, Dan and Derek.  They're leaving Burlington to embark with two other great SMC alum, Ted and Zach, on the bike trip of a lifetime in Latin America.  I'm still hopeful that I'll be able to fly down and meet them during their travels, but for last night, I just popped by Ri Ra's after dinner to meet various SMC students, alum and staff to say goodby and wish them a great trip. 

52 Ways to Say I Love You

...in Mata, a local language in Cameroon.  Elizabeth, an AIDS activist who I met last weekend who used to live in Cameroon and now lives in Maryland, told me these.  I am writing them phonetically (at least as I heard them) since she wasn't sure of how they'd be spelled in English.

Hello  A way re yay (or We you)

Goodby Ta chee ka (or see you tomorrow: Ti sa so)

I love you Mo kongo way

May I have two beers, please Mo free berra mobiya mobay

Coming Attractions

Only one more thing to finish up the first round of 52 New Things, and it's a biggie.  On Friday I'm getting a tattoo.  I had no idea that it was such an involved process, but I've had my "artist consult" and put down my deposit and made my appointment, so there's no backing out now. After this week, I'll have a permanent reminder of the year of 52 New Things. I'll definitely keep everyone posted on that one.

A great thing about doing this whole exercise is that it's left me with a habit of seeking out new things, as well as a whole slew of things I want to keep going with.  There's lots of stuff from the original list that I still haven't gotten to but definitely plan to -- like knitting mittens, going to Alaska, mastering a skating jump and taking a martial arts and/or painting class.  And there's lots of new thing ideas that got generated this year -- like going to the Snowflake Bentley Museum, going dog sledding and visiting the Faroe Islands -- that need to go on a new list.  And there are lots of things that I loved from the first list -- rock climbing obviously, but also skiing and sea kayaking and many others -- that I'm going to keep going with.  As always, I'm looking for new ideas and people who want to teach me or do them together, so post a note if you have thoughts about that, please.

Not New, But Surely Worth Noting: A Week of AIDS Activism

Although this has been a year marked by scores of new things, places and people, there have been a few constants as well.  Because I am an AIDS activist, the week of December 1 is always a very busy and important one for me, because December 1 is World AIDS Day.  I belong to three different groups -- the Saint Michael's College chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC); the Vermont Global Health Coalition; and the Health Global Access Project (Health GAP) that all use this day, and the week surrounding it, to educate and advocate for the funding, programs and attitude changes necessary to fight AIDS in the United States and around the world.




The Saint Mike's Crew at Vermont CARES' Evening of Reflection


This year, SGAC, together with additional students from my new course on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) decided to organize our World AIDS Day advocacy and education around the MDGs, drawing the connections between them and the global AIDS pandemic.  There were talks and panel discussions, a great turnout in support of Vermont CARES, our local AIDS service organization at their annual night of reflection and remembrance, and a die-in in the school cafeteria to highlight the number of preventable deaths occurring around the world because of lack of access to treatment and prevention services.  But as usual, the largest amount of energy went into the political advocacy with which we ended the week, our annual  rally at the offices of Senators Leahy and Sanders.



Kate and Josh working on rally posters



This year, the focus of the rally was the problem that has emerged in a number of developing countries because of the US government's failure to keep its commitments to scale up the AIDS  treatment programs it has begun in many of the most AIDS-affected countries in the world under President George W. Bush.  These programs have saved the lives of millions of people, but they work because of the promise of continued treatment.  This is the incentive that brings people in for testing and prevention education; this is the way to keep children from being orphaned; and this is the way to start to reverse the devastating impact to families and communities caused by untreated HIV infection.  President Obama had pledged to keep these programs growing when he was campaigning for President, but now both his and Congress' commitment to that pledge appears to be wavering.  Thus, we decided that the theme for this year's rally would be "Keep the Vow" and we dressed in wedding apparel (veils and bow ties, anyway) to drive the message home.

Jerry, Rachel and I getting ready for the rally

In front of Senator Leahy's office

Connor leading some chants while we waited to talk to a staff member from Senator Sander's office

Friday's rally concluded this year's World AIDS Day work at home, but on Saturday I continued it in another way in Washington, DC.  Another of the AIDS advocacy groups I work with, Health GAP, is a national organization, with staff and volunteers based in cities of the East Coast as well as in East Africa.  There are a group of core volunteers that form a sort of national steering committee, and I've been a member of that committee for about ten years. Two Saint Mike's alum, my former students and close friends, Jamila and Siham, are also members of the committee, and a current Saint Mike's student, Emily, who is a member of both a group of activists called IMPACT and the national steering committee for SGAC, was invited as well. Jamila is now a Rhodes scholar, completing a PhD in Public Health at Oxford University, and flew in from England for the meeting.  The rest of the Saint Mike's crew has an easier time, since we only had to fly from Burlington and Boston respectively.

The Saint Mike's Crew -- Emily, Siham, Jamila and I -- at breakfast

We spent Saturday and Sunday meetings at George Washington University with other AIDS activists from all kinds of places and professions.  There were student and grassroots activists, doctors, lawyers, professors, community organizers and staff of advocacy and service organizations.  There was Elizabeth, who currently lives in Maryland, but immigrated from Cameroon.  There were a number of longtime community activists from the vibrant advocacy organization ACT UP Philadelphia. Paul and Jen flew in from Kenya, and there were contingents of students from Harvard, Yale, Columbia and a number of other schools.  Together we spent two days (and a number of people came a day earlier or stayed a day later to lobby in the Hill) strategizing and figuring out what it would take at both the national and international levels to increase the levels of treatment around the world.


As a professor who teaches about and participates in social movements, I sometimes encounter students (and colleagues) who question the value and appropriateness of political activism.  For some, it seems too strident and confrontational; others wonder how it can achieve its aims when it often angers the people it seeks to influence. Still others question the focus on problems outside our borders -- why spend money outside when there are problems at home?  Weeks like this one remind me of my responses to these questions.  Although it is true that it will cost billions of dollars to provide AIDS treatment for all who need it around the world, it's also true that Americans spend 8 billion dollars on pet food every year, and over 30 billion on weight loss products.  Surely, we can and must value the lives of millions of fellow human beings around the world at least this much. As for the tactics of activists, its true that sometimes they are strident, and upsetting to the people on whom demands are made as well as bystanders who might be inconvenienced.  Yet these same tactics have helped level the playing field for Gandhi and King and many, many other activists with less money and power than those they were challenging. 

A brainstorming session



Emily writes up her small group's conclusions

The AIDS pandemic is not in retreat, and it won't be until we address the underlying poverty, discrimination and power inequalities that guarantee that it will be disproportionately felt by the world's poorest and most marginalized people. But there have been exciting medical breakthroughs, from new treatments to new diagnostic tools to new prevention methods, and we actually have the tools available to effectively treat people with AIDS (and the diseases that often come with it) and in many cases, prevent new infections. What we need is the political will to get these tools out to the communities that need them, and it is the activist movements around the world that are creating that will.  That's why I imagine that next December 1, wherever I am, once again I'll be working with students and other activists to try to make that happen.

Serendipity 12. A Favorite Thing Comes Full Circle

The two most common questions I get about the 52 New Things List are:

1.  Are you going to keep going after the year is over?

2.  What has been your favorite New Thing that you've discovered this year?

The answers are: yes, and, setting aside the travel destinations which are in a category of their own, rock climbing. I never, ever would have thought I'd enjoy rock climbing, much less take it up as a hobby. But that's what's happened, and though I am still certainly a novice with entirely-too-weak arms, I -- the most gear-averse person I know -- am the proud owner of my very own climbing harness and shoes, and a ten-punch pass to Petra Cliffs climbing gym.

I've had just about the greatest instructors anyone could ever ask for.  Three of them -- Amanda, Randall and Josh-- are current students at Saint Mike's and two more -- Dan S. and Conor D -- are both graduates who have become professional guides and instructors. It helps that Saint Mike's has an amazing Wilderness Program and Todd and Eben have trained all these teachers, plus many more, to guide the uninitiated -- students and staff alike -- through all kinds of outdoor activities that would otherwise probably be economically and physically inaccessible. Below are Josh and Dan at Bolton on my first-ever outdoor rock climbing experience, Josh belaying me on a second climbing trip to Bolton, and Amanda (with Randall in the background) showing me how to climb the first time I ever showed up for an evening climb at the Saint Mike's wall.

I've also been blessed with phenomenal climbing buddies.  Some have been students I got to know from climbing, and some have been students I knew from other contexts who went climbing for the first time with me and get hooked the same way I did.  One of my favorite stories in that regard was of my friend and former student Helen, who graduated last year.  I met Helen as her faculty mentor through a program we both signed up for, and the week before she graduated we were looking for a fun activity to do together.  She was a bit iffy when I suggested climbing but her usual sense of adventure took over, and we went over to Petra Cliffs to try it out. She loved it so much that the next night we went back, together with a set of other newbies -- Andres, Giselle and Jamila -- who wanted to check it out as well.

In the first pic above I'm belaying Helen on her very first time up the wall; the one next to it is from the next night, when she was demonstrating to the others (Andres, Giselle, and Jamila all pictured with her below) how it's done.  I know shes doing great things in New York, and she's still involved in stuff here through the MDG book project, but I really wish she were still around to do some more climbing as well.
 
I'm grateful to a whole slew of other past and present students who have all been climbing partners at one time or other.  Below is another pre-graduation climbing night with Ryan, Josh, Nigel, Ben, Sarah L., and Sarah D., as well as a night of climbing on the SMC wall from about a month ago, when 1st-year resident and climbing buddy Maura, and I convinced Kaitlyn, Maura's RA, that the rest of the floor just had to try out rock climbing under Amanda's expert guidance..
 

But the reason I'm writing this post, and the reference to everything coming full circle, refers to my first and most recent climbing partners and coaches, Nicole and Jai.  There are a couple things that make this full circle climbing particularly serendipitous.  One is that, of all my teachers of New Things this year, Jai is easily the youngest.  She coached me up my first wall, while her mom, Nicole, belayed me from below when she was the ripe old age of four.  Now that she is a far more mature five year old it's  still equally inspiring (and just as fun) to go climbing with her.  The other point of irony is that the first time she and Nicole served as my climbing tutors was in Nepal. Last January, on my first trip of the New Things list, I was in Nepal visiting my good friends Cliff, Nicole and Jai.  The family is certainly the most adventuresome threesome I know, and when they extended an invitation to their house guests (my new friends Jane and Kirk were there as well) to join in their weekly Saturday rock climb,  it seemed like a good time to begin the conquering of my fears and try it out.

With Jai on the wall beside me, encouraging me not to be afraid, and to trust the rope, I did my first-ever climb and I think, started off a year of challenging myself to try all kinds of new things I'd never before considered "my thing".  Not all of them have hooked me as hard as rock climbing, but all of them have been great. As I've written about elsewhere, I think rock climbing is a metaphor for life in all kinds of ways.  It has things to teach us about trust, about our own capacity in a difficult moment, and about the value of the other people who anchor our lives.  Cliff is now working in the Sudan, and Nicole and Jai are living in Vermont for the year.  Nicole and I have started getting together on Thursday nights for some climbing at Petra Cliffs, but today was the first time since our climb in Nepal that I've been on a wall with Jai.  Here's a photo from that first climb together back in January, and another of Jai making it to the top (the first of six all-the-way-up climbs) this morning.

It's not every day that an adult get to travel half-way around the world for a lesson from a four year old, and it's even more rare, I think, to have a second round with the same teacher right here in Vermont. But as this year has taught me, it really is true that anything is possible. All kinds of people can play great and unanticipated roles in our lives if we're just open to it, and I'm looking forward to learning more about the wonderful world of rock climbing from and with my friends Nicole and Jai (and Cliff once he returns), who introduced me to it on the other side of the planet.

List Update -- 49 Reasons to Be Thankful on this Thanksgiving

Incredibly, it's been almost a year since I embarked on this project.  The plan had been to start on January 1, 2010 and do a New Thing a week for a total of 52 New Things.  But as we all know, life is never quite that tidy, so I started early and have plans to go late. The list actually began on my birthday, December 10, of 2009, because that's when my friend and former student Julia, taught me how to make a blog, which served the double purpose of being New Thing #1 and being the way I've kept track of the year. And Leah and Siham, co-originators of the list idea, proposed that the "official" end of the year be the last weekend in February. That's the anniversary of our Bar Harbor trip where we climbed Cadillac Mountain to watch the earliest sunrise on the East Coast and burn our list of bad things from 2009  (and here are Leah and Siham finishing the list before we burned it).

We also decided that, once we hit the February date, we'll start a new year of more new things, mixed together with repeats of things we loved from this year.  For me that will mean 12 new things ( 1 per month), 12 things from the first list that I keep going with, and two things off the "Life List". 

So, what I have below is the list of all the New Things that have already happened, plus the list of things that hopefully still will.

New Things I've done in 2010 (all of them are linked to the pages where they are "written up"):

1. Start a blog

2. Go to Nepal
                                           
 3. Try rock climbing 

4. Try ice climbing

5. Try snow shoe hiking

6. Learn to make fresh mozzarella

7. Go cross country skiing

8. Take a Penguin Plunge

9. Go ice skating at Rockefeller Center

10. Hike Camel's Hump in all four seasons (winter spring summer fall)

11. Try skate skiing

12. See a Bar Harbor sunrise

13. Try snowboarding

14. Do a winter sport at night

15. Cook an Indian meal

16. Go downhill skiing

17. Participate in a contra dance

18. Visit the Vermont Veterans Militia Museum

19. Learn to change a bike tire

20. Learn to make a chocolate souffle

21. Visit the Washington Monument at night 

22. Take a ballet class

23. Eat a Vermonster

24. Go bird watching

25. Spend an afternoon watching car racing

26. Learn to change a car tire

27. Visit the Dominican Republic

28. Visit the Basque Block

29. Try glass blowing

30. Visit Jordan

31. Visit Jerusalem

32. Give a talk in Uganda

33. Visit Egypt

34. See a band at Nectar's and eat at Pizza on Earth

35. Go to the Rokeby Museum

36. Try haggis.

37. Go sea kayaking

38. Go punting on the Cam

39.  Visit Sweden

40.  Visit Denmark 

41. Go to Montreal for Roger's Cup and Poutine

42.  Try paddle surfing

43.  Go rock climbing OUTSIDE

44.  Bike to Hero's Welcome

45.  Go to a roller derby

46.  Take a ride in a hot air balloon

47.  Visit the Walter Reed Museum

48.  Stay up all night in the City That Never Sleeps

49.  Go to Quebec City

And here are a bunch of New Things that I'm hoping to get in during the next few months (not necessarily in this order and not necessarily a complete list):

• Learn to knit a pair of mittens -- I was well on my way on this one, and did a whole mitten but then forgot how to do the thumbs.  But happily, I'm headed back to Tacoma to consult with my Knitting Coach (aka my sister Katrinka) for Christmas, so should be able to finish this one handily (couldn't resist saying that).
• Eat a meal at Sloan -- Did you know that Saint Michael's College has a sit-down restaurant of sorts?  My students inform that it exists on North Campus, and so I am going with AIDS activist extraordinaire Emily and whoever else wants to before the semester ends.
• Get a tattoo -- I am increasingly thinking that this has "birthday activity" written all over it, so I think I'll be permanently inked with a 52 before the year is done. I know that Julia is just itching to do this one together if she can swing it.
• Sail to Alaska on a container ship -- Siham, Leah and I were already planning on going to Alaska (only state I've never visited) for spring break.  But when my brother in law Brian suggested this means of transport we just knew we had to do it.  Could there possibly be a cooler idea?  Didn't think so.
• Go dog sledding -- While we were in Quebec City last weekend we found out that there are a whole bunch of places that take newbies out to try it.  What better reason to go back this winter?
• Do nothing.  Was going to do this on Thanksgiving Day, but instead am going to take Chris up on his gracious invitation to spend that at his mom's house in southern Vermont.  But I will definitely find another day to officially do nothing (or something close to it).
• Jump and spin on skates -- this one has fallen by the wayside in a terrible fashion, but I'm going to pick it back up again and get going in December. Happily, Ali just got a new job at the skating rink in Milton, and I am going to be seeing if she's up for some skating together.
• Learn to make yogurt -- decided I needed to do this when Chris and I were in New York City for the Up-All-Night trip.  We started it off at a Greek restaurant and I realized that I simply must learn to make my own yogurt.
• Learn to make croissants -- still need to take Dean up on his offer to teach me.  It appears that it will be a several-day lesson, but even more reason to learn something complicated.
• Learn home maintenance -- this is one of the things I've been worst about this year.  Of the things that intimidate me -- athletics, art and anything mechanical -- I think I've done okay on the athletic stuff and even delved into the artistic slightly (well, ballet at least),  But except for Nigel's tire lessons, I'm way behind on this one, and thankfully Chris has offered to tutor me.
• Learn to say I love you in 52 languages.  I won't quite hit it, but I have to say I've collected quite a diverse list of languages with my four phrases (I love you, May I have two beers please?, hello and good-by) over the course of this year.  I'll definitely keep at it as long as I can.
• Have an astronomy lesson. Still going to take my colleague John up on his offer to show me and whoever else wants to some of the planets and constellations in the sky.

So, that's the update, as of late November, 2010.  I think around the New Year I'm going to do another update that lists my picks for next year's 12 new things and 12 continuations, as well as the two things I'll be working on off the life list (one of which, writing a book with students and former students, is already begun).  I also want to do a top ten list of the New Things from the first year.  So, if you have suggestions and comments, about what's already happened or about cool new things to try in 2011, please drop a comment to let me know!

I didn't realize that I'd be sending this out a few days before Thanksgiving, but the timing seems very appropriate.  It's been an amazing year, full of new experiences, new and old friends, and all kinds of life lessons. I'm especially grateful to all my family and friends who have taken the time out of their own busy lives to be a part of this project -- from making suggestions to climbing mountains (and walls!) to travelling the world together. At the end of the day, I think the only things that matter aren't actually things  (as in possessions, anyway)-- they're experiences and relationships, and I've been abundantly blessed in the last year with both.

49. Go to Quebec City

So, we've been talking about going to Quebec City for forever, and this last weekend we finally made it. Co-list originators Leah, Siham and I try to get together every two to three months to do something that's on all three of our lists and revise and add to them.

Siham had already been to Quebec City several years ago, but was still raving about it, and Leah and I had never been, so we decided that this would be our fall destination.  They drove to Burlington on Thursday night to pick me up, and after some last-minute work things Friday morning, we headed to Canada.  We arrived at our very cute little hotel within the walls of the old city, the Chateau de Pierre, well after dark, and agreed that we had, indeed made a very good choice.  Here's Siham using Leah as a human pillow while she changed her Facebook status to reflect her happiness with being in Quebec City.

The next morning after some yummy crepes, we headed to the visitor center to check out all our options.  It had snowed the night before, and Quebec City is already all decked out for Christmas, so just walking around felt very festive (though in a cold sort of way).  In the tourist center we had, of course, to do the obligatory pose with the Bonhomme who, I guess signifies all that is fun (or at least cheesy) about Quebec.

For those who have not yet had the great good fortune of visiting Quebec City (or Ville de Quebec as it is called there), I strongly suggest you add it to your travel agenda.  And when you go, I have a few tips to add to the experience.

First, it's nice to bring someone, or a couple people, to share it with. The city is one of the most romantic places I've ever been, so couples take note.  On the other hand, it's also just plain fun, so a road trip with friends (especially one as linguistically talented as Siham is also a good option). Second, you MUST center your trip around Vieux Quebec, the Old City which is easy to find because it's enclosed by still-existing city walls.  Our little hotel was within the Old City, as were the sites of the pictures above.  In one, Leah and I are standing in front of the Chateau Frontenac, reportedly the most photographed hotel in the world.  In the other Leah and Siham are excitedly pointing out the container ship moving through the Saint Lawrence, which we all took as an omen of good fortune for one of our next big adventures, the trip the three of us are planning by container ship to Alaska (with some help from my fabulous brother-in-law Brian) during spring break. For now, though, Quebec City suited us just fine. We ate way too much (I think the fondue that Siham and Leah are enjoying was our favorite, but the crepes were awfully good too, and we just had to have poutine so Leah could try it), and explored all over the town.  The last picture is of Siham and I on the open-air ice rink at the Place D'Youville.  Since it was 1 in the morning, it was alas, not open, but we just had to check it out anyway, and make a promise that next time, we're going skating  And there will certainly be a next time.  If' you've never been, put it on your list  And if you have, ask yourself why you haven't gone back already!

Coming Attractions

Whenever Leah, Siham and I get together we do a list overhaul, and this time was no exception.  We have a whole slew of New Things planned to close out this year and start the next.  I'm going to do a separate post on the updated list so watch for that.

52 Ways to Say I Love You...

My friend and colleague, Valerie, had her sister, Judith Miller, demonstrate the four phrases in American Sign Language. I'm going to see if I can post the video here...here goes.

30. Visit Jordan Post script -- A presentation on water scarcity

There are a few things I don't like about my job (like grading and paperwork, both of which I can never keep on top of) and many more that I absolutely love. One of the things in the latter category is the oppportunity to travel to amazing places and meet incredible people in the course of doing research. Another is the chance to work with wonderful students who are as excited as I am about research and travel. The best of all is when those two things coincide, as they did this summer when my friends Connor (a current student) and Siham (a former student) and I all went to Jordan to learn about water scarcity there. Along the way we got to have one of the biggest adventures of our lives (our time in Petra) and collectively decided that Jordan is probably the most hospitable country on earth (and that's saying something because I never thought I'd find a place that would edge Tanzania out of that title).

I made several postings from Jordan recounting both our research and our adventures there; the one that is most directly relevant to this one is the post I did about our visit to the Baqa'a Refugee Camp .http://trish52newthings.blogspot.com/2010/07/30-visit-jordan-part-iii-silly-and.html

After we got back Connor and I started working on a paper about what we had learned, and this weekend, we presented it at the Northeastern Political Science Association Annual Meeting. The paper was called "The Politics of Water Scarcity Among Refugee Communities in Jordan" and looked at the double challenge that Jordan faces in terms of hosting a huge population of refugees (especially relative to the country's size) at the same time the entire country is suffering under an extreme water shortage. It is just the beginning of what we hope will be a more extended exploration of these issues, and we hope to go back to Jordan to work with some of the same people who were so helpful to us in teaching us about the problem last summer.

Of course, it would be too much to expect that everything about the day would go off perfectly smoothly, and we hit a small hitch about an hour into the trip when I realized that the curb I went over a few days ago had torn some piece of the undercarriage of the car that was now scraping the road. Happily, Connor in his capacity as Manager of Turtle Underground, our on-campus live music venue, just happened to be carrying a roll of duct tape in his backpack and crawled under the car to do a temporary fix. This fit right in with the role Siham and I had given him in Jordan, when despite the fact that we are both self-proclaimed feminists, we kept making Connor do the "guy things" like sit in the front of all taxis and eat all the extra food that was urged on us by our hosts when all of us were too full to eat another bit.

With no further mishaps we made it to Boston and attended our conference. We went to another session before ours where I was the person assigned to discuss the papers presented, and then we presented ours in panel on environmental politics later in the afternoon. In the picture I put in here Connor and I are posing with Amanda (Mandy), an SMC grad who's now in her third year as a PhD student at U Mass Amherst.

After the conference Connor and I met up with Siham, who lives in Boston now, for dinner at Durgin Park in Faneuil Hall. Then we got back on the road and headed back to Burlington. The whole experience had us all reminiscing about all we had learned and done in Jordan, and I've included a few photos from the original trip. There's one of Mazen, who took us into the camp, together with Issa, the camp's Executive Director. Another is of Siham as we were walking through some of the housing at the edge of the camp, and one of Connor, Siham and I waiting to be served tea in the home of a group of women whose house we visited. They don't have a water tank, so as you can see, try to keep a supply of water in containers outside their home.

It's easy to caught up in everyday life and forgot about the rest of the world in the rush of deadlines and classes and plans. But I'm lucky to work in a field that allows me and the students I work with to keep going with information that we gather. This paper was a very small step in the much larger struggle of figuring out how to include the people who are suffering the most in decisions about how to divide scarce resources like water. But there is a whole lot more work to go on that one!