Sun Spotting with Clouds

Today I went skiing with my best friend from high school, Cari, my father, and Karen. The weather was perfect - as Dad said, "It's as good as it ever gets today."

Some of my favorite things to shoot with the camera are the sky - especially when it is deep deep blue - shadows, and light. Today I thought I would try adding shots of the clouds to my "repertoire." I found out it is pretty hard to shoot them - because they aren't always as clear or visibly colorful in the lense. Also, if not shot properly, they can end up looking rather banal.

Sun Spotting with Clouds
Originally uploaded by annmerry.

I did get this shot today though - of which I am very proud. I was skiing down the bottom of Shay's revenge at Snowshoe (extremely icey, and completely unenjoyable as a slope today). I saw this image over my shoulder to the right, right before I was about to make a sharp turn down where it was particularly steep and icy. I pulled out the camera anyway - although I might have easily lost balance and tumbled down the hill.

I think this shot was soooo worth it.

ウエスト・バージニア州のパラボラアンテナA visit to the NRAO in Green Bank, WV

I want to describe our visit two days ago to the National Radio Astronomy Osbervatory (NRAO), on December 23. We passed by the observatory on our way to Snowshoe Ski Resort where we have been spending our Christmas holidays.

When I saw the observatory's gigantic telescope from the road, my first throught was that I had to get pictures of it for my profressor, Sharon Traweek, a life-time scholar and expert on the culture of scientific communities, "virtual cities" where inhabitants live and work together conducting research. I also wanted to get lots of information for Professor Keiji Kodaira, the Director of Sokendai, where I am currently based as a visiting researcher in Hayama, Japan. Before he became director of Sokendai, Kodaira-san was a full-time astronomer, and he played a fundamental role in founding the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), located on Mauna Kea, the tallest volcano in Hawaii. Kodaira-san helped build the world's largest optical telescope, the Subaru. Therefore, I thought he must be interested in this American national observatory with the world's largest radio telescope, the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (or the GBT).

Picture of National Astronomy Observatories at Mauna Kea, Hawaii

We took a free tour of the NRAO, where we started at the visitor’s center with a short film and talk given by one of the observatory’s employees. The guide emphasized that the observatory and tour was paid for by the National Science Foundation (NSF), or “your tax dollars.” For that reason, the guide also said that we should feel free to ask whatever questions we wanted.

He said about thirty to forty work there, including technicians, engineers, and astronomers. Some of them live in the residence hall on the campus, but the hall mostly provides accommodations for visiting scientists and teachers. There is an airfield at Green Bank also. When the NRAO was first set up, the guide said, it was hard to get scientists to visit the observatory. The airfield was created so that the NRAO could flly in specialists who didn't want to spend too much time in West Virginia. Now the airfield is no longer used - except in emergencies.

The main reason the airfield isn't used anymore is because the sound of the planes creates interference with the radio waves the telescopes are trying to detect. In fact, Green Bank operates within a "Radio Quiet Zone," protected by the national government. The numerous mountain ridges in West Virginia create a unique setting that blocks the ever-increasing passage of radio interference. In addition to its naturally seclusive environment, the United States National Radio Quiet Zone prohibits all televised and cellular transmissions within its 13,000 sqare miles.

After passing by the residence hall, we saw the Jansky Lab where there are state-of-the-art data collection systems and receivers. Further down the road, we drove by a new Bunk House which can house up to 65 visiting high school and middle school students. Teachers and students can come from anywhere in the United States to conduct their own research projects with one of the site’s telescopes, a 40ft machine built originally in 1962.

In total, there are nine telescopes on the site, including the 40-footer that the observatory sets aside for students. Two of these telescopes are simply replicas or “antiques” commemorating the history of radio astronomy. The Jansky Antenna is a replica of the telescope designed by Karl Jansky in the early 30s for Bell Laboratories. Jansky was given the task of investigation possible sources of static that could interfere with telephone transmissions. Inadvertently, he discovered some static, which he concluded in 1933 was caused by the outside solar system. This accident marked the birth of radio astronomy.

The other “antique” on site is the Reber Telescope built by Grote Reber. The telescope’s 31-foot diameter dish helped Reber to detect several sources of radio waves from space. Based on these detections, he published the first map of the radio sky. Astronomy had been only an optical science until Reber became interested in doing this research that followed up on Jansky’s work.

Like I said, we saw a bunch of telescopes on the tour but the two I remember best are the 140ft Telescope and, of course, the big monster telescope that we saw from the road, the GBT. Completed in 1965, the 140ft Telescope was state-of-the-art in its day. Although it is now somewhat outdated, it is still the largest equatorially mounted telescope in the world. It was retired in 1999, but it served as the site’s primary telescope until then. It is noted for having made the first detection of a “polyatomic molecule in the interstellar medium, and about half of all known molecules today.” According to the guide, the telescope is currently “hibernating” but may be brought back in to service in the future.

The showpiece of the Green Bank Observatory is the GBT, a machine built in 1988. It was built after another, “temporary” 300ft telescope (in service over 20 years) suddenly collapsed in 1988. Apparently this resulted in an emergency appropriation of money from Congress to replace the telescope. We saw the GBT from ten miles away on the road as we were driving, which was pretty exciting. The telescope is the most advanced and largest fully steerable telescope in the world. It was completed in the year 2000. Since then it has detected three new pulsars and, combined with the NRAO telescopes in New Mexico, it has generated a detailed image of the Orion Nebula.

Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad! Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas from West Virginia! It is December 25 today, and I am spending the holidays at Snowshoe Ski Resort with my family and Karen Suzuki, my good friend of 7 years of age, from Hayama Japan. In addition to trying to keep up with this blog, I am also helping Karen keep one of her own (KarenInAmerica.blogspot.com), so her mom, her little sister Maria, and the rest of the world can see all the fun that we have been having together over the holidays.

Unfortunately it is raining today - so rather than a White Christmas we are having a Whet Christmas! I am being really lazy - don't want to ski at all in this weather 'cause it is miserable. But Karen is being a trooper; she is out for an entire day with the Ski School. She started Ski School yesterday and has already improved so Much. She even went skiing with me on the "blue" advanced slopes!

Karen is FEARLESS when she skis, so today my mom lent her her helmet to keep her safe. Rather than zig-zagging down the mountain under control, Karen prefers to head straight down the hill, no breaks, and not knowing how to stop herself. (She did point out to me yesterday that if she really wanted to stop, all she had to do was fall down) . Anyway, Karen skis without fear, and she insists on going down the hardest slopes. We had to tell Karen that if she keeps going down the slops straight - and out of control - the ski patrol might take her ticket away from her as a punishment. I think that that got her attention.

A picture of my favorite slope, "Shay's Revenge"

Although it is raining and yucky today, yesterday the weather was spectacular. It was the best skiing that I have ever experienced at Snowshoe. There has been a lot of snowfall this year in the weeks before we got here. So for the first time in over 10 years, Snowshoe opened up its two premier expert slopes, Cup Run and Shay's revenge, for the first time in over 10 years before Christmas. Like I said, the weather was gorgeous, the skies were cobalt blue, the sun was warm, and views of the valley and surrounding mountains were crystal clear.

View from the top of Cup Run
I got to ski on my own for a while before having to pick Karen up from Ski School. I was feeling so great and having so much fun, that I started to ski quite aggressively until I took a crazy fall, head into the snow, and inadvertently digested about 10 pounds snow as my head burrowed forehead first into the ground.

私の出身であるバージニャ州の過激派Extremists in my hometown, central Virginia

I've always harbored mixed feelings about my hometown, Lynchburg, VA. Growing up there, I acquired a central Virginian accent, which all of my relatives on the west coast loved to tease whenever I visited. My California cousins liked to mimick me in high picthed voices, so I figured early on that I must come from some kind of hickville. "See y'awll later now ya hear," they'd sing when we parted. One year in highschool, my cousin from Oregon, Greg, informed that his name should be pronounced "Grehhg" - and not the two-syllabled "GRAY-egg" that was more to my liking. Even my mom and dad (also from the west coast) used to giggle when I would call to my friends: "Hey YAWLL, waitup," I used to yell from the kitchen door when it was tahm to play. When I asked Mom and Dad "Wa-uht? Why'r ya laughin,'" they told me playfully "We sure are raising a true southern bell!" (Like, what was that supposed to mean anyway?)

My brother went to Harvard when I was 15, and then I had the good fortune to go to Spain and France that year. Annual trips to San Francisco and Oregon, visits to big brother in Boston, and a short vacation in Europe - these little excursions started to have an effect on me. For better or worse, by the time I graduated from high school, I had gained some type of comparative "world" view - and it had become stark clear to me that I was, indeed, from a small, backwater town - and in danger of becumin a hick. To make matters worse, I came from the home of The Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell, and spiritual salvation. In those days, I was definitely destined for hell 'cause I'd never been saved. (My Filipina mother had baptized me Catholic.)

Where I come from, interracial dating was politically incorrect, and the notion of "diversity" had something to do with trying out new partners at line dancing on Friday night.

When I was 18, I went back to Europe for a year abroad, and people in Europe called me a Yankee. I was so confused; I didn't know if I should jump with glee, shout slanderous epithets at them, or just give them a proper learnin about the War of Norther Agression. I usually just kept quiet - actually enjoying the idea that someone might associate me with those so-called liberal and cosmopolitan northern yanks. Somehow, somewhere, by the time I went to college, I knew that my neighbor's life-sized portrait of General Lee in the parlor was surely ....a regional distinction. I aimed to become an educated, sophisticated, and liberated, modern woman. From then on, I would keep it under wraps that we got time off in high school for the first day of hunting season - and that on any band field trip, my classmates hung the rebel flag at the back of the bus. From then on, going to Europe would be "in," and gun racks would be "out."

It's true, I was embarassed of my southern roots for quite some time. After college (public school in Virginia), my aim was to get 'the hell outta Dodge.' Not wanting to be associated with the gunrack guys, I moved first to Japan, then to Philly, to Boston, to Los Angeles, and then back to Japan again (where I am stuck now). Anywhere but the south... doing anything but acting like a redneck. That was my destination... and to some extent perhaps, still is now.

The days of embarassment are pretty much over. In fact, when I went back home to see my parents this summer, for the first time I truly enjoyed eating at the Cracker Barrel for brunch, hiking in the Blue Ridge mountains with my dad, and listening to the sweet rythms of a dying local accent. This place, Lynchburg, has flavor, I thought. I went down to the James River to take pictures of the old brick warehouses, some of the orginal cobble streets, and the porticoed Jeffersonian-fashioned houses. However checkered it was, the short history of that little backwater town was clearly as rich and thick as the kudzu growing on every corner.

To be continued...

やっと、11月の見学についてのレポートFinally, A Report on my November Walk

Finally I am getting around to publishing my notes on the walk I took with the Shonan History Walking Club. I have a feeling that this is going to take more time than I have tonight, so please let me apologize in advance if you visit, and this description seems incomplete. I will be updating it over the next few days.

At any rate, to begin with, here is a brief synopsis of the day: At 10am on November 25, I met the group for the first time at the JR Kamakura Station, East Exit. After gathering, the group walked to the bus stop (about 10 meters away) to board the Keihin Kyuukou bus #7, bound for Zushi Station. We got off the bus at a stop called "Kamegaoka" (亀が岡)

Our course for the day aimed to take in the following stops, located mostly within the south-east quadrant of Kamakura City. Our first stops of the day, however, were located in Zushi City:

1) Kamegaoka Danchi 亀が岡団地
This was simply where we got off the bus. It was close to the trail we were aiming to catch, the Nagoe Kiridohshi, or the "Nagoe Pass." (Incidentally the word "Danchi" is a Japanese expression for a large, public housing complex. To get a look at what these things typically look like, have a click on this photo album that I found on someone else's amazing blog). I was quite excited about joining such a lively and friendly group, so I started snapping pictures right away.

2) Nagoe Kiridohshi 名越切通　
The Nagoe Pass is one of the seven original passes on which one had to cross over in order to enter Kamakura City during Japan's Medieval Era. For the newcomer to Japanese History, Kamakura is famous for having been Japan's capital from the 12th to 14th centuries under the first dynasty of Shoguns, run by the Minamoto family heirs.

One reason Minamoto Yoritomo, the founder of the Kamakura Shogunate, chose to locate his new capital here was that the city was naturallly fortified by mountains on three sides and the sea (Sagami Bay) on the southern side. To enter the city on foot, a visitor had to cross one of the seven passes of which Nagoe Pass is the oldest. According to some sources (which remained unnamed by our group leader), another claim to faim for the pass is its dramatically steep, or "difficult" hills. For this reason, some claim the name of the pass was originally written with the kanji meaning "difficult" "難" - rather than with the kanji "名," which is used today. Although both are pronounced "Na," the former kanji "難" gave the pass name a literal meaming of "Difficult Pass" or "難超"

People who have travelled from central Kamakura to Zushi know that there is a tunnel between the two cities. Whether commuting or by car or train, one passes through this tunnel which sits directly under the Nagoe Pass. The tunnel, in fact, is called the Nagoe Tunnel “名超トンネル”.

3) Mandara Dou 曼陀羅堂 (Mandala Hall)
　
The Kanji for Mandara "曼陀羅" means "circle" in Sanskrit. In English this word is known as a "mandala." According to Wikipedia (!), "mandara" in Nichiren Buddhism refers to "a hanging paper scroll or wooden tablet whose inscription consists of Chinese characters and medieval-Sanskrit script representing elements of the Buddha's enlightenment, protective Buddhist deities, and certain Buddhist concepts..."

4) Choushouji Temple 長勝寺　

5) The Nagoe Yasuragi Kai 名越安らぎ会　　

6) Kumonji Temple 九品寺　

7) Fudarakuji Temple 補蛇落時　

8) Myoukouji Temple 光明寺

この本、欲しい Books I want:

"Japanese Only: The Otaru Hot Springs Case and Racial Descirmination in Japan," by Arudou Debito

"Sweet Daruma: a Japan Satire" by Janice Valeri Young

"Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty" by Bradley Martin

告白、チャールズ・R・ジェンキンズ ("To Tell the Truth" by Charles Robert Jenkins)

"Rain Storm" and "Killing Rain" by Bary Eisler

"Kinshu-Autumn Brocade" by Teru Miyamoto

"In the Time of Madness" by Richard Lloyd Parry

"The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film" by Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp.

完成したことを自慢してるぅ！Feeling proud about my accomplishments

I just put this list together as part of a proposal that I am working on to solicit PAYMENT (!) for my ongoing contributions to the Sokendai Oral History and Digital Archives Project. I was officially working for the project this past summer. I say "officially" because at that time I was being paid for my contributions and involvement.

However, when the summer ended, I went home for a short vacation to the States. Then when I returned, I was no longer on the payroll because I was now in Hayama to work on my dissertation. Currently, I am a full-time student and the proud recipient of a UCLA field experience fellowship that (rightfully) expects me to spend most of my working hours on conducting my PhD research - which has just about nothing to do with the Project.

Nevertheless, despite my full-time obligations, I am still quite connected to the project... You see, the project members work right down the hall from me - and in fact, I share my office space with one of the project's post docs). Given my ongoing involvement, I am now putting together a proposal so that I might get !MONEY! for my current and future contributions. (Such as taking copious pictures and notes on the Shonan Rekishi wo Aruku Kai (The Shonan History Walking Club)).

Until I just made the list below, I had no idea that I had actually contributed this much to the project this past summer. Now that is all up on the screen, I feel like publicizing my good deeds just a little bit by publishing them here, right on my blog. Here it goes:

Past Accomplishments, Summer 2005
1) First to arrive at the Project Site, Sokendai, Hayama Campus. Assisted Professor Sharon Traweek in ordering supplies for future office.
2) Assisted Sharon Traweek in giving seminar course preparing Naoko Kato for her participation in the ROHO Advanced Oral History Summer Institute at University California, Berkeley. Major contributions to this course included:
a. Helped Professor Traweek organize framework and materials for course,
b. Participated in four two-hour tutorials on relevant terms and ideas,
c. Helped Kato-san revise several application essays
3) Compiled information regarding procedures for applying for Certificate of Eligibility and Visa to Japan.
4) Consulted with future project participants, especially Kathy Nielsen, on procedures for obtaining foreign Visa to Japan.
5) Consulted with future participants, including Sam Shah, Kathy Nielsen, and Mia Ong, on life at Sokendai, in Hayama, and in Japan.
6) Translated Kato Naoko article for publication on Project Web Site.
7) Collaborated with Sam Shah to create release/permission forms for future oral history interviews
8) Prepared for and conducted two oral history interviews with John Novembre, CPhil. Summer JSPS Scholar at Sokendai.
9) Prepared for and conducted two oral history interviews with Dr. Hirotaka Sugawara, Director General of Sokendai, and former Director of Japan's KEK Laboratory
10) Collaborated with Sam Shah on writing reports giving suggestions and describing the experience of conducting oral history interviews.
11) Compiled bibliography of Japanese publications on Science in Japan
12) Launched operating systems, and installed all new programs and hardware on project’s three Mac Computers when they arrived
13) Installed printer applications and printer networks to three Mac Computers
14) Participated actively in weekly collaboration meetings. Important contributions included:
a. Facilitated exchange of ideas on project by leading constructive critique of Kato article
b. Consulted with collaboration participants on official name for project
c. Collaborated with Sam Shah in proposing preliminary structure and goals of official web site for project
d. Designed test graphics for project
15) Compiled preliminary list of books (see Appendix I) for Project Library
16) Ordered these books for library
17) Consulted with outside colleagues to conduct research on and ultimately help order first set of digital voice recorders
18) Collaborated with Sam Shah to develop weekly reading group and reading list, designed to promote awareness and discussion about academic issues related to The Project.
19) Attended and participated actively in reading group (last 2 weeks of work)

日本語能力試験：1級Japanese Language Proficiency Exam, Level I

I spent most of my day today at the Sagamihara campus of Aoyama Gakuin located along the Yokohama Line at the Fuchinobe Station. It takes roughly three hours to travel there from Sokendai by public transportation. Since I had to be there at 8:30 this morning, I spent the night at a nearby economy hotel.

I went there to take the "first" (or highest) level (1級) of the annual Japanese Language Proficiency Exam. I was seated in a room with 200 other foreigners all trying to pass this exam, which is designed officially to certify a student's ability to enroll in a Japanese university.

In addition to the room where I was assigned to take the test, there were at least a dozen other rooms, all holding a couple hundred foreign test takers. Furthermore, in addition to the hundreds of test takers at Aoyama Gakuin, there were still hundreds of other test sites around Japan and around the world. Each was giving the test to students of Japanese as a foreign language today.

Going into the test, I knew there would be a lot of Asians. I've taken the test before - about 8 years ago - and did pitifully. (Today, I also did pretty bad, but was, at least, not nearly as clueless as I was the first time I took it.) In any event, because I had already experienced the test - and also because it is a common observation shared among veteran test takers - I knew long before arriving today that, at level I, the population of test takers is always overwhelmingly East Asian.

The thing that struck me today, is that, had I NOT known that they were foreign residents, I surely would have assumed they were Japanese. If I were to see any of them individually, or in small groups, in a context different from that of the exam, I would certainly never see them as "foreign." It makes me realize how many non-Japanese there are indeed living in Japan, but go altogether unnoticed - at least until they open their mouths to speak.

Seeing the literally hundreds and hundreds of foreign Asian alien residents at the test site today, I felt like I had a much better understanding of how so many people around the world come to believe (mistakenly) that there are "no minorities" in Japan. The minorities here blend in so well, that they are literally invisible, in practically all public contexts.

東京国立美術館の北斎展The Hokusai Exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum of Art

Visiting the Katsushika Hokusai exhibit today was a once in a lifetime experience. The exhibit ROCKED, but that was not what was so extraordinarily extraordinary about the whole affair. The feature that made today so unforgettable was how maniaccly crowded it was. I've never experienced anything like it - ever.

For starters, I woke up this morning at the crack of dawn - before the sun even rose - which was a genuine act of holy providence for me. My idea was to get to the museum just as it opened. Why? Because I had heard that "it might get crowded."

Well, that was an understatement. When I got there, there were already hordes of people rushing over to the museum, a 15 minute walk from Ueno Station. After buying my ticket, I made my way in to the museum grounds, only to find that a long queue had already been forming for quite some time... There would be a 40 minute wait for those of us who had just arrived.

So, I waited. Fortunately the weather was gorgeous - a little chilly, but blue skies, and thanks to the throngs of Japanese people skirting me in all directions, I had a natural wind buffer and central heating unit which seemed happy to follow me closely, right on into the building.

Finally, I managed to get into the building at 10:20 am. (The museum opens at 9:30 am) Once in, I found that my wait thusfar had only been the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The exhibit displayed roughly 500 of Hokusai's works, from throughout his 80-year career. As museum displays go, the works lined up in a relatively small area: 4 rooms, each roughly the size of a racquetball court.

I ask, how long should it take a girl to look at an exhibit along the walls of four racquet ball courts? 30 minutes to an hour? Perhaps 2 or 3 hours if one takes her time?

It took me 6 hours...

And Not because I am slow at these things either... but because I had to wait in line with half of Tokyo on a Saturday morning at every bend and turn of the exhibition - which, incidentally, also included some islands of works in the middle of the rooms. At the beginning of each display, a girl would have to wait in a tight crowd of about twenty to thirty people, all packed into a space of roughly the size of a VW beetle. Everyone was quietly jostling for a space next to the wall - so that they could get up close to have a view within a two millimeter proximity of the work - and consequently block the view of every other onlooker. Upon finally inching our way up to the first print in each display (took roughly 30 minutes at each interval), I - submersed within the crowd - would commence to be moved up along the sides of each wall. In order to catch a glimpse of any of the works, one would have to follow, deep within these teaming groups of tired, overheated spectators as they clung their ways along the walls, like ketchup upside down in a bottle, refusing to get on out for supper time.

To make matters worse, I happened to wear the worst shoes I could have ever possibly worn today: my beautiful black leather boots, with heels that combine to a total of about 7 inches.

I can hear my mother, brother and every other man I've ever met in my 35 years right now: "Serves you right,you silly, silly, vain, vain girl. Serves you right!"

Despite my aching feet, I WOULD argue that today did in fact turn out to be an immense success (that is, based on my rating of days spent on my own, sporting around Japan, trying to stay enlightened yet mildly amused). This visit was however, arguably, the most stressful day I have experienced this year.

Was it worth it? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes. Why? I like sado-masochism... Well not really, but. Actually, when a girl spends that much miserable time embedded tightly within muggy flocks of polite Japanese people, looking at a collection of the life works of one of the greatest "giants" of ukiyoe history, she gains some new insights on Japan, art, and history. That she might not have gained otherwise - especially on any other Saturday morning, dead asleep til mid afternoon...

I plan on writing more about the Hokusai experience very soon! Stay tuned for further adventures of a tired, raggedy young woman... who apparently got OUT of the museum JUST when all the lines were REALLY starting to pile up in the late afternoon!