"Life Edited"

Recently I came across a video called Less Stuff, More Happiness by Graham Hill, from one of the TED talks.  Hill advocates for an edited life -- whittling the inessentials from one's life, living in smaller space with the aid of multi-functional design, reducing one's carbon footprint, etc.  He conducted a competition to design a 420 S.F. apartment in New York City to house his choice possessions.  Though one can be cynical, as many commentators were, about Hill's design desiderata -- his possessions which, though few, are an array of embarrassment of riches, I'm intrigued by the idea of editing one's life.  The verb, edit, brings to mind the arduous process of refining a piece of writing by repeatedly paring down the superfluous material until it expresses the author's intention in the most succinct fashion possible, if one considers succinctness and brevity a virtue.  As who you are is partly expressed by the stuff you own, it stands to reason that one needs to be selective and mindful about acquiring and accumulating personal effects; also, by not owing a lot of stuff, one avoids encumbering those who have to sort through one's stuff after one dies, which no doubt is an unpleasant thought.


The desire to simplify one's life occurs to most people about once or twice a year -- at the end and/or beginning of the year.  Just about now, I've been thinking about rounding up clothes and things to take to Goodwill.  I remember landing in the United States some thirty years ago with two suitcases in my hands which held the totality of my belongings; now it takes a semi-trailer truck to move all my and Kirk's stuff.  I have always been attracted by the simple, self-sufficient way of life, in Thoreau's Walden.  Here is a passage from the book about the 10 ft by 15 ft (150 S.F.) cabin he built for himself.  Maybe that is not a realistic model for me, but someday I'd like to build a smallish house, no more than 1,000 S.F., and hope by then I will have whittled down my possessions to feel totally at home in it.  Graham Hill probably can get some inspiration from Christopher Alexander's pattern #78, House for One Person and Frank Lloyd Wright's designs of Usonian Houses, a beautiful example of which is the 1,340 S.F. Jacob's House. 

A commentator on Hill's talk posted a link to a video, called Stuff, of the comedian, George Carlin, talking about American's infatuation with stuff.  It's hilarious.

Tainan Madness

I'd like to share with you a video, which was taken by Kirk holding the camera with one hand while the other on the handle bar of a bicycle, of me riding a bicycle on the streets of Tainan on 12.30.2003.  I did not know about it the whole time he was shooting the movie behind me on his bike.  The movie has been edited several times by Greg, the guru of all things digital, with various musical accompaniments.  Here is the version 3 of Tainan Madness -

    

Tehachapi Loop

Tehachapi Loop 

Instead of beating down the gates at the mall for the over-rated Black Friday Specials, Kirk's Mom took the family to a remote mountainous region to the northwest of the Mojave desert, the day after Thanksgiving, to watch freight train loops over/under itself on a portion of the Union Pacific railroad track through the Tehachapi (accent on the 2nd syllable) Pass called Tehachapi Loop -- a feat of railroad engineering to be marveled at.  You can see the freight train looping over itself on the panoramic picture I found on the web.  Here is a video of a train coming from the higher elevation, making a loop as it descends, and then coming out of the tunnel at the lower end of the Pass.

***

P.S. Unbeknownst to me, the first snow of the year has fallen while I was editing the train video, with my head down.  The snow quickly covered the landscape in bright white; the photo below was taken an hour after the following video.

First Snow of 2011

Satyagraha

[Guest post by Greg]

While Judy and I do not catch the Met simulcast opera performances as often as SP, we were looking forward to seeing the Met's recent revival of their acclaimed 2008 production of Philip Glass' Satyagraha—whose subject is the larger-than-life figure of M.K. Ghandi.

The music of that opera—from the CBS recording—is a longstanding favorite of mine. It is beautiful and has an unusual emotional intensity that stands out independently of the language and any narrative associations. So I was really looking forward to seeing the production. I confess I enjoy a good deal of Philip Glass' music, so I was totally ready.

Judy was looking forward to it with some trepidation—thinking about what four hours of solid Glass might do to a person. She brought earplugs just in case we started going mad. (In truth, Judy and I have been to numerous live performances of Glass music over the years, and she always has enjoyed them and been impressed in spite of herself.)

And so to the Met's Satyagraha performance: Earplugs not needed! We both loved the show and were deeply impressed with the opera. Judy said afterward that Philip Glass had finally truly won her over, and when he took his bow at the end, she had felt true respect for what he had accomplished.

Here is a rather passionate review of the the production (originally mounted in 2008). Well worth reading and it will give you some idea of what the opera is all about—in lieu of going:

  NYRB review of the show

It explains a lot about the idea of the opera and how it works—useful given its non-traditional nature. It is also a super-glowing review—which is rather lovely, because, in the end, I think what the reviewer most wanted to do was communicate enough of the ideas and the experience so that when he tells you he burst into tears at the end, you will understand him. Personally, I cried three and a half times, but maybe I don't count because I cry for everything—I cried twice when we went to see the Broadway musical, Wicked. But it wasn't just me this time. I am authorized to tell you that Judy also cried during the performance and teared up again later over dinner just talking about a certain moment of the piece. So that should tell you something. The opera operates on an emotional level with no traditional plot line—it picks up just enough pieces of narrative structure to touch on and build off of certain emotions. (Probably this makes it a sort of love it or hate it opera. We loved it.) It all makes some kind of brave wonderful sense, because Ghandi is such a big subject—to drop him into an opera plot would somehow smallerize him. Instead, by staying at some level of abstraction above simple storytelling, the opera manages to be a moving meditation on Ghandi's achievement and its lasting importance.

There were also some very imaginative and clever moments of stage design. Moody and compelling and exultant. Creative use of humble materials: newspaper, sticks, baskets, packing tape and set pieces that look like corregated iron. Some unusual larger-than-life puppets get into the act at various points in the show to mysterious effect.

The opera is sung in Sanskrit—which really seems the ideal language for Glass music. This means that no one hearing the opera understands what is being sung, but you know everything you need to know by the way the singers sing and their expressions and by knowing the setting. And in fact what they are singing is not directly related to the scenes they are enacting anyway—but are instead meditations from the Bhagavad Ghita. It is a genius, universalizing move for this opera and a nice challenge for the vocalists.

This is an enduring opera and likely to be the centerpiece of Glass' musical legacy—I would stake my operatic reputation on it. Far be it from me to recommend that you catch the encore broadcast (December 7th, 6:30pm), but you might want to check it out. You are well advised to read the scene synopses carefully, because you cannot reliably infer the biographical setting of the scenes from what you will see on stage.

"A masterpiece of musical and visual art." —New York Post

"Spectacular . . . [the music] frequently ravishing" —Associate Press

"A masterwork of theatrical intensity and integrity . . . Image after image is etched indelibly on the memory, in its masterly fusion of the aural and the visual." —The Times of London

"A thing of wonder . . . the whole thing serves as a monumental affirmation of human dignity at a time when many have begun to question its very existence-and for that, we must be infinitely grateful." —The Guardian

"Glass's theme is Gandhi and here -- arguably more than in any of his other stage works -- his style finds a soul-mate in the opera's central character. . . The result is an atmospheric, visually imaginative show." —The Financial Times

  NY Times review (includes some visual-spoiler images and video).

The negative bits: There are two downsides both of which have to do with the broadcast of the opera, not the stage performance: 1) the between-acts host was not doing a great job (I don't know why the Met thinks it makes sense to give this job to opera singers -- because MCs and singers both vocalize? Really?) and 2) the Met camerawork was (again!) too busy and spends entirely too much time pulled in too close for a stage production—it is a problem not unique to this simulcast, but shows up more in this show because most of the action on stage is in the service of building an overall impression or making a scenic tableaux. It seemed clear that no one thought to tell the camera people that this is not a business-as-usual opera and to frame some idea for them about how they should approach it. (But see UPDATE below.)

UPDATE: J and I went to the encore performance and are convinced the footage had been edited in various places. This notably improved the camera work problem I noted above -- alternate camera feeds replacing the badly chosen ones during the live broadcast.

The Annual Elephant Parade

Either because I've become acclimatized or the warm weather is lingering longer this year, I've as yet not had any occasion to wear a long coat.  In fact, it's quite common to see people in short-sleeves in the middle of the day.  But despite the temperate weather, the general scenery around us is undoubtedly a wintry one.  Most of the deciduous trees are already denuded of leaves, their grey and bare branches dangling and swaying in the wind like leftover Halloween skeletons.


We were informed by the City a couple of weeks ago that there would only be one curbside leaf pick-up for each residence this year, sometime between November 14 and December 30.  Before long mounds of leaves began to pile up by the sides of the street in our neighborhood, to the extent that it became difficult to maneuver in and out of it in a car. Last weekend I reminded our yard service to schedule us for our annual leaf, roof, and gutter cleaning before the November 14 deadline.  A team of men came yesterday equipped with blowers, rakes, tarps, and ladders and gave our yard a complete makeover; in a few hours all the leaves that had accumulated on the lawn, driveway, deck, planter boxes, roofs, etc. were miraculously lifted and deposited by the curb in front of the house.    And to our pleasant surprise, on our way to the gym this morning we saw the leaf-vacuuming trucks already hard at work at the front of our neighborhood, several days ahead of schedule.  I couldn't help wondering if somebody in our neighborhood has some special connection to the City Hall, for we seem always to get the most coveted city services before others.  (For example, our street, for no apparent reason, got resurfaced this spring.)  


Here is a video of the ponderous elephants on parade (or the leaf-vacuuming trucks in action) at the front of the house this morning.  

Birds and Bees

Meyer Lemon Tree

Apollo and Daphne

I was given a Meyer Lemon tree by a friend of ours (Rega) a couple of weeks ago; she helped me pot it and set it in a corner in the breakfast area where there is plenty of southern exposure.  She has joked about naming the tree, Daphne, after the unfortunate maiden who, in order to evade the pursuit of Apollo, was transformed into a laurel tree. The Y-shaped lemon tree seems to bear a certain resemblance to the painting of Daphne pictured above.  Within a few days after we potted it, clusters of small white buds began to appear on the tree, which blossomed into fragrant white flowers with delicate yellow anthers shortly afterwards. 

Delicate Operation

As I've never cultivated a fruit tree indoors before, Rega advised that I would need to take on the work of birds and bees outdoors and perform, so to speak, artificial insemination on the tree, i.e., assist in its self-pollination, so that it could bear fruit indoors.  How fascinating!  I was a little daunted by the delicate operation but with the help of on-line instructions, some Q-tips, and a magnifying glass at hand, I was ready for the task.  I look forward to harvesting plenty of lemons next spring.

Glorious Time of the Year

10.22.2011

08.17.2011

We went back to McCormick's Creek State Park last Saturday while there was still time to capture the leaves' slow transition from intense green to various shades of light green and yellow.  The trees in the park were already much denuded at this time, which, to our surprise, unveiled a vista that was hidden from view before.  

White River

While rambling along one of the trails we came upon the bank of a sizable body of water, which turns out to be the western branch of the White River which runs through central and southern Indiana. Though land bound, Indiana is not entirely cut off from water after all.  In addition to hiking and camping, they also offer guided horseback riding in the park.  I can't wait to give it a try next spring.

Hikers

We invited a visiting speaker, Margaret Gilbert, from UC Irvine to join us for the outing.  A couple of hours of vigorous walking passed pleasantly amidst a gentle flow of conversation and reminiscences.  The evening before I attended her talk, "Dark Duties: on the practical import of commands to do evil".  It was a lot of fun seeing philosophers in action during the discussion period after the talk.   

Bragging Rights

No Sweat

+10 years post race

I ushered in my 54th year with a 13.1-mile run this morning.  We got up at 4:00 a.m., drove to Indianapolis, picked up our race packets at 6:30, then went back to the car to wait for the race to start but mainly to get out of the unseasonable, 20+ mph, bone-chilling wind.  The temperature was at about 47 degrees Fahrenheit but it felt like 41.  Despite the cold, more than 3,400 people came out to run.  We were both pleased with our results which, though modest, exceeded our expectations.  Kirk finished in 2:09:38, ranked 58 out of 90 in his age group, with a 9:54 pace; I finished in 2:34:06, ranked 40 out of 88 in my age group, with a 11:46 pace.  You can see the half-marathon course in this you-tube video.

Remains of the Day

Daily Incense

It has been my habit since August to light an incense stick every morning when I first sit down at my desk.  I brought these 16"- long incense sticks from Taiwan; we found them in a specialty shop in an old district of Taipei where Chinese medicine stores congregate.  The incense emits a very subtle scent with barely visible smoke when lighted.  Each stick burns almost exactly an hour (the ember dies out in 01:00:55), and like sand through the hourglass, the passage of time is made visible through its diminishing length.  I also use it to make sure that I get in my hour's practice at the piano every day. The charred stumps of the incense sticks planted helter-skelter in the incense cup in the picture are the remains of my days. 

E-House

Recently I started thumbing through Christopher Alexander's "A Pattern Language" again after letting it languish on my bookshelf for some time.  This monumental book on architecture, building, and planning was first published in 1977 and remains one of the best selling books in architecture (ranked #19 in Amazon's books in architecture,) though perhaps not so much for current architectural students and professionals. (It was never once mentioned in my graduate career in architecture at UF and was not heard of by my cohorts in the studios, who admittedly were 20 to 30 years my junior at the time.)  I no longer remember how I came across the book but I remember purchasing it from Cody's in Berkeley; it must have been at least 25 years ago.  The book had a profound influence on my becoming an architect, though the event seems to have taken place haphazardly.  


The book is like a manual which gives ordinary people a systematic guide to thinking about a building project from the most abstract level to the most minute details.  The "languages" of the book range from the macro scale of region, town, community, neighborhood, down to the micro scale of individual buildings and rooms, and a considerable portion of it deals specifically with dwellings.  To my unsophisticated eye at the time, it was the last which attracted me the most.  I don't know how many house plans I drew up before I ever contemplated the possibility of studying architecture.  It is said that it's every architect's dream to have built a house for himself or herself that incorporates all the wisdom she has accumulated and the ideals she perhaps has forgotten or given up on.  I have long ago abandoned the thought of ever building a "dream" house for my own, not so much because of financial reality but just in the recognition that "dreams" are essentially unrealizable.  


However, it has never stopped me from thinking about it and doing it over and over again. This post is to show you my latest attempt in designing a house for Kirk and I.  I called it "E-House" because its shape resembles an extended letter "E", a long, thin bar on one side with three short bars (wings) extending from it, separated by two voids (open courtyards.) This is my favorite house design as of now and I wouldn't mind building it and living in it, whether it ascends to the realm of the ideal or the dream is of no importance.


Here are some rendered images and computer-generated walk-through videos.  For more information, please see the E-House page on my website.

Fall is here

unmistakable sign of fall

The cold spell in recent days seems to have heralded the arrival of fall, and the scattered leaves on the lawn confirm my uneasy suspicion that fall is indeed here.  If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would not believe it possible that all the green leaves that I am seeing outside my window will soon transform to shades of red and yellow and then be tossed clean off their branches like last year's clothes.  





10.6.2011 update:
Faded, dry, brittle leaves, falling like snow flakes, have steadily accumulated on all horizontal surfaces outdoors; roads, driveways, lawns, and roofs look like confetti-strewn floors at the close of political conventions.

Ludwig's 2011 B.O.Y. Party

2011 Party Flyer

Flank Steak Recipe

In keeping with a tradition that Kirk started for the Philosophy Department at UF, oh, about 20 years ago with a few interruptions, we hosted our second Beginning of the Year Party last Saturday for the faculty and graduate students in the Philosophy Department at IU and some friends we've made outside of the department.  One of the constant features of the Ludwig's B.O.Y. party has been the delectable, juicy, grilled flank steaks and chicken which had been marinated overnight in a secret concoction.  At the request of many fans of the Ludwig's famous flank steak, Kirk finally revealed the secret ingredients of the marination a couple of years ago--they turned out to be nothing fancier than soy sauce and Wishbone Italian dressing from a recipe which Kirk's Mom gave us a long time ago, printed on a dot-matrix printer!  I thought I should unveil the soy sauce-splattered recipe as an article of historical treasure and share it with you all.


Although the format (pot luck), the basic ingredients (wine, grilled flank steak and chicken), and the participants (professional philosophers, future philosophers, and their spouses or significant others) of the party, down to the party flyer (with minor tweaks) have stayed the same through the years, the dynamic of the party seems to be different every year.  There are certain factors which contribute to the changing dynamics from year to year - graduate students came and went (or not) and some faculty retired or moved away and new ones arrived, etc.  But with our move to Bloomington, we've entered a totally new phase of the famous Ludwig's B.O.Y. party.  The most notable differences about our last two parties from all the previous ones were, of course, the change of milieu--both the macro and micro environments were vastly different, and the missing of some familiar faces, without which the parties could never be the same.  


As we had been living in small houses all these years in Gainesville, we noticed that people at our parties, which routinely numbered 30 and up, tended to crowd around the food table, elbow to elbow like in a packed subway car.  My various efforts to entice people to move to other rooms in the house or venture outdoors had met with little success--people like to congregate where the action is and don't like to go where they feel isolated.  Now, in our Bloomington house, the flow of party traffic is much improved and the size of the party has grown substantially to 50+, not only because the house is considerably larger than all our previous abodes but also because it is laid out in such a way that makes it an ideal party house.  The entire back portion of the house, including the kitchen, breakfast area, TV room and Sunroom, is open to a generous deck which steps down to a terrace and the wisteria pergola, amidst a nicely landscaped garden.  There are built-in benches on the deck and seating on the terrace and under the wisteria pergola.  I set out the food, drink, and desert in different rooms which open to one another in the back of the house; people moved from room to room to get the various edibles, stopped to chat along the way, and then stepped outside to find a place to sit down to eat and talk. Small groups were formed here and there; philosophers and non-philosophers co-mingled, profs and students shared a lighthearted moment, and the first-year grads gotten over their diffidence.  As for the macro environment, the early fall weather in Bloomington is mild and pleasant, perfect for sitting outdoors in the evening.  


Though a private person by preference, I've acted the role of the hostess beside Kirk all these years with more or less alacrity and success.  There is a certain amount of vulnerability involved in opening up one's house to a large group of people, most of whom one has never met before.  I sometime felt like a stranger in my own house during these occasions.  But I guess I appreciate Kirk's whole-hearted zeal toward community building, a genuine desire to make the working environment in the department a more pleasant place to be for everybody involved.  Let's hope that it will have a salutary effect here as well. 

Just around the corner

Perhaps the most misleading phrase one hears close to the end of a race is "Just around the corner!" from the well-wishers on either side of the course.  Depending on how depleted one is at the time, it can either be exhilarating or dispiriting - either "Thank goodness, it's almost over!" or "OMG, I'll never get there!"  We are now four weeks into our 10-week half marathon training for the Indianapolis Marathon on October 15.  It seems that one can't claim to know a place unless one ploughs through it on foot.  I wouldn't have traversed all five boroughs in New York City if I hadn't run the NYC marathon there.  I'm afraid the marathon days are over for us now, but being able to tough through some more "halfs" is still something for us to aspire to.  

Dappled Light

the Fall

Whether you are ready for it or not, "things" in general seem about to turn a corner--a new semester officially starts tomorrow at IU, the annual football fever is about to heat up, and though the temperature is still hovering around low 80's, one is beginning to sense a reprieve from the oppressive heat and detect a hint of a change of color at the top of the trees.  Kirk was seized with an inspiration yesterday to explore some nature areas around Bloomington.  We hit the road and drove to McCormick's Creek State Park, about a 30-minute ride northwest of town.  We drove past corn fields, barns, silos, and the quintessential deserted old main streets of small towns USA, in this instance, in Ellettsville and Spencer.  Driving or walking on a part of the earth surface which we've not been before never fails to amaze me; to think that so many lives have, unbeknownst to us, existed and toiled in these parts for so long is something to wonder at.  McCormick's Creek State Park, we learned, was dedicated in 1916 as Indiana's First State Park.  We had a very pleasant walk on one of the trails under the dappled sunlight on the forest floor and we made a date to come back in late October to witness the leaves change colors.  


I imagine that by this time my friends in Gainesville are chomping at the bit for the football season to start, no?

Abby

Free-spirited Abby

The "phantom" Abyssinian cat honored us with an unannounced visit yesterday afternoon. We were just finishing up dinner in the Sunroom and spotted the cat on the deck. Kirk opened the screen door and she rushed over to be patted, then proceeded to walk through the Sunroom and into the house.  After a brief once-over in the TV room, she came back out, unimpressed.  Though skinny, she didn't seem to be much interested in food.  She was playful and appeared to be in good health.  We suspect that she has been cared for by people.  We named her Abby, as in Abby Wambach.

B-Line Trail

B-Line Trail

[For my Bloomington readers]  We made a great discovery last Sunday while out looking for a suitable running route for a longer distance than what we've been used to around the neighborhood.  There is an extensive trail network in Bloomington, a large portion of which was converted from an old railroad.  We ran on the B-line trail, which lies in a north-south direction along the west side of town, about 3 miles long.  The trail is almost completely paved--only a small portion of it is still under construction.  By continuing on to other existing trails, one can get up to about 14 miles round trip, enough for half-marathon training.  It was very pleasant running on the smooth, wide asphalt pavement without having to worry too much about traffic; I was surprised to find that it was not better utilized.  We will certainly be back for our Sunday long runs this fall. 

Rocky Raccoon

Rocky Raccoon

We saw a lean Abyssinian cat wandering across our backyard a couple of times not long ago.  He (or she?) didn't seem to be leery of people, for he once got close to Kirk and rubbed against his legs.  The cat looked troublingly thin, as if life in the wild did not suit him.  Though it is common wisdom that "once you feed a cat, you own it," I decided to put out some cat food and water by the Sunroom door and hoped that the cat might stumble on them at night while hunting for food.  The food was untouched after it was left outside during the first night, but, on the second night the bowls were licked clean.  We weren't sure what or who actually ate the food, but somebody enjoyed it, that much we knew.  I filled the bowls and left them out again and nothing happened on the third night.  The mystery, however, was solved last night - we got home a little after 10 p.m. from a concert and after switching on the kitchen lights we discovered a pair of black-ringed eyes staring at us from the other side of the glass doors!  There he was, a small raccoon rudely disturbed while having his repast.  He appeared to be annoyed but continued his mastication in leisure while we tried to capture him--on film.  Though my attempt to rescue a cat has come to naught, I don't think I should try to domesticate a raccoon.   

Asymmetry

I heard a segment of a radio program, radiolab, on our local NPR station last weekend.  It was called Mirror, Mirror, part of a three-part episode called Desperately Seeking Symmetry, first aired in April this year at WNYC.  (The segment is a lot of fun to listen to.) It calls attention to a curious fact about ourselves which we are seldom conscious of, i.e., that the faces we see of ourselves in the mirror are not how others see us.  The face which I am accustomed to identify as being my own in the mirror does not, in fact, exist in reality.  This fact, however, does not prevent us from picking out our own images in photographs, for we assume that the features of our faces are symmetrical and have learned to overlook the differences between our mirrored-self and our real-self (how we appear in photographs and how we appear to other people), so that we no longer notice the differences.  But if one is presented with a photograph of oneself and another photograph of one's mirrored image, chances are one will be taken aback by how different they look. This experience brings to the fore the fact that, contrary to our common belief, most living things are asymmetric (chiral) in nature. It also makes one wonder how similar or dissimilar one's perception of oneself is from other people's perception of oneself.  Some people don't like their faces in the mirrors, while others don't like their faces in photographs.  Either way, there are differences, however subtle, in the two.  

To demonstrate the differences, I used Photoshop to flip a picture of myself, Kirk, and President Obama horizontally.  For me it is easy to tell the differences for there is a noticeable asymmetry in my face--there is a large mole under my left eye while there is none under my right eye.  (But unlike the people in the story, I change my hair-part almost daily, so that is not a reliable predictor of whether it is the I you see or the one I see.  Also, it disproves the theory of one of the interviewers in the story - my popularity, generally subdued, does not appreciatively increase or decrease depending on which side my hair is parted.) 

How you see me

How I see myself

Kirk as he appears to us

Kirk as he appears to himself

Obama to us

Obama to himself

  

Small World

Kirk having a cappuccino

at Small World Coffee

Another venerable Princeton "institution" is Small World Coffee on Witherspoon Street, half a block across from the main gates of Princeton University.  Many PU alumni cherish fond memories of countless hours spent there, though its reputation in the annals of Princeton lore is only half as old as that of PJ's.  Despite the ever-expanding presence of Starbucks all over the country to, as it were, monopolize American's love affair with specialty coffee drinks, similar Indie-style coffee houses have been cropping up around college towns--places like Volta in Gainesville, Pourhouse and Runcible Spoon in Bloomington.  From the point of view of a self-styled coffee aficionado, I'm afraid I'd have to give Volta a slight edge over Small World, though some of my readers may not agree with me.  However, there is an unfortunate downside to Volta - it is not only that it's not within walking distance from UF campus, but that it's located inside a downtown parking garage, though for some people, the last may constitute a part of its charm.  

In addition to hosting research seminars and workshops, Princeton University during the summer months is also a popular destination for summer camps, mostly sports-related, and international tourism, mostly from Asia.  Bus-loads of tourists, from China, Korea, and Taiwan, are dropped off on Nassau Street every morning.  The phenomenon can probably be explained by the fact that there is a kind of long-held mystique, a result of their worship of over-achievement (remembering Tiger Mothers), in the minds of Asian people about the Ivy League Schools in the U.S. and Princeton University, with its "monkey imitation of Cambridge," as uncharitably characterized by Bertrand Russell, is probably billed as the epitome of the Ivy League school. 

And, troupes of kids in gear for such East-coast, "elitist" sports as field hockey and lacrosse, as contrasted with football and basketball in SEC schools, are also common sights on Princeton campus, as well as groups of prospective students and their parents shopping for the best ROI (return on investment) college.  It has always puzzled me to hear that young people and their parents shop around the country for specific kinds of "college experience" when deciding which university to attend--witness the stories on the various college ranking categories on Huffington Post - the top 10 Hipster, Friendliest, Nerdiest, Trendiest Colleges, etc.  (By the way, Princeton University, whose graduates enjoy the highest mid-career earnings with an average salary of $130,000.00, ranks number one among the "best-paying colleges" in the country.)  In contrast, in most Asian countries, there is no "shopping" involved: the college one gets into is determined by one's test scores from the National College Entrance Examination held once a year; the same is true for the High School one attends. 

Heat Wave

Ah... Just what I needed!

Hogwarts Express

Princeton Station

Joy catching the Dinky

Another claim to fame of Princeton University, which is also evidence of its privileged background, is that its campus has been served, since 1865, by a commuter rail line, known as the Dinky Line, dedicated exclusively to bringing passengers back and forth between Princeton University and Princeton Junction, located about 3 miles southeast of Princeton, where one can catch a train to Newark, New York City, and other destinations on the Northeast Corridor Line.  The five-minute train ride in a two-car, clunky, antiquated train seems to take one back through time; for every freshman coming to the university for the first time, whether from the States or a foreign country, the experience on the Dinky is an indispensable part of the initiation process, like taking the Hogwarts Express to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Aside from its nostalgic quality, the train service is very reliable, convenient, and economical - round trip fare to Penn Station, New York, about a 90-minute ride from Princeton Junction, is $33, which is really unbeatable for practically a door-to-door service.  (In spite of New Jersey Transit's effort to "derail" the train service and replace it with a bus system, and PU's own proposal to move the Princeton Station 460 feet south of its current location on campus to make way for a new arts complex, sparking outcry from locals, students, and alumni alike, the train will continue its time-honored service for the foreseeable future.) 


Speaking about trains, our experience riding the commuter trains to New York and back for the first time deserves a brief mention here.  On our trip up there, upon sitting down in the crowded car where everybody seemed to be wrapped up in his or her own private world accessible only through ear-buds, we heard a couple of loud, angry, New York style, shouts of "Q U I E T !!!  THIS IS A QUIET CAR!" directed to an innocent-looking guy saying goodbye to someone on the phone.  We looked at one another, were glad that we didn't commit the faux pas of opening our mouths inadvertently, and rapidly scanned the car to locate a sign which might identify it as being a "Quiet Car." To our complete mystification, we could not find any.  I figure that keeping one's mouth shut on a long commuter train ride is probably the best policy, especially during the morning commutes to work when almost everybody is, understandably, in a bad mood.  


We were also confronted with a series of mysteries on our return journey from Penn Station.  After a frantic search to locate the NJT lines, we found ourselves in a hall with a series of closed, narrow, double doors, identified by what looked to be platform numbers above them and a couple of TV monitors which supposedly would inform one which platform to go to board one's train. There happened to be a group of foreign teenagers, apparently over-stimulated by a day's fun at the great metropolis, scattered on the floor in front of each pair of the doors, singing kumbaya and generally carrying on without regards to the world around them.  To our dismay we found that platform information, as if with the intention of causing havoc, was withheld from passengers until a couple of minutes before boarding time.  We parked ourselves in front of one of the doors, chosen at random, and I eyed the narrow double doors uncomfortably, anticipating the stampede to come when the platform information was announced.  All of a sudden, a roar of "number 9 [3/4]" erupted from the group of kids, a mad dash toward a stairway somewhere ensued, away from the doors marked "9", leaving a few old folks like us standing in front of the number 9 door looking bewildered. These turned out to be doors to small elevators which would take one directly down to the designated platforms.


After boarding the train, it soon became apparent that there was no A/C at all and that nobody was observing the silence etiquette, perhaps because it was not a "Quiet Car" or that it was so late that nobody cared.  At various stops along the way, the conductor repeatedly instructed the disembarking passengers to move to the very front of the train as only the door on the first train would open to allow passengers to get off.  Why it had to be so was quite unaccountable.  Later we learned from a conductor collecting tickets that we were in the only car in the mighty long train where the A/C was not working, but he said he would "reset it" when he "got a chance." It got intolerably hot instead, and we finally moved to a different car, a long way from where we were, to the front of the train.   When we finally arrived at the Princeton Junction, thinking that we were well positioned to be near the doors which would likely open, we were told, as if by a sheer caprice, that all doors would open at that station.  We ended up getting off at the far end of the platform and had to march a long distance to get off and on to another platform to catch the train back to Princeton.


P.S.: I wonder whether our next train experience will be less mysterious.  
P.P.S.: I just went to the station to take a picture of the Dinky and was alarmed to find that it was out of service.  Could it be that its demise is drawing near?