Friday, November 21, 2008

On my way home

I'm at the Seoul Incheon airport right now, and I have about an hour until my flight to Tokyo boards (then I have a really long layover in Tokyo before heading out to New York). There's free wireless so I will amuse myself with this briefly.

Overall my time in Seoul was good. I had a few moments where the lectures didn't go so well (long story), to the point where I thought my presence was not worth it. Then, after Friday's lecture (which, by the way, lasted five hours, from four to ten, with about an hour for dinner, because it was believed (not by me) to be a good idea to finish up to a certain point, driving all of us to the point of complete fatigue), I was told over an over again that I should come back in the spring and give more lectures. I take that as a compliment, obviously, although it was an exhausting week.

Most of Friday was spent going around the city with two of the graduate students (that is why we started so late with the lectures). I saw one of the old palaces, and the N'Seoul Tower, from the top of which one gets a spectacular view of this city. I wouldn't say Seoul is beautiful, architecturally, but it certainly is massive (over 10 million people live here), and impressive.

But I have to say the most hilarious part of this tour was walking by the American Embassy. As we approached it, I thought it was a prison. There were cops everywhere, busses with grates over the windows, a giant wall with barbed wire surrounding the building and cages on the windows. Then one of the graduate students said what it was, and I responded with complete disbelief. But sure enough, there it was, the American flag and all.

New game, to go with "Gay or European?" and "School or Prison?" (in New York): "Prison or American Embassy?"

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Neverending coming out

You know what I dislike about being gay in my field? Coming out. Endlessly.

I never make a big deal out of it, of course. It is always done "implicitly," where I will refer to Corbett and obviously use male pronouns. Generally, the person listening files that away into their mind, and remembers it when it is necessary. Sometimes, though, there is a combination of a language barrier and a culture barrier, which makes the whole event more complicated.

Case in point: I talked about Corbett at lunch on Monday, and the professor here and I discussed the separation issue and all that. Wednesday however, it became clear that I was talking about a man and not a woman, causing me to be asked explicitly, "Are you a homosexual?" and then having a mildly odd conversation. (Just to note, Korea is not the place to live if you're gay, but then again, the US is one of the few places where it is most accepted to be openly gay.) The professor also said, "So I guess you're not Christian!"* He is, apparently, and while I don't think my lifestyle has made him think less of me, or anything, the rest of lunch felt a little odd. Of course, he still did continue to ask more details about Corbett, so I shouldn't complain. I imagine that whatever he thinks personally, he realizes that it is an unimportant aspect to my life as far as he is concerned. I say this because my physics work is independent of my personal life.

In the end though, I am constantly aware of these types of moments, and although I know that the majority of people are at most indifferent to it, I always wonder what will happen when I find that one hateful Prop-8 supporter, and whether or not I will snap.

-----

* - I take offense to this, actually, as one can be Christian and gay. Unfortunately, I am not a Christian, but that is not because I'm gay, it's in addition to being gay

Monday, November 17, 2008

No jet-lag, but...

So I woke up at 5:30 this morning, not able to go back to sleep. I was fine all day yesterday, because I slept well the night before, until 10:30pm, when I was just too tired. Tonight I will have to force myself to stay awake until midnight, which is when I usually go to bed at home, and then I will hopefully be able to sleep until 8.

Anyway, my first day went well. I lectured for an hour and a half, and I think it was okay. The professor who invited me is sitting in on the lectures, which works out--he asks questions for clarification for the students, who I think are shy about asking questions as English is not their first language.

I feel as though I'm being courted while here for a job, though. The fact that he wants another two professors to come here was discussed at length during lunch, and apparently this school has, for foreign applicants at least, a very strict requirement for citations. One must have at least two papers with more than like, 200 citations or something. Very few younger people have this (I do just because of my luck in what I did in graduate school). I was trying my best to say no, because that is just not a possible two-body scenario I'm willing to work with. But, at least it's a compliment, and I guess it would possibly be easy to get a job somewhere at least.

Now I will take a "shower" (in quotes because of course there's no curtain and it's a hand-held shower head that you use while sitting in the tub---good for my lazy side but not satisfactory for my shower needs), and I guess finish preparing for today's lecture, which happens in two hours.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Final overseas flight for a while?

I'm in Seoul now. For all my friends in the US, this message comes to you from the future, as it is currently 10am, Monday morning here, while it is still 8 pm Sunday night on the east coast. Don't think that it's all that exciting: It's still a Monday morning (with jet-lag).

As I have done pretty much nothing yet, except eat and get an office (I start my lectures in the next half-hour or so), there's not much to say. But I will say this, after the hour-long cab ride to the hotel last night: I love being in a country where the Hyundai reigns supreme (this is dedicated to Melinda and Ellen, my fellow Hyundai owners). I took a cab which was a Hyundai, and almost everyone drives them here. There are models of this car that would make a Mercedes look like a poor person's car. It is a beautiful country.

And now I will end, so I can attempt to prepare myself for my oh-so-exciting lecture which begins soon. And btw: It is freezing over here right now!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Doctor Atomic at the Met

I'm such a good boyfriend. On the night Christopher drove eight hours to New York through the pouring rain to see me, how did I thank him? By dragging him to a 3.5-hour-long, 21st-century minimalist opera about the atomic bomb. And here's the best part: we had standing room tickets. (N.B. If it's any consolation, I apologized profusely throughout the night, and Christopher was very forgiving).

The opera, however, was fantastic, despite our aching legs, and I'm really glad we went (I've wanted to see this ever since it first premiered in San Francisco two years ago). It was written by John Adams, and it takes place at Los Alamos lab on the night the first nuclear bomb was tested. The libretto is a compilation of letters and transcripts of meetings between Oppenheimer, fellow scientists, and U.S. Generals. Needless to say, some of the dialogue is less-than-riveting, but I think Christopher got a kick out of all the physics talk (at one point the chorus sings, "The thirty-two points are the centers of the twenty triangular faces of an icosahedron interwoven with the twelve pentagonal faces of a dodecahedron.") The fantastic music made up for any deficiencies in the text, and the set was awesome:


Apparently, Oppenheimer was also brilliant beyond physics: he spoke four languages, could read at least six more, and learned Sanskrit just so he could read the Bhagavad Gita in its original version. He was also a great lover of poetry, and much of the opera's libretto consists of random poetry he knew. Here's a link to the stunningly beautiful aria that ends Act I, "Batter my heart," a setting of a poem by John Donne (apparently the Trinity test site where the first bomb went off was named after the "three-personed god" from this poem). Check it out for the amazing music, if anything:



"Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

I walked into a tree

Yeah, I walked into a tree today. I was walking Dante on a path I take daily, and wham! Right into a tree branch (yeah, the branch, not a tree trunk). I have a huge scratch on my forehead, and a small one on my right eyelid. It hurts, but I'll heal.

I run into things all too often.

Monday, November 10, 2008

I broke them

I think I finally broke my students. On the most recent homework, which I made worth twice the others and basically called it a Midterm, they didn't do so spectacularly. I knew it was tough (and it even took me a while to do it), but I think they will have learned a hell of a lot in the process. I feel a little bad about it, because they all seemed very flustered with it, but alas...

Friday, November 7, 2008

From bitterness to hope

To follow up on Corbett's comment to the previous post, I want to change my tune right now. I will not allow California to turn my emotions to anger, nor will I forget it. I am not eloquent in general, and I will not pretend to be. I just got the following op-ed from Joe Solomnese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, and I will just copy and paste it here. I know it's somewhat long, but I ask you to read the whole thing. It encourages me to stride forward and do what little I can to help get this moment behind us.


You can't take this away from me: Proposition 8 broke our hearts, but it did not end our fight.

Like many in our movement, I found myself in Southern California last weekend. There, I had the opportunity to speak with a man who said that Proposition 8 completely changed the way he saw his own neighborhood. Every "Yes on 8" sign was a slap. For this man, for me, for the 18,000 couples who married in California, to LGBT people and the people who love us, its passage was worse than a slap in the face. It was nothing short of heartbreaking.

But it is not the end. Fifty-two percent of the voters of California voted to deny us our equality on Tuesday, but they did not vote our families or the power of our love out of existence; they did not vote us away.

As free and equal human beings, we were born with the right to equal families. The courts did not give us this right - they simply recognized it. And although California has ceased to grant us marriage licenses, our rights are not subject to anyone's approval. We will keep fighting for them. They are as real and as enduring as the love that moves us to form families in the first place. There are many roads to marriage equality, and no single roadblock will prevent us from ultimately getting there.

And yet there is no denying, as we pick ourselves up after losing this most recent, hard-fought battle, that we've been injured, many of us by neighbors who claim to respect us.

By the same token, we know that we are moving in the right direction. In 2000, California voters passed Proposition 22 by a margin of 61.4% to 38.6%. On Tuesday, fully 48% of Californians rejected Proposition 8. It wasn't enough, but it was a massive shift. Nationally, although two other anti-marriage ballot measures won, Connecticut defeated an effort to hold a constitutional convention ending marriage, New York's state legislature gained the seats necessary to consider a marriage law, and FMA architect Marilyn Musgrave lost her seat in Congress. We also elected a president who supports protecting the entire community from discrimination and who opposes discriminatory amendments.

Yet on Proposition 8 we lost at the ballot box, and I think that says something about this middle place where we find ourselves at this moment. In 2003, twelve states still had sodomy laws on the books, and only one state had civil unions. Four years ago, marriage was used to rile up a right-wing base, and we were branded as a bigger threat than terrorism. In 2008, most people know that we are not a threat. Proposition 8 did not result from a popular groundswell of opposition to our rights, but was the work of a small core of people who fought to get it on the ballot. The anti-LGBT message didn't rally people to the polls, but unfortunately when people got to the polls, too many of them had no problem with hurting us. Faced with an economy in turmoil and two wars, most Californians didn't choose the culture war. But faced with the question - brought to them by a small cadre of anti-LGBT hardliners - of whether our families should be treated differently from theirs, too many said yes.

But even before we do the hard work of deconstructing this campaign and readying for the future, it's clear to me that our continuing mandate is to show our neighbors who we are.

Justice Lewis Powell was the swing vote in Bowers, the case that upheld Georgia's sodomy law and that was reversed by Lawrence v. Texas five years ago. When Bowers was pending, Powell told one of his clerks "I don't believe I've ever met a homosexual." Ironically, that clerk was gay, and had never come out to the Justice. A decade later, Powell admitted his vote to uphold Georgia's sodomy law was a mistake.

Everything we've learned points to one simple fact: people who know us are more likely to support our equality.

In recent years, I've been delivering this positive message: tell your story. Share who you are. And in fact, as our families become more familiar, support for us increases. But make no mistake: I do not think we have to audition for equality. Rather, I believe that each and every one of us who has been hurt by this hateful ballot measure, and each and every one of us who is still fighting to be equal, has to confront the neighbors who hurt us. We have to say to the man with the Yes on 8 sign - you disrespected my humanity, and I am not giving you a pass. I am not giving you a pass for explaining that you tolerate me, while at the same time denying that my family has a right to exist. I do not give you permission to say you have me as a "gay friend" when you cast a vote against my family, and my rights.

Wherever you are, tell a neighbor what the California Supreme Court so wisely affirmed: that you are equal, you are human, and that being denied equality harms you materially. Although I, like our whole community, am shaken by Prop 8's passage, I am not yet ready to believe that anyone who knows us as human beings and understands what is at stake would consciously vote to harm us.

This is not over. In California, our legal rights have been lost, but our human rights endure, and we will continue to fight for them.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

One quick bitterness...

I won't go into my feelings with regard to California. I will just include this blog link, with this excerpt from it:

Symbolism matters to disenfranchised people in a way that is hard to explain to those of us who always knew we could be anything we want to be in America. Forget president. Gay people can’t even be spouses, though Britney Spears could have her umpteenth marriage tomorrow just by stumbling into a quickie Vegas chapel. Scott Peterson has the legal right to marry on death row after murdering his wife and unborn child. No matter how undeserved, straight people never lose the right to marry; no matter how worthy, gay people cannot earn it. Except in Massachusetts and Connecticut which, bless them, seem to be sticking to their pro-gay marriage court rulings.



I look at this day with hope, with joy in our election of this new president. I will not allow the California ruling to fill my soul with bitterness and anger, feelings that have tainted a spectacular election otherwise. We will overcome this obstacle, and the one thing that keeps me going is that while progress can and will always be held back, one can never fight it.

Holy cow, we did!

I was expecting it, but still, the moment they called it last night on CNN, and every moment afterwards that I think about it, I get chills. And not only did he get over 330 electoral votes (at least), but here are the popular vote numbers thus far:

Obama: 62,509,207
McCain: 55,438,509

So Obama wins in the popular vote (which of course doesn't matter for the win of the presidency) by seven million votes! That is the largest margin since LBJ in 1964 (which doesn't compare, there it was like a 25 million difference). This is a spectacular step forward in this country, despite all of its flaws.

I can say right now that I am proud of what this country has done yesterday. Let the healing begin!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Vote!

I Barack'd the vote just now. The line was practically non-existent, as we went at 9:30am, just after the morning rush, but before any possible lunchtime rush. Also, it was just a bit too early for students to be showing up there. As we were leaving, the line doubled, mostly with William & Mary students, so perfect timing. Even with the slight complication with Corbett (first-time VA voter and he hasn't gotten his license here yet), everything went smoothly. We had three people to vote for, and I voted correctly on all three, and no ballot propositions.

I'm all giddy with excitement about this now. I don't think I'll be able to last the rest of the day. I want to find out NOW! Although the first results are in: Obama wins 71% of the vote!

Go Obama!!!!!!!!!