The early days of 2011 have not been good on my obsessions. My football team is doing its best to be relegated. While relegation would lead to being part of what is wonderfully-called The Championship, it should not be something to aim for by a team which won the Champions League five years ago. Today's match made me want to write a strongly-worded email to someone about the state of this team.
In other news, I've been given a class which was previously taught by a chap who has mysteriously legged it for the glamour and glitz of [somewhere beginning with "G"]. Oh and I'm supposed to teach students about this topic, starting next week. What did early career academics like me of the past do in such circs? Did they spend their remaining few days cramming up on definitions in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and tattoo their arms with relevant details so they would remember when Marco Polo had visited China or when Hsein-Tsang started his journeys? What did they do when they got the student who pipes up, "But, professor, I read that it was actually Kublai Khan who visited Europe"? Where is the "proof" there to tell that student that, really, Kublai was a good chap but he wasn't much of a traveller. Despite what Coleridge says, Kublai was a bit of a homebody. In the 21st century, he'd probably have been a (non-Viking) Dane or a Canadian: all for social welfare, bringing other nations under his wing and generally encouraging foreigners to set themselves up in his realm.*
But let's not talk about that.
One of the only bright spots in the first week of 2011 is this: A nice Christmas present from Tor called "The Twelve Doctors of Christmas" in which (pretty) well-known authors write about each of the incarnations of the Doctor. I like how they write about the 11th (current) doctor that he is unashamed of his geekiness and his sheer joy in adventuring (something that Ten also had but Ten was more angsty--as can be seen in the whole "I am becoming God" season we had) is contagious.It's not just Eleven's geekiness but how actions and identities not quite the norm are depicted as something to enjoy and even emulate that I like about the current Doctor. As both sets of authors point out, it was the "fish fingers in custard" ("What do I like?" he asks and proceeds to try stuff) that won most of us over. I'll admit that, like many others, I didn't know of Matt Smith. I doubted whether he'd fit as the Doctor especially as he's so young. He was not what I'd imagined the Doctor ought to be like. Yet, I was very wrong and the type of Doctor Eleven is fits Matt Smith like a glove (or, is it the other way around?). In most TV shows, geekiness and social awkwardness and "being odd" are seen as something to be ashamed of. Something that hinders you from reaching your "real" potential. In this version of Doctor Who, being different to the norm allows the Doctor to see connections and understand people that otherwise he'd not have been able to.** It's also, as I said before, endearing. It's who he IS--awkward, enthusiastic, prone to talk to much at times, often oblivious to a large part of the world around him-- and he's fine that way. For a children's show, I can't really ask for much more.
* Yes, yes, I'm well aware the man conquered much of current-day China, Korea, Vietnam and tried his best to annex Japan. That doesn't mean he can't still be all for multiculturalism and assimilation--it's just his methods were different from today.
** This is also clearly a theme in the new Sherlock, which is not a surprise since the same people oversee both shows.
4.1.11
The Language of "On the Move"
I want to remind FutureMe of how utterly brilliant, absorbing and sheer fun (with the added side effect of making me want to jump into a car right away and drive to Anywhere) the America on the Move exhibit at the Museum of American History was (is). I had to go there to meet up with some out of town visitors and I was not keen on it at all. I was even less keen when I got there at 10.30am only to realize I"d left my mobile phone at home and I didn't have their number. This meant another 45-minute trip back to Bethesda to pick up the phone and then the same time to get back to the Museum, where I finally met them.
I'd not been to the museum since they revamped it. I remember it as dark/not much light but it's now all flash and shiny. Some of the old exhibits are still around--I recall seeing some of the train engines in the old museum too--but they have been reworked, the signs are new and the layout is different.
The America on the Move exhibit has a lot of things I like: details about bits of history that I didn't know much about and/or enjoy reading more of (scrimshaws, the change in the meaning of whaling since the 19th century, race relations and train compartment design in the USA) as well as stuff to see and touch. I now have a language to talk about some of these bits of American history (the arrival of cars, the massive ships of the past, fuel and power) that I didn't have before. I also liked how the language of America being "on the move" allows for a continuity of events and technologies wherein our modes of behaviour (jumping into a car to drive somewhere) becomes normalized as something American. Americans move. They've always done so in various formats in the past and they will continue to do so in the future. The language of moving here is not really about walking or even bikes (though there were a couple of those about). It is about cars, ships, trains and the identity of "America" is tied to those, rather than to the design of "car-free" or "pedestrian-friendly" areas.
Of course, talking about language, today was also interesting because I was hanging out with a group of people from a city I grew up in and lived for over ten years of my life. A city that my (dad's) family has roots in. A city that is mine as much as any city can be. Yet, I couldn't understand the language my visitors were speaking. This is because, for a fairly small country, Nepal's got over 100 languages and the majority language in the capital is not Nepali. People usually don't know this (or forget it) and to me today it was rather amusing because, as we all tend to do, my visitors here were talking in "their" language when they had to make plans and decide what to do. I'm not saying this was annoying by any means and were all speaking in Nepali for much of the time. But it brought my attention to the fact of how much I'm used to people around me here speaking "my" language (English/Nepali) so that I understand them. Being amongst people whom I don't understand at all hasn't been the norm for me since Denmark 2006 and today suddenly reminded me how, sometimes, that is the norm.
I'd not been to the museum since they revamped it. I remember it as dark/not much light but it's now all flash and shiny. Some of the old exhibits are still around--I recall seeing some of the train engines in the old museum too--but they have been reworked, the signs are new and the layout is different.
The America on the Move exhibit has a lot of things I like: details about bits of history that I didn't know much about and/or enjoy reading more of (scrimshaws, the change in the meaning of whaling since the 19th century, race relations and train compartment design in the USA) as well as stuff to see and touch. I now have a language to talk about some of these bits of American history (the arrival of cars, the massive ships of the past, fuel and power) that I didn't have before. I also liked how the language of America being "on the move" allows for a continuity of events and technologies wherein our modes of behaviour (jumping into a car to drive somewhere) becomes normalized as something American. Americans move. They've always done so in various formats in the past and they will continue to do so in the future. The language of moving here is not really about walking or even bikes (though there were a couple of those about). It is about cars, ships, trains and the identity of "America" is tied to those, rather than to the design of "car-free" or "pedestrian-friendly" areas.
Of course, talking about language, today was also interesting because I was hanging out with a group of people from a city I grew up in and lived for over ten years of my life. A city that my (dad's) family has roots in. A city that is mine as much as any city can be. Yet, I couldn't understand the language my visitors were speaking. This is because, for a fairly small country, Nepal's got over 100 languages and the majority language in the capital is not Nepali. People usually don't know this (or forget it) and to me today it was rather amusing because, as we all tend to do, my visitors here were talking in "their" language when they had to make plans and decide what to do. I'm not saying this was annoying by any means and were all speaking in Nepali for much of the time. But it brought my attention to the fact of how much I'm used to people around me here speaking "my" language (English/Nepali) so that I understand them. Being amongst people whom I don't understand at all hasn't been the norm for me since Denmark 2006 and today suddenly reminded me how, sometimes, that is the norm.
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