SUOMI? NO! SUO--YOU!!!

As I sit here anxiously awaiting my annual delivery of bituminous coal from a fat man in red, I find myself with nothing productive to do to pass the time.  As we all know, "idle hands are the devil's workshop."  So I think it fair for me to say that I am not accountable for this blog post, as it clearly is the work of Satan.

(Yes, the Devil wears knickers, a red jacket and a tie; or, as I like to believe, "The Devil IS Prada [plus Ralph Lauren, Yves St. Laurent and Armani]")

My topic today is my recent trip to Finland.  Contrary to everything I thought I knew--thanks to my American education and American news sources--Finland is a real country.  It has its own capital, its own flag, its own language, and its own alcohol.  Well, its own alcohol.  That is something I am sure about.  The rest  .  .   .  Well, I wasn't paying that much attention.

 

 

At this point, you may be asking, "What would make a sensible person visit Finland at the end of November, when the length of the day is about six-and-a-half hours and the temperature is below freezing?"  Yes, that's exactly the sort of question you might ask  .  .  .  if (forgive my blunt language here)  .  .  .  if you are a MORON!

Because, if you have even a smattering of brain cells, you realize that I am talking about MY trip to Finland in late November, which means (1) that we are not talking about a sensible person in the first place; and (2) I am going to Finland from Indiana, The Hoosier State, so there are no possible conditions in Finland that could prevent this from being an improvement.

However, in addition to the general benefit of travelling into the twenty-first century, I had a special motivation for my trip to Finland--a lovely woman I met while volunteering in Tanzania last summer, by the name of Raija Saastamoinen.  (A poorly constructed sentence, I fear.  It seems to suggest that I gave last summer its own name and called it Raija Saastamoinen, when in fact that is the name of the lovely woman.)  [The name I gave to the summer was Sandefur Calrissian--obviously a much more appropriate name.]  Anyway, I visited Raija because she said to me those wonderful words that every man hopes to hear once in his life:

"No, I haven't obtained a restraining order against you."

 

Raija lives in Helsinki--an absolutely delightful city.  Here are a couple of pictures from her neighborhood:

 

 

This is Kallio, the former working-class area of Helsinki--though, as Raija pointed out to me, the closest most of the current residents come to manual labor is when they sort their recycling into separate bins.

 

Also, the start of the Christmas season took place while I was in Helsinki.  It did seem a little strange to start the Christmas season before Thanksgiving--except, of course, Thanksgiving is not a Finnish holiday.  During the time period when Americans were being saved from their own ineptitude by generous Native Americans eager to prove the axiom that no good deed goes unpunished, the Finns were not having such thankfulness-inspiring occasions.  Instead, they were being oppressed, exploited and abused by arrogant Swedish overlords.  And those were the best of times.  The worst of times were when the Swedes got their asses kicked by the Czar's armies and the Finns were being oppressed, exploited and abused by arrogant Russian overlords.   (I think it is instructive that the two periods in the 1700's when the Russians occupied Finland are named "The Great Wrath" and "The Lesser Wrath" in Finnish history.)

 

It was extremely cool to be in downtown Helsinki for the opening of the Christmas season.  We went to brunch at a downtown restaurant and when we came out, the main square was filled with families, couples, teenagers--a true collection of people of all sorts.  And on the steps of the great church, a choir was singing Christmas carols.

 

And at the side of the church, preparing to take part in the festivities, we found a delightful group of dogs and their owners, dressed for the occasion.

 



 

 

WAIT!  WHAT'S THAT I HEAR?!  I THINK IT'S THE CLATTERING OF LUMPS OF COAL ON MY ROOF!!!

 

I will have to continue this later.  Including the story of our trip to Tallinn, Estonia.  So, so long for now.

The Annoyance of A Good Example

Mark Twain said, "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example."  Which proves that Mark Twain never met Cory Brundage, notwithstanding the fact that they appear to be roughly the same age.   Because, had he know Cory, Twain would undoubtedly have said, "NOTHING is harder to put up with than the annoyance of Cory Brundage's example."

Everything that Mr. Brundage does makes the rest of us men look like soft-bellied pikers.  Admittedly, we all are in fact soft-bellied pikers, but we have spent good cash for our tent-sized shirts and aviator sunglasses to hide this fact.

And the worst part of the Cory's behavior is the goddam self-effacing modesty that he has.  Damn it, boy!  Can't you at least be obnoxious about your achievements?

True story.  The results booklet from the 2013 Boston Marathon only got sent out a couple of weeks ago.  Looking through it casually, I happened to see Cory's name and time--both of which I knew--and that he finished in 12th Place!  (12th place in his age group, but that is still 12th Place--and at the Boston Marathon.)  The next time we ran together--yes, I will shamelessly drop in a reference to how I train with a 12th Place Finisher from the Boston Marathon--I said, "You never told me you finished 12th in your age group at Boston."  His response was, "Well, it's not a big deal.  It was just a bunch of old guys."  How true, Cory.  And how unfair to those other guys that they had to race against someone their own age.

And it was the same at the Leadville 100 mile trail race in August.  Cory was the only finisher in his age group and the second-oldest finisher overall.  The oldest finisher being a German Ubermensch named Hans-Dieter, who a few years ago finished 4 100 mile trail races on four consecutive weekends.  And Cory beat him.  Because even Teutonic eugenics and relentless training is no match for the world's highest pain tolerance and smallest brain.  (Fictionalized demonstration of this principle illustrated below.)

(If you wonder where I am in this fictionalized account of the Leadville race, look more closely.  That's me on the poster in the background.)

Then yesterday Cory ran a local marathon, in 43 degree weather, with rain and wind.  Of course he won his age group.  By 13 minutes ahead of second place.  Qualifying yet again for another Boston marathon.  And at the end, was still fresh.  Well, not "fresh" in the sense of pleasant-smelling (definitely not that); and not "fresh" in the sense of "full of energy"; but "fresh" in the sense that most characterizes Cory--"fresh" in his charming attempt to persuade a middle-aged lady selling coffee to trade him a cup of coffee for his running shirt.  (I think he would have succeeded, too, if her husband had not also been at the coffee stand.)

And while I'm on the topic of people who annoy the sh*t out of me by their good example, let me bring up a couple of other people I know who are completely impossible to put up with.

Mariela Botella.  This young lady had a business meeting in Malaysia.  So she arranged her schedule to take a side trip to Borneo.  To compete in a 100 kilometer cross-country race--over mountains, across rivers, and around a cabbage patch.  Which sounds like a cute kid's story.  If the kid was a young Marquis de Sade.  Imagine having to run 32 miles through Hell, only with a worse climate--heat, humidity, monsoon rains.  And, of course, the leeches.

Yes, Mariela emerged from one of her river crossings with leeches on her legs.  Which was quite a shock for her.  Since she works for ExxonMobil, she had assumed that conscience-lacking bloodsuckers would show her professional courtesy.  But, really, Mariela.  How could they do that and still call themselves "conscience-lacking"?

Chris Harrison.  This young lady became a "Leadwoman" at Leadville, Colorado this summer.  This required, among other things, that she successfully complete a 100 mile mountain bike race over high-altitude mountain trails and a 100 mile running trail race (yes, also over high-altitude mountain trails) on consecutive weekends.  With a 10 kilometer running race between the two 100 mile races.  And then she went to Guatemala and built high-efficiency stoves for poor people in rural Guatemala.  Don't you just hate her? 

These people are so lucky that I'm willing to put up with them and their damn good examples.  I don't know if they realize that I know plenty of lazy, rotten, disgusting people that I could hang out with instead.  Like you.  Thanks!  For all the good things that you don't do--I am forever grateful.

A Pre-Climb Climb

Yesterday, I went on my pre-climb climb on Mount Kilimanjaro, motivated by Cory's advice that by doing an "acclimatization climb" I could double my chances of successfully climbing Kilimanjaro.  You may know that Cory has diligently avoided all understanding of things mathematical.  (Motivated, I suspect by having once read the following statement by Thomas Mann: “I tell them that if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics they will find in it the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh.”)

Despite his numerical illiteracy, Cory's advice is undoubtedly accurate this time.  I had calculated my chances of success, prior to the pre-climb climb at roughly 0%.  But now, thanks to my efforts yesterday, I can safely say that my newly calculated chances of success have improved to 0%.  My only hope of defying these odds is if the words of Augustine of Hippo prove to be true:

“The good Christian should beware of mathematicians.  The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell.”  

By the way, this quote, and the 36 years I have know Cory, are the first things that make me seriously consider the possibility of reincarnation.

 












(The similarities are uncanny!)

As a mathematician, although I have not consciously made a covenant with the devil, I have certainly engaged in powerful and sustained efforts to darken the spirits of my students and to confine them in mathematical hell.  So, Devil, if you're reading this--you owe me one!  I expect your help up the mountain.

The one-day climb on Kilimanjaro allowed me to get up to around 11,000 feet of altitude, which is normally 1 1/2 days of climbing for people taking that route to the top of the mountain.  (I was on the Marangu Route--also know as the "Coca-Cola Route".  The route that Cory and I will be taking is the Umbwe Route, so I was not able to familiarize myself with our route but I was able to test out my legs and lungs.)

I am please to report that I had not just a great climb, but a stupendous climb.  A "great climb" being one in which I do not break any weight-bearing bones, and a "stupendous climb" being one in which I do not fall down.  I hope to achieve another great climb with Cory, but have no illusions that it can be a stupendous climb, seeing as how I cannot walk around my house for 6 days without falling down.

 As you can see from the following pictures, there is remarkable variation in the plant life as you gain altitude on the mountain.

The middle two pictures were taken from the same spot on the trail.  The first shows the damage from a 2008 wildfire, while the second shows an area that was not burned by the fire.

I wasn't expecting the surroundings to be so interesting, though I expect it gets barren and dull higher up.  Nonetheless, I will take many, many pictures--the better to annoy my friends with.  (Here that, Devil?  I'm like your second self!)

46664

I find myself reflecting on choices, values and morality these days.  Which may be particularly timely, as we appear to be about to say a final goodbye to a man that seems to have provided us with a remarkable example of the best of humankind.

In contrast to Prisoner 46664, the common goal of the people I see around me currently is to maximize pleasure while minimizing effort.  And these are people who are ostensibly motivated by altruism and concern for others, in that these people are in Tanzania under the auspices of volunteer organizations.  If I sound irritated, it is because I am--which makes me remember what Thomas Macaulay said about puritans:  "The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators."

 

(You probably can't read the sign on this sinner, but it says "A Wanton Gospeller."  And, while I'm not quite sure what you must do to be called a wanton gospeller, I am 100% certain that I have done worse.)

So here's a question for you.  Immanuel Kant wrote that "We are not rich by what we possess, but by what we can do without."  How the hell did he avoid being locked up in the nut house?  And, since I agree with this lunatic on this subject, why am I not on a court-ordered psychotropic drug regimen?  Or was a secret treatment employed whereby I was given a post-hypnotic suggestion that I wanted to try every beer in Tanzania?  If the last option is the truth, then I would like to offer my thanks to the health care professional responsible for this innovative and effective treatment.

Here's another question for you.  Is stupidity contagious, or does one person's unselfconscious stupidity simply lift the lid off of the stupidity that people normally have sufficient self-awareness to keep covered?  Of course, I wouldn't ask the question if I hadn't already made up my mind as to the correct answer.  In this case, the answer is the second part of the question.  (Have you noticed that I am not the only one who uses questions to attempt to influence the response and not to acquire information?  I, at least, have the excuse that, in knowledgeable circles, asking questions that influence the response is known as "creative pedagogy.")

Here's yet a third question.  Suppose you were a volunteer from Australia volunteering in Tanzania and that you were taking a tourist outing to visit a "Masai Village."  (It is an actual Masai settlement, but the residents dress up, dance, etc. as a show for the tourists.)  Now tell me, would you, at the end of your 3 hour visit to the settlement, when the rest of your group has been loaded onto the bus and the Masai are wanting to head home, pull out a prepared speech and, reading from this script, declare that you have been touched by these people, that you love them all, that they will always be in your heart, and that if they are ever in Australia, they have a place to stay?  If you are conflicted about your answer to this question, then either (1) I need to sharpen my communication skills; (2) you need to rethink your entire philosophy of life; or (3) you are an actual volunteer living here in the same house as I am. 

In other words, "Please, please, please, intensify that post-hypnotic suggestion about beers."  Or come visit me and reassure me that all the good, sensible, ethical, honorable friends that I have been lucky enough to have made are not figments of malaria-medicine-induced hallucinations but are in fact real people.  Unless, of course, my three Finnish friends in the following photograph are malaria-medicine-induced hallucinations (which seems far more likely than that they are actual friends).  If the latter is true, no need to visit--just convince my doctor to double my malaria medicine dosage.

And lest you suggest that I'm a disgusting old pervert, let me point out that, when their ages are added together, these three girls are nine years older than I am.  At this point, I should also note another portion of Immanuel Kant's philosophy that I embrace--at least as these three friends are concerned--"Always treat people as ends in themselves, never as means to an end."  Right on, Manny!

BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA . . . AGAIN

 "And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive at where we started
And know the place for the first time."

--T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

I have written before about the eerie similarities between Tanzania and Indiana, but the evidence keeps piling up:  These two supposedly different venues are actually the same place!  I pointed out before that in both places, you are never more than a few steps from a corn field or a chicken coop.  But some astute readers have commented that the same could be said of Kansas--so maybe Tanzania and Kansas are the same place, and Indiana is just the holding area for people not cool enough to live in Kansas.

Having driven through Kansas, I can believe that.  Nowhere in Indiana is there a restaurant that is playing "Hoosiers" on a continuous loop.  But there is a restaurant in Kansas--in Hays, Kansas to be exact--that is playing "Wizard of Oz" on a continuous loop.  And nothing says "cool" like identifying yourself with a 70-year-old-movie populated by little people wearing diagonal plaids and bad hairdos.

But, even though we Hoosiers can never be as cool as Kansans, we can match up okay with Tanzanians--at least, that's what I'm going to try to prove.

You've seen my previous evidence.  Now consider this.  "Tanzania" and "Indiana" have exactly the same number of letters in their names.  (Well, except for the fact that "Tanzania" has one more letter, but in Indiana, 7 and 8 are generally considered to be the same number.  [Math may not be our strength.])

And here in my neighborhood, there are big expensive houses right next door to active corn fields.

The gated property, above, and the corn field, below, really are directly across a dirt road from each other.  And a half-block down that dirt road, you will find this pseudo-Swiss cottage.

So, let me summarize.  Over-sized houses, pretentious fashion, and rows of corn, side by side.  That shouts out, "HAMILTON COUNTY, INDIANA!"

And then there's the further evidence that I'm still in Indiana that it's June and the road I need to use to get to my work is under construction.  Actually, it's the road in front of my house.  Since it's a dirt road, you might not think it would get any attention, but that would defeat the acknowledged goal of Indiana/Tanzania road repair--to inconvenience the maximum number of people possible.

First, they ran a grader over the dirt road to push the dirt around.  Then they watered the road to turn it into mud.  Then they ran the grader over the mud.  (If this makes any sense to you, please turn yourself in for a mental health screening.)  Now they are running a roller over the dry dirt.

So, what you are seeing in this picture is pretty much the finished product of the road work.  And, while I admit, it may not look as nice as an Indiana road, I think that deficiency is more than offset by this fact:  I believe this work will be completed in my lifetime.

Are you convinced now that I really am still in Indiana?

I see that all but one of you are nodding "yes."  But there is still one skeptic left--you know who you are!  And it is to you that I address this last item.  Review the following picture very carefully.

Just in case you missed it, if you look closely at the sign, you will see that this place offers rental "appartment" and--even more importantly--each such "appartment" is "varnished with everything."  Now, it is possible that these are varnished apartments, but I'll bet my money on "furnished" apartments.  Meaning that this sign uses truly bizarre spellings of words--absolute proof that we are dealing with Hoosiers. 

Oh, and one last thing.  President Obama will be visiting Tanzania this coming week, so he has been the subject of a couple of conversations I've had with my Tanzanian acquaintances.  And, to a person, they are all convinced that he was not born in this country.  Gotta be Hoosiers!

Doing What You Love

This morning in the Juvenile Jail as I was preparing my lesson on "order of operations" when solving math problems with adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing and parenthesis, it struck me: "My God, I really love to teach!"

This observation will not come as a revelation to my closest friends.  I'm sure over the years they have all noticed my inclination toward the stacked deck, the false shuffle, the card up the sleeve and the marked cards, not to mention the swindle, the con, the grift, and the three-card monte.

(This is a picture of Jim and Cory at the Casino in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.  As they appeared in their own imaginations.)

Hey, why are you looking at me so funny?  What's wrong with what I said?

Oh, now I see.  I guess my dyslexia must be acting up again.  When I wrote, "I love to teach", I'm afraid I reversed a few letters.  Obviously, what I had intended to write was, "I love to cheat!"  That sounds much more like the Jim Dobson you know, doesn't it?

Sadly, though, I was expected to teach this morning at the Juvenile Jail.  Which raises the question, "Haven't those children suffered enough?"  I have to say, there was such a gloomy, negative attitude in the classroom from the first minute, it was hard to accomplish anything.  Fortunately, when the students came into the classroom, they were able to mitigate my aura to a substantial degree.  We did pretty well with the "order of operations" problems, despite the fact that my dictionary doesn't have a translation for "parenthesis" or for "operations into Swahili.  So I just tried to pronounce the English words with a Swahili inflection.  (Which raises the question, "Haven't those children suffered enough?  I mean really!")  Which is sort of like trying to talk to an Italian by speaking English except for adding "i" at the end of every word.  Strangely, even when you speak really, really loudly as you do that, Italians still rarely understand.  Gosh, they must be so dumb!

Anyway, my pidgin-Swahili, pidgin-mathematics teaching was somewhat successful.  Actually, I am being too modest.  It was tremendously successful.  If you define "tremendously successful" as the students figured it out on their own and explained it to each other and only laughed softly at my strange version of their language.  I will assure you, I am quite comfortable with that definition of "tremendously successful."

Tomorrow, as a reward for their tolerating me, I am taking them a surprise--fresh mangoes.  By the way, here is an appropriate SAT analogy problem:  Fresh, ripe mangoes for trees within 10 miles of the market :: mangoes sold in your finest grocery store.  The correct answer is:  Your favorite Ben & Jerry's ice cream :: the carton the ice cream comes in.

Of course, I do worry about the health of my students, so it would only be right that I eat a few bites of each mango before I pass them out to the kids.  And, because I actually am more conscientious that I pretend, I promise to learn the Swahili words for "morbidly obese" before they become applicable to me.  Which may mean I need a time machine, come to think of it.  Who knew that fresh fruit and avocados as big as your head could produce a weight gain?

And, no, the avocado is not nearsighted.  If you look closely, you should be able to see that those are reading glasses.  In truth, this avocado is a follower of this particular blog.  And a little smarter than the average follower, no doubt.  Or, at least he was before he became a fat deposit around my midsection.

My Turn As The Student

When we arrived at the Mahabusu (Juvenile Jail) this morning, one of the boys (an impertinent teenager--or am I repeating myself?) greeted my translator, Elizabeth, with the greeting, "Shikamoo," which is the appropriate greeting for an old person.  I was across the room, but I heard it (and saw Elizabeth--who is only 25--take a playful swipe at the boy).  So, I called out, in Swahili, to the boy, "Innocent [his name, showing that irony does exist in Tanzania], you do not say 'Shikamoo' to her; you say 'Shikamoo' to me.  You are a bad boy!"  Of course, he laughed as did many of the other children. 

Then, taking advantage of the lighthearted moment, the only girl at the Mahabusu, Anna came over to me and said, in English, "No class.  I teach you  .  .  ." and then explained to Elizabeth that she would teach me how to weave a bracelet, so we should not have class. The other students laughed and cheered.   I'd like to think that I know when I hold a losing hand--and I'm pretty sure this was one such time.  I agreed to be the student today.  I must say, Anna was a good teacher.  Patient, helpful, willing to minimize her focus on my mistakes.  Damn, I hate being around a good example!  People might expect me to pick up some of her good habits.

The idea of weaving a bracelet involves getting a number of strands of yarn and then hand-tying each strand with each other strand, row after row, until you have a band of the desired length.  Here's a picture of the process being done by someone who knows what he is doing:

This is a much more complicated pattern than I was given to work on, but the idea is the same.  I think these kids' experience with teaching Europeans/Americans to do this is that the foreigner works at it for couple of minutes, laughs, and gives it back to the kid.  Well, now they've learned something new about us foreigners.  Namely, that some of us have obsessive-compulsive disorder.  I found the whole business of repetition and pattern creation to be very soothing.  Kids kept coming by, looking at my work, and saying, with varying degrees of amazement, "Really good!"  And I would thank them and then add (all of this happening in Swahili), "I have a very good teacher."  Which Anna got a kick out of, of course.  And when I told her that now I was a craftsman with good skill (fundi kwa akili nzuri), she enjoyed that immensely, and announced to the other kids what I had said.

So what does the end result of this process look like?  Well, it depends on whether the work is being done by a kid or by a fundi kwa akili nzuri.  As you look at the next picture, try to guess whether these were made by my or by a 15-year-old kid:

Have I told you lately how smart you are?  Because you are absolutely right.  These were made by a 15-year-old kid.  (The impertinent kid mentioned at the start of this story, as it turns out.)  So what does a bracelet made by someone with three college degrees and 63 years of life experience look like:

Actually, that's an exaggeration.  This is what a bracelet made only half by that mature and highly educated individual and half by Anna looks like.  However, I can say with absolute certainty that the two mistakes that are visible in this bracelet were mine and mine alone.  (I like to think of them as my "artistic signature").

After we finished for the day and left the Mahabusu, Elizabeth told me of a conversation she had had with one of the Irish volunteers (see my post "I Hate It When I'm Right").  By way of back story, I'll mention that these four Irish volunteers showed up on Monday with no translator, not a word of Swahili among them, and no lessons planned.  They suggested that they would just observe on Monday and then be ready Tuesday to step in, which was fine with me. 

Come Tuesday morning, I asked them what they would like to do, and they said they'd like to teach a lesson on English.  Since we normally have two lessons each day, I said fine, you teach a lesson on English and I'll teach math for the second lesson.  Then, after they had stood around talking to each other for 10 minutes while the students sat in the classroom waiting for a teacher, they came in and immediately foundered and sank, with no survivors.  They just were thinking they could wing it, and discovered the hard way what a bad teaching technique that is.  I offered to take over and go with my lesson--I really wasn't trying to embarrass them; that's why at the beginning I asked what they wanted to do--but it did not make me sad for them to discover the difference between playing at being a volunteer and putting in the work that this job deserves.

Anyway, I have the impression that these volunteers think I'm a real taskmaster with a dim view of anything that borders on play or fun.  I would describe my persona at the Juvenile Jail differently, but I wouldn't quibble over their characterization. 

Which leads back to the conversation Elizabeth told me about.  The Irish volunteer asked Elizabeth something to the effect of, "The children really like him [referring to me]," to which she agreed, and he went on, "Why do they like him so much?"  She indicated to me that she didn't try to answer that.  So the volunteer went on, "They laugh so much with him!  I wish I could understand what he is saying."  I'm guessing that he was talking about the mood in my classroom, because even as I am working them hard, I am also teasing them and joking about myself.  On Tuesday, for the first time, instead of referring to them as "my students" (in Swahili), I referred to them as "my scholars", which is entertaining just to hear a foreigner speak such an odd word as "scholar" as well as being somewhat overblown language in general.  The best thing for me about hearing secondhand about Elizabeth's conversation is that, if you had asked me, "Do the children think you are special?", I would have been taken aback by the question.  I had never considered it; I just try not to be my normal pain-in-the-ass with these kids.  (I'm not kidding here.  I just try not to provoke the "oh-shit-here-he-comes-again" reaction.)  So getting this indirect feedback from what a stranger sees when watching the children interact with me is very encouraging.  I am so perfectly positioned to have the most tremendous fall from grace!  And I can do it.  Because I am indeed A Craftsman With Good Skill!!!