Birthday Suit

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OK OK I'm 27. No need to be all dramatic about it. It won't shock me, I guess, to look up and see that I'm 46, or 97. That's coming soon too.

Remember when I was 2 or 3 and learning nursery rhymes from my uncle B "my head, my shoulders, my knees, my toes, they all belong to Jesus" and watching TV in 1985 when Nigeria was 25
...or in the car moving to TinCan at 5 and reading out loud EVERY sign on the way. I can still hear myself: "Snake Island Dockyard. TinCan Island Port. Bush." Over and over
...the night before Queen's College with mum writing my name - in Kandahar ink AND oil-based indelible marker - on all my new things while our neighbour who had been to boarding school advised on what to take and I was too excited all night to finish my dinner of yam pottage.
I remember almost everything in between too.
Anyhoo, same kid.
Being grown up ROCKS.

Happy birthday to all you May 1st kids.
Happy Worker's Day too to everyone. Be FREE.

Checking Stats

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I'm getting older. Very soon I'll understand my mother, that's what they say.

In her office, my mother has calendars with pictures of the African Nobel Prize winners. Well, today I checked online and here are the Africans awarded Nobel Prizes in the last eight years.

2005: Mohammed ElBaradei of Egypt/ The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
2004: Wangari Maathai of Kenya
2003: John Maxwell Coetzee of South Africa
2001: Kofi Annan of Ghana/ The United Nations

If you go as far back as the 1990s, then you find
Egyptian Ahmed Zewail for Chemistry
South Africans F. W. de Klerk / Nelson Mandela for Peace
South African Nadine Gordimer in Literature
Zewail is a Caltech prof., and there's a street named for him near my work in Cairo.

Before that, there were Naguib Mahfouz, Wole Soyinka, Desmond Tutu, and Anwar El-Sadat. KhalaS. I think that's it.

There have been more USA Nobel prize winners in Economics alone from 2000-2007, or in Physics alone in the same period.

I do understand my father. When I was a kid, he loved being a fan - of Sugar Ray Leonard and black boxers, of his daughters, of Nigerian football. My father believes that, in competition, there should be a hefty ass-whooping, and YOU should be the one giving it - end of story.
(Love you dad, sorry I haven't called. It's been quiet time around here.)

It's birthday season again and I wonder if my busy little friend - the one I was in love with circa January 2005 - will win the physics prize someday. While I can attest that winning a Nobel Prize is far from "the measure of a man" it's still really cool, you know? Me, I'll get a few. Girls would win more if they cared to.

Watching Al-Jazeera in Arabic

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This guy just came on. He's Tariq Al-Nasir.
Yikes, it's hard not to write an Egyptian spelling like Tarek El-Nasir.
He's in Oman on an Al-Jazeera video-conference interview. He's wearing a beard and a black turtleneck.
I surmise that he's a terrorist, or at least someone unfriendly to the US.
Yes, I've been programmed to think sober-faced bearded men only go on TV to speak their resolve to take on the West.

It turns out he's a composer, ta'alif musiqa. Also on the screen the words musiqiya taSwiiriya - photographic music? I don't understand.

He's speaking now, he says something about Gustavo Santaolalla. Says something about the sounds of the music, says it's great music. Whatever else he's saying, it sounds so beautiful and I lost myself in the sound of it.

Things I've learned in Egypt

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Vitamin C
When you feel the first symptoms of a cold, get a very high dose of Vitamin C. I don't mean a few oranges or a multivitamin tablet, I mean 30 times the recommended daily intake of Vitamin C, like in these 1g Ascorbic Acid effervescent tablets. It's magic.

Clocks
Don't use a tick-tock clock in your bedroom, get a digital one. The noise can be annoying when all else is silent at night.

Egyptians need to raise their African cred
Sure, they're really African - beautiful people with that regal carriage who love football. But they don't like messy, peppery food and they worry the sun will make their skin dark. Also, they don't dance enough.

Before before, love bokun between men and women

Last time you did Ace, now it's time for Shinamania. OK now...

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4

Am I missing something?

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My take on the Spitzer case? He's guilty of breaking a law when he persecuted lawbreakers with great vigour. He's an ambitious guy who did great at his job, and now is the best time for political opponents to beat the crap out of him.
But on the personal level, though, what's the big trauma in him having paid for sex with a professional in a clean and controlled environment? Can someone remind me why prostitution isn't legal in the US?

Admission

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Of course I have a crush
And of course he doesn't care
Tabban!
Haven't I learned anything all of these years?

Potpourri

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Rajon
Raj wrote about me, again, on his blog at rajonsprithvi. The guy knows me.

Ah, God!
I loved that gay cowboy movie.
But Heath's dead.

What's awesome in Cairo life?
Tennis in Arabic on cable channels ADSport, DubaiSport...

How many times have you walked across the Nile?

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The answer here is three, so far. I can imagine the Nile bridge and banks will be crowded tomorrow with Cairene blokes showing their ladies gorgeous low-cost dates.
Happy Valentine's day, y'all.

The other side of Cairo

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I had just noted how "there's no rhyme or reason" to the architecture in Cairo when I started seeing the beauty in all the tall buildings. They may not be designed to harmonize with the neighbouring buildings, but individually many of them are in grand style with ornate detailing, especially on the balconies.

My first weeks in Cairo have suffered in that I compare with Sana'a and find it a little less - less clean, less harmonious, less serene, less simple, oh and let's not forget: less warm. Much less. Today it's warmed to a high around 20 degrees Celcius (sixty-something Fahrenheit) and I call it a taste of the beautiful things to come.

I'm usually terrible with pictures...

Holy Cow

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You know those times when everybody you meet falls in love with you (and vice-versa, to be honest) like you're a cow in heat or something? I wonder why that happens: maybe it happens when you're really happy, like in the past week in Lagos and now Cairo.
Guess what astrology has to say about this?Wow, I could never get married - except to you, Rafito.

Munchkin Land

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Dispatch from Lagos where the weather is Puerto Rico warm and the mosquitoes have evolved into weapon-resistant giant mutants of the 20th century species. They've also evolved to not itch while they bite, a development I appreciate.

The internet is pay-as-you-go so I have to hurry. Liked arriving in Lagos, it reminds me a bit of Sana'a, though the latter is simpler, more serene. I'm enjoying it - the food, my brother and family, the flight...Looking forward to Cairo.

I'm to "do something" with my hair tomorrow, because my folks can't stand it not done in some fancy way. Better than last time, when I had to get it done within 24hrs of arrival; next time I won't oblige at all.

Happy New Year.

As In Happy

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I just LOVE my new (old) homepage.
This is what my iGoogle looks like at midafternoon in Cairo. It's dusk and now the city-scape has turned powdery-blue. Wish me luck with the visa hunt and I'll be living in al-qaahira soon.

Tennis boys sing at Christmas: Jingle Bells

from ATPtennis.com

Truth be told

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I'm wearing a bra today. A real, heavy, American, Victoria's Secret best-selling bra. I mean, I own many bras and wear them about half the times I go out in public, but I favour comfortable faux-bras. The most abandoned of my bras have been the pair of padding, lifting, veritable braces I purchased from VS years ago: this orange one, and a green one.

Ladies in America, I don't understand what all the fighting is with the breasteses. Let them be.

The same goes for panty hose/tights. I own a few of those too. I wore them about nine years ago, once this year for an interview, and a few times in between. The decision process for buying those is either buy thin, so you can breathe, or buy thick so it can last more than one day before getting snagged. Once I had the good fortune to buy thick and over-sized, with them I can breathe AND re-use. It has also proved a welcome added layer of clothing in the cold weather.

I assume women wear tights to "control-top" as much as to appear formal, otherwise panty hoses would be designed as true hoses without tops or feet. You want proof? Recently, one woman invented "spanx," which I'm very sorry to advertise since it's useless to cut out the foot of the panty hose when the main pain center is around the tummy. I saw they market a pregnant spanx too, which looks criminal: you're pregnant and squashing your mid-section? Why?

Anyway, about the bras, the last time I wore one was weeks ago to go to the movies. Raj took me to see that sappy dribble about 53 years of solitude or something. Yes, it was Love in the Time of Cholera. By the way, that was probably the last time I stepped outside the house too, because it has since become really cold out there.

The bra in question was relatively light, yet before the movie theater filled for the movie, I took the stupid thing off in the darkness. In case you were wondering how one removes a bra without taking off shirt and jacket, that's one of the Houdini-esque skills girls have, especially girls who attended a boarding school without private corners.

Today I'm wearing the big one, haven't tried it in years, wonder how long it will last before I take it off since it hurts already. This is the one that I've heard from girls and advertising is the most comfortable bra - as comfortable as what? A boot on your throat? - that's the only reason I gave it a shot against all visual evidence. Well, it's a piece of junk.

Meeting with a friend from out of town today, and lest you think I'm trying to impress her with boobs that have lift, point, immobility, and control of roll, pitch, and yaw, I'm not. There'll be layers of clothing over it and I might as well not wear it. Actually, I won't wear it. End of experiment. Less than five minutes.

Aaah that feeling - I just unhooked the bra - the blood flows again, I started breathing and stopped pouring sweat in my tender armpits.

Premiering in the UK

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Advice

Follow your heart.
If you are on a quest to find yourself, continue. It's a pleasurable thing to learn the answers to the questions of you.

What's the big deal about failure?
If you ever find yourself failing, fail, fail, fail. And survive, smile on your face. It sucks, I know.

Wanda Sykes on Gay Marriage

Don't hate. Emulate.
This goes for "love" as well as "success" - rather than be jealous of something beautiful, find your own something beautiful.

Flattery from my friends

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Ran into a friend last week, clean-cut black guy, native Arabic speaker. He told Raj in the introductions that I speak Arabic. Yes, he did. Liam, I will love you forever for saying that. Thank you. I try to live up to it.

A month ago I met another clean-cut black guy, family migrated to the US from Liberia during the war in the 1980s I suppose. We talked the entire 4000 kilometers from Dulles Virginia to Oakland California. Joe, dude, you were supposed to email me. I know the chic for you, you've got to meet her, y'all will be going happily ever after in no time.

My old friend, who has been (very) black all his life, and who I can only suspect is still clean-cut, may go the way of happily ever after one of these years soon. I think it'll hurt when he does. It's usually a little sad when my gorgeous boy friends off-n-marry like that.

Last night I went to a Nigerian restaurant and was around gaggles of nice-looking Nigerian blokes. They were sorely in need of a center of attention and were Raj not there I'd have inserted myself in their happy conversations. My wonder was "where are the girls" when boys assemble like that? I mean the girls want to marry these guys, so how come they're not hanging out together? Manners, maybe?

Happy Thanksgiving

Your assignment is to jijo Shina Peters!

That means DANCE to the music. Dance dance dance and forget your sorrows. Please clear the floor.

In grad school, I always wanted to have a dance party with all the best of Shina playing and the videos projected on the screen. The music video with the opulently-figured dancers would push us all to go for it, shake that body, shake that everything. I looked and found the video for sale, but never digital, so no Shina party. Today, with youtube, well:

THE SIDE A of ACE by Sir Shina Peters.

SIDE A continued, ends at 7:50.


SIDE B is slow at first so you can catch your breath

Bobo mi Americano...Afro Juju lo gbode


This was the official Health Plan for Lagosians. After chopping jollof rice, fried chicken, dodo, moin-moin elemimeje and salaad, followed by iyan and edikaikong and egusi and "assorted" and goat and snail and pomo and liver and isi ewu pepper soup and drinking coke, fanta, and malt (and small beer/stout/wine/palmwine/imported shak for the older ones) for weddings, naming ceremonies, people's birthdays, thanksgiving and memorials, Jesus' birthday...then you get up and dance Shina, which as you've noticed is no 3-minute dance number. Then you do a set of disco, then repeat the Shina...

My goal is to practice and get the shoulder flap dance going again. My dance skills have gone soft, y'all.

More Shina and more party gist after you've digested this.

Sociable? Test yourself.

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MBTI
On the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I scored -1 on a -30 to +30 Introversion scale. Today, I took a different extroversion test at Queendom.com and scored 51%.
So basically, both times (four years apart) I was judged to be on the knife edge between introverted and not...and placed in the Extrovert bin - phew.
In Myers Briggs, the only significant signal is that I'm "Perceiving" not "Judging": +12 out of 30. Makes sense: Biologists bug me. Super-organized folks too. My mother is a J - trust me. Hillary Clinton? Give me a little flava.
Similarly, I was judged a moderate N, with Intuition score of +8 out of 30.
I'm barely an F on the Feeling-Perceiving scale, with a +1 score there.
So I'm an ENFP, but really a ?N?P.

LSI
I re-take the Learning Style Inventory (info) once or twice every year.
It's cool to watch how life events change my orientation. Like how my AC (Abstract Conceptualization, or Thinking) score was off the charts at the start of grad school - highs above 95th percentile in the second year, and how though still dominant, it stopped being hyper-dominant by the third year or so.

The CE (Concrete Experience, or Feeling) score has darted between 60th and 90th percentile with no particular pattern. My AE (Active Experimentation, or Doing) score has always been miniscule - often in the single-digit percentile rank - and even now at its height is under the 40th percentile score.

The surge in RO (Reflective Observation, or Watching) around the third year of grad school, probably one of the most pensive periods I've known. In these six years, it went from below the 20th percentile to 90th and steadily back to below 20th today.

Another cool story is how my first foray out of the "Assimilator" quadrant came in my fifth year, upon my return from Yemen. I had become clearly a Diverger, your ideal actress-ideator. Half a year later, I had bounced back to "Assimilator" only to return the next year to Diverger land.

Divergers are the artists, creatives, and touchy-feelies mostly. I usually lived near this quadrant yet squarely in the neighbouring Assimilator quadrant of theories, models and plans, and abode of teachers, researchers, religious ministers, and (oddly enough) financiers.

Now I'm completely lost to dorkiness it would seem...classed an "Accommodator." Accomodators are like salespeople, managers and politicians - the all-too-boring, get-it-done people-people.
I never visited the Converger quadrant, home of engineers/technologists. It makes sense, although I am an engineer.

I like astrology too, think it's pretty fun and useful for learning about people - self and others. Birthday astrology is really cool too, like sun sign astrology, but with more detail. I like.

Al Gore, Panel on Climate Change, share Nobel Peace Prize

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Global warming is the Nobel Peace Prize issue...
...now will you release my friend?
William (Billy) Cottrell had the foresight, enthusiasm, and energy to speak up about Global warming years ago when Hummers seemed poised to take over the world and before Electric Vehicles became cool. His big plan was to bumper-sticker cars with the message: SUVs promote Terrorism.

My car at the time was my dream ride, a Jeep Cherokee. So I agree there are people more apt to challenge convention than I, yet we must all feel blessed that people like him see a new way and alert all the rest of us to it. Society would be horrid without the elements that move for change. It's in fact our responsibility to change the world for the better, even if the hordes are wrong wrong wrong. I also appreciate the stability-drivers of society. They may be bored to tears, not to mention boring, but this yin and yang world needs all kinds of people. I wouldn't have minded the bumper sticker or the message.

I thought Billy suffered mostly from poor timing in being picked up for a crime labelled terrorist so soon after the shock-and-awe invasion of Iraq: FBI careers depended on nailing him. President Bush's Americanism required everyone to close ranks against these anti-war and anti-oil folks. There was even insurance cash to be reaped by a few lucky mercenaries after the arson attacks. Yin and yang baby. Fun stuff.
Now that the climate has changed :) maybe it's time to free Billy. For reals. It may even be time to free thousands from the cruel pressures of gaol. Please don't waste their time.

Pro Sport. Passionate Lifestyle.

My TV Channel nowadays is The Tennis Channel. I can't stop watching. What's on now? The Madrid Masters tournament.

What's new in tennis video on youtube?
It's Part 2 of a Rome-themed work featuring Roger Federer, Ana Ivanovic, and Rafael Nadal. You may also watch Part 1, catch Pussycat if you missed it, and see more cool Roger y Rafa videos.

Who are you wearing?

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If I can, will be wearing a lot of eleVen and Aneres, whatever the designers come up with. Something fun to do :) since Serena is a superstar, and Venus is so cool in so many ways.

Venus Williams at age eleven

Interviewer: Venus Williams is 5 feet 4 inches tall. She's eleven years old. She's a black girl from the hood who walks her puppy dog...
Venus: I'd like to win Wimbledon as many times as anyone could win it. More than any woman, man or junior did.
Interviewer: What about the other tournaments?
Venus: I'll get a Grand Slam. (Read More)

Hang Out with Serena

There will never ever be another you

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Like when Peter Boyle died, somehow Luciano Pavarotti's death seems unbelievable. Who will be Pavarotti now?

I don't know a lot about opera, I'm getting there, but such beauty and tradition and warmth and goosebumps he gave in his art...You know when you watch/hear something you literally don't understand and yet understand deeply?

My life with opera music began long ago when I watched Fatal Attraction, a movie not for kids but hey I turned out just fine. In the movie, Michael Douglas was with Glenn Close and one or both of them said "I love Madame Butterfly." Years later I was at the antique book/music store in DuPont Circle in DC with other brand-new Howard University freshmen (Sona, Moe, Funmi, and Alicia?) and saw a CD with Puccini: Madame Butterfly - Highlights. The movie people loved this music? Good enough for me. I bought it and have listened a gazillion times since.

I didn't actually go to watch an opera until last year. I saw La Traviata (Futral, Calleja) at the LA Opera, because in Match Point (great movie), Jonathan Rhys-Myers' on-screen brother-in-law delivered the line: it's La-bloody-Traviata.

Beautiful, beautiful, was Traviata - not just the robust voices and the cheesy, simple story line, but definitely the highly stylized acting. The artists communicate so much in the exaggerated poses, the light-and-colour changes, and the actors' painted faces that you don't really need to follow the translations to know belle from prostitute, or love-struck from power-hungry, and ultimately to cry when - all at once - a thousand and one memories soar to the top of your mind on one drawn-out high note, crashing in one rapturous truth - a wave against rock. Lesson learned, opera done, you whisper your thanks and go home. (Maybe you wish you could be the one in make-up serving up drama.)

Soon after, I took a friend to Don Carlo - he loved it a lot more than I did. Another friend thinks I should try Wagner. I'll like to see a couple of more Verdi, and of course Butterfly. Now let me tell you about the people-watching at the opera: rich people, funny fashion sense - that's the basic idea. It beats reading tabloid magazines. Opera houses are often ornate and spectacular, if a little stuffy/snooty and intimidating.

Ask me or call the opera for suggestions if you're poor :) but interested in watching a show or two. Fortunately, you can access the arts on a limited budget if you know where to look. Caltech even has an Opera Club which gives away cheap or free tickets. When you're rich, be cool and sponsor the arts too.

Pavarotti is dead. I dreamt about him once: a benign conflation of The Three Tenors and a bizarre movie trailer in which black men tended large babies. I was probably listening to Rigoletto (Milnes, Pavarotti, Sutherland) a lot at the time.

Read a soothing tribute to Luciano Pavarotti in Time Magazine.

There will never ever be another you.

Djokovic's imitation of fellow tennis players

This one is cool, includes impressions of Ramirez Hidalgo, Roddick, Agassi, Nadal, Sharapova, and Federer. Watch.

Find more here.

Heading home Part 2

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Eight weeks ago, I was all set to go home to Nigeria. Now I'm still living in the States and look to live here for a while longer. What happened?

Why I wanted to go in the first place:

The push - Mostly the completely impossible travel and visa situation. It's related to the class stratification in the US, and the fact that being black doesn't confer many advantages here. Raising children requires help and community to a degree that most Americans do not even aspire.
The pull - Family and support system, living in a place with sunshine, the thirst for shared values, doing more meaningful work, appreciation. In Nigeria, nobody is in a class higher than you - our constitution may not be explicit about this, but the practice of pride is alive and well.

What changed:

EVERY TIME I have traveled internationally, it has followed a nerve-wracking bureaucratic drama: I've been detained and strip-searched, paid hundreds of dollars in transit visas and thousands in canceled tickets. Further, roughly every weekday I've spent in Nigeria has seen me at the embassy lobbying to get in (pushing and shoving and then pushing fellow Nigerians some more, keeping up with the rumours about the ever-changing application or entry or passport photo or payment "system") or lobbying for a visa. Naturally, I surmised that "they" don't want "us" to stay. As a dear racist friend of mine used to say "Go back to Africa." No problem.

One day in July I tried to go home, having accepted that I wouldn't be able to come back due to the fierce gate-keeping by the Immigration authorities. We got tickets (thanks N) and packed for the airport where I was told that I couldn't fly without a transit visa to cover my one-hour stopover (for flight-change) in Europe. I couldn't get a transit visa without a few days of embassy palaver. Transit visas are only required by people from selected countries, whereas until recently Americans could travel overseas for weeks without a passport. Siooma.

Anyway, this taught me that bureaucracy is not as rational as I thought; it would work to keep me from going back to Africa as well as block me from coming in. Oh well. I returned home. Home is in Berkeley (a guy named Raj.)

My new cynical take on the whole thing is: they want you to go, they want you to stay. Do what you want. You may need to get a lawyer. Nobody understands chaos like a lawyer.

ValleyWag is Good and Bad

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Virtual Estate
Must commend the old media for taking this blog thing and making it their own: Time, The Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, etc.

Trop Gauche
Boo to the new gossip media for being so mean and distasteful: Perez Hilton, Gawker Media...I prefer the less innovative, but far kinder old-school celebrity-gossip-peddlers.

Drink for health?
Wondering: did people always drink water? How did they find fresh water?

Poor soldier no more
Crush on Wesley Clark. No crush on Obama. It's not business, it's hormonal.

Questions for Rafa
on TIME.com

Tennis Player, Rafael Nadal
Thomas Niedermueller / Getty

Drama has returned to the top rung of men’s tennis, and much of the credit belongs to Rafael Nadal. Nadal has proven himself to be the undisputed master of clay courts, but has not let up in his pursuit of world number one Roger Federer on grass or hard courts. The upcoming U.S. Open will be a prime test of both men. Use the form below to submit your questions for Rafael Nadal—in Spanish as well—then look for the upcoming interview in TIME Magazine.
...No questions from me. Just admiration. (understatement)

Power and Light
Once again, I have a chunk of my life planned out. It sort of needs a job.

Mo' Power to Mo'Nique...and that Mark tennis player guy

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Watching the celebrity gossip show, EXTRA. According to them, Monique's beauty contest show for fat women has taken the beauties to France for a glam photo shoot in which they're wearing only body paint.

Mo'Nique is spunky, positive, and super-empowering.

What else do I watch on TV nowadays? AGE OF LOVE - the reality dating show with 20-something and 40-something year old women vying to be the girlfriend of this guy Mark Phillippoussis who's 30 and has been to the Wimbledon and US Open finals.

...Can't wait to see what happens next Monday. Last episode's elimination was delicious: the woman was catty, toxic really, and the cut was swift as soon as he detected her "competitive" ways. I like the show, but don't like the terms "cougar" and "kitten" - eewww.

The Science of Love, an hour-long "experiment" (and promotional machine for some dating site I've forgotten now) was super-cool too.

You guessed it, I also enjoyed the many incarnations of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. One of the big cultural adjustments when I came to America: men sitting pretty with women striving to bag them. In Nigeria, a show like The Bachelorette would have much greater appeal than The Bachelor. Men competed for chics, not the other way around. Oh well.

The Art Teacher

Listen to Rufus Wainwright's The Art Teacher with unofficial video:


I just made a picture to the theme of that song. All was drawn in an interface on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

The Art Teacher
Second picture in 2007?

First came the Executive Company Head in the center of the paper. He's pot-bellied, in his home with a crucifix on the wall - there should be a Turner there somewhere too according to the song. Then there's little "I" looking at (and up to) the art teacher.

I used to Paint (using Microsoft Paintbrush) on breaks from work at Chrysler back in the day. (That was an awesome internship. Didn't know how lucky I was to be surrounded by such happy people.) The pictures were nicer than this one: I had better control over the "pen" since I used a proper movable mouse, plus I had an eraser, colours, spraypaint, cut-and-paste...

...really loved the copying and pasting - built an army, a field of flowers - pretty autistic. Don't worry it wasn't straight copy-paste, there was some realism: perspective, variety. Still, using a computer to draw wasn't the best way to relax from hours of using my eyes and a computer to "sequence processes for F1 build of the 2001 minivan" and my head really hurt from the strain.

Couple of Cravings

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I just ate some left-over pasta - not just any leftovers, it's Bertagni, this stuffed pasta line at Trader Joe's. It makes me eat more. It makes me lick my own palate. There's something in the stuffing that I guess my body's been needing. I just finished the ricotta and reggiano cheese tortellini one. Before that there was "gorgonzola and walnut." Waiting in the fridge is an unbelievable pumpkin ravioli - the reason I now like pumpkin - and more .

The pasta takes less than five minutes to make.

My past Trader Joe's addiction: they had this bag of salted fluffed peas in a pod. I couldn't help myself against an open bag of Calbee's SnapPea Crisps, even though each was 2.5 servings of high sodium stuff. I took a picture of the bag last year intending to write about it, then I found that someone else had written a blog post about The new "Crystal Meth" of the Snack Food World.

This woman is heading home

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Wẹrẹ ni iṣẹ Oluwa

Jean-Lou Chameau

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I love this guy, and not just because he attends Caltech theater:
Go to the story source in Caltech News



“A New Kind of World”

Growing up in northern France, in the province of Normandy, Jean-Lou Chameau seems to have discovered his principal affinities early in life: hard work, working with people, new experiences, and, last but not least, mathematics and science. He brought this outlook with him when he left the Old World for the new in 1976 to pursue graduate work in engineering at Stanford, and it has served him well throughout a career that has included faculty positions at Purdue University and Georgia Tech, time spent running a company, and, over the last decade, a move into the upper echelons of academic administration. In 1997, he was appointed dean of the college of engineering at Georgia Tech, and four years later he became the university’s provost. Last summer, he was named the ninth president of Caltech. Chameau assumes the job at a time when issues that he has long championed—forging interdisciplinary and institutional collaborations and promoting global sustainability, to name two—have emerged as major themes on both the national and international stage. It’s an environment in which, as he says, scientists and engineers have an increasingly complex and vital role to play, and to which Caltech, through its faculty, students, staff, and graduates, is poised to make unique and far-reaching contributions. He talked about these topics, and a variety of others, in an interview with Caltech News editor Heidi Aspaturian.

The Making of a President. Clockwise from left, Chameau as a pensive youngster in his native Normandy; as a young Purdue University professor in the 1980s; and as a newly appointed president waiting to be introduced to the Caltech community last summer.

Read Full Interview

A Thousand Words

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A directory of wonderful things

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1. Music Theory Online at www.dolmetsch.com

2. French Money Talk at www.blogCFA.blogspot.com is the newborn counterpart to UpNaira / Money Talk.

Also wanna know:
James Joyce via Ulysses
Poincaré via his writings

Promiscuous

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When will you marry? This year? Next year? Sometime forever?
Who will you marry? Rich? Poor? Beggar? Thief?
Which car will you enter on your wedding day? Wheelbarrow? Bicycle? Danfo? Mercedes?

I think the good answers were Mercedes, rich, sometime forever,...actually i was never really sure what "sometime forever" or "lailai forever" meant, or if we were saying something else that actually made sense. This was the song for a skipping game, so for example if you stopped/tripped on poor, then I guess the other kids had a good laugh. Or if you answered "this year" - a little too young.

The sun is back, and the hopefulness and happiness of the season makes me think about who I will marry. So many exciting choices, it's ridiculous that you're expected to stick with one forever.
So...
I'm building a marriage team
One Rufus, one Nadal, maybe Nadal AND Federer. I dumped Tiger years ago, before he dumped me thank-you-very-much. My boyfriend Raj reminds me that Rufus is "flaming gay." Hmmm.

I saw de Villepin on TV the other day - brilliant guy. He'll be the "seasoned" one in my little fraternity.

Might as well throw in a physicist. They have sharp minds and know something I want to know. I know a few hot physicists. Maybe a good mathematician for the same reasons.

I still like my Portuguese/Angolan João Ricardo from last year...why isn't his career as stellar as his World Cup showing? Well, I would love to help him figure that out - on the coast of Portugal.

There really should be a Nigerian on this list for the whole shared homeland and possibly shared language thing, but I like never meet them.

Who did I forget?

I have baby names too.
A number of Yoruba names - WURA (treasure/gold?) and AYO (joy) as in Ayokunnu/Ayokunu - I knew lovely girls by those names when I was a kid. I like the fact that Yoruba names are largely gender neutral.

FELA is another, as in Fela, although I still don't know what it means. (Let me know if you do.) There's also INULEWA from family lore. It was my grandfather's nickname, and means inside + is + the value.

In non-Yoruba names, there's ANNELISE - a complex character from my favourite film - and ALEXANDER/ALEXANDRA of course.

There's COCO - not just the name of a fashion icon, "Aunt" Koko was a super-cool neighbour when I was a kid living in one of the world's most beautiful places.

I must really like light, because I also have CLAIRE, LUMIÈRE, and CANDÈS in my top-ten.

My runners up are
LUDWIG, AMADEU,
ANNA,
APRIL, MAY,
NERO, NEO,
NEHRU, SUPRIYA,
UMA, MALA,
AMEERA, SAMIRA/SAMEERA/SAMIR,
FARDOOS/FARDOWS - I'll have to be feeling really high to name my kid "paradise, as in the Muslim's afterlife" but giddy happens.

I've always thought Daniel was such a good, fortright person's name, Goke a very pretty boy, and Jonathan a good and loyal boy - this comes from David and Jonathan when I was a kid, I think I was the narrator and, thanks to my mum, the best dressed narrator ever in my pink butterfly dress which I just loved. The tall boy in my class, a complete sweetheart named Efanga, played Goliath. There were "crowds" of Philistines and Israelites. Anyway.

When I was more Christian, my favourite names were Jonathan, Joshua, Joel. I knew their meanings. I don't know if I picked girl's names. Oh cool, I was really young, so those were possibly names for the love-of-my-life, not the kids. I still don't know why people promise to marry only one - that can't be easy.

It's important that all the names don't mean something silly in a major world language; they may have to go to school somewhere exotic and I want to be kind. It's not easy to find names that fit the bill actually: if you try to exclude all the words that translate into giggle-worthy words in say 10 major languages - no funny body parts, no unpronouncable letters.

Nick is a big joke of a name in Arabic. The Norwegian Kora and Tone were small jokes. Kora is a (sports) ball, Tone is tunafish.

Rufus would need to sell more records (opera or whatever) to get people to start naming human children that again, since it seems to have taken hold as a dog's name - why oh why?
The letters "gb" and "kp" in Southern Nigeria, nobody in the West has those. And the Arabs make "p" into "b" - there were two blackbirds sitting on a wall: one named Bita, one named Ball.

As the joke went when we were in school, the phroblem with the pheephle phrom the northern phart oph Nigeria is that they do not know how to phronounce the letters eph, phee, and phee. So f, p, and v, are sort of dangerous letters too.

Wow, I need to get a job.

Release The Stars

Release The Stars, the latest music album by my beloved Rufus is available as (free) streaming audio on vh1.com. News courtesy of usatoday.com "Pop Candy" blogger Whitney Matheson.

My first pop concert ever was Rufus Wainwright, last month at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. My groupiehood while now concert-certified remains at a comfortable orange intensity, since I feel like I know him so well already. Next time I'll make more of an effort to talk to him or something.

Before l'arrival de Rufus on stage, I'd started to warm up to the opening act Teddy Thompson, who's much younger/hotter than I imagined - he's a country musician after all, and they're not supposed to be so metrosexual. He plays awesome guitar, lovely voice too, and is an old family-friend of El Rufus. His music is so modern, it barely qualifies as country.

Rufus is a totally stylish guy. He had this sash or something around his hips, stripes and colours all around, and great new cowboy boots as he sashayed on stage. He's so look-at-me. He played mostly the new stuff, backed by a very energetic percusssionist and four/five others.

Try I'm Leaving For Paris and more, while I try to find video footage of him channeling Judy Garland.

11 days later: No Judy Garland video yet, but there's this and hundreds more on youtube. Rufus make great success.

Arab Film Festival 2006

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Don't forget to follow the links to read official synopses and watch the film trailers!!!

The Short Films

I already mentioned A Stranger in Her Own City, the Sana'ani film about a "tomboy" named Nedjmia. There were seventeen other short films at the festival, arranged into programmes of four to six films each. I missed most of the shorts - sad sad sad. I caught Yasmine's song, La Femme Seule, and bits of Beit min Lahm and Little Beirut.

Yasmine's Song is probably very similar to The Syrian Bride, an award-winning full-length feature film that I'll soon watch. Both are marriage stories focusing on the separation caused by the Israel-Palestine conflict. At the end of the short film, Yasmine and her lover are on opposite sides of a freshly-built fort-quality wall and the image is moving, to say the least.

I enjoyed being able to translate many of the film titles, including Beit Min Lahm - House of Flesh - which thematically resembled a European taboo-sex-lite film. I believe the story was a mum and her daughters in a love web with a man. The images were all in shadow; deliberate, a good and gentle art film.

Little Beirut showed unrest among the Lebanese émigré in France.

La Femme Seule is about a Togolese housegirl. One of the most special and original films I've ever seen. It's a story about a domestic worker that is entirely from her point of view, in her voice, with still pictures. It's in French with subtitles. To all Africans, film-lovers, and especially filmmakers: Watch this one. Trust me.

I wish I had seen many of the others. (That's what I get for being late.)

The Not-Short Documentaries

I saw Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority, remember? By now you ought to have hunted down and hosted a viewing party for this political film. There was a special high-school viewing of this film and discussion with the directors afterwards. A favourite scene shows footage of an Iraqi diva, maybe five years old, animatedly complaining about how the explosions have spoiled her things. Really. I want to see her again.

You also remember Goal Dreams, another poignant Palestine documentary, about hope against all hope? In this case, the hope was to build a Palestinian team and qualify for last year's FIFA World Cup. Little did the coach know that the biggest challenges would have nothing to do with playing ball.

Dam Akhii, or The Blood of My Brother (watch the trailer) was an Iraq death film. A man is killed, for no reason, like thousands and thousands, in Iraq. What is the family feeling, how are they living, how do they cope? That Iraqi communities have been presented with such horror is troubling. One of the surprising moments in watching this film was that a fellow audience person gasped as a ram was slaughtered in a ritual marking the man's death...where was her expression of horror when the man was slaughtered and buried, as his mother beat her chest and cried?

I Know I'm Not Alone is a crowd-pleasing documentary about a crowd pleaser. He's an American musician, a silly man, a deep man, who takes his music to the war-ravaged areas of the Middle East to meet, to greet, to laugh, to heal. He meets undergound Iraqi rap musicians who are inspired by the black struggle in America. He needs no prompting to start strumming his guitar and belting his sing-along song HaBiiBiiBii HaBiiBiiBii HaBiiBiiBii HaBiiBi.
Habibi means beloved, and is to Arab pop music what Corazón is to Spanish pop, or Love to English, that is, the most (over-)used word in the songs of the language. This film follows the adventures of an ambassador.

All these are very highly recommended. Of the documentaries I missed, I would have especially loved to see Linda and Ali, about a cross-cultural couple: Linda is from Arizona, while Ali is Qatari.

The Feature Films

Coming Wednesday/Thursday.
For now, I have to get back to preparing for a job interview tomorrow at which I'm not likely to discuss Arab film; I think it will be about statistical data analysis and such. Interviews, finally: there's another on Friday with an electric power company. Yay! Wish me luck.

The People

The filmmakers' panel included the completely captivating actress Meriam Serbah. I mean, I didn't watch Bled Number One, in which she starred, but in person, she had such a dominating strength of presence in a room in which many people had such great strength of presence.

I met Sufyan and Abdallah Omeish, the brothers who directed Occupation 101. They're nothing if not passionate, and it's amazing that such young people have done such important work.

There were also: Maya Sanbar, the très beautiful BBC documentary filmmaker and co-director of Goal Dreams, who not only knows how to make a great film, she knows how to fund and sell; Stephen Olsson, who directed the reportedly psychedelic Sound of the Soul, which was presented at the festival with Improvisations, a film about the oud, which was probably a delicious work.

I met Samir Nasr, who directed Seeds of Doubt (English title of the German Folgeschäden.) I have a few goals as an actress, one of them is to work with this man. I suspect he's that brilliant. He's making a film in Arabic next, and I'll someday soon be fluent in Arabic.

As a film festival volunteer, I met other volunteers, attendees, judges, directors, actors, and organizers. If there's a heaven, the people who organize a beautiful thing like this are definitely going there.

I was a little shy about handing out my newly-made headshot/acting-resume card.

I felt very beautiful in a small-world of very beautiful people. I felt very beautiful at the afterparty - dancing in the gorgeous dress (completely gorgeous, I tell you) that a friend in Sana'a had given me when she learned of my missing luggage. I was the stuff of dreams in that dress. I loved living in French and Arabic, learning about the human condition, being in a social condition, having a brand new boyfriend and many new friends...

More Film Links

AFF has organised several other film events following the wild popularity of the main event last year. How I would love to attend them all. In particular, it's co-presenting films at the 50th annual San Francisco International Film Festival.

I first wrote about some of the films (Occupation 101, A Stranger in Her Own City, Goal Dreams) in this September 2006 post.

I once met a friend of the guy who directed this vegetable animation called T-Day. I just love the filmmaking in T-Day, and though I can't say I understand Lior Chefetz's other films to date, he's clearly a star filmmaker in the making.

Very exciting update:

Found on the myspace page of Occupation 101. Join their myspace!!!

I hate _

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I haven't been depressed since I got here, six months ago.
Today and yesterday I've been choking with rage. I won't write why on the internet, not today. I just want to go to sleep and not deal with it. I've considered chugging some wine or cough syrup.
Then I found this site:

Two minutes later, I'm sharing the link here and maybe I'm ready to pick myself up and breathe.

Hermès, schmermès. Buy this scarf.

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I'm knitting.

Why? I signed up to do a local playreading (in Oakland, tomorrow.) My character is a librarian named Joan, who knits throughout the short play. I could fake-knit on stage, but OF COURSE I drove to Michael's before rehearsal one day and bought some conspicous gold-coloured knitting needles, some yarn and a beginners kit a helpful attendant picked out for me, which includes a how-to-knit book with pictures.

The basics are easy, I've been back to Michael's for more yarn, including a different colour to pattern it, and now the knitting has grown to about 40% of a scarf.

Just now I picked it up to continue and exclaimed "God, it's beautiful." It occured to me that I had more than a stage-prop on my hands, I had a scarf in the making.

First thought: give it to Raj, but he's a man who hasn't learned to wear pink yet. So I'm going to sell it.

You should buy it. See sidebar on the right for Google Checkout button. I'll ship no sooner than a week from today, after it's completed, insha'Allah.

New magazine article on my friend Billy

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A Terrible Thing to Waste
From laweekly.com
Convicted as an ecoterrorist, a brilliant young scholar nose-dives in prison. UPDATE: Exceprts of Billy Cottrell's letters from prison
By JUDITH LEWIS
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 - 1:00 pm

Billy Cottrell in kindergarten

When Billy Cottrell was first sent up to Lompoc Federal Penitentiary, he thought he had landed the perfect job. A brilliant student of theoretical physics at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Cottrell has a high-functioning form of autism that makes it difficult for him to pick up on people’s emotions, but also gives him a grave appreciation for detail. At Lompoc, he thought, he would do secretarial duty in the “boiler-room office,” spending many hours alone, filing, sorting, typing and proofreading. He could be useful.

Before his first day, however, prison officials got nervous. They knew Cottrell was smart; they’d seen his physics textbooks and writings. And wasn’t this the kid who’d been convicted of blowing up Hummers somewhere in Los Angeles? Thinking he might find a way to rig the water heaters to blow up the prison, Cottrell says, they denied him the job.

Next, Cottrell was offered a job mowing Lompoc’s copious lawn. Read more...

This article joins my other posts on Billy's legal trials at http://lifelib.blogspot.com/2004/11/mrs-smith.html
If you have comments, please leave them there. Thanks.

Look and listen :)

     
By Banky: My Regret and Capable.

Artistes

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I'm listening to the music of Banky on his myspace page right now. You should too. He make great success! I like!

Browsing the web today and finding nascent Nigerian lifestyle (women, fashion, entertainment) media like this one. There's some very good content out there.

My sister Taiwo wants to be a leader in this sphere. She has all it takes, including a business education, trademark ideas and a spirit that is singularly beautiful and very strong.

Unlike the larger Nigerian blogosphere, the lifestyle segment of Nigerian bloggers seems to have a network i.e. members link to one another, so that finding one helps you find others.

You know where else there is a tight network? In modeling. The young female models, from alumnae of America's Next Top model to home-grown international models from Africa and Europe. You find one myspace page and you've more-or-less found them all.

Surviving Picasso

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1998, I was seeing a man who was famous for being a brilliant student, who was slightly balding, fit and short. "Seeing" meant sharp-tongued banter and kissing in the hallways. I assumed he was seeing other people, in a more grown up way. I assumed that had nothing to do with me. I remember the pretty film, Surviving Picasso...I was Françoise, the young one who survived Picasso. I had too much going for me to be engulfed by this guy.

Anthony Hopkins' Pablo Picasso showed a portrait to his new girl Françoise (Natascha McElhone) of a razor-tongued woman, his x, who "had a sharp tongue to nag, nag, nag," he said in a nagging Hopkins accent. "She has a sharp tongue to nag nag nag."

I started hearing myself say the same things over and over to my current boyfriend, so much my throat literally hurt sometimes so I'd say "my throat hurts, I can't talk so much." But I'm stopping. By the way, Raj helped label the stuff for garage sale yesterday. It all took a few minutes, after I spent 10 times as long saying we had to do it. What a waste! Nothing gets done when you nag - except rapid aging.

Television

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My new favorite TV channel is CNBC World, carrying quality near-global financial and business programmes.
see SCHEDULE

How I know that I'm evil

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Because I allowed people to create a violent war in Iraq. I murmured a bit, and then moved on with life and quotidian concerns.

If it's "not my job" to do something, and not your job, and not her job, and not his job, then who will do something? And who will do something when I am (or you are) the victim?

Better Half

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Best Couple Award

Eleven years and one month ago, I fell giddily in love with a boy. My hormones had played similar tricks on me before, but unlike all my prior loves, he was actually in my age group and I actually knew him in real life. I felt very certain that I was his girl for ever. Although he is a most delightful friend, I guess I can be grateful now that my willpower wasn't enough to make us marry.

I remember the week we fell in love. I remember too how Saamu (camp clown) organised an impromptu award contest on the bus back home. There were categories, nominations, votes, most of which I was oblivious to, being engrossed in my Beloved's speech as I was. I was embarassed - blushing red despite my dark brown skin, I was told - to find that we were Best Couple.

I was also secretly pleased to have won a cool award. It was nice to get attention for something not serious or schoolish, but Away-an: foreign, Western, ...cool.

Some things haven't changed much. I'm still waaay more geeky-cerebral than cool (although at Caltech, I was considered radically cool, which just shows that "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is the King.")

Nigerian Blog Awards

I nominated myself for a bunch of Bloggies this year. You should nominate your blog(s) too. Or other deserving blogs, if you're so inclined :)

According to TaureanMinx, another blog award organiser, a few people are now authorized to wear this badge of honour on their blogs:

These are only some of a multitude of fabulous Naija blogs out there. Next year, the awards will be even more awesome, because more people will vote, for more diverse blogs.

See all the 2006 Naijablogger winners!

Do Believe The Hype

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Watching Dreamgirls was a sumptous experience.

When I was about seven, my family got a videotape with footage of Jennifer Holliday, spotlit on a dark stage, in glittery dark clothes, microphone in hand, performing the You're Gonna Love Me solo. I could never forget that performance - the sweat, the depth, the passion.
Fast forward many years, and everybody's talking about the same song.
Thank you, Miss Jennifer Hudson, for giving a musical film performance that will be remembered for generations.

Let the music play on

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There are so many songs I'm dying to post here.
I'll keep up with blogging and with posting the songs...server problem for hosting the songs needs to be worked out...still owe you the rest of the Arab Film Festival gist, I know...be back in a few days.
Peace and love.

iCall

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My calls with Skype have been of really poor quality recently. Maybe it's the new wireless connection that has problems. Or maybe Skype is overloaded and underperforming. I just read about iCall, so I'm downloading that right now to use for my calls from home.

My cell phone plan is stupid. It costs a lot, yet I can't use it freely because of the very very limited minutes included and the stiff penalty for going over. I want to dump the company (T-Mobile) but they gleefully informed me that I'm under contract for a year. The phone itself is ancient. I can get another one at a heavily discounted price if I sign up for two more years of this misery. "TWO YEARS!" I exclaim, "I don't even know what COUNTRY I'll be in in two years." (I hope it's Yemen.) I'll find a way to dump my phone Company soon, you'll see.

Peace.

12 hours later: I just tested iCall and found similar problems, so the problem is with my low-bandwith wireless and Skype is still fabulous.

Who moved my cheese?

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I have now joined the rat race. Used to drive less than 10km/week in Pasadena. Now I'll drive five times that, and ride the train the other half of the time. I love the Bay and the City. Work won't feel like work at all.

The work is/will be: brokering/trading forex, tutoring SAT math, acting. Lucky me.

Localized

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Still job-hunting. From tutoring and petroleum R&D to trading desks and "financial engineering." Trying to stay within 15 miles of Berkeley.

In other news, there may be some more acting and playreading in my immediate future. I like!

We need to unpack and sell/donate at least half of the junk in this apartment. Then I'll feel much saner, we'll have a nice long Thanksgiving weekend, I'll start studying Arabic again...

Peace.

Still don't know

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Despite my best efforts to hate the career fair, it was fun.

Some fun people and companies, like a Nevada technology company that makes slot machines, or this "normal" technology company - with people I like, actually like - that analyses/tests Internet Protocol performance.

I sort of liked Advertising.com - had never heard of them.

I lost some of my apprehension about DE Shaw, so I'll look into that further.

I saw new "trading" companies besides the ones I'd already decided against. One of them is based in LA and hiring right now. Like "can you start next week?" They like my math, seem like cool people, but are not sure if I really want to be a trader - very perceptive. Another one is doing their first interviews / math tests tomorrow morning, so I'll go and try to see if I remember any math. By the way, traders buy and sell stocks or derivatives or financial products people make up. So far that's beautiful. It's said that they work long hours. Pause.

I cornered a recruiter who was not so busy to learn about how she figured out what to do in life. Answer: elimination. I love old people. And all other people who are not too harried to answer my questions.

In A New York State of Mind?

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Spent the past few days in bed nursing a cold and reading the Wall Street Journal. Would like to do the same today, but I have to take a few hours out to meet the people at the career fair. Used to be good at career fairs; now I'm old and cranky. There's a lot of stupid work out there, y'all. Don't live in this country: it's full of people working very hard at stupid things. Not you of course!

Thought New York / Wall Street work might be fun, until I went to visit my sisters in DC two weeks ago and remembered how intolerable cold weather is to me. Now, I'll only go to work in New York if it's something I really really want, if it pays an evil amount of money, or if it doesn't include October - March.

Would work in DC year-round, on the contrary, since seeing my sisters daily would make up for the cold weather.

Moving to Berkeley, 400 miles NW of Pasadena, in ten days. A guy named Raj.

Beyond Borders

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I saw Anousheh Ansari on The Oprah Winfrey Show today. She spent days in orbit around the earth as a space tourist. She loved the lovely view outside her capsule: it was of the earth, and there were no borders, she said. NO BORDERS. Really. Did you know that?

Yet there is such suffering in the name of borders: a Jewish state called Israel, the often deadly northward passage through the Southern half of North America, Bakassi, and hundreds more large-scale conflicts between the in-group and the out.

Are you in the EU, or not in?
In North Korea or South Korea?
Israeli Arab, or born right outside the borders in Palestine/Lebanon?
Northern Moroccan or Southern Spanish?
Who cares - it shouldn't matter. Sadly, it matters too much.

There are people who see that it doesn't have to be this way. I met N. at the film festival. She and I talked about how far we are from where we need to be in designing a peaceful world...how the framework itself, one that divides with borders, is flawed.

There are no borders.

Yes, we have inherited a recent tradition of knowledge that partitions as much as possible, puts things in mutually exclusive classes: this country is in Africa, this in Asia...this is a mammal, but that is a bird. All this grouping is sometimes useful for representing data simply but incompletely. That is, it's not the whole story...not the whole truth...Is this land Camerounian or Nigerian? Maybe the answer is both. Or neither.

Perhaps you dare to dream of a new world order that doesn't have division built into it, but increases freedom. Maybe you dream of something crazier. Hold fast your dreams, anyway.

Social intercourse

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I just got back from the Arab Film Festival.

The first film I saw there was a short documentary shot throughout Sana'a and titled A Stranger in her own City. It was utterly emotional for me to see video of the place and to watch a girl living out loud in a culture that has other ideas for people of her sex.

Next I saw the equally captivating Goal Dreams. Days later, I met Morad, a Palestinian and American who was prominent in this film about the quest for a World Cup qualification for Palestine. I said "you were in the film" and we introduced and smiled and...quit smiling and parted ways.

The ONE film from the festival that I want everyone I know to see is Occupation 101. Wait for its release, get it, have a viewing party. Let's get the word out and move towards peace and away from stupid violence.

Sadly, most of the films I saw were so good that I anguish over each one I didn't see. (It's impossible to see all the films at this festival, but that doesn't console me.)
I'll write more about the week's movies soon.

San Francisco loves me
Maybe I'll move to the San Francisco Bay Area soon: on this trip, besides watching a lot of films and hearing a lot of Arabic, seeing and liking Berkeley, reading about bonds and stocks, and detoxing from my addiction to toiling on the Web, I met a number of lovely people, some of whom want me to live closer to them.

I had a soul-mate all along

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It's pleasing to think that I'm so connected to someone, though scary because I want him to stay alive. OK, it's not so scary anymore.

My mother often said I should have been a boy/man.

I'm looking forward to figuring out my hairstyle(s) for work.

Your money or your life

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Just saw this quote on 43 things:
When we go to our jobs, we are trading our life energy for money. The truth, while simple, is profound.
The New Road Map is one attempt at a fair trading strategy.

I have an over-the-phone job interview this morning.
I am genuinely very interested in working at En*, and assume
1. I will do great work here
2. my interest will die out after a short time
Ideally, I'll work here for (a few/many) months, and later go to work somewhere else.
To work "somewhere else," I need to read gobs of finance.

This dead Aussie clearly lived out loud - the way we ought to want to live.