Hives

Last night, about an hour after dinner, I started feeling itchy and noticed a few bumps on my arms. I figured I had been bitten a few times by a bug. By the time evening session was over, the bumps were expanding and spreading.

By then I figured out that I was having some sort of allergic reaction. But to what? I guessed it was something I'd eaten at the dining hall, but I hadn't eaten anything different from what I normally ate, other than one particular sauce on some tofu and vegetables.

Did some reading on the Internet and realized I probably had hives. Wasn't much I could do by now, it was 11 pm. So after I finished writing up the student rubrics at 2 am, I went to bed.

I woke up at 5 am this morning scratching at my own throat. In the men's room I looked in the mirror and found myself covered in a bright red bumpy rash from neck to knees. My skin felt like it was on fire. I took the picture above.

I wandered around outside in the pleasantly cool air until 8 am when the health center opened. The nurse was concerned. So was I.

She gave me some Benadryl and told me if I wasn't better by 3 I should go to the clinic. Well, looks like the Benadryl did the trick. My hives are all but gone, though my skin is still pretty sensitive. And I feel like I'm half asleep, though how much of that is the Benadryl and how much is the 3 hours of sleep I got is unclear.

Today was also the last day of class for the students. I met with each of them for a few minutes to cover their rubrics and final exams. A good bunch.

It's also about 100 degrees outside, so tonight I will probably stay holed up in one of the air-conditioned commons rooms and get some work done. Lots going on at the office and of course, I'm right back in it come Monday.

Quite an experience being here. Pleased with the students and their performance. A good term, if not life-changing. I'm ready to go home, though.

Order and Disorder

A good day in class! Started off what was known as "Mopey Monday" in truly mopey fashion by giving the students a very hard pop quiz. Some were quite upset. I haven't had time to read them yet.

We did "Jumping Dance" to get into a more learning-friendly mental state and then started talking about Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern - the serialist/12-tone composers. This is typically one of the best days for me - seeing the students "get" what 12-tone is about and how much fun it can be to compose is incredibly satisfying. Also, once the students start composing, the whole class takes on a different tone. Today did not disappoint!

We also discussed John Cage, his silence piece, and prepared piano. The students like that.

I am thrilled with one student in particular. Unlike past classes, most of the students this time have had some music experience and read music. Two don't. One of these two has really taken to this stuff and is really working hard. It's exciting to see someone want to learn so much!

37

Today I turned 37.

Hot today if you were in the sun and not in the shade. Beautiful breezes. Had a good breakfast and worked in the air-conditioned classroom on various tasks until lunchtime, managing to squeeze in some Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Post lunch, I retreated to my room for a little siesta - I've really gotten into the 20-minute power nap here. 5 minutes in, Lisa and Chris called, and I agreed to meet them at the Nasher gallery. I finished my nap and walked over, sticking to the shadows and hoping for a breeze.

The gallery itself was atypically modern for Duke's staid campus. Like most modern galleries, it featured a fancy gift shop selling all sorts of stuff barely relevant to the galleries. Of the remaning 4 rooms, one was reserved for a concert and one was a 90-minute film.

One of the rooms had an interesting exhibit, a loosely-themed mix of old and new with some nice pieces. The other had a survey of some African-American artists. Given how closely I've been looking at art lately, I could just see the influences right and left - Surrealism here, Ferdinand Leger there, Raul Hausman's photomontages there.

A quick tour of East Campus and then a huge, lush meal at a local restaurant. I ate way too much but it was quite good. Now I'm sitting in a darkened classroom watching Deadwood and reflecting.

This isn't the first birthday I've spent here. I still have a cassette copy of "Synchronicity" given to me here with "Happy Birthday, Anu!" written inside.

37. Life is good. Happy to be here, at TIP. Happy to be alive. Happy to have the life, family and friends I have. Thanks to all of you for another great year.

Sticky

The heat is oppressive.

Yesterday was a great teaching day, though we got a little behind. This resulted in my having to stay to teach evening session. We covered Expressionism, and this ended up being rather suitable, since it meant they saw all the creepy stuff as it was getting dark.

I also went for a run with one of the other teaching assistants - this 19 year-old kid with long, long legs. He ran like a gazelle. I couldn't keep up with him, and he had to slow down frequently so the old man could catch up and/or catch his breath. Ah well. At least I got out there in the heat.

Of course, my feet are paying the price. Having grown accustomed to sitting all day, suddenly changing to standing, walking, and running around a classroom 6-7 hours a day plus all the walking across campus has left my feet rather sore the last couple of days. The above-mentioned run didn't help much.

The food here has gotten much better, and I've been eating both healthy and well. Forecast says rain, hope this will cool things down a bit.

As for the students...well, when they try, they can do great things. Sometimes it's tough to get them to try. For the most part they seem interested in what's going on, and the class is moving along very quickly. I don't know if I could keep up were I in their shoes.

I feel like I've done some really good things in terms of presenting the material, however, and this makes me happy. Even if they're not totally getting it, I know they're getting it better/more than kids in previous years.

I'm also very tired.

Day 2

Today we talked about early musical technology, Bach, Wagner, Debussy.

I have a few great students who are really thinking and talking. I have one or two who are disturbingly quiet (as in "saying nothing"). The rest of the class is a good distribution in-between.

Trying hard to keep things varied and interesting in class - the first few days are difficult because there's so much to learn before you can get to the more interesting stuff. Oh well.

Some days I feel like a bad teacher. Today is one of them. I even misread a schedule and missed a lunch duty I needed to do.

It's been hot today - over 90. The cool weather of the last few days is unfortunately gone, and the forecast says "hot, until the weekend when it's hot and rainy".

Can't complain. I miss my wife. Work seems to be doing OK without me, too.

That's some good eatin'

Very good BBQ. Of course.

Hot and Raining

Until July 29, I am at Duke University, teaching at the Talent Identification Program.

I’m here!

My flights were relatively uneventful – I sat in the exact same seat on two identical planes, both times lucky enough to have the middle vacant. However, the DFW-RDU leg was troubled by bad weather and we had to sit on the ground on the plane for 2 hours.

Aside from the usual nausea of getting up at 3:30 am to get to the airport (I don’t think the bad yogurt and fruit I ate for breakfast helped much!), everything was fine. Read some magazines. Slept a bit.

Turns out a few old friends are visiting in town this weekend – an unexpected bonus. Hot and rainy. Not as hot as I expected, and apparently the rain is part of a cold front moving through which should keep things cool tomorrow. The rain is the good, old-fashioned, East Coast kind of rain that’s like someone turned a shower on. It hisses against the pavement. Wonderful! Can’t get that kind of rain in San Francisco.

Ate some Mexican food, met some of the new staff. They asked me what I did for a living. I told them, and surprisingly, they’d actually heard of Rhapsody. Unfortunately, some of them through the TV commercials…

Adam made it in, but I haven’t seen him yet.

Now it’s 1:34 am on Thursday, and I’m almost tired enough to sleep. I better, because I have to get up way early tomorrow. I’m excited to be here, though I already miss my wife very much. Just walking around campus, catching the scent of the place, seeing the buildings…I feel like I’m 16 again.

Entropy, Chaos, Sickness

How have 2 months passed so quickly? Here's a brief rundown, in case you weren't there:

• Someone stole a whole wheel off my car from in front of my house. Lug nuts, wheel, and brand-new tire. Yet they left my plastic hubcap and their jack and lug wrench. Found out in the morning of the day of street cleaning, leaving me precious little time to fix the issue. Now I have locking lug nuts
• A close friend was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. I don't know what I can do other than be supportive and send good thoughts
• A close friend miscarried after about 6 months of pregnancy
• I got back in touch with several people I hadn't heard from in years (if not decades) (Hi there Jim, Howard, Jeannie...)
  
• More people have left my job as the workload and stress ratchet up, magnifying its effects on those who remain
• I rode home on my motorcycle only to find a screw completely through the nearly-flat rear tire
• I interviewed my Dad about his life for over 3 hours
• I performed in the Palace Family Steak House Orchestra
• I've flown to Seattle (4 times), New York, and Las Vegas. Sometimes as much as 3 trips in a 7-day period
• Purchased and installed a new high-efficiency clothes washer and dryer
• Had my credit card number stolen
• Wrote 2 new cowboy songs ("Back in the Saddle" and "I Can't Find My Guns") for a good friend and former bandmate

There's probably more. The bad stuff stands out the most. I feel lucky to be where I am right now, despite my minor inconveniences and major work stress.

Interviewing my Dad was the most satisfying thing Ive done in a while - he was great!

I've also been preparing for my upcoming class - from July 5 - July 29 I'll be in Durham, North Carolina teaching "A History of 20th Century Music" at the Duke University Talent Identification Program.

I plan to blog about that a bit over the next few weeks.

Earthquake Preparedness and Probability

I live in San Francisco. Just a little over 100 years ago, the city was destroyed by an earthquake. Scientists are as sure as they can be that another major earthquake will hit San Francisco. A 62% of a 6.7 or higher in the next 30 years. I'll leave a discussion of exactly how this is calculated and what it means for a later post.

People are very, very bad at understanding probability and the math behind it. They don't grasp what this means. So let's put it another way:

If the forecast called for a 62% chance of thunderstorms tomorrow, would you take an umbrella with you?

You should. And likewise, all of us who live in the Bay Area need to be prepared for a major disaster on a daily basis. But most of us aren't.

Fortunately, I have some friends who recently held an "Armageddon Night", where we got together and talked about how to prepare for this stuff. We had someone from FEMA come and talk, and some presentations and discussions on earthquake preparedness.

Since then, I've started making real preparations. Flashlights and radios that don't need batteries. Extra food. First aid kits. Water. A "go bag" stashed in my car. I just need to get some important papers copied and I should be as set as I can be.

If you live in the Bay Area, you should make sure you're prepared, too. It's yet another thing to deal with. But having lived through the Northridge quake in Los Angeles, I know first-hand how much life can be disrupted by even a modest interruption in services.

The last time the power was out, how much were you annoyed? Inconvenienced? OK. Now the power is out. The water is out. The gas is out. The phone may be out. For several days.

The only thing you can do is to act now. So do it. And read Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "Fooled By Randomness".

Dr. Greg Kimble (1917-2006)

I just found out that Dr. Greg Kimble passed away.

You can read the link to his obituary above and read about his achievements in psychology, but that really doesn't provide a full picture.

Dr. Kimble had a profound effect on my life. I first met him in 1982, my second year at Duke University's Talent Identification Program. He was teaching Introductory Psychology. I had never had a teacher or classroom experience like Dr. Kimble's, and had never been so excited about learning. Nor had I been so challenged. I took the next class he taught ("Thinking, Knowing, and Problem Solving") without even reading the description.

When I finished my first class with him, I asked him to sign the textbook we used (which he had written with Norm Garmezy and Ed Ziglar - names I can rattle off 20 years later because I studied the book so much!). He wrote:

Anu - So much seems to be going on underneath the surface. Peace!

- Greg

Of course, he was right, and I've never forgotten his insight, pithiness, and brevity.

Over the next few years we had other interactions - I was asked to speak on TIP's behalf a few times, and Dr. Kimble (along with Dr. Robert Sawyer) was always there, smiling. I attended TIP's first alumni reunion, and he was there. Remembered us all. I eventually became the first alumni member to serve on the TIP advisory board, and he came to many of the meetings.

Dr. Kimble had an incredible capacity for caring for people. It's a cliché, but his smile really did light up a room. He also had a gravity and seriousness about him such that no one ever mistook his good charm and humor for lack of substance. He always treated everyone with respect.

He's why I teach at TIP. I strive to accomplish even half of what he did. I hope to inspire some bright kids to love learning, work hard, not give up, "become who they are", and find peace. I crib shamelessly from my memories of how he taught - the speech cadences, the different instructional methods. He was able to keep a room full of antsy teenage prodigies attentive and engaged for hours a day.

I knew this day would come, and he certainly lived a full life. But I mourn the loss of a great human being. I can still see twinkling eyes and charming smile, still hear his wonderful voice. And my heart breaks.

Nuclear Power

I have been pro-nuclear power since reading my first few ecology books back in the 1970s. The world is running out of oil (another thing I've been hearing since the 1970s). Burning coal and oil is directly contributing to global warming, pollution, and political and economic instability.

Nuclear power costs less. It emits no greenhouse gases. If our own uranium reserves aren't sufficient, we can buy uranium from Canada, which is acknowledged as having some of the largest. I'd rather send them our cash than some of the other places it goes.

Some other fun facts: Most coal has traces of uranium in it. So much coal is currently burned yearly that the total radioactive waste release from coal plants is much greater than that from even today's old reactors. And if that's not enough, the uranium that's "thrown away" in this fashion contains more energy than the burned coal trapping it.

I think people's objections to nuclear power amount to fear of catastrophe and fear regarding the waste. So what about those issues?

The world recently passed the 20th anniversary of the terrible accident at Chernobyl. Truly awful. But one bad disaster shouldn't scare people away from one of the many sources of energy we'll have to utilize. Look at the recent coal mine disasters, or look at the coal mines on fire and burning out of control. How many toxic oil spills have there been? Does anyone even pay attention to them anymore?

Safety improves when there are incentives and when it's a priority. Look at the abrupt, substantial changes that happened in airports after 9/11. Many people (myself included) may argue those changes are largely cosmetic and do little more than address the public's fear and perception. But the goal (removing fear) is still accomplished. And to be clear, nuclear power requires real, serious, rigorous safety measures in place. Nobody sane will argue with that.

People continue to be irrational regarding nuclear waste. Much money has been spent on WIPP - the legendary New Mexico nuclear waste repository that has yet to be opened. People say "it's not safe enough" - but it's the safest possible place and design humanity is capable of creating at this time.

And while the irrational people argue about WIPP's inability to absolutely, 100% guarantee safety for 10,000 years, where is the existing waste being stored?

The exact details are considered state secrets. But much of the waste is sitting in rusting drums in military facilities surrounded by little more than chain-link fences or in temporary storage at the originating plants. These temporary facilities are much worse than what WIPP, imperfect as it is, could offer.

We must all realize there are no "permanent solutions" to our energy needs. Our civilization will be playing technological "leapfrog" forever. Put the waste in WIPP for now, and keep working on finding a better solution. Switch to more nuclear power for now, and keep working on improving and developing better, cleaner, and greener sources.

Nuclear power won't solve all of our energy problems. It will create some new problems. And we still have to deal with oil - we can't just give it up overnight. But it's a start. There is no single solution to our energy problems. We have to chip away a little bit at a time.

Inevitably, people resort to the weak strategy of asking me "well, would you want a nuclear power plant in your backyard?" Of course not. I don't want an oil refinery, prison, garbage dump, airport, or strip mall there, either. Nobody does. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have nuclear power. And that doesn't mean that we all shouldn't be prepared to sacrifice a bit for safer, cleaner energy. I should probably start answering them with something like "I'd rather have a nuclear power plant in my backyard than blood on my hands (or someone else's hands)".

The NIMBYs who keep voting against putting wind farms in various places are especially offensive to me. There is no free ride, people.

Improving the Blog

As you may have noticed, I've spruced up the blog a bit. My HTML skills are extremely rusty, but I managed to get a few changes made:

• Dark gray background. Easier on the eyes than the straight black.
• Addition of some Rhapsody stuff - you can click on any of the album covers under "Hear Me" and get taken immediately to the Rhapsody stream. If you're not a Rhapsody subscriber, you can still play 25 tracks a month for free!
• Truncated the displayed bio and moved the rest of it to a post. Sort of a hacky solution, but it works.
• Added many new links and new link categories.
  

I'll be adding and modifying more in the future - adding more music and Rhapsody features as they become available and looking for other ways to keep the blog current.

If I had more than 3 readers, I might consider dropping the Google ads on the site, too.

Let me know what else you'd like to see/hear/experience! If you want linkage, drop me a line and let me know.

181!

I weighed myself today. 181!

More cardio to come.