Reflections on the Journey

Sitting in the sun back in Palo Alto and easing back into the unfinished masters & house renovations. To be honest, I never really thought about the masters or the house while traveling, I never got bored, never pined for my own bed, and came to the realization that the peak of civilization is a good, hot shower whenever you want. You can see some pictures from the travels by clicking this link to my Picasa web album site -- there is one set of photos for each country. Below is a pic that epitomizes each place for me.

Seville - life lived outside, warm and inviting. Narrow streets meant for walking, turning corners and suddenly seeing a doorway, an insight to another life.

Dubai - life lived inside. This is my favorite picture of the people in the mall viewing the people in the ski slope. None of the malls had windows onto the outside world -- what's there to see but other buildings and the dirty remains of a desert? And during the hot, hot summers windows become impractical. The ski slope is the Dubai we see on news reports -- this is the Dubai the emir wants us to know about. Not the crowded, congested Dubai where many live, or the endless apartments of Sharjah and Ajman. This picture of the ski slope reminds me of Second Life -- people standing around, unconnected to each other, watching and waiting for something to happen.

And then there is Paris -- romantic and cold (in all aspects of that word.) What more can I say? It was lovely to experience Paris with my partner, Peter as he re-experienced places of his youth, walking familiar streets, eating at familiar places. Unlike Dubai (which changed everyday) Paris was essentially the same as 20 years ago.

I'm at a loss of how to get this masters done.

Loss of momentum, loss of desire, and I question why I was doing this in the first place.

Journey - Part 1&2

Finally a moment to write a post about the travels. Seville, Spain was fun. Saw a couple sites (pics coming as soon as I can find my camera cable!), but mostly walked the streets of the old town trying to find my way around and discovering amazing alleyways, roman ruins, and arab baths. I feel if I had just another couple days I could make sense of the maze of streets. Imagine the games you could play in that city! It would be so much fun because it is so no- grid.

Traveling in Spain with Renfe, the train service is easy, fast, efficient -- the best way to get city to city in Spain. Malaga, a coastal city where we caught our plane was more industrial and had a smaller old town, but with the most amazing fort town with roman ruins layered on phonecian, then layered again with moorish and christian. I could have spent hours making my way around the place.

Finally we arrived in Dubai, UAE where it took hours to rent a car and sort out the details. Driving in Dubai is both easy and maddening. It's a grid system with just a few main roads, but between the round-abouts, construction, and minimal signage, it is really easy to get lost. The locals are very helpful in giving directions, but the sense of what is near what is not so precise. Everything is opposite something else, whether or not that is where you are going. Do I care that the Regent hotel is opposite the shopping mall when were I want to get is somewhere else.

Dubai is Las Vegas on steriods, yes. I think though, Dubai is more like Second Life (SL), whatever you can imagine can be built. They are terraforming all the time here -- creating new islands in the ocean by dredging up the sea floor. Except in Dubai, you see the workers carting the dirt around on their heads, whereas in SL that part of building is conveniently hidden. You have the same sense of vast swaths of buildings without people. A little strange, these are my first impressions.

There are many Dubai's -- we went to Dubai for the wealthy last night -- the Atlantis hotel at the tip of the Palms (the terraformed island in the middle of the ocean lined with houses and hotels). It's a shopping mall meets aquarium meets New York style restaurants. Then there is the other Dubai, where about 40-50% of the people live -- less glitzy, less clean.

Off today to see older part of UAE -- Ajman (neighboring emirate), Deira (old Dubai), and will probably visit some souks (open markets). Will post pics hopefully soon.

Preparing for a Journey

Recently I've been researching on how to combat jet lag - adjusting sleeping patterns, using melatonin and sunshine to reset your clock. It's pretty basic - start gradually adjusting as if you were in the time zone in which you will be traveling to - this is especially important if you are traveling west to east. So thus the reason I'm awake at 5am and writing this post at 6:30am on a Saturday (not that weekends mean anything anymore.)

Where, might you ask, am I going? Seville, Spain; Dubai, UAE; and Paris, France -- oh yes, topped off with Thanksgiving in Hyde Park, Chicago -- just down the block from our president-elect! (And yes, hickcity, we will ask the parents what they think of Obama now -- latest reports have been glowing.) My other half, who is currently snoring in bed, has conferences and business meetings in all these locations, and I get to be the spouse and come along for the ride. How cool is that?!? It will also be nice to get away from camping in this house (we are living in one room while the rest of the house in being renovated...kinda like being in a studio in my New York.)

Of course, this means I am focused on tons of last minute house stuff -- tile emergencies, lighting fixtures, interior paint choices -- it's endless. I've also been making sure we have hotels to stay in, researching what I'll be doing in these locations, and generally not focusing on the masters. Just as a side note, we'll actually be picking up tile in Spain and Paris and bringing it back to California. A little crazy. I'm sure we'll have fun at customs.

Back to the unfinished masters for a moment -- I've decided not to take my laptop as Pedro (the snoring one) will have his spanking new mac book pro. I will take all my data and most importantly, financial books so I can focus on the creating a series of increasingly complex contrasting cases for the first part of the instructional design. The plan is to work in the early mornings, then play. Anything will be better than my current situation where between dealing with more and more of the renovation, our lives within the renovation, and managing Pedro as he becomes increasing immersed in his startup -- leaves me with little emotional energy. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not becoming my mother, sans kids, always supporting the lives of others. Ouch.

There is this article that my former CEO mentioned to me once -- called the wives of the organization, which I still haven't read (A.S. Huff, "Wives--Of the Organization," paper presented at the Women and Work Conference, Arlington, Texas, May 11, 1990, is the closest reference I can find.) It's about how women take on the "wife" role in organizations, taking care of the needs of others, whether that be as administrative assistants or project managers or doing the non-paid work of organizing parties, baby showers, and other social events. I keep thinking of my own socialization and how deep it runs, how hard it is for me to break out of the mold of being a caregiver, no matter how hard I resist it or where I end up in an organization. Some of that is external, forced upon you, and some is internal, moving to what's known and comfortable. So much of my life has been spent resisting becoming my mother. Perhaps it's time to let go.

There is a book I need to find again about Buddhism called "When You're Falling, Dive" by Cheri Huber. Instead of resistance, simply accept, move on, and change from a place of acceptance. So much easier to do without all that energy going into resistance. A willful determination has taken me to where I am today (or as in the Adrienne Rich poem, "a wild patience has taken me thus far"). A determination, a desire to become more than the roles allotted to me by family and community. A desire to bankroll myself. And finally, this muddled desire that taken me to this masters. What was that desire? To become a designer of instruction, to get out of the "wife" roles I kept finding myself in. To use this masters to reset my identity. As Mike pointed out in the comments on the passion post, do I keep looking outside of myself to fulfill my desires? (And how does determination become desire... what is the difference? there's a letting go and diffusion of focus.)

I did this masters, and moved to New York for that 18 months, to literally and figuratively to find my own space. To get away from the distractions of Pedro, who is awake now, talking to his business partner on the cordless phone, at the top of his lungs, walking around the house, using the speaker phone. We have no doors at this point in the renovation. I did this masters to get away from Durham and a job that had become a rut. There's that word again - rut. Funny that, that's where I am now, in a rut with this masters. Aigh.

Ok, enough for this post. Perhaps resetting my clock is exactly what I need right now.