CEASEFIRE

Israel has promised a ceasefire.
Thank whateveryoulike for this end to violence. Even if it turns out to be a pause rather than an end, this is fantastic news.
Sorry for this unusually serious blog post, but the crisis in Gaza has been an everyday subject in Cambridge for 22 days now. There have been mass emails with fiery language, facebook groups with militant calls-to-action, and confrontational discussions in our college common room. There was a film screening of Occupation 101, a documentary about the history of Gaza, filmed by Americans. There was a demonstration in Cambridge's market square today.

All of this has been pro-Palestinian. Anti-Israeli.

As an educated person with many Jewish friends, I thought I knew some things about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After a week in Israel last winter with my best friend, visiting her wonderful, kind, educated, Hebrew-speaking Jewish family and being welcomed into their homes all over Israel, I thought I understood the conflict, as much as an outsider can understand. They told me about Israel's history and the wars that have defined its borders, and they showed me their neighborhood bomb shelters and warned me about riding the buses. They were proud and possessive of their country, as we all are of our homes.
But I didn't understand the conflict, and I definitely still don't. Most Americans don't know what it's like to be afraid of our neighbors. We also don't know both sides of the story in this case, and I'm not sure we ever will, even once Israel allows journalists into Gaza. But the point is that I was hurt and offended this week when my friends from all over Europe were taking me aside and telling me that the United States doesn't know anything, that our press covers only the pro-Israel side of the conflict, that the United States is to blame for arming Israel and making it an unacknowledged nuclear power. That it is our fault that these attacks have continued since 27 December. That Israel planned these attacks for a time when the U.S. has a power vacuum with a lame-duck president. That the United States is the only country that can make Israel stop this violence. That it is our fault that Palestinian children are dying from Israeli/American bombs.

It's been a rough week, for Gazans, and Israelis, more than anyone, but also for those of us who feel inexplicably guilty and shockingly ignorant. First I was angry with my friends and the European press for being so blatantly pro-Palestinian, then I was shocked at evidence showing Israel's attacks as an overreaction to a few Hamas-rocket deaths by killing thousands of civilians and denying humanitarian aid to thousands more. Now I am confused by the evidence of the U.S.'s unquestioning support for Israel's actions. Why do we give so much support to Israel, often in the face of UN sanctions? Who do we think we are, choosing which countries we want to help and which we don't? How can it be that a country would time its attacks to coincide with the change-of-power distraction of a country halfway around the world?

Forgive my ignorance. This is a volatile issue that everyone has an opinion on and everyone cites different sources of information to support their views. Who knows the truth? My struggle with it mirrors many people's, I'm sure, and I'm embarrassed to be so uninformed and to be so confused by all the issues involved. This week of conflict in Gaza and over the dining hall table in Clare Hall ended with peace in Gaza (as of tonight??) and me in Cambridge's market square, surrounded by people yelling "Free Palestine" while I cried in the arms of my Jordanian friend whose uncle was killed in Gaza yesterday.
I can't yell "Free Palestine" but I can desperately want my friend's family, and my adopted Israeli family, to be safe. There are two issues here, a humanitarian one and a political one. Clearly no one has any clue how to fix the political conflict, but the killing-each-other issue I think we can all agree on the solution: STOP.

Here's hoping for a new year where we all fight it out across a table and not across rocket-launchers, tanks, and barbed wire.

A email to my department's listhost

"Dear all:
On Monday, I will present a paper entitled 'Botanizing rulers and their herbal citizens: plants and political power in Greek and Roman literature' in the Faculty of Classics. I would very much like to see familiar HPS [history and philosophy of science] faces in the audience."

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Is this straight out of Harry Potter or what? As my mom pointed out, Neville was an expert on this topic...

I <3 academia.

a brief foray to the U.S. of A.

During my week in Florida with my family for Christmas, my mom told me a story she read in some famous person's speech for a graduation ceremony. It goes something like this, with apologies to whoever it was whose speech it came from:

Two young fish are swimming along and swim past an old fish. The old fish says, "Hello, how's the water?" The young fish say, "Fine, thanks," and swim by. Then one young fish says to the other, "What's water?"

How do we learn about our "water", our context, the way we live? It's so ingrained and unconscious that we have no idea what it is. My week in Florida reminded me of a few things I had forgotten about America. Funny what you aren't aware of until all of a sudden it's different...

Things I Miss about the US
-people with tattoos
-people being out of shape so I can walk faster than them and beat them to get in line at Passport Control, the grocery store, etc. (Those skinny, fast-walking Europeans ALWAYS beat me and I end up last in line.)
-cheap cell phone minutes

Things I Don't Miss
-not having tax included in prices
-coins that are basically worth nothing (Pounds come in 1 pound and 2 pound coins, which are worth $3/4ish dollars! A pocketful of change can buy a pint, no problem, but what can a pocketful of quarters buy you, besides maybe a laundry cycle?)
-having no international stories on the news
-having to drive everywhere
-toilets that use gallons of water to flush. British toilets are empty until you flush, which I imagine saves a LOT of water. It means your pee looks a lot more yellow than it does in the U.S. though (since it's not diluted with toilet water), which can be a little shocking.

Things I Thought I Would Miss and Don't
-Cars driving on the right side. I'm so used to British driving on the left that now I'm just confused and have to look both ways TWICE to make sure.
-American food. Ick. (I do miss Mexican food though, which really doesn't exist in Europe.)
-having so much SPACE everywhere, from in cars to bedroom size to wide staircases. Britain is a little island with a big population so space is limited and everything is cramped, and I love it. I felt a little lonely in giant American rooms.

Things That Are The Same
-bad traffic
-Obama's face being everywhere (awesome!)
-cell phones/"mobiles" that do everything (though American ones are oh so much cheaper to talk on). In my extended family of 7 there are 6 phones that check email and go online, 5 of which also take pictures and play music. (Guess who's the 7th person with the lame make-and-receive-calls cell phone? Whatever, my TWO (crappy) cell phones mean I can make calls all over the U.S. and Europe- beat that, iPhone users! :) )


I'll write about our fantástico trip to Spain soon, with input from my travel buddy and coauthor, Deena. I hope you all had a great holiday season and are pumped up for a fantastic 2009!

Christmas in Cambridge!

City Hall with XMas lights. So much for secularism.



Big (and crooked!) tree on Market Square in the centre of town.




Statue with a Santa hat on. That statue is a story high, so who knows how Santa dropped his hat there...




Market fruit stall selling holly wreaths and mistletoe. Really!




Kids at the Clare Hall carol sing, mince pies in hand. (As someone who loves to sing but can't carry a tune, I LOVE loud, festive carol sings. I've been to 4...)


Christmas is a BFD here.
Every college and club and group of friends holds carol sings (where they sing our familiar carols to DIFFERENT TUNES- whoa) and has Christmas parties with mulled wine and mince pies. There are lots of set-in-stone traditions like these for Christmastime, and absolutely no recognition of people who don't celebrate Christmas. I guess that's what happens when you have a state religion?

I'm leaving tomorrow for a week at my grandma's in Florida, then to Spain with Deena for a tourist adventure and a great start to the new year.
Enjoy your vacations and Happy Holidays, whichever you choose to celebrate!
Here's to 2009!!

Catch-up (and mustard?)

In response to popular demand, here is the past 3 weeks in pictures... with captions, since I am a historian and (unfortunately) not a photographer!

MUNICH, GERMANY
My dad was on a business trip to Munich, so of course I tagged along. Munich is cute and efficient and has terrible food. It has 3 modes of transportation (train, bus, streetcar) for a pretty small population (1.3 million) and has an incredible, enormous outdoor market where people go to drink beer and eat sausage with giant pretzels outside even when it's freezing cold.
We spent a day at the Dachau concentration camp, which is almost completely preserved and has an amazing museum. Everything about its function in 1933-1945 is unbelievably well-documented, with photos of prisoners and careful logs of their identities and work assignments in the camp. If you haven't been, ask me about it in person sometime- I was shocked at how little I actually knew about how Nazi camps were run.

My dad grinning (somewhat inappropriately) next to Dachau's "Arbeit Macht Frei" entrance sign ("freedom through work")

Here's what my dad and I mostly did in Munich, in the city's oldest Biergärten surrounded by waiters in traditional Bavarian costumes and men in lederhosen playing the tuba (Really! It was so great!):



MY FIRST GUEST (and hopefully not last!! Come visit me!)
After Munich, my dad came to Cambridge for a weekend while he was working in London. I took him on a tour of my favorite part of Cambridge- its bridges! (Get it- bridge over the river Cam = Cambridge!) The grounds of the most famous colleges span the river and each one has its own beautiful and totally unique bridge, but Cambridge is so small that if you stand on one bridge the next one is only like 50 feet downriver... nothing like college rivalries to create inefficient bridge planning, right? No way would a Trinity student deign to walk across a Clare bridge... or something like that. Anyway, I love these bridges, and here we are on my favorite, Clare College's (not Clare Hall, where I live) Mathematical Bridge, reportedly originally built by Isaac Newton using no bolts or nails, only wooden beams counterbalanced to stay together! (Myth, but a good story)




TOMORROW: IRELAND!
I'm going to Cork, in the south of Ireland, in about 5 hours (thank you, cheap flights, for always taking off so early it's basically the middle of the night). I'm going with this boy. He plays violin in a jazz band, studies engineering, makes his own chocolate, looks like Paul McCartney, and was wearing the same shirt as me the day this photo was taken.



We're going to kiss the Blarney Stone to receive the "gift of Irish gab", enjoy real Irish "craic" (pronounced crack, means "fun involving music and drinking"), and visit the 19th century Cork Gaol (= jail!). We will not be eating any contaminated Irish pork. :)


Happy Holidays to you!! Hope all is well!

11.5 hours til deadline

After 10 of the most crazy and wonderful days ever, during which I've been crazy sick, in Germany, training for my first rowing race, hosting my dad, falling for a British boy, hurting my ankle, and dealing with winter...
I think I've finished my first essay of graduate school.

The story of the pliosaur fossil and the sociology of the fossil preparator's role in paleontology has been spell-checked, has footnotes and pictures, is under the 5000 word limit (after cutting what felt like 10000 words), and has given me 6 weeks of research joy and heartache... so it must be ready to turn in.

HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope the examiners don't mind my American spelling. :)
I'll have to wake up tomorrow to print it and turn it in and go to the pub with my classmates and THEN I'm going to sleep for next 10 days and try not to worry about the meaning of this incomprehensible website:
http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/students/markingmphil.html

Happy Monday!
zzzzzzzz

Adventure in social healthcare*

*This entry is of special interest to anyone interested in medicine and anyone who voted Obama in the hope of revolutionizing American healthcare. So that should be everyone reading this blog...

My neighbor convinced me that the British go to the doctor for much less serious illnesses than Americans do. So after 5 days of worsening sore throat and my mother's voice ringing in my head ("Get drugs... whatever it takes, get medicine...") plus a huge and growing curiosity about British healthcare, I called the doctor. When I asked to make an appointment, the receptionist said, "Today or tomorrow?"
Whoa. The only time I've ever heard that from a doctor was when I showed up at a Chicago ER this summer with a broken arm. And that doctor wanted me to choose "tomorrow".
3 hours later, I was in the waiting room. There was no one at the desk, only a computer screen that said "Touch here to sign in." COOL. 10 minutes later, a different screen lit up and flashed my name and a room number. A smiling Irish doctor met me at the door and chatted about the weather. I was at the level of sickness that makes politeness not an option, and I blurted out something like, "I've never been to the doctor outside the U.S., so you'll have to bear with me." He laughed and then chatted about the weather in Chicago. Then he asked when my ancestors had left Ireland (thanks to my super Irish first name) and if I knew my Irish family's last name. Then he chatted about the Donahue clan. I tried to smile and not have it hurt my throat.
Finally he asked what was wrong, and I listed everything very efficiently like a good American patient. He said "awww" and asked how my studies were going. Then he lamented the rise of modern culture that makes it impossible for people to stay in bed and rest when they're sick. He looked in my ears (why?), then down my throat and said thoughtfully, "it's red." Okay.
I waited for him to get the swab and do the 10-minute throat culture that my pediatrician always did to find out if it's a bacterial or viral sore throat. He didn't. When I asked for it, he said that by the time they got the lab results back, I would be better. But he offered to do the test anyway, since "it's no skin off my nose." I guess that's right, he gets paid the same no matter what services he gives me. Imagine that.
After providing me with sympathy, a friendly personality, some social criticism, minimal clinical testing (not even a temperature check!), and a solid 20 minutes of his time, he wrote out a "prescript" for penicillin. I was surprised, since he couldn't know if I had strep throat and penicillin would work without doing a strep test. When I asked if I would get better without the penicillin, he laughed and pointed out that people got sore throats before the 1920s invention of penicillin and survived. Right. Smart ass.
He directed me to the nearest pharmacy ("Are they drug stores in America? Here they're called pharmacies."), with explicit instructions on how to pronounce the owner's name. His directions included how many hedgerows to pass and that it was "just beyond the butcher's." As I left, I asked the receptionist if I needed to do anything like sign out, and she looked at me like I was crazy. Not crazy, just foreign, I wanted to say. It was pretty amazing to walk out of a doctor's office having only given them my name and not my insurance card.
All prescriptions, whether they are for penicillin or chemotherapy, cost 7 pounds 10 pence. I happily forked that over at this charming "chemist" that looks straight out of the 1800s:

And I made sure to pronounce the owner's name right. :)
So in my limited experience, social healthcare = a doctor who listens and wants to be your friend and connect with you culturally (ideally through common ancestry), who doesn't bother to do tests that are not useful, who respects the body's ability to heal itself and instead blames society for sickness, who prescribes medication but advises you on whether or not to bother taking it and leaves the choice to you, and who is part of a community where he knows the pharmacist/"chemist" personally.
This is pretty great, although shocking that my little suburban American pediatrician had more advanced lab capabilities than this clinic.
Come on, America, let's socialize!!