To be fixed, or not to be fixed

THAT is the question.

I'm getting down to the wire here. It's been five days of Ashland and, at 12:30, I'll find out if I'm going on to day 6 in Ashland or day 1 in Davis. I'm approaching the runway to a critical decision point in my road trip from Seattle to Oxnard.

Dear God (or whatever ridiculous force is keeping me here), please let the source of the problems be the top dead center sensor. Let me fly on past exit 6 on Siskiyou pass with elegant ease! Let me visit Marie, my very pregnant cousin, Aubrey, Dad, Robin, Mom, and Hal on my way home. Let me catch my flight to Finland. I know I'm almost 30, but I just don't feel ready to settle down in Ashland.

Check out a 2 part documentary of my stay in Ashland:
part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5iC9NZXWqU
part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOKhn9cihyg

Ashland, by any other name

It’s starting to feel like the Bermuda Triangle, or maybe just the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot, but it’s weird, and I’m ready to move on now.

Here’s what happened, back on Monday:
The gas pedal stopped working at 3300 ft on Siskiyou Pass, just before Oregon’s exit 6 on I5. I was driving driving driving, and then suddenly, I stopped.
I waited a minute or two and restarted. I went for two blocks. Same thing happened with the gas pedal. I made it to exit 6, called [my mom, and then] a tow truck and the adventure began.

When I was first delivered to the Union 76 station in Ashland, I was very much at the mercy of the mechanics and tow truck drivers. I’m not the most educated mechanic, in fact, I know close to nothing about car mechanics. I don’t own a car, because I prefer to ride my bike or take the bus instead of dealing with getting stuck in random places and asking complete strangers to spend hours and hours helping me out. Diagnosis Number One was the crank position sensor. This sensor apparently lets the computer know when the piston is at the top of its stroke. According to the Honda computer diagnoser, this was not happening. The computer had no way of knowing where the piston was. Two days and $400 of mechanical work later, I was off. I headed up Siskiyou Pass a second time, until I reached my favorite spot, about a mile before exit 6. Same thing happened. Guess it wasn’t the crank position sensor. The mechanics were genuinely sorry and spent a few hours roadside assisting me and driving up Siskiyou Pass a third time with me. The third time, the computer was actually plugged into the car when IT happened… again… at the exact same spot (within a few feet of time#1 and #2). I’m not a very religious person, but it feels like I’m being held here. There’s nothing I can do, short of abandoning my mother’s Honda, fully stocked with all of my belongings.

Siskiyou Pass attempt #4 is scheduled for tomorrow (FRIDAY!!!) at 12:30pm, after Diagnosis Number Two is taken care of. Diagnosis Number Two is a dead top center sensor. It’s only costing about $200 to fix. I’m not confident with Siskiyou Pass attempt #4. I think there might be a #5, #6, and an apartment rental. Maybe I’ll start looking for a job, buy a house. Who knows maybe I’ll settle down and get married. The people are friendly. There are some good Shakespeare plays.

I made a budget for the trip, because it helps me control my gag reflexing that happens whenever I think about it:

Item: Cost
Speeding ticket in Eugene: $180
Hotel night #1: $65
Hotel night #2: $65
Hotel night #3: $65
Hostel night #4: $30
Parts from diagnosis #1: $190
Labor from diagnosis #1: $200
Parts from diagnosis #2: $65
Labor from diagnosis #3: $120
Shakespeare Festival Expenses: $49
Gas: $100
Food in Ashland: $120
Everything else from the planned part of the trip: a drop in the bucket

TOTAL $1,249

Just as a reference, I calculated how much it would have cost to fly home, mail my boxes, and feed 1000 starving children in Africa. It was the same.

Dead Guy in the Park

It’s times like these that I worry about not being very observant. Maybe I’m not paying enough attention to other people because I’m so caught up in my own life. I’m leaving for Finland in three weeks and I have so much to do before I take off. I’m not going to get my papers submitted, but I think I’ll finish everything else. Goodbyes take a lot out of me. I love a lot of people and I want to absorb them ALL before I go. I’ve been thinking about all of these goodbyes and how to be generous with my goodbyes instead of selfish. I want people to have fun goodbyes and not only sad, crying goodbyes.

This is what I was thinking about on my way to school this morning when I was walking through the park. I hopped onto the path, passed by the trashcan; the school was on my right; and then I came upon the bench. I’ve sat on the bench before, but I usually walk right past it. I didn’t sit on it yesterday because it was occupied. There was a young guy sleeping on it. It was a little weird because it was 8:00 in the morning and people usually take afternoon naps in the park, not morning naps. But he looked very peaceful, with his mountain bike propped up against the bench. He looked like a bicycle commuter guy, or a mountain biker.

Now THIS morning when I passed the SAME guy, sleeping there on the bench, I definitely thought it was weird... still looking peaceful, maybe even a little too peaceful. Was he breathing? I wanted to ask him if he was OK, but I was scared. There was no one around. I was afraid that he might either be angry at me when I woke him up... or worse: what if he didn’t wake up? I peered over him. He wasn’t obviously breathing. But maybe he was shallowly breathing. I once dated a serious cyclist, and he hardly breathed at all because he was in such good shape. He could also set off heart monitor alarms because he could actually make his heart beat so slow that the monitor would think he was dead.

This guy didn’t look dead. Wouldn’t he turn a funny color, or fall off the bench if he were dead? Someone besides me, who’s all distracted with her goodbyes, would surely notice a dead guy who’s been sleeping on the bench for at least a full 24 hours. We don’t have dead guys in Wallingford. Maybe in Capitol Hill or the U. District, but not Wallingford.

I walked down to the adjacent elementary school and caught up with one of the teachers there. I handed the issue off to her and continued on my way to school. She said she’d call the Parks Service or someone. I thanked her politely and quietly hoped that he wasn’t dead... and that he wasn’t almost dead yesterday morning. Shoot! I should have realized I thought he was dead yesterday! Then I could have saved him!

Maybe he’s just a mountain biker, who’s started taking naps on the bench in Wallingford every morning... with his bike uniquely propped up on its back wheel and his arms folded in exactly the same way, day after day. Maybe he wakes up at 4:00 am, rides up and down Queen Anne Hill five times, and then takes a nap... because he’s tired... because he’s training for the RAMROD... for next year. Boy, he’ll sure be surprised when the Parks Service wakes him up. Maybe he’ll write about it in HIS blog.

The Other Side of the Story

My friend Adrienne just finished working on some type of water system in India with a local NGO. She struggled with the president of the NGO and talked about being driven to tears. I am right there with her. It is so hard to do work abroad and try to be productive in a foreign country where you just don’t fit in. It’s hard to balance between doing what you feel is right, and not being a freak.

This is the other side of the “glorious” story. When I was in Ecuador, some of the major things that I learned about the culture and about myself were so hard to handle, and yes they did drive me tears. It was even harder to come back with not only new experiences, but a brand new weight on my shoulders. People like hearing about the experiences, but they do not want to hear about the weight. You can see them fidgeting in their seats and trying to get out of the conversation, once we shift from the rockin’ music and sexy dancing to the abuse, the alcoholism, the logging, the street justice, and on and on

But most of it is my fault. I find myself wanting to protect people from the harsher realities of life in the less developed world. I don’t want it to seem scary. It’s not usually very scary from day to day. It’s scarier that the wood that was used to build my house or my furniture may have been snatched from the economy and the health of rural Ecuadorian villages. People actually are much poorer now that the international logging companies do what the rural villagers used to do, but much much faster. It really presents me with a responsibility to find out where things come from when I buy them. The stories still adulterate my mind and I still shutter and come close to tears when I think about some of them. These moments were NOT glorious moments. In addition to being enlightened, I was humiliated. I was devastated. I was weak… and I wanted my mom.

When we first got to Borbon, there was a health promoter meeting, where the medical representatives come from all of the surrounding villages and report deaths and births, exchange information, etc. Our project is a health project so the leader usually goes, and there are several others from our group that occasionally attend. It’s a good way to find information on what’s happening in the communities. I didn’t actually go to the meeting. I heard the story from our project leader.

Occasionally babies die in rural areas. Being born is pretty risky, when you don’t have access to hospitals. This one survived the birth and was born healthy. Unfortunately, the mother’s milk never came in. This can be a big problem, but mothers can sometimes find wet nurses… if the father permits it. I can not understand why he wouldn’t allow them to find a wet nurse. This was a baby! I don’t even know why it starved to death. Was it somebody’s pride? Did he get going on this “I make the decisions around here” idea and couldn’t snap out of it, once the baby started suffering? What the hell kind of human nature is this? We’re supposed to play music and climb coconut trees, not knowingly kill our babies. And the mother? Why didn’t she fight? Maybe she would have gotten beaten or killed. Maybe she did fight. Maybe she got beaten. I can’t even imagine her feelings of guilt from having an imperfect body. She thinks her baby died because she couldn’t feed it.

That’s enough for now.

My Future Looks Dark

My future looks dark... but in a good way. I just found out that I got a fellowship to study rural well water contamination in Finland next year. It'll only REALLY be dark in the winter, during which time it will also be very very cold. In the summertime however, I will hopefully be zapped with hours and hours of sweet sunshine.

I just found out yesterday, and now that I’ve had a chance to do some serious emotional adjusting, I’m excited. I took the application process very seriously. I thought about my project, the laboratory protocols, connecting with an adviser in Tampere, working out funding, getting my adviser here at the UW to offer his support, and all of those technical details. I did not spend any time picturing myself going to Finland next year.

I’m going to miss Ana’s baby being born. At this point in my life, many of us are transitioning from students/kids/earth-wanderers to professionals/adults/parents/grown-up earth wanderers/etc. I’ll have to keep track of everyone from Finland. I’ll miss the family Christmas. That’s an enormous bummer. Unless I can get everyone to come to Finland, in which case it would be unforgettable (though dark)! Where will I come home to? Seattle? The Bay Area? Southern California? Or maybe somewhere new, like Washington DC? I have a supportive and extremely fun community here in Seattle, it’s a shame to leave, and the thought of never coming back to live here makes me sad.

Checking out Scandinavia sounds awesome! I’m looking forward to giving the language a try. I LOVE learning languages and all of the goofy stories that go along with it! Both career and vacation-wise, I’ll have lots of opportunities. My adviser in Finland has connections in Estonia, which could turn into research, but would be really fun to check out. I want to ride my bike through Estonia, regardless of research collaborations. I hear that’s the thing to do—bike tour through Estonia. I may FINALLY be able to visit our German relatives. Everyone tells me stories about them, but I’ve never even met most of them. And, ever since Adrienne got back from her Transiberian Railway adventure, I’ve been dreaming of hiking around Lake Baikal, and finding my way through the nomadic communities in Mongolia. Maybe I’ll have a chance to take that trip and do some long awaited travel through Asia, after I finish up my project in Finland.

Hmmm, there’s lot’s to think about between colony counting in the lab!

What's the World Coming To?

The real news is so wacky that we almost don't even need The Onion anymore.

Cheney Takes Blame for Shooting

At least it was an accident.

Carboys in Public Places

For some of my experiments I need water from Portage Bay. Portage Bay water is most special because it’s close to my lab. But it’s also special because it’s natural water and loaded up with nutrients and minerals that our super-pure lab water no longer has. Nutrients help me grow bacteria for my experiments. They also unfortunately cause algal blooms in natural waters and generally turn beautiful and healthy lakes into dirty and gross lakes. There are two reasons why Portage Bay has so much bacteria and nutrient goodness. First, there’s a combined sewer overflow, right here, a 20 minute walk from my lab. Combined sewer overflow is a euphemism for “poop in your beautiful lake,” or mixing of wastewater and recreational (or even drinking) waters. But it’s highly regulated. We’re not allowed to have more than one combined sewer overflow per year in Seattle. If you have a lot of faith, we’re fine. You can also use your phosphorus-free soaps and hope for the best. The real nutrient contributors are those Canadian geese (or Canada geese, if you prefer). Mike calls them Public Enemy Number One. They eat phosphorus (we all do, we need it to be alive and grow more cells), and then they poop it into Portage Bay. A lake can handle some phosphorus poop, but those geese are EVERYWHERE. And they’re enormous.

Back to the carboys: I needed 15 liters of water from Portage Bay for this week’s experiments. A carboy is like a giant milk jug. As it turns out, you get a lot of attention if you carry a GIANT milk jug down Brooklyn Ave. I got comment after comment on my way down: “they make smaller water bottles, ya know.” It almost felt like a little performance: My Carboy and Me. The real community interaction came after filling up the carboy and trying to carry it back to the lab. Fifteen liters of water works out to be pretty heavy. I tried switching hands, dragging my carboy, rolling it—is this included in scientific research? I was publicly struggling. I got several offers for help from strong-looking men. At the time, I turned them down. But today, my arms are still sore. Next time, strong men: I’m going to take you up on any offers for carboy-carrying help. Get ready for some heavy lifting and some enterococci talk as we walk back to the lab!