Eight to Five

I had an amazing change of fortune as of the summer of this year.  For a long, lean six-year period, since we moved to Bloomington, I haven't been able get a job in my late-chosen profession--architecture.  I had resigned myself to the possibility that I might never work again, as the possibility of my finding a position in this field grew slimmer and slimmer with each year I didn't work full-time.  Out of sheer luck I came upon on an opening on Jobs at IU for an Assistant Architect position at the IU University Architect's Office, whose qualification requirements I seemed on the face of it to match quite well.  I put in my application in the middle of June and got an interview at the end of July.  Two months later, I got a call back for a second interview and, thanks to the good words put in on my behalf by my previous employers, in the middle of October, during a morning run, I got a call offering me the position, and two weeks later I started my job!  It was exactly four months since I first put in my application, and during that time I had quietly put it out of my mind that I would be considered seriously for the position.  

So miracles do happen, and here I am again settling into an 8 to 5 routine after a six-year hiatus.  Overall it is the best possible outcome for my professional career that I could have imagined--working in the same institution as Kirk and enjoying all the benefits and perks.  I hope for the next 10 years at least to make some contribution to fulfilling the mission of our office to Indiana University.  

I had originally intended to publish this post on last Tuesday eve to coincide with the anticipated celebration of our first female president-elect.  We all know how that turned out, and how our confidence and the 99% assurance from certain quarters was dashed to pieces.  It was the Brexit vote all over again.  How could the polls and professional commentators have got it so wrong?!  How could the ideological and regional divisions of the country have got to be so deep and unbridgeable?!  Though it seems that the result of this election will be the reality we live in for the next four years, I don't think I will be able to reconcile myself to it, at least for now.  I am not even able to bring myself to utter the name--the repugnance I feel is too great.

I know I am not alone in feeling this way.  I was surprised by a visit to my cubicle last Thursday by an Assistant V.P. of our unit, who came to assure me of IU's commitment to diversity and who told me with teary eyes that this was not the country she thought it was.

Searle at IU

John Searle gave two terrific public lectures at IU; they can be viewed at the links below:

The Logical Structure of Human Civilization, 09.11.2014

Consciousness as a Problem in Philosophy and Neurobiology, 09.09.2014 

Enjoy!

die Fußballweltmeisterschaft

Like a Dream

Like millions of people worldwide, I've caught the soccer fever, which has gripped me for the past four weeks or so and has just ended in Germany's being crowned the Weltmeister!  Wow! Such a run -- from the unbelievable header by John Brooks (that's him on the image here) of the USA team, to intricate footwork, dives, injuries intended or unintended, bizarre refereeing, near misses, jubilation, and heartbreaks on a colossal collective scale.  I so wanted Argentina and Messi to win (the Pope should have intervened), though I believed the Germany team well earned the title by patiently grinding the game out without ever losing their concentration.  

After this world cup, I hope the sport soccer or "football" in every other country in the world will gain more of a following in American society, alongside the NBA, NFL, MLB, and other team sports and eventually produce some world-class athletes. 

Phares Whitted Quartet

Otherwise, it has been a laid back summer, an extended stay-cation, you might say. Though a lot of students have left town, the university has kept up with non-stop summer arts, film, and music programs, workshops, and recitals, most of them with free admission.  We've gone to the Jazz in July outdoor concerts a couple of times at the IU Art Museum, which is something new for us this year, and despite the heat and occasional searing loud trumpet, we've enjoyed the performances. Who would have known that Indiana has been the hot bed of Jazz since its early days, with the likes of Cole Porter and Hoagy Carmichael, a Bloomington native, both hailing from Hoosier country, and that many other renowned Jazz musicians have graduated from the IU Jazz Studies program since the 60s?

   

Aquatic Dreams

IU SRSC Pool

I've recently started learning how to swim.  It may not seem much to you but it's a big deal for me.  Growing up I didn't have the opportunity to learn to swim properly, which was not uncommon for the 99 percenters in our part of the world at that time -- a fact which will become more apparent later on in my narrative.  I used to think that the reason I couldn't swim, a skill which comes naturally for some, was due to my poor eyesight.  I made an initial step towards learning to swim a couple of years before we left Gainesville in having a pair of prescriptive goggles made for me, but still I didn't make it to the pool after that.  In part, I think, it was because I didn't want to make a fool of myself in public.  It seems to be taken for granted in the U.S. that everybody knows how to swim, as if it were a birth right. 

When I saw that adult swimming lessons, for all skill (or non-skill) levels, were being offered at the IU gym, I leaped at the opportunity to learn.  On my first day of class, I observed that all the participants in the Adult Level I group were from the Near or Far East - most were IU undergraduate students from China or Korea, plus a guy from the Middle East, and two older Asian women, including me.  In contrast, the little kids in the Child group were mostly whites, with a couple of Asians, and no blacks.  I couldn't help wondering about the race distribution in both cases.  I would have thought that swimming is no longer so much a luxury sport nowadays in most parts of the world, especially in countries like South Korea or China.  And why the African Americans should not take to swimming, as opposed to basketball, football or track, I can not quite fathom.  Anyways, I personally have a strong incentive to master the basics of swimming this spring -- we will be in Australia for two weeks in early May and we plan to make a detour to Cairns and Port Douglas area for snorkeling trips to the Great Barrier Reef! 

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. 

Kinsey Confidential

Another claim to fame for Indiana University and the quiet little town of Bloomington is that it was where the controversial Dr. Alfred Kinsey and his Kinsey Institute hailed from.  For people who reached adulthood in the 50's, the Kinsey Reports created a sensation in the American society that would be inconceivable today.  As part of the IU New Faculty Orientation program, earlier this year we were taken to visit the venerable institution, located on the 3rd floor of the Morrison Hall.  Since that visit, we've also seen the PBS documentary, Kinsey, and a movie by the same title starring Liam Neeson as Alfred Kinsey. 

the Kinsey Reports

Scene Board

Kinsey's Home

I've been meaning to write something about the Kinsey connection at the University.  For this purpose, I went back to the K.I. this afternoon to take some photos and also to see their new exhibit, and on the way to campus I walked past the house which Kinsey built in 1927 and where his family lived until 1983 when it was transferred to the current ownership.  If the stories in the movie were to be believed, this house on the quiet little street saw a lot of action during Kinsey's tenancy there.  

Morrison Hall

The K.I. is housed on the 2nd & 3rd floors of the Morrison Hall.  Visitors are given a badge and are free to wander around the hallways and the gallery.  The prints, photographs, art, and objects you can see there are extraordinary and not for the faint of heart, some examples of which can be found in a visual tour video located on the bottom of the next link. They also have an extensive Library and Special Collections for research use with restricted access.   

Kinsey and Wells

What's remarkable, and there are several things, about the life and work of Kinsey are that 1) when the first report regarding human male sexual behavior first came out in 1948 it captured the public's imagination, despite doubts in the university community, and became an instant best seller, 2) when the second report regarding human female sexual behavior came out in 1953, however, it caused an uproar, was denounced as "an indictment of American Womanhood", and led to the investigation by the Reece Committee for possible links to the Communist Party, and to the subsequent cut off of funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, and 3) throughout its controversial history, the IU President at the time, Herman B. Wells, a demi-god-like figure at the University to this day, stood behind the research work done by Kinsey and defended the importance of academic freedom. 


Sixty years since the publication of the Kinsey reports, one wonders whether, despite the wind of the sexual revolution which swept across the country in the 60's, American society's beliefs and phobias about sexual behaviors have fundamentally changed from those of Kinsey's time, as witnessed in the current debate about gay marriage.

The House of the Singing Winds

T.C. Steele

Last Friday we went on a tour to see paintings by T.C. Steele (1847-1926), the best-known member of the "Hoosier Group" of American Impressionist artists, at the IU Memorial Union and then visited "the House of the Singing Winds" which Steele built in 1907 in nearby Brown County, about a 20-minute ride from Bloomington.  Steele was commissioned by the IU graduating class of 1907 to paint the portrait of IU's 10th president, William Lowe Bryan, while his house was under construction.  He later became the first professor of Fine Arts at IU, which is said to be the first Fine Art Professorship in the country.  IU has a large collection of his paintings, on display scattered all over the sprawling Memorial Union building.  His oeuvre consists of paintings of two distinct types - the one portraits, in the classical academic tradition, the other landscapes, en plein aire, in the Impressionist tradition, many of which were painted on the IU Campus and around his 200+ acre home site.  Both styles of his are incredibly good and sophisticated. 

The House of the Singing Winds

He built the House of the Singing Winds for his bride-to-be,  Selma, who was his second wife and 23 years his junior.  Originally conceived as a vacation home, the house became their main residence all year around till they died. The house grew through the years and they also added several other structures on the site, most notable of which is the large, 20+ foot tall studio, which presents a conventional barn facade on the south side while the north face is mostly glazed.  The house got its name from the sound of the wind singing through the metal screens of their sleeping porch at night.  He apparently painted everyday, rain or shine, while he lived there and one can recognize several of the scenes of his paintings on the site.  

Wisteria Pergola in Painting

Wisteria Pergola Now

Wisteria in Bloom

Wisteria Porch @ Guest Cottage

Peacock at Window

Main room

Sleeping Porch

North Facade - Large Studio

South Facade - Large Studio

This is the Log Cabin
that Kirk talked about

Hoosier Values

During the mid-term election, I occasionally saw on TV, commercials of some state candidates, regardless of their political persuasions, touting "Hoosier Values", with special emphasis on their "gun-toting" tradition.  Exactly how the Hoosier values were different from the 'values' held by people from any other states was not clear to me.  However, there is something about the Hoosiers, or at least the Hoosiers we've come across, which stands out in our impressions and that is their kindness to strangers, a kindness which is trusting and unsuspecting, almost naive.  Some of you may protest by saying that kindness knows no states boundaries and after all we've only lived in three states so far, California, Florida, and now Indiana.  Well, I can only say that we derive our impression based on personal experiences and I will relate a couple here.


On Kirk's first visit to IU, flying into the Indianapolis Airport, which, by the way, is a gem of a small to mid size airport, unsure of where to go to pick up his rental car, he was standing around and looking somewhat puzzled.  A guy walking by stopped and asked Kirk if he could be of any help and upon learning that he was lost, pointed out to him where to go.  Kirk was pleasantly surprised by the kindness shown him, especially in a place where one least expects to receive random kindness from total strangers. Similar incidents have occurred to us several times since then, at street corners, at farmers' market, and so on.


In early September, on a late Saturday afternoon, the day before our "Beginning of the Term" as well as our house-warming party, at which we were expecting over fifty people, we went to Lowe's to get some parts for a ceiling fan.  While there, we saw some end-of-the-season outdoor furniture on sale for 50% off.  A sales person approached us and showed us a set of wrought-iron furniture, a 48" round table and four chairs, at a great price.  We were very tempted as we did not have any outdoor furniture at that time and we thought having something for people to gather around would definitely help draw the guests outside more.  We have an incredible backyard, with a large redwood deck and several terraces, which is a perfect setting for late summer evening parties.  We decided to buy the set but realized shortly after that we would not be able to transport it home in our car.  After asking us where we lived, the sales person offered to deliver the furniture to us; she said that she had a Trailblazer which the furniture box would fit in and as she had to go by High Street, which is actually on the other side of town from Lowe's, to run an errand anyway, she would be happy to bring it to us.  She also said that she got off in about 30 minutes.  We were elated and couldn't believe that someone would offer such kindness to total strangers.  We loaded the furniture box into her 'truck' and went home to wait for her, without any misgiving.  Sure enough, in about half an hour, an SUV pulled into our driveway and this hearty woman unloaded the furniture for us! 


Another example of the friendliness and helpfulness of the Hoosiers has to do with the postal carrier in our neighborhood.  I met Darlene during the first week after we moved to our new house.  She is a jolly and talkative person.  Seeing that I was wearing my running duds, she proceeded to tell me about how she kept fit by drinking a certain protein shake for lunch and also that she would stop on her beat at certain place to do push-ups on the sidewalk everyday. She looks very trim and healthy.  She gave me a couple packets of the protein shake to try and said that she would tell me more about it if I liked them.  It turns out that she is a distributor of the product on the side and can probably claim several clients from the homes she delivers mails to.  I was sold on the product, partly by her friendliness, but mainly because I don't want the hassles of having to fix myself something to eat for lunch.  Anyway, I have been having protein shakes for lunch everyday; even when it's freezing outside I'll be drinking my shake and shivering at the same time.  But, wait, the story doesn't end here.  Not too long ago, I was asked by two future colleagues of Kirk's to help renovate a house they were in the process of buying in anticipation of their coming move to Bloomington.  Their house is also located in the area south of campus, not too far from ours.  On seeing the postal carrier walking past her house, she said to me, something like "Oh, there goes Darlene, the 'duenna' of the neighborhood.  I'd better go say hi."  She told me that she has stored several pieces of furniture at Darlene's from their previous year's stay in Bloomington.  The take-aways  of the story for me are that 1) people here are very willing to lend a hand to help others and 2) Bloomington is a very tight-knit little community where everybody knows everybody else.

IU Mini

While shopping at the running store last weekend, we were told about the upcoming IU Mini (half) Marathon on April 2, 2011.  Kirk and I both decided to train for the race starting immediately as the training schedule for marathons usually takes about 18 weeks.  We've learned from past experience that the only way to run consistently is to train for a race. We need all the motivation we can get to run in this weather in the low teens.

I hit the road this morning for a 4-mile run.  The snow on the sidewalk has turned into ice and is especially treacherous to run on.  I had to slow down several times and walk gingerly over the ice on stretches of sidewalk.  Fortunately I didn't have any mishap. Those homeowners with houses fronting sidewalks and roads who took the trouble to clear the snow off the sidewalks did the general public, especially pedestrians, joggers, and bicyclists, a great service but they are the minority, I afraid.

Now that I have announced that I'll be running the IU Mini next April, I will have to stick to my words and do the training four days a week come rain, snow, or shine.  Wish me perseverance.   

b-town music scene

Bloomington, or b-town as it's sometime referred to, is famous for its rich and lively music scene anchored by the world-renowned IU Jacobs School of Music, http://music.indiana.edu/. Since the fall semester began, there has not been an evening, so it seems to me, without some musical events happening in one of its several performance venues, recitals or concerts by students, faculty, or guest artists, most of which are free and open to the public.  The music school attracts aspiring musicians of all ages and nationalities to this quiet little town, not in tangent with any major interstate freeways.  One notable instance is that there seems to be a big South Korean student population at IU and people attribute it without hesitation to the fame of the music school.  Why Korean students are particularly drawn to famous US music schools in this case is a mystery to me.  

The major musical performance space at IU is the Musical Arts Center (MAC), an understated concrete building, completed in 1972.  As one of the IU new faculty orientation activities hosted by the Vice Provost's office, we were given free tickets to their most recent opera performance, Die Fledermaus, last Friday with a pre-show reception and backstage tour of the facility.  We were told that its 90 ft x 60 ft stage space rivals that of the Metropolitan Opera House at the Lincoln Center and that its red interior color scheme is 'copy-righted'.  We have been to the MAC for six musical performances so far, of which three were operas - Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Little Women, and Die Fledermaus, all of which were credibly staged and performed by students with a full orchestra in accompaniment.  I am still in search of the best seat in the house for operatic performances as the height of the supertitles often conflicts with the optimum viewing of the stage proper.  The connection between the singing and the libretto is too difficult to establish when one constantly has to shift attention from the stage to the supertitles; one loses the sense of immediacy and one's attention lags as a result.  I plan to try the center Balcony seat when I attend the next opera performance there, as the height of the balcony might minimize the difficulty mentioned above.   


As a side note, I believe that the Met Opera HD Live at the movie theatre provides an invaluable service to people all over the world not fortunate enough to be in New York attending one of its live performances.  The sound and the immediacy, though miles removed, of live performances are captured; additionally, the theatre audience is treated to close-ups of the singers' faces in the throes of rendering dramatic arias and privileged views of the orchestra pit, the interviews with the principals and backstage activities during intermissions.  Hearing the stage manager's voice of "Maestro to the Pit" always gives me the goosebumps. I went to see the Met Opera HD Live performance of "Don Pasquale" yesterday and I must say that it was one of my most thoroughly enjoyed opera experiences ever!

As a contrast to the g-town, the home of the mighty Gators, where we came from, the football craze here is of a much smaller scale but with equal pride and frustrated enthusiasm.  Instead of the gator chomps, the de rigueur thing to do after each 'first down' at the football games is the curious 'cow-milking' hand movement, as described by Kirk, and the rather conductor-ish gesture, unfortunately not captured in my video, in sync with the abrupt cutting off of the tune played by the marching band.