My Life: Summer 2011

Saturday Ji and I went on a 2+ hour mt. biking adventure in Ringwood Park in New Jersey. It was my first time exercising in a month and my first time on a bike in over ten months. I was tired and out of shape, but had a great time. Ji-Soo fell and I got to wash the blood off with my water bottle. I did not fall because I have not yet bought my summer-time health insurance.

We went directly from mt. biking to Ji-Soo's aunt's house to shower and eat a pretty respectable amount of food: ribs, fish, bean sprouts, oyster kim chi, fruit, ice cream. I am grateful that Ji-Soo's family seems to have no problem with me laying on the floor and moaning as I recover from my bike ride and giant meal.

Sunday Ji-Soo and I went on another bike ride around the city (if it means anything to you: from Williamsburg, Brooklyn up Kent Ave to Vernon Blvd. into Astoria, Queens, across the Triboro bridge and back again). After our bike ride we did that same exact as the day prior (what else does one do after a long bike ride?): shower and eat Korean food, leftovers sent with us from the previous night.

Life
is
Good

That evening we watched "Street Fight", a documentary about Cory Booker's first run for mayor of Newark, NJ in 2002. Then we read as much as we could about him online, Ji-Soo focusing on his remarkable college football career and myself on his educational reforms and desire to live in the poorest, most violent parts of Newark. I highly recommend checking the man out.

This morning, Monday, I spent some time gorging myself on U.S. educational reform blogs, articles and videos. I watched "The Lottery" and it made me cry, also highly recommended. When I looked up it was almost 2 p.m. and I had to get out of the house. I walked across the Williamsburg bridge and into Chinatown and then took the subway back to Brooklyn. Here are some photos from my trek:

This is along the first stretch of the bridge. This is the bike route that I took because the first half of the pedestrian walkway is closed for repairs. I love the bridges of NYC. Love, love them. I don't know anything about architecture or art, but I do know that the lines of these bridges are beautiful. The other day I was talking about how beautiful the Queensboro bridge is and Ji said, "I'm not sure anyone else would use that word to describe that bridge." Yes, it looks industrial and a little rusty, but fantastically so.


I took this picture to show the road sign in the upper left corner. Also to show how highly used the biking and walking paths in NYC are. One day I would like to sit next to one of these bike paths and count the number of people that use them in one day. Today I also wanted to take portrait photos of the people who cross the bridge on bike. I wished Laura.d.n.c was there to launch the project with me because she is good at talking to people she doesn't know, and asking to take their pictures.


The Williamsburg Bridge is covered with graffiti, and I love it. At first I think this makes me gritty and down, but then I realize that it is easy to like colorful graffiti in a safe, hip, neighborhood.


Graffiti on a rooftop seen from the bridge.


This picture came out blurry. It is hard to see the screen of my digital camera in bright sunlight. Regardless, you can still see the teeth-tower, which I really like a lot.


More lines. More colors.


Halfway across the bridge there is a connecting point between the bike path on the north side of the bridge and the walkway on the south side. This section of the walkway was open. As I crossed a train passed under me. This is another reason that I love the Williamsburg Bridge: it has trucks, cars, pedestrians, bicyclists and subways. It is like a small city unto itself.


The train passed and I was left with more lines.


More graffiti. More color.


More trains. More lines.


The Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges to the south. To the north you can see the Queensboro bridge, Chrysler building and Empire State building. I took a picture of them, but it came out blurry.


This is maybe the most beautiful part of the bridge. This is where the bike path and walkway converge, if you are Manhattan-bound, or separate, if you are Brooklyn-bound.


It says:
CITY OF NEW YORK
WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE
DEPARTMENT OF BRIDGES

The silver paints shines in the sun.


At this point in the bridge there is also a seemingly random art installation: the colored tiles on the cross beams. I don't know who did them or what they are supposed to mean but they decrease in number, heading towards Manhattan, until there are none, and I like them.


An unusually detailed spray paint stencil.


I have no idea what it is, but it grabbed my attention. It can't actually be a stencil. I don't know how they did it.


I tried to walk past this one, but it wouldn't let me. You could make a movie about this.

And then I was in Chinatown and buying tea and too distracted and thirsty to take anymore pictures. But here are some from last week:


Salad in bowl from Mom: lettuce, spinach, bean sprouts, walnuts, parsley, green olives, zucchini, Basic Vinaigrette from the How to Cook Everything cookbook.


Never-fail no-knead bread.


The Glove, a gift that Ji's mom brought me from Korea when she came to Costa Rica. It's made with a special scrubby yarn and can be used in the kitchen or the shower. I chose the shower and have been very happy ever since. I've never felt so clean!


Ji-Soo makes noodle soup. Same wonderful bowl from same wonderful Mom.

Small Joys

This past April when I was in the states for a week I took a day trip to Philly to see my family. I wanted to get a Philly treat for Ji, so Dad took me to Di Bruno Brothers. Dad was very excited about the balsalmic vinegar, and when I was too cheap to buy it for Ji-Soo, he did. I lovingly cradled the balsamic vinegar in my lap, next to the not-as-pricey sausage I bought, all the way back to Brooklyn.

Ji-Soo and I made a loaf of no-knead bread with which to try the vinegar, and it was delicious. What more could a girl ask for?

Food and Bug Fotos

Ji's Mom and Aunt found this almost-dead critter in the bathroom during their visit. I took it out to the porch to take pictures while his family made jokes about how we were starting out own bug exhibition and could charge people money to come see it. After pictures the beetle went next to the beautiful dead moth we'd found that morning during breakfast. As evidenced by this episode, it was a fantastic visit. I'd never seen a beetle with bumps on its back like that.


Harmless beetle, huge claws. Funny pads on feet. The surface the beetle is resting on is Ji's shorts because he's ok with me putting almost-dead bugs on his leg to take pictures.


And then Ji's family left and I made pejivalle. It's palm fruit, and pretty fantastic. Step 1: boil.


Step 2: Peel. You'll noticed that I skipped the very important step of "let cool". Ouch.


Step 3: split in half.


Step 4: Fill with natilla, Costa Rican sour cream.


Step 5: eat/enjoy

Step 6: store any leftovers


Not a step, just organic trash, which is more times than not just as beautiful as the edible part.


Pejivalle project over, move onto to boiling eggs.

Back in NYC, time for an update

From a while ago:

Bits of White Tiger by Aravind Adiga that I loved:

(about family members) "At night they slept together, their legs falling one over the other, like one creature, a millipede."

"My father's spine was a knotted rope, that kind that women use in villages to pull water from wells...The story of a poor man's life is written on his body, in a sharp pen."

From June 8, 2011

In the a.m.: "This morning I woke to the sound of howler monkeys calling and birds hopping on my corrugated roof."

and then in the evening:
"What a funny day. Tonight I worked until 7 p.m. Walking home the fog was dense and still. My flashlight at full power could only show me the rocks right in front of my feet. The light extended from my hand in a solid cone. There were single, split second flashes of lighting, so fast I wasn't sure they had even happened.

And then to add to the already beautiful, spooky-but-not-scary atmosphere: as I approached the gate to my house to lean over and unlatch it from the other side I froze and then jumped back. There was a thin brown snake on the waist-high gate, about 2 1/2 feet long. Half of its body was wrapped through and resting on top of the gate, the other half poised, waiting in the air above the gate. If I had actually reached over the gate to unlatch it I could have given the snake a little kiss on the top of its i-think-its-not-triangle-shaped head.

I am not afraid of snakes. I think they are beautiful and interesting. Startled by them yes, scared no. Until I moved to Costa Rica and learned that there are 27 speices of venomous snakes in this small country. Did you know that Costa Rica is one of the world's top (or maybe the actual top) exporters of snake venom antidote? They have enough deadly snake venom to make lots of snake anti-venom and ship it all over the world.

Yes, I got myself educated on venomous snakes. I went to the serpentario three times and learned the difference between a triangle head and a round head, cat pupil and round pupil. I know about that nostril looking pit that venomous snakes have in their faces and it was all very interesting.But it only gets you so far when it's dark and foggy and there is a snake in your face. There was nothing about this snake that told me it was venomous but I still didn't want to kiss it.

I found the longest stick I could (a good 8 inches - great job, Ginna) and gently poked the snake with it, hoping that this would be enough to convince it to move elsewhere. No such luck. After a few more pokes at its thin, long body I remembered that young snakes can be more deadly that adult snakes because they will dump all of their venom into you at once, having not yet learned how to control their bite. This was a long but young looking snake that was begining to zigzag the top half of its body, lower half anchored firmly to the gate. David Attenborough has taught me that this is ideal striking stance. No way I could move faster than this little guy.

Finally, the thin brown snake slowly moved into the bush next to my front gate. I gingerly opened the gate and let myself in, scrutinizing every stick I could see. I turned to look at the brown snake in the green bush but could not find it. Sneaky little bugger.

Weird Things Happen When You Travel

It is true, they just do. Here are some examples from my last stint of international travel (Monteverde to NYC) to illustrate my point:

Weird thing #1: Oscar on the bus
I took the 2:30 bus from Monteverde to Alajuela on Friday afternoon because my flight left early Saturday morning. I got to sit next to Oscar, who really wanted to talk to me and tell me how pretty I was, but instead he feel asleep in the heat, thank goodness. Unfortunately, as the sun set and the air cooled, Oscar woke and chatted me up. I had no interest in talking to him but he did not seem to notice how I kept burying my nose in my book or gazing out the window. He insisted on telling me all about his world travels and even asked me if I was married. I guess he didn't notice that he was almost 50 years my senior. I was very happy to mention my wonderful boyfriend whom I was in route to visit. For the record, our old friend Oscar did nothing inappropriate or out of bounds, I just wasn't in the mood for geriatric chit chat.

Weird thing #2: Public viewing hotel room
I chose to stay at a hotel in Alajuela that myself and others from Monteverde have used regularly. They are nice, helpful, clean and pretty inexpensive. This time, however, I got a room with a shared bathroom in an attempt to save a few additional dollars. There were three windows in my room, each of them opening to an open space in the hotel, not to the outside. These windows had blinds that only partially obstructed an outsiders view, which meant that I had to turn the lights off to change, and as I snuggled into bed to read at night, I could make direct eye contact with anyone passing. Thank goodness my neighbors had the decency not to linger.

Weird thing #3: Costa Rica's new national sport
I shared my 5:15 a.m. taxi to the airport with a Swiss couple heading home after their third visit to Costa Rica. Our taxi driver was very excited to explain to us the new Costa Rican sport: fútbol vacero or something like that. Two teams, soccer field, most goals wins - nothing new there. But instead of playing with a soccer ball, they play with a COW. With horns. You are not allowed to touch the animal, but if you usher it into your goal, you get a point. Once we had arrived at the airport and unloaded our bags, our taxi driver proudly lifted his shirt to show where he had been gouged in the gut by cow horns.

Weird thing #4: Airplane adventure
The first leg of my airborne journey, San Jose to Atlanta, when smoothly. The flight from Atlanta to Newark was delayed about an hour due to poor weather in Newark. I called Ji who confirmed that yes, in deed, it was raining in his part of the world. The first hour and a half of the flight, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. , when pretty smoothly. Around 5:35 p.m., when we were over Pennsylvania, the captain explained that due to poor weather in Newark we would be entering a holding pattern over PA until about 6:15. He would keep us updated. Two minutes later he came on again to say that we were actually just gonna head right into Newark.

Then we were struck by lighting. Yeah...no one was really expecting that since we were above the clouds and had seen no rain or lighting at all. The ride was still pretty smooth when all of a sudden there was a bright flash of light, a shudder thru the airplane and a loud BOOM. People were freaked out (gasping, yelling, "of my gosh!"ing) but luckily two flight attendants happened to be standing in the aisle right next to me and I was able to observe them not flinch at all and overhear them talk about how an airplane is actually a pretty safe place to be in a lighting storm, they'd been on much worse flights than this, the plane is equipped with "static sticks", etc. Surprisingly, I did not freak out. Yes, I did feel that prickly heat that rises from your armpits to your neck after a sudden scare, but I was not nervous. This, for me, came as a surprise and relief because over the past few years I've been developing an anxiety around flying. But here I was calm as could be surrounded by a flurry of fear. Interesting.

We approached Newark, we were put in a holding pattern for awhile, then started our final descent. The sky got darker and the air bumpier as we slid beneath the storm clouds. I heard the landing gear lower. And then, all of a sudden, we were accelerating back up into the smooth, bright skies above the clouds. The captain gave us this explanation: "Folks, we came in to land but the rain was so intense we couldn't see the airport." That's all he said for a while, leaving me to wonder: and now what? but I still was not nervous. I was, however, beginning to get a little queasy due to the mild but constant turbulence for the past hour.

The captain explain further that we were going to circle around and try to land again. This process took about 20 minutes, during which time I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying to calm my motion sickness. I was successful, but the little boy two rows ahead of me was not, and we could all hear him retching.

When we landed successfully on our second attempt three interesting things happened almost simultaneously:
1. The plane erupted into applause. This is not the first time this has happened on a flight I've been on, but it is the first time I've participated.
2. My eyes welled up with tears and I realized how stressed I actually had been. I have never been so happy to be in windy, raining, grey, Newark NJ!
3. A woman one row ahead of me across the aisle threw up, which is especially interesting since we were smoothly taxiing to our gate.

When I saw Ji-Soo waiting for me I latched on with both arms and did not want to let go.


Weird thing #5: Getting duped by a hasid
Finally, I am in NYC. Finally, I am with Ji-Soo, rushing to tell him every detail of the flight and the hotel and the past three months during which we have been apart. It is chilly out and he has brought me a vest to wear. I throw this on as we get out of the car and grab my bags. It is windy and raining but we are close enough to his building that I don't bother to dig my raincoat out of the very bottom of my pack.

We are one door away from Ji's building when a hasidic man approaches us and says in heavily accented English: "Excuse me, I can not carry. Can you carry a box for me just from here", he points to the apartment building we are in front of, "to the synagogue?", he motions across the street.

Ji-Soo agrees and starts to walk with the man, who then adds, "You just have to go up to the second floor. My son will give you the box." This was not part of our original understanding. Ji looks at me, cold and wet, a worried look on his face. We pause for a second to decide. The hasid adds quickly, "I give you one bread." I nod at Ji-Soo to go ahead not so much because I want to be nice, but because I can not turn away from what is happening right now.

Ji follows the man into the apartment building and disappears. It is only then that I realize that I've just let someone I care a great deal about walk into a locked building with people I don't know to do something I don't quite understand. I try not to get nervous, and am very relived when I see Ji-Soo approach the door, arms full with a large box. We finally make it to his apartment to enjoy our "one bread", which turns out to be a box full of chocolate bread rolls. Totally worth it. Yummy.

I've Done Some Traveling

San Juan del Sur

In late March the assistant director and I took a group of six high school students to San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua for a visa run. We were there for about three days.


San Juan del Sur at sunset. You can see a statue on the hill on the right. That is Jesus, and he will be featured later.


The view north of San Juan del Sur from the top of the hill with the Jesus statue. It was hot.


This is Jesus, up close. He is made out of fiber glass and is the result of a Nicaraguan man who survived prostate cancer and wanted to give back.

Miravalles
In early April I went with the 7th and 8th graders on their field trip. We went to a wind farm in Miravalles.

The approach. I think they look like gentle gaurdians. I love them.


Drivin' by.


We got to go into the control room. This is a map the entire farm. I think I remember that they have 57 windmills and can produce 50,000KW of energy. That day there were only putting out 39,000KW because of wind velocity and five wind mills out of service.


It seems like everything there was labeled with worker names.


Everything.




The bases are painted green to lower the visual impact the windmills have on the environment. So far there have been no other complaints since the plant opened for full operation in December 2010, except one woman who complained about the noise that they make. Each windmill at full capacity makes less than 80 decibels, which is the limit for harmful noise levels, so the plant did not have to change anything. The stairs in the picture lead into the base of the windmill which you can climb up into for maintenance.


Miravalles Volcanoe as seen from the bus on our way to the Miravalles Geothermal plant.


Us at the geothermal plant.




Control room.




The turbines. We had to wear hard hats and ear plugs in this room.


This turbine was out of its casing and set off to the side. When I first thought of turbines, I pictured fans. It did not occur to me that they would be so detailed. Of course now, it seems obvious.



Giant gears.


Keeping the turbines clean.


Water cooling station. The water falls towards the center of the room because of the force of the cooling fans above it.


Leaving the geothermal station, Miravalles Volcano, source of the energy, in the background.


Our hardhats, awaiting their next tour.