AP story.

When Myers was asked about the two home runs, he said they were really “just pop ups.”

A reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer questioned whether Myers really thought they were pop ups, and Myers got angry.

“You’re not even a beat reporter, you’re a fill-in, you don’t know anything about baseball,” said Myers, who then called the reporter “retarded.”

The Inquirer reporter asked if Myers could spell retarded, and Myers stood up. Burrell then restrained Myers, and Myers refused to speak any further.

“Hey amigos. do you want to have sex with my sister?” – at 1pm, tourist district in Tijuana, Mexico.

Maybe I should just leave the post at that. After all, the scariest-sounding 11 words of the English language describe the 3rd-world experience of Tijuana with uncanny precision. Even Sasha Cohen’s Borat could not have phrased it more succinctly. While I haven’t written much about my adventures in San Diego, this is one is different. I need to jot this down.

No San Diego experience can be complete without a day-long trip to Tijuana. The Blue-Line trolley picks you up in downtown, and in an hour you’re standing on the Mexican border. The proximity of the heavenly San Diego and the hellish counterpart is beyond belief. There is a very tall wall separating the two nations. As you walk through loud revolving metal doors (no documentation or security checks needed on the way out) , you step across the boundary of the Western world. Whoever you are in the States, when you enter Tijuana you become a walking dollar-sign.

The first impression, after getting through the initial swarm of begging adults and children, is the number of pharmacies Tijuana has. They are blocks and block of discount drug stores, ready to sell you anything without a prescription. From Cialis to Prozac, to the Human Growth Hormone, they are all available at discount prices. The “pharmacists” dressed up as doctors greet you so eagerly, you may feel you’re being assaulted. Along the same lines, Tijuana is filled with dentistry offices and plastic surgeons. Anything that’s expensive or illegal in the States is available. That’s why Tijuana is the most visited border down on Earth, with 300,000 Americans entering every day. The other reason for Tijuana’s popularity is the sleaziness. I had no idea a place like that could ever exist. The tourists are drinking non-stop. Happy hours at bars start before noon and proceed until 5 in the morning. One dollar a beer seems to be the going rate. Prostitution is legal, and the number of strip clubs and brothels is, hopefully, unsurpassed. Besides the things mentioned above, there is really not a whole lot to do. Not what you would call a family vacation spot. Although one of the signs did say “family fun, unlimited drinks…”.

But back to what actually happened. We proceeded towards Revolution Ave, the touristy area of town. The street is dominated by a St. Louis arch-like contraption. Only this one is made of metal and supported by thick wires. We had lunch and a few Coronas at the Mexican place. While eating, we must have been approached five different times by Mariachi bands and photographers ready to offer their services. After lunch, we continued down Revolution Avenue, just shocked by the sleaziness. More photographers – these had donkeys painted as zebras available for the backdrop. We only found three classy establishments all day, and the first one was a wine-tasting store. It was off to the side, and completely deserted. The Museum of Tijuana was unimpressive, although it was interesting to see their interpretation of the Missions and the U.S-Mexican war. The third classy place was where we had dinner, an awesome Thai-Japaneses restaurant.

Other than that, lots of uneven payments, holes in the ground, chaotic ground transportation with no street lights or stop signs, Mexican Swat Team driving by, men doing lasso tricks. The list goes on and on. At the end of the day, we came back on Revolution Avenue. We wanted to conclude the adventure by have a drink of Tequila, but it was very difficult to find a bar that was not also a strip club. Although we didn’t realize it at first. The first place we walked into, turned out to be just that. We ordered drinks and then immediately were approached by three hookers. It was hard to get rid of them. The one who talked to me introduce herself as “Jizzebel”. Maybe she said Jezebel, I’m not sure. Anyway, we finished the drinks as fast as we could and escaped.

Right after that, we ended up in a middle of a huge political rally. I’m not sure what’s going on with the politics there, but the people seem to be as intense about their political affiliation as they are about soccer. Throughout the day we saw hundreds of cars carrying flags of different parties. Most were honking which made walking down the street unbearable. And then there was this rally for the conservative party. Loud music, and all, we had to make our way out almost as fast as we left the strip club.

They say crossing the border back takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. We must have gotten lucky, because the line took no time at all. Few simple questions later, I was back on the U.S. soil. I never appreciated being in the States, or just being a part of the Western World so much. At the same time, you have to wonder. All the sleaziness is just a byproduct of tourists’ expectations and desires. People go to Tijuana to get what they can’t find in the States. The conditions there reflect as much about Americans as they do about Mexicans. And of course, Tijuana is by no means a representative sample of the rest of Mexico. I’m combing back to Mexico. Tijuana and I may never meet again.

When I’m asked how my summer is going, my normal response is “I’m convinced than San Diego is as close as it comes to paradise on Earth”. It hasn’t rained a single time singe I got here. Every day has been the predictable 70-80, sunny. According to the locals it’s “bad weather” when you can see clouds on the horizon. My whole experience this summer has felt as one extended vacation. This is sort of delayed post, but I had to wait until my life has settled down into a routine before attempting to analyze what’s happened.

All I knew coming in was that I’d be doing some sort of research in plasma physics at a private government contractor, General Atomics. In the spring, I received a long brochure describing the basics of the field, but I never get beyond the first line “plasma is the fourth state of matter”. I was also told that the company would take care of the apartment for the summer. Beyond that, I really had no idea what to expect from my job, the living conditions, or anything else. I was also coming in later than the other interns. Because of the quarter system, I had to skip on the required week-long course on plasma physics at Princeton. But somehow nothing bothered me.

When I flew in, I was met by the scientist who would be supervising my research. He drove me to the apartment, briefly explaining the outlines of what I would be doing. I was exhausted after the flight, it seemed late at night and having just flown from England to New York to San Diego, my sense of time was completely lost. I found out there are five other interns working at General Atomics (GA) for the summer. Four of them were sharing a two-bedroom apartment, and I would have one roommate in a one-bedroom place in the same apartment building. My apartment is nothing short of spectacular. It’s very spacious, all the amenities and a huge balcony. I found out that the company is spending $20G for the two apartments for the two months that we are here. And it shows. Downstairs in the courtyard, the apartment building has a gym, a swimming pool and a hot tub. My roommate had already gone to sleep, but he had written me a nice welcoming message. I read it, took a shower, and promptly fell asleep. Tomorrow would be my first day at GA.

“Tea of Coffee?”, flight attendant asked me during my flight from Heathrow to New York. “Coffee”, I said and smiled. How could such a simple question be so meaningful? I was leaving behind the English culture with all its traditions, idiosyncrasies and love for tea. Plus, I prefer coffee anyway. Black. No Sugar. It’s my own version from James Bond’s “shaken not stirred”. While I did enjoy a vodka-martini during the farewell dinner, the English beverages, as well as their culture, werejust not my own. I did speak the language. But no matter how long I stayed in England, I could not ever become English. That’s why, ultimately, it felt so great to come back to the States. It’s where I belong. It’s where home is.

Speaking of home, I do wish I had more time to be in New York. I flew in at night, and had to leave the following afternoon. For once, I slept in my own bed and then it was time to move on to new adventures. When my parents asked me about Oxford, I think I gave them too harsh of a description. It’s so easy to focus on what’s different, what’s unorthodox, or just makes no sense. For 10 weeks, I tried to fit in at the most prestigious and among the most selective places on Earth. While my credentials told a respectable story of an American student studying abroad for one term, the task of trying to fit in is a difficult one. It’s easy to focus on the challenges and forget the rest. Th etruth is, I had a great time. It was not an easy decision to go, but without a doubt, it turned out to be the right one.

The last week at Oxford was terrific. As I mentioned I finished the work on Thursday night and I was flying to Monday, which left me with a bit of free time for my own enjoyment. I took a lot of pictures on Friday. They were filing a movie, right next to the Radcliffe Camera. It’s called The Golden Compass. The preview is already available online. I’m definitely going to see it when it comes out, just to watch a a few dozen extras run by Brasenose college in one of the shots. Didn’t see Nicole Kidman. On the bright side, I did talk to a few extras. They were all bratty kids convinced they would become big movie stars someday. “I’ve already been in six movies, with so and so”, they told me. I wasn’t so sure about their future fame, but I was convinced they would grow up to be complete assholes.

Friday night, we went out to Pink Giraffe, a Chinese all you can eat restaurant. This marked the beginning of overindulgence. The previous day, I had three cups of coffee while finishing up the paper. Then I ate way too much at the buffet. This was followed by too much alcohol back at the Stanford house. Afterwards, I smoked a $20 Cuban cigar. All of a sudden, all of those things hit me at the same time. It was pleasant, but undoubtedly unhealthy.

The next day I was going to see Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s theatre in London. But I slept through my alarm. When I got up, I literally RAN down high street, barely catching the tube. Everything turned out to be great. I really enjoyed the performance. Then went to the infamous Regent Park. Throughout the day, there were formations of airplanes flying in the sky. I saw one circia WWII bomber. Still not sure what was going on. The way back to Oxford was rough, all the tubes were coming in full. I got about around 3 in the morning, just in time to say goodbye to a few people with early flights.

Sunday was more exploring of Oxford. Finally went up University Church. It was a gorgeous day, you could see for miles. Then checked the the Natural history museum. At night, said goodbye to my cousin. Packing was a pain, I waited until late night to start and did not finish until 5am. Then with a few hours of sleep, I got up, dropped off books at the public library, had my last meal at the Magdalen salad bar. It started pouring very heavily as I waited for the bus to the airport. 10 weeks ago, I came into this place, not knowing what to expect. I don’t usually become sentimental, but over the term, I got attached to the place, the architecture and the people. I came in to nothing, and yet at the end, I was leaving a lot behind.

Another day, another flight, another horrible, never-ending frustration.  For the past two days everything could go wrong with air travel, did.

Flight from Heathrow to JFK: initial delay because Heathrow did not have enough flight attendants available, then two passengers were kicked off the plane because they were deemed too drunk to fly, then another hour delay because British Airways had go through all the loaded luggage to return the bags of the drunk guys. Random search. Lost another hour because weather conditions made us take a longer route. At JFK: huge line at passport controls, then the luggage carousel jams, another hour there, then huge line at customs.

Flight from JFK to San Diego: Initial delay because the plane arrived late. This we had to wait for half an hour because international flights got priority for the runways. Eventually we started to taxi and were 20^th in line for takeoff. The planes get out of JFK roughly every minute, so I thought we’d be in air in no time. Not quite.  While we were waiting, the weather conditions due West got so bad that air control stopped letting out planes headed in that direction. It took another hour for the pilot to file a new flight plan. Eventually we headed out south, going by Atlanta and then turning west on our way to San Diego. It’d be faster to drive already.

I was going to write about the emotional departure from Oxford. And I’ll do that in a next few days. I had to capture my frustrations while I had them in me. Right now I’m writing from a BALLER apartment in San Diego. It’s a one bedroom place, and I have a roommate but the place is huge even for both of us. I stepped out on the balcony, size of my room at home and I saw a swimming pool and a gym. It’s going to be a good summer. I’ll enjoy staying in the same city for a while. Work starts tomorrow.

I don’t work well under pressure. I don’t work well without the pressure either. This might just imply that I don’t work well at all.
Last Monday, I did a 15-minute ethnography presentation not having slept much the previous night. Then I thought I would rest
for a few hours and write the 10-12 page research paper on the same topic as the presentation. The paper was due Friday but I wanted to get it out of the way early to enjoy my last few days in Oxford.

I ended up going to Ben’s cookies (check that off the Oxford to do list) took a short nap, and went to dinner at Corpus. I’ve been out of money on my dining card for a long time, but some people preferred to cook this term, so I was fortunate to take advantage of that. You can also buy wine with your meal points. The weather was good, we sat outside and enjoyed ourselves. No work done that night.

Then Tuesday night was farewell dinner, mixed feelings on that. The restaurant was pretty good and I did get a vodka-martini (check off the to do list), but it lacked in some respects as well. Went out to a pub that night. No work done.

All of a sudden Wednesday I realized I still hadn’t started the work. I found 12 relevant articles on JSTOR (we were supposed to have exactly that many sources) and proceeded to make comments on them in a word file. Little did I know that Wednesday night would bring. Not only was it not productive, it was literally counter-productive. There was a party happening downstairs, people were finishing up. The amount of alcohol was truly truly impressive. Never seen so much outside a liquor store. Went to sleep at 5am. No work done. Overnight, my computer spontaneously restarted and I lost all my articles.

Thursday was the day. I woke up around 10 in the morning, not feeling too great after the aforementioned excesses. Went out, got myself a cup of coffee and a coke. Except for a quick lunch, I didn’t get up from the seat in front of my computer until 11pm when everything was written. Decided to go downstairs to check on how other people were doing. Then some folks started to come back from partying, and the drinking resumed. Went to sleep at 5am. Paper is finished.

To be continued.

LC, who works at GA where I’ll be this summer: “Will you need a bike while you are here?”
MR “Do most people get a bike?”
LC: “Yes, but only if they reply that they want one, do you want one?”
MR: “Sure.”

Just a week from now, I’ll be starting my work at General Atomics in San Diego. What a change that will be from Oxford. I don’t really get all sentimental, but I’m already starting to miss this place. And I’m still here.

Had my last tutorial today, that’s all done. Now the only thing that separates me from being a senior is a 10 page research paper for ethnography. I just need to sit down and write it. Soon. Then Thursday is for the Bridge, Friday for the Pink Giraffe deal and Cubans, Saturday is Phantom of the Opera, Sunday is for walking around Oxford.

To be continued.

I approach a man sitting all by himself in a trendy coffee shop, cursing myself for having to conduct interviews for the ethnography class.

MR: “Excuse me, I’m a student here…and I’m conducting interviews about football violence”
Man: “You see, I study Egyptian hieroglyphics, so hieroglyphics – yes!, football – no!”
MR (slowly backing away): “Thanks…good luck with that”.

That’s the life of an amateur ethnographer. All of a sudden I’m completely overwhelmed with work. I realized from that start that all the classes here are very back-loaded. I guess it’s like my normal week at Stanford: every hour of every night is planned out. And if I don’t finish something when I have to, sleep just goes out the door. I’m also back in my “normal” 4am-11am sleep schedule. Oh well, I’ve done this all before. Easy.

We went to Windsor Castle on Friday. As the audio guide correctly summarized it “it looks exactly how you would expect a castle to look like”. The weather was nice, and beyond the castle, Windsor turned out to be a pretty hip touristy town. Tried Cornish pasties for the first time. Visited the state rooms in the castle. Not much else to report. Picture here:

On Sunday I completely my last photography assignment for the OxStu – the cricket semifinals. I still haven’t figured out what was happening, oh well I guess it’s just not meant to be. I do need to make a list of things to do here before I leave. Taking pictures should certainly on the list: Magdalen College with its tower, and its own Deer Park, as well as pictures of Oxford at night. This ride is going to be over in 12 days. And in 13 days, I’ll already be in San Diego starting my job. I should have made more time to travel around Europe, somehow. I feel like I’ve explored England pretty well, although trips to Dublin Edinburgh, York and Brighton are missing. Oh well, can’t do everything. I can take the pleasure in knowing someday I’m going to need to come back.

There are so novel ideas I have encountered in the past seven weeks, it’s probably going to take me the entire summer to analyze the experiences. One thing I can tell right now (and I never thought I’d say this), I miss Green Library. The search system, OLIS (the equivalent of Socrates) is terrible. You can’t sort results by anything. All libraries have short hours when they’re open and you can’t borrow books from most of them! I’ve been writing a paper in Pissarro for my Oxford as the City of Work of Art class, so I had to go to the library and stay there for hours and hours reading the appropriate books and making copies of the necessary pages. And they didn’t want to let me in because they were confused by my visiting student card.

After all, it’s all about how you organize information. The knowledge base is so vast. I believe the organization of currently information is as important as research and acquisition of new knowledge. What use is publishing a paper or a book if it’s going to be difficult for others to access? Until very recently, the organization methods have used classifications. Books were organized by subject, clothes by size, e-mail by folders. And while effective, the method has had a difficulty adjusting to the overabundance of available knowledge. When your subjects or folders become too bast, you need to create new subfolders with further subcategories. The process continues until you’re faced with an overwhelming hierarchical system, at which point it becomes impossible to actually find what you’re looking for.

This is where the idea of search comes in. Google provides an amazing example of it with gmail. The e-mails are all stored in a giant box, and to retrieve a particular message you search for it. Yes, there are labels and filters, but all of those apply the same search-algorithm to the meta-data. this organizational method is become increasingly trendy: who needs folders when your every file is carefully tagged with searchable information. I, however, would like to provide a word of caution against this emerging method: to me there’s on serious disadvantage. With folders, you can quickly glance over the list to see what categories are available to choose from. With search, there’s no such option. In a sense, you have to know what you want to read before you can read it. You’ll never read an old e-mail you forgot about because there is no way for you to ever access it. You’ll never accidentally come across a useful article because by searching for something specific, you’re limiting yourself to what you already know exists.

http://picasaweb.google.com/micramm/Paris

Enjoy.

“Now playing, Shrek le Troixieme”

Right now I’m deleting all the music from my laptop, so I could transfer all 2GB of pictures of took in the past four days. Paris is, truly, an amazing city. We arrived Thursday night. The flight from Heathrow to De Gaulle was only 40 minutes long, but the departure was delayed by an hour and a half. By the time we got our luggage and went through the passport control, it was already past midnight. The airport, by that point, had pretty much shut down. The cleaning crews were dispatched around the terminal, no people walking around, all the restaurants and shops long closed. As we were walking through the terminal towards the train station, a female voice with the French accent was announcing “the airport is being evacuated, please exit immediately”. Creepy. This feeling soon turned into disappointment: when we got to the train station, the last train for Paris had already left. Our options were to sleep at the airport or to take a cab, and we chose the latter.

About an hour later and with 50 less Euros in the wallet, we arrived at our hotel. The room reminded me of a dentist office with its blue-colored bare walls, and a small television next to the ceiling in the corner of the room. Still so much better than a hostel. With that in mind, the first night in Paris came to an end.

Where to go first? The Louvre, of course. After figuring out the metro system (after all my New York subway adventures, I felt like fish in the water) , we took a train to the most famous museum in the world. We entered around 11am, and by the time we left at 4pm, we had seen the entire section of the French paintings, along with the most famous paintings and sculptures in the right wing. Then we walked down Champs Elysees towards the Triumphal Arch and had dinner in a cafe. The weather had been hot up to that point, and all of a sudden it started pouring. With thunder and lightning, the pleasant walk couldn’t proceed and we quickly scrambled to take the metro back to the only place we knew was still open: the Louvre! We stayed there until the closing at 9.30, now having seen every painting on display. What a wonderful place – besides the breathtaking collection of art, I loved how the decor contributed to the viewing experience. I’m usually not a big fan of sculptures but, in the right setting, the stoned figures almost came to life.

We then walked over to the Eiffel Tower. At night, it was shining and sparkling with thousands of flashes going off every second. We then scrambled to find the metro back to the hotel because, somehow, the metro closes at 12.30am. We really didn’t want to take another cab.

Day 2 was all about churches and chapels: we went to Sacra Coeur in the morning, followed by Saint Chapelle and Notre Dame. Absolutely majestic. I don’t know enough synonyms for grandiose and fantastic to properly described my impressions. Maybe that’s why I took so many pictures. I couldn’t believe I was there, looking at these famous sights. I felt very privileged to have the chance to be there.

We then did the most touristy thing of all and went up the Eiffel Tower. This was followed by a wonderful dinner at a French restaurant in the latin quarter. I got cheese for dessert, I’ve always wanted to do that! Oh yeah, and I had a crepe for dessert during lunch. All part of the French experience.

We slept in a bit more the next day. Our flight was at night, so we went to the Opera Bastille, and then walked around Marais. Then we went to Musee D’Orsay, which is now my favorite museum in the world. I went straight up to the top floor – the impressionism exhibition. One of the first rooms had the most famous Monet paintings in the world. I stayed in that single room for what was probably an hour. I’ve never felt as moved by art as I did at that point in time. I felt in love with the paintings, and I have never experienced such a feeling towards an inanimate object. But all the good things had to come to an end, we had to leave fairly soon to go to the airport.

It was already dark when the plane started accelerating on the runway. Before we entered the cloud-cover, I took the last brief look at the city of lights. Out in the distance, I saw the Eiffel tower, flashing with its strobe lights. Then it was covered by the clouds. “I’m coming back to this place”, I thought. I don’t know when, but I have to come back.

Having struggled with the French language for 4 days, it felt s good to be back in an English-speaking country. The accent didn’t make a difference anymore, I understood what the people were saying, and the people understood me. It was time to rest and relax.