NOTE: For those whom I e-mailed, this is mostly a repeat so you
have my permission to skim:
This time, I'm preparing to go on my biggest adventure to
date: 13 weeks abroad with India, Thailand and Singapore as primary
destinations. I'll be spending the
first month in Mysore in South India working for the Duke Talent Identification
Program to teach a physics and engineering course. The camp is at the world's largest corporate training center
(see it here in this hilarious, pretentious promo video) so I'll be somewhat
removed from wilds of India, eating meals at a round "floating
restaurant", surrounded by a moat filled with koi fish. However, that hasn't stopped crazy
things from happening in the past (elephant stampede, rogue jaguar on campus..
and not the car) so hopefully I'll fit in some adventures when I'm not
enlightening the minds of the country's smartest 7th graders. Although I'm sure teaching these kids
will be an adventure- weekly dances at the nerd camp I taught at for five other
summers were pretty hilarious especially as you watched the week to week
evolution. The first week, they'd
be fighting over chess sets in the hallway, the second week the older kids
would be burning up the dance floor and the third week, everyone's clinging to
each other like Titanic victims in the icy Atlantic. I'm curious to see if that'll happen with Indian students...
As staff, we have permission to leave campus (as long as
we're back by our 9 PM curfew) so I'm hoping to go on an elephant safari at
Bandipur National Park and we're free to check out "Olive Garden"
when we're craving something other than Indian food. I was warned not to be fooled by the extensive menu that
features Indian, Chinese, American and Italian options because supposedly, no
matter what you order, it'll have curry.
I've been purposefully staying away from Indian food prior to departure
because it sounds like 29 days of roti, rice, cucumber salad and curries will
be unavoidable. I am looking forward to afternoon tea time (the kids have a
"juice break" but I hope the staff can have chai)!
Assuming I'll be able to leave the country on time (unlike
the 2011 staff), I've got a week of fun in Thailand with a friend from my East
Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) fellowship. We're flying into Chang Mai and out of Phuket, hope to do
some snorkeling and temple hopping but that itinerary is largely undetermined.
Finally, June 10th-August 2nd, I'll be at the National University of Singapore
(22nd best university in worldwide rankings apparently!) on an National Science
Foundation fellowship doing research on the evolution of the active learning
physics classroom I study for my dissertation. In addition to doing research, my host has already arranged
for me to give a couple talks in Singapore and plans to arrange talks in
Indonesia and Malaysia. I'm hoping
to use Singapore as a springboard for some other weekend trips- maybe Hong
Kong, Philippines, Vietnam... The
more I travel, the more I realize that often the best plan is to figure it out
upon arrival so we'll see what happens!
At least the air traffic controllers are no longer off the ground, so
hopefully I won't have trouble leaving the US. And hopefully I won't get red flagging bringing razor
blades, exacto knives and fingerprinting kits across international borders
(it's for the kids, I promise!).
Namaste for now!
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