So where is home really? The glib answer I suppose, is “wherever I happen to be,” though that’s not always true. In fact, as I told Kelly when he asked, home for me is tied to people more than it is to places, though the latter naturally have their place (!) in the equation. For instance, if I think about it, I’ve always referred to visiting my parents as “going home,” regardless of where they are, Chandigarh until the mid 90′s and since then, Bangalore most of the time, but also Hawaii several times (including this summer if I make it). And when I lived in Heidelberg, going to see Sanja in Bern also felt like going home, even though the former is objectively speaking the lovelier of the two!

But even the answer “people” doesn’t quite cover it. Going to see Sanja last year in Murten for example was lovely but the ‘home’ feeling gelled only after we’d driven to Bern and visited some old haunts. So while both place and people play a role, ultimately I think, home for me is a state of mind.

Come to think of it, I’ve actually used that precise description before. In an interview of sorts three summers ago in Vienna (another ‘home’ I shall be revisiting in less than a week actually). Can’t think why it didn’t come back to me immediately when the question came, but there it is. Home as a state of mind rather than a matter of location is where it’s at for me.

When I first got here in February, Cairo was definitely home in my head. As recently as a few weeks ago, when Dad flicked on an international news channel and I heard the commentator’s voice, speaking in the heavy Egyptian accent, I sighed sentimentally, “the sounds of home.”  Which gave my Mom a chuckle. Funnily enough, I had known from the get go that there was a finite-ness to my stint in Cairo, that it would never be a permanent home. I went for the 3 year-post doc to begin with, and stayed for 3-1/2, feeling miserable (as regular visitors to this blog learned at their peril perhaps)  about having been forced to do so. Professionally, I think I was ready to leave Cairo midway through my second year… but on a personal front, it was entirely different. That sense of ‘belonging’ in a community, came early and never left even if the particulars of whom I belonged with changed a bit from year to year. In that case, no contest! it was the people side of the scale, hands down that won the day in setting my state of mind. Elissa, Salima, Peter, Belle, Michel & Louise, Steve & Helen, Hoath, Duncan, Yasir and Suf, Maria, the list goes on and on… But I’ve loved people before, just taken them with me after a fashion to my new home. So it really shocked me that leaving Cairo hurt as much as it did for as long.

Part of the reason was of course the intensity of everything my last days there.. sharing in the revolution experience in different ways with different people… made leaving a wrench! So much of a wrench in fact that I was quite determinedly unhappy when I first got here, despite being sure that the food was better here (and everyone who anything about me knows how important that is!), and that the landscape (once winter was done with anyhow) would be green in the way I like, and not the dusty crumbling veneer that seems to coat all things in Cairo (even some of the people) and get me depressed sort of. But arriving here, sick with the ‘flu and hacking dry cough, to sub-zero (in degrees Celsius at any rate) temperatures and being relegated to teach a distant campus did not bode well for my state of mind any time soon.

Even without that additional isolation, the international faculty size is smaller here,  wa-a-ay smaller and I was part of an incoming “cohort” of 2! Compare this to Cairo where there is an average of 60 incoming folks every year. So there we had our initial community walking in, whether or not we stayed with them. Here in Seoul, people went out of their way to be nice upon my arrival but it wasn’t the same. Or I wouldn’t let it be. At least not at first. I missed my kitchen, my mealtimes, and my friends. I was the sole non-Korean female. I’d have imaginary conversations with Salima, Peter & Duncan (and when I could catch them on skype, the real articles and Belle and Helen as well) as I disconsolately wandered in my apartment (albeit with toasty toes tho thanks to the floor warming of feature in Korea that I’ve loved from the get go). So used I had become in Egypt to cooking for hordes and having left-overs that lasted no more than a few days that I gave myself a bad attack of food poisoning, having left a stew for too long in the fridge and eating it without realizing it had turned. [Lesson: spicy leftovers and anosmia do not mix. When in doubt, chuck/bin or otherwise dispose of food items].

But gradually, inevitably, things change. And bad things like good, come to an end. My first term is nearly over (hard to believe but it’s true) and I am achieving a sense of equilibrium. I cannot mark the exact turning point, though a previous blog post links it to the start of school as the beginning of the process. Springtime was beautiful and a hike in the local area with Jon and Kelly was oh-so-restorative to my spirit. Then there are the cafes. Seoul has cafes for every mood, and there’s at least one near my apartment, where I’m recognized as a r’glar. (Am discovering many more to go camp out at with papers and reads thanks to Jesse). The bumping into folks in the foyer and spontaneous gatherings for meals. Being invited to play hookie from the daily grind to share a long, Parisian-style birthday lunch (complete with lots of wine and great foie gras) All of which have contributed greatly to a growing sense that here too there is a belonging. (I still have my imaginary conversations but they are fewer and farther between, though the real ones still continue, I’m glad to say on skype etc.)  Now that summer is upon us, Jon and I have taken to appropriating the central gazebo in the complex in the evenings, sipping wine and chewing the fat with friends… Jesse, Paul, Kelly, Hwa Yeon… whoever can join us really. I’m off in a week for about 2 months, and while I’m wholeheartedly looking forward to that (who couldn’t when Vienna beckons with the full force of her charms?) there is a part of me that is also looking forward to returning. Insidiously, without my quite realizing it, for now anyway, Seoul has become home.

So am I being a knee-jerk self-hating American in my reaction? A terrorism or Islamic apologist? Critical for the sake of being critical? None of the above. For my own sake, I’ll try to clarify why I’m reacting negatively to what is essentially a positive outcome. It has to do with what i consider the complete loss of perspective inherent in these successes and the need for self-criticism and housekeeping rather than the unbridled self-righteousness that I’ve been seeing in the aftermath.

My reaction goes back to what I consider the American tunnel-vision regarding itself and its position in the world. So yes, Osama needed capturing or killing. 9/11 was an act of utter horror and I certainly do not buy into the various conspiracy theories afloat about it being masterminded from the inside in order to raise anti-Muslim sentiments in the world. (That is absurd, and the idea very self-referential. That is, only someone who would actually consider such an extremely deranged act could even think that someone else would use such a tactic. Fundamentalists, extremists and those of similar ilk).

That said though, I would have hoped that the Americans would realize and admit their grave errors in dealing with this problem over the past decade. Instead of course the mood is egregiously self-congratulatory. That editorial in New York Times by .. who was it now.. oh yes, Maureen Dowd… about the need for revenge? Please!!  The guy is dead! Beyond our reach. Nothing we do can hurt him anymore. Get over it. Besides, he is just one man. Even worse than her column though, much worse, was the implied justification for torture. Excuse me? Precisely what information did we get about Osama via torture?

Meanwhile mistakes, costly to human lives, are being ignored or glossed over. My main point of contention for instance, the Iraq War. How in the name of anything logical does Osama’s capture justify our invasion of Iraq, wreaking terror in the region in name of the war or terror?  No wait .. that was the initial excuse.. then it shifted to WOMD and then to bringing democracy! to the region. Arrrghgh. Elsewhere of course, we continued to support the regime in Pakistan (forget about the right to democracy of the people there or their WOMD because heck we finance that and besides, without it India would be a larger threat to our identity as the arbitrators of democracy in the world!!!!) and only worked on covert operations there, even though  there was so much more evidence for Al Qaeda and religious extremism in that part of the world. But why go after the the Oklahoma bomber close to home when you can destroy Washington State on some flimsy excuse. (That comparison is just to give a sense of the geographic absurdity of the Iraq War).

Somebody (many bodies actually) were comparing this to the death of Saddam. Something I find offensive. At least Osama was a clean kill.  I was no fan of Saddam’s, but the second-hand way in which his execution was engineered and then attributed to the will of the locals still makes me cringe and leaves me feeling unbearably dirty in a I-need-to-wash-my-hands sort of way .

I am aware that this rant is disjointed and rambling – I am reminded of Donna Leon’s description of her protagonist’s wife as a woman of leftist but chaotic politics -  but I hope my main point is somewhat clear. War is always horrific. And even in incidents with decisive outcomes like bin-Laden’s death, there are no winners. Everyone loses something.

Obama’s Nobel for Peace may or may not turn to be a remarkable feat of foresight on the part of committee or it may simply be, as so many Republicans claim, the world thumbing its nose at GWB finally relinquishing power. I’ll admit I’m ambivalent about the whole thing (GASP!!! am I actually agreeing with the Republicans?) not for the politics of the prize-givers, which I’m in sympathy with, but because politics rather than performance seemed to have motivated the decision. I’m not sure I have much more to say on that topic, but meanwhile it serves as a peg for me to hang my overdue post about my summer-solstice visit to Oslo where I not only visited the Peace museum but also some monuments to various childhood heroes (hence the title of the post).

Stories of polar expeditions, Peary and the North Pole and the race between Amundsen and Scott to the South, were gobbled up voraciously by my 7/8-year old self, oddly enough through the text books of my older cousins when I would visit them over holidays. I rejoiced in the victories of the victors. And though I felt truly sorry for the defeat of Scott, back in those days, Amundsen was my clear favorite. Until…

Fast forward a couple of decades to Yale, where I as a new graduate student in the history of science was working on a paper on the history of neuroscience for one of the introductory courses. During the course of my research I came across another name, Nansen, whom I did not remember from the Polar stories but was a true Renaissance man. He was a contributor to a fundamental concept known as the neuron theory, that incomplete as it might be, is the basis for understanding of how the brain does the various things its supposed to. He was also an explorer – polar expeditions, ski trips across Greenland the works… and finally, as I found out in a conversation with a doctor, also won the Nobel Peace Prize for post WWI humanitarian work. I had my (unfortunately too brief) flirtation of studying this guy further as a diss possibility but language barriers, other courses, papers etc soon sent him to the bottom of the pile. And over the next decade his name got lost in the recesses of my memory.

Fast forward again to summer solstice, 2009. There I am in Oslo, and decide to go to see the Viking boat museum. Only I found out that with my ticket I could visit an entire slew of museums all over town, in Oslo and on the peninsula by the Fjord were not one but 3 museums whose main themes were boats. There was the viking museum, where I could look at the vessels of Eric the Great (or Rapine depending on perspective I suppose); the Kon-Tiki Museum whose name jogged memories of yet another book/adventure I’d read about when I was young (very nerdy kid, what can I say?) and also the Polar boat museum aka the FRAM museum. So on a lovely clear summer’s day – the quality of light in Norway at that time of year is something to write songs about and maybe one day I inshallah – I took off for my land-bound maritime adventures. And reacquainted myself with some heroes from the days when I believed in them.

All told I was on slump in terms of mood, but the first impression I got from students here is that the move was certainly career-wise, so to speak. Students, at least at the outset seem engaged, even pleased to be taking these courses (History of Science [yeah finally!] and a writing tutorial and many in the latter seemed genuinely enthused about the theme. This time it is about voyages and discovery (not food), chosen because it to resonate with my recent past.

The course itself more akin to the freshman writing classes I taught at Eau Claire than to the research writing experience at AUC, but I seem to have a better handle on it, having taught the upper level course, and also learned some do-s and don’t-s in teaching writing. I do have a common book project, which I plan to integrate in with other exercises. Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, seemed ideal encompassing as it does both a trip of the length and breadth of USA, and personal journey as well. He also does well on the descriptive front. The book exposes the kids to a world class writer but is short enough to be manageable. Another piece I’m thrilled to be using a newsletter article on travel narratives called “A sense of place,” by Richard Hoath. (In true British style, he said he was “chuffed” about my using it!). I daresay my enthusiasm will wane as the semester progresses and things get chaotic as they’re bound to and oh yes, the 40 km commute (from new campus) entailing a bus from there at 7:40 and hence leaving home around 7 twice a week at least, will get old real fast. But those are par for the course, and in that respect at least I ought to feel right at home!

Feb 19th…

Well, I interrupted my lament for pleasanter activities such as chatting with friends and boom! It’s a week later and  I’m in Seoul after a 2 day detour in Istanbul which was instructive and interesting and may prove yet to be fruitful. Seoul is freezing cold, in comparison to both Istanbul (which was plenty cold in its own right) and Cairo naturally. 3 full days in (I arrived Wednesday eve.. nearly night) I’ve fought jet lag, discovered many small and inexpensive places with great eats, paid a brief visit to the main campus of my new employers – where I will NOT be teaching – and lets see… what else? met a few of my new and very pleasant colleagues.

Am missing Egypt like crazy still, and I daresay the intensity will pass, but really I need to chronicle the last few weeks there before the immediacy of those memories fade. A blow-by-blow account of the revolution which I was privileged to witness is certainly in order and I will write about it. What a time to have left. But at least I listened to my inner voice and delayed the departure until the 13th for which I’m sooo…. grateful. Not only did I get a few last extra days with everyone (and if start naming them I will start blubbering…), but I also got to experience first hand, the stepping down of Mubarak. Talk about a (nearly) bloodless coup! I am proud, so proud of the Egyptians for what they’ve achieved and in such exemplary fashion. I’m truly privileged to have been a part of it albeit as a sympathetic foreigner.  And be it on vacation or insh’allah in the capacity of a visiting scholar in the years to come, I will, to quote Schwarzanegger, be back.

A place called Yonsei University. In Seoul, S. Korea! And it’s a tenure track position in the history of science to boot. Am I thrilled or what?

Talk about out of nowhere, I swear, Korea wasn’t even on the horizon of considerations even as a tourist destination but then a job ad floated my way in late October (Thanks to my fellow post-doc and scientific thinking colleague Brandon for first bringing it to my attention) and I added it to the growing list of applications. An interview in December led to a Christmas present (bright and early when I powered on the computer in Doha at Yasir and Suf’s place) in the guise of an email from the search committee chair that I was the chosen candidate, and while vacationing in India I had a second interview, also on Skype, with the higher-ups, which was followed a few days later with an unofficial offer. Its been a whirlwind naturally, but for the most part in a good way (the not-so-good is the prospect of good-byes to dear friends here in Cairo) and over the next few weeks I’ll be packing up and leaving for the school year and new semester in Korea begins in March! Meanwhile another interview, at MIT .. THE MIT in Boston .. went reasonably well also and more importantly went a long long way in bolstering my greatly flagging morale. Results for that search won’t be out till later, and besides, its a WAC (writing across the curriculum for the uninitiated) position not History of Science, but hey! I get to say that I interviewed at MIT. It’s a cool feeling.

But enough bragging. I’m delighted, thrilled, ecstatic and all those other words, besides being grateful for this opportunity, to travel yet again and learn about an entirely new world and culture. And the job seems fantastic for me as well. And as more than one friend has mentioned, the foodie in me is going to have a very interesting life indeed.

So watch out for changes soon, as the pyramids will recede to give way to Kim-Chee or some other Korean icon (or Hello Kitty whom I understand is immensely popular in Japan & Korea). Until I learn some Korean words then, its Sayanora everyone. And good night.

No not really, although 2010 was a tough year on my morale on the professional front. I can’t think of a month when I wasn’t filling out some application, or interviewing for a job that I didn’t get and worst of all, getting that dreaded reject letter. How I hate those things. I do so hope 2011 will be better on that score…

Meanwhile, I’m in India with family and friends. Rang in the New Year in a reprise of 2008 with Prathima and Rad at the Bangalore club with dancing and music and fun, having just the previous week celebrated Christmas-eve in high and ultra-decadent style with my ‘engulfed’ former Cairo-maniacs Sufia & Yasir. And this morning did a lovely nature walk in Lal Bagh, one of Bangalore’s hidden treasures, at least in terms of the wealth of information I received about it from our walking guide. The gardens which were formally established in the 18th century under the reign(s) or Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan – the latter being quite an avid, even fervid collector of plants – sits around an outcropping of rock (granitic gneiss) that is 3 billion years old. Talk about being half as old of time! And hey what a coincidence, there is a red connection here as well (the other one being the rose-red city i.e. Petra)

As usual I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Backing up… I’ve been hearing about the early morning botanical walks at Lal Bagh led by Vijay Thiruvady for my past couple of visits to India but circumstances surrounding the last two trips (mainly that they were too short!) prevented me from taking the tour before this. In one of those odd coincidences that happens to me so often, it was around the same time, that sitting next to an interesting guy on an airplane (we got talking because of my Kindle) I heard about Bangalore Walks for the first time, again something I never even investigated further because of the lack of time. Having experienced various London Walks earlier this year (God knows I wrote a lot about them!) I went online yesterday to find out more and possibly sign up for one for later in the week, when I found out that the nature walk I’d signed up for was part and parcel of the same. Go figure!

Anyhow as I found out today, Lal Bagh is what is called an exotic botanical garden in the truest sense of the word because it houses various plants and trees from pretty much all the five continents and a variety of ecosystems and habitats. Somehow despite having vastly different native habitats these various plants have managed to survive and even flourish (flowerish to make an atrociously bad pun out of some hapless Kannadiga’s poor pronunciation) here for upwards of 200 years in some cases. I’ve taken pictures of course not many but some great ones, but they’ll have to wait until I’m back in Cairo to appear on this page. In addition to plants it also has other transplants that have not only survived but outlived the original, for example the replica of London’s Crystal Palace from the 19th century where they now host horticultural shows. I also found out that tamarind, the name for which comes from tamr-el-hindi the Arabic phrase meaning Indian date, is neither Indian nor a date, (well I knew the latter, but was not aware that the plant was not native to India but came here from Senegal!). Meanwhile,  fu’ul sudanee or Sudanese beans as peanuts are called in Egypt, hail from the Americas.

This and many other fascinating bits of information were planted into my receptive ears (and into those of my at-the-outset-slightly sleepy comrade in walks, Krithika)  and some 2 dozen others for nearly 3 fascinating hours of a ramble through the red garden during which time we also munched on some derivatives of the botanical examples we had viewed like figs (we saw many different species of Ficus trees though none of the edible variety) and peanut-brittle with palm sugar (Indian brittle come in marble-sized urundai’s rather than sheets) and spiced buttermilk (my choice) to wash it down. But these nibbles were just a teaser. At the end of the tour we were marched off to MTR, Bangalore’s historic Mavalli Tiffin Room for a well deserved and by then much desired breakfast of piping hot rava idlis (invented there during a famine that caused a shortage of rice), and then equally hot dosais both accompanied with chutney and potatoes, some crisp pastry-like confection in an almond milk, all topped off with coffee served in pairs of sterling silver tumblers; you have to have a pair to pour it back and froth (deliberate spelling error that!) to dissolve what sugar you might add and make the temperature manageable. Not my usual cup of tea, granted, but a great treat once in a way.

I meant to reprise my year, but the post as usual took a life of its own and became a ramble about a ramble. Oh well, at least I got in a blog post bright and early in the year. Apparently, according to the message I received from WordPress (the host site for this blog) I’ve had a reasonably good blogging year. You’re doing awesome is what they said actually. Happy New Year everyone. More from me when I can.

Anyway, as I’m sitting with my computer, he first brings me a plate of anchovies marinated in olive oil and lemon and some homemade foccacia and Prosecco, and a little later comes to me with the query, “would you be my taster?” And then brought out this plate of a delectable creamy mixture of faro, white beans and some ceci, garnished with a succulent, fat-as-two-fingers jumbo shrimp and some (naturally) olive oil on the side. All just for sitting there. Like I asked, is there ANY wonder why I love Italy?

This isn’t even the highlight of my trip – just one of many, both foodwise and otherwise. Like our last evening in Rome (seemingly a lifetime ago but really less than a week past), over dinner at the locally recommended restaurant with the long name I’ll have to look up and enter here at some later date (“where the real Roman’s eat,” I was told by the nice sales girl at Pandora, the gift shop in Trastevere’s main square). Over there the waiter had one look at my goggle-eyed look of wonderment as he mixed a plate of spaghetti carbonara for a pair of diners a few tables over, and just offered a little to us on a plate right off that one just like that! Or the charming no, make that enchanted,  bed-and breakfast outside Siena – Agriturimo Marciano – and our unit with its fireplace and couch – with the right person, one need have never left that room for the entire trip! Except for the breakfasts that Nadia cooked up – the croissant and pastries hot from the oven – of course. Oh and there the matter of her dinner (on request) with the heartwarming ribolita, and the awesome olive oil.  The Tuscan villages of Monteriggioni and Montepulciano, the latter part of the tour led by the inimitable, one and only Roberto [check out his website here], waves crashing over the pier in Vernazza, and indeed all the magical vistas of Cinque Terre, which I’ve now witnessed in more than one season, and will be back for more, the amazing drive from Levanto to Porto Venere with Christian today, taking the high road as it were… the list can and will go on. But I’ll stop for now and be back in a few days (maybe?) with pictures as well.

Meanwhile I have to add a word about my travel companions par excellence – Sean and Kim. Thanks Sean for following up on my ravings about Italian trips past to instigate this one, and also for “showing off” as you put it to Kim so that she joined us as well. Our waitress has already told me twice to give you her best, and so I might as well publicly acknowledge your awesomeness though not without the eye-rolling caveat. Kim is joining me for the latter I’m sure! Ciao Bellos! Until next time.

So am I heart-broken? Not really, Disappointed yes, but the summer had already taught me that perhaps Ulm was not the place for me. Meanwhile, I got to expand my professional network by a tad, and add a new referee to my list. Plus I put in some solid hours thinking about a new topic, which I’m hoping will have positive outcomes. Certainly it helped me formulate better proposals for other universities.

But disappointed I certainly am. The von Humboldt is a great award to get and a good family to become a member of. Getting it would have given me better bargaining power should I ever get an offer. I am soo… tired of this application business. WHEN oh when will it be my turn to get that nice job? But worry not, my long-suffering readers, I am not going to play that stuck record at any length … at least not today. Italy is waiting and with that prospect for tomorrow, next year and it’s troubles seem far away at the moment.

“The Bacteriophage, Its Role in Immunology: How Macfarlane Burnet’s phage research shaped his scientific style.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. (2010) doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2010.10.012.

Meanwhile the publication that was accepted last year in the Journal of the History of Biology is now in a print volume with bona-fide page numbers and everything.  Here’s the updated reference on that:

“Mutant Bacteriophages, Frank Macfarlane Burnet, and the Changing Nature of ‘Genespeak’ in the 1930s.” Journal of the History of Biology, 43 (2010): 571-599. (First published online 18 August, 2009; DOI: 10.1007/s10739-009-9201-4.)

Oh yeah, actually the complete citation would have my yours truly on there first. Neeraja Sankaran, or Sankaran, N., depending on preferred style. Either way, that’s me. And now awaiting results on another submission to Oz.