Things change...

...and they change quickly. -- As my hopefully-soon-to-become new boss likes to say. So first of all I am not going to Kenya next week. Instead I am going to Vienna on the 18th, for an interview and assessment center with Doctors without borders - a humanitarian organization providing medical assistance to people in need all over the world. I hope to be accepted to work as a logistician/administrator for them, so cross your fingers for me on the 18th. That's why I had to cancel the Kenyan plans, since otherwise I couldn't come for the interview. So let's hope it was worth it. What do you think about giving up something for an uncertain opportunity to get something better? Also since California will probably have to do without me for while

Leaving ... or is it coming back?

Happy new year and greetings from Liberec, Czech Republic. After 16 months I have finally packed my bags and on December 30th said goodbye to the United States and got on the plane back to Europe. The flight was ok ... even the food was good (although a lady across the aisle from me was still secretely chewing on a hamburger she brought w/ her).

So what's next? 2 months of franatic work on my thesis and then Kenya - I have just bought my air ticket today. I am excited. My parents are freaked out - as usual.

I have to admit, leaving all my friends in the US was breaking my heart and I was getting unsure whether the great features of being a traveler are worth the constant leaving behind those you love. But I guess sooner or later my travels will become more of coming back than leaving. So hang in there, all my friends around the world.

I will be back....everywhere.

Time to change the title

When my visa was only extended by 6 months and not the whole year as I wanted, in May, I was kinda disappointed. But I was joking, that after another half a year in the states, I might be glad that I can go home.

Well, I am not saying that I can't wait to get out of here, but I feel like I am ready to leave. 16 months are a long time, I speak Czech like a five-years-old and think that it's about time to move on and out of my comfort zone and stereotype and towards some new challenges and adventures...

With that being said, it is obvious that this blog will soon need a new title. So I take suggestions - winner gets a chocolate (ships anywhere).

Also there is a quiz: Whice movie is the quote on the top from (the one with the cats).

Happy Thanksgiving.

What do you like about your life?

It's been a while since the last post and so couple days ago I started feeling like I should write a new one, so that you people who read this ... yes there are multiple people reading this stuff, I was surprised myself ... don't feel left out of my life and uninformed about my recent adventures.

There indeed are things to say. I've taken another and looks like for some time my last Green Tortoise trip - this time to the Yosemite national park - and took some pictures. Considering what a crappy photographer I am you can imagine how beautiful it has to be there.

Also I have changed my air ticket (several times) and I am flying "home" at the 30th December, if everything goes well landing in Prague at around noon on the 31st. Well new year, new country ... not for long though.

I want to defend my thesis, which is starting to look like it will be finished one day, visit my dentist and get vaccination against yellow fever and Kenyan visa.

Yep, Kenya. I am trying to get a volunteering job with the Center for International Voluntary Service in Nairobi and so far I haven't been told "no". So if things go well I will be in Nairobi by March 1st. I am applying for a position in the CIVS office helping with administration of their projects. For how long? I have told them 3 months to start, but who knows ... US were just for 10 months too.

So while already looking forward to my African plans I have started making a list of my American belongings I can't take on the plane and need to sell. I am still planning on coming back though ... maybe in couple months maybe couple years.

So what's up with the title of this post right? On Tuesday afternoon I was going to the city (that's how locals refer to San Francisco) by bus and a man sitting across the aisle suddenly leans to me asking if he can ask me a question. Overseeing the fact that he already did I made an encouraging face... "What do you like about your life?" I said I like having all the options I have and being able to make my own decisions an then bare the consequences good or bad nad live the life I chose.

What do you like about your life?

Photogallery

I have posted some of the few pictures I took on the Green Tortoise National Parks Loop here. More (and better) photos from my co-passengers to come .. hopefully.

Enjoy.

Pajama or not?

I have a new phobia. Earthquakes.

I am not afraid of being killed by Ted's "heavy pieces of artwork" (which look like airplane parts) falling on my head from the top of our living room cup board or "the whole damn house falling on my ass" like Amy said. What worries me is that I am not sure if there will be enough time to put clothes on before running out of the collapsing house. That really doesn't let me sleep - I am either baking in a pajama or I am scared that I will end up naked on West Grand ave in the middle of night and catch cold.

Any suggestions from my fellow Californians on how the handle this dilemma?

I am not your friend, I just live with you.

How do you tell if your coworkers and roommates are actually your friends or if they are just people working/living with you?

Lucy, I miss you.

Casual Car Pool

A while ago Aharon mentioned that there is a thing called Casual Car Pool happening in the Bay Area ... Today I tried. North Berkeley BART station -> Financial district of SF, 20 minutes, $0. Beale street in SF -> University ave at Sacramento in Berkeley about 30 minutes, $0.

Cool.

Helmets and Angels

It seems that Americans are finally starting to understand who is in danger when I am on my bike. I saw two men wearing bicycle helmets but with no bikes today.

I also met two guys named Angel and a little boy whose name is Jesus. I suppose God is a Mexican too.

City of cats

Living in Berkeley is great.

Getting to the campus from home by bike takes me about 10 minutes, on foot it's about 20, but I still like walking. I like smiling at complete strangers in the street and saying "hi" or "good morning" and I usually meet about 3 cats on my way to school! Isn't this a great way how to start a day?

Another great think about Berkeley is that most of the streets are lined with trees and (at least in the neigborhood where I live) people plant flowers in front of their houses. I will really miss this place when I - one way or another - go back to Europe.

Movie of the day

Ok, so it's 2 am and I just got home from the hostel ... and my next shift starts at 10am ... but anyways:

"There is a guy in the underwear" said another (completely dressed) guy who walked in the hostel lobby from the common room just when I was about to leave "and he soaped up on of the tables and slides along it on his belly" ... I would have never believed it if haven't seen the video someone took with his digital camera ... I hope I will be able to get it and post it here - it has about 3s, but it's the best movie I have ever seen.

Unlimited opportunities

When I was leaving the Czech Republic last august my expectations about the United states weren't the highest ones -- neither in the scientific area nor in the terms of people and their everyday life.

I guess no one can really blame me for that after seeing the American foreign policy, mainstream movies, MacDonalds and news reports that "American scientists discovered that chocolate is better than kissing ... or something like that". To make a long story short I definitely didn't plan to stay in the US longer than I according to the conditions of my scholarship had to.

I didn't try to make friends (because it would be hard to leave them), didn't get a cell phone number (because I didn't have any friends to call), didn't get a proper bike (because it might be hard to sell it when I need to ... and Berkeley is flat anyways and so it doesn't mattet that the breaks don't ) or a good bike lock (because it didn't make sense to me to buy a $30 lock for a $50 bike) and anytime I someone started to be to close to me I freaked out and scared them away, because I didn't want to go through the heartbreak of lsaying goodbye on June the 15th and never seeing them again.

Well, never say never. Last week I have submitted the request for the extension of my stay here by another year. But let me start from the beginning.

My studies

I have spent 7 years studying mathematics, last two years in the PhD program. The topic of my dissertation is Mathematical Modeling of the Radiobiological Effect of Oxygen (at some point I will put a slightly more descriptive specification on my website). The reason for which I came to UC Berkeley was that my thesis wasn't going anywhere in Prague, since the frequent answer of my advisors to my questions was "find it somewhere in the literature" and my search for relevant publications usually ended after two weeks fo traveling between the libraies of different faculties and academy of sciences with the realization that "that article is really nto available in the Czech Republic".

The first thing professor Sachs asked me, after I arrived to Berkeley and after I presented what and how I want to do in my thesis to him, was whether it would be possible to change the topic of the thesis. Scary ay? The thing was that my idea of what was the state of science in this field would have been accurate about 15 years ago and there were other, more directly applicable phenomena in radiation biology, I could research on. Not being (completely) discouraged by this I checked-out the whole radiation chemistry shelf of books in the chemistry library and radiation biology and biophysics shelf in the life sciences library (amazing how - on the contary to Charles university in Prague - you can use your library card in any one of the university libraries regardless of your faculty) and started making up for everythin Czech radiation science missed (or at least forgot to tell me) in the last 15 years. After 8 months the result is that I have about 40 pages of my thesis and approx. half of the computer simulation in need to do for it, which is way more that I have done during the previous two years in Prague.

In the beginnig of March I have also started learning about those "more directly applicable" fields of mathematical modeling in radiation biology I have mentioned above. It's designing models for cell population dynamics (again: more description on my website ... sometime) using random processes with the application to the breast cancer research. I hope the extension of my stay will be approved so that I could do more on this.

My work

I used to have the misconception that with a PhD in mathematics you can either go working to academia or become a really important manager in a bank or something like that. Well in the Czech Republic it is the case and the first choice means never being able to get a mortage while the second one means not to achieve anything more than earning a lot of money. I am not sure if I am clever enough to be a scientist, but I know that I do want to achieve more in my life than just being rich.

I want to change the world...or at least make a difference in the little part of it I can reach. My ex-roommate used to say that "Those who only aim for easy goals only achieve the easy goals" and I believe that things that are easy to get are usually not worth much. And in the US there are so many possibilities how to do that and so many actions that need to be taken.

I am making a little fundraising web thing for the Crooked Trails, a community based travel organization from Seattle, tomorrow I am starting tutoring socially disadvantaged kids in an after school programme in Oakland and I am considering cancelling my Tuesday appointment in San Francisco Homeless Services Coalition - a charity working to help homeless women and children, because I would go crazy doing all this. But it all needs to be done ... to bad there are only 24 hours in a day.

America is not called "the land of unlimited opportunities" by mistake.

My life

I always thought that living a happy life must involve having a family a nice house and a steady job. And I was doing all I could to achieve that ... well I didn't do so well with the family part, but I was pretty succesfull in working towards the house and stedy job. But what if all you need to be happy is just doing what makes you happy?

Zied says I live in future too much and I should just do what seems right right now. There definitely is something about it.

Maybe it's time to start being my own person and live a life which makes me happy and not a life the society considers happy, a life which will supposively make me happy later or a life of humiliating myself to to make someone else happy. And I think that I am finally learning it. I am slowly starting to move from a side to the middle of my bed, I cook again even though there is no one to eat the food except for me and I am learning to do fun stuff on my own (see the "Craiglist rideshare" post below :-).

The conditions of my visa require me to spend 2 years in the Czech Republic after I finish my program in the US, but I will come back. And if you ever hear me saying that I don't want to pack all my life to suitcases again and fly to the other side of globe after those two years, please come, slap me and make me do that.

If it requires you to fly over to Prague from the US, I will reimburse you for the air ticket.

Thank you for calling Green Tortoise...

Well, it seems that I have a job. I have just survived my first day behind the front desk at the Green Tortoise San Francisco hostel.

The word multitasking just gained a whole new dimension in my eyes. I think I am going to love the work ... and now I am going to take something for the headache.

Craigslist rideshare

I admit that the last posting might not have been the most inteligent. But I promisse to make up for that in the next one. I already have a title for it - "Unlimited opportunitites"... so stay tuned.

In the mean time just a short note about my last week's adventure. On monday morning I finally got an american sim card (if you have sent me any messages to my czech numeber during last week I haven't gotten them), then had a job interview at noon in Oakland and meeting at the university at 2 pm, and at 5 I was already sitting in a car heading north - to Seattle - to visit my Tunisian friend Zied and generally to have some fun after I've spent the whole springbreak programming. Seattle is far and it took us a day and half to get there, but it is definitelly worth it.

...and now I am so sleepy that you will have to wait for the rest of the story until tomorrow

good night

Ok, so the "until tomorrow" lasted a two weeks, sorry about that. Although it doesn't seem someone actually reads this so it probably doesn't matter too much.

Anyway, Seatttle is a wonderfull city. I volunteered at the World Rythm Festival, took Underground tour, stayed in the University district and explored the campus of the University of Washington a little bit, walked through the Public Market with almost a whole floor filled with stands selling tulips and climbed the hill Queen Anne quarter is on to see the city form above without having to go up the Space Needle and met with Tammy form the Crooked Trails and agreed on making an online auction for them. And I still didn't manage to see and do everything I wanted - like the Seattle Art Museum, taking a ferry to one of the surrounding islands or exploring some of the city parks, not even mentioning the nearby mountains I could visit if I could drive (by the way I found my driving licence last week, so maybe...)

I have to go back there sometime ... to do everythig I missed and to see Zied, Zeynep, Philip, Robert and others again.

It was an awesome week.

Traumas from childhood

When I was a kid I had a grandfather who was a professional truck driver. When he retired, he bought an ochre Skoda 120 and was "on the road" all the time - with me on the back seat. He was a wonderfull driver, great guy and I loved him a lot. He died when I was ten, but I still miss him.

I never became an awesome driver (eventhough I eventually got my licence after being failed once at the driving exam for stopping too far ahead of a stop sign) but I could be professional passenger ... and navigator - give me a destination and map/internet connection and I'll get you there. Also when I was a teenager I could have almost been a professional hitchhiker ... the number of miles I have traveled like that would for sure count in thousands. But what is more serious is that I tend to have a crush on guys who drive something. Of course I think a perfect man has to be tolerant, educated, cute ...bla, bla, bla ... but appart from all that he has to be a good driver.

So Sigmund Freud, what do you think?

Natalie for president!

Ok, I am on the other side of the globe through a "cultural exchange" programme. And I started a blog. So you probably expect me to write a long story about all the differences I have encountered.

Sorry, I have to disappoint you. Of course there are lots of little tiny differences, but the people I had the privilige to get to know a little bit closer here are not from another planet than those back in Czech Rep. In fact I have lost a lot of misconceptions about different cultures and nations since I came here. Sometimes you get to read an article in newspapers of see a report on TV about a conflict between two countries which can't possibly ever be solved because "there are such a huge cultural differences, that these people will never agree on anything". For me this a poor excuse why not to put a bit more effort into the resolution of the problem.

Last week Institute of International Education (IIE) have sent me and other 153 fulbrighters to an "enrichment seminar" to Denver, Colorado. I would really have to think a lot to remember another equally valuable experience. Thank you IIE for giving me the opportunity to meet all these wonderfull people from Egypt, Tunisia, Mexico, Izrael, Palestine, New Zealand, Canada, Japan or Iraq, and so many other countries and to realize that we can sit and laugh together at the dinner, we can be equally amezed by an instalation or painting in Denver Art museum and that we all look the same bad at the breakfast after partying all night.

My french friend Natalie says that the more people from different countries and cultures you meet, the more you realize that everybody is the same. That we all share the same fears and worries, the same things are making us sad or happy.

I would sign my name under this.

Natalie for president!

Inside out and upside down

It has been more than 8 months since I left you - my friends, dormitory room, boyfriend and cat in Prague, Czech Republic. Sorry guys back home, I know I promissed so many of you to start a blog and keep you updated on how the "land of freedom and unlimited possibilities" is treating me and I actually tried to do a little something (it's not even worth clicking unless you want to download some cat paintings). Looking at it now I feel like it was written by a completely different person. Let's hope this will be less dumb and will last a bit longer.

********************

Two years ago I was working as a project specialist in Prague. I have just got my master degree in math and I thought that I am supposed to get a real job, appartment and PhD somewhere on the way - to be able to get a better job and bigger appartmetnt - and generally become a serious person.

After 88 days of being serious I was standing in my boss's office in tears telling him I was quitting because I felt useless ... it's hard to be implacable in the middle of a nervous breakdown and so I've spent another 10 months working for them. Don't take me wrong, I loved the people I was working with and wasn't so bad in what I was doing, but I needed a somewhat bigger challenge in my life than surviving till friday afternoon.

Challenge. I don't remember when and how exactly I got to know about the Fulbright programme and I didn't want to go to the US, I just wanted to try whether I would be able to get one those incredibly generous scholarships they were awarding. After all if they choose me, I can always say "no", right?

On friday August 11, 2006 I found myself standing at the San Francisco International Airport with two suitcases and a realization that I am going to spend the next ten months in the United states.

Do you sometimes feel like you have just turned your life upside down and inside out just because it sounded like a good idea and not because you would have thought through all the options and consequences and cautiosly decided that this is the best thing to do?

I do. All the time.