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barcamp and more
Nov. 20th, 2007 09:46 amThe last couple of days have been wonderfully odd - I wish my life was like this all of the time.
( This may be a little long, and I suspect that I still won't feel at all like I've done the weekend justice. )
Also, I've just finished reading Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries, and one thing's really stuck with me. Che wandered around Latin America and had all these adventures, and it relied on him basically being terribly impolite (by my standards). He and Alberto would show up on friend-of-a-friend's doorsteps and stay until kicked out and cadged food and drinks constantly. Whereas I've had two offers to stay with friends over the last few days, and both times I immediately thought "oh no, I couldn't possibly, I'm sure that they don't really mean it". I have no intention of going to the extent in the book, but I do think I should try to accept offers like that more often.
And in this spirit I'm going to Kerala with Kavita on Friday, to check out some open source software program for schools that the government is implementing. It feels a little weird having a professor do all the running-around-travel-arrangements (but then, the only time Kavita has reinforced her superior-professor-status has been when she insisted on paying for my coffee).
In other news, today I desperately want to be like Renee and just stay here and get a job doing freelance writing. I'm being thinking through it all morning though, and I've decided that staying isn't feasible, but perhaps I could come back next year sometime? Anyway, it may just be a fleeting impulse.
( This may be a little long, and I suspect that I still won't feel at all like I've done the weekend justice. )
Also, I've just finished reading Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries, and one thing's really stuck with me. Che wandered around Latin America and had all these adventures, and it relied on him basically being terribly impolite (by my standards). He and Alberto would show up on friend-of-a-friend's doorsteps and stay until kicked out and cadged food and drinks constantly. Whereas I've had two offers to stay with friends over the last few days, and both times I immediately thought "oh no, I couldn't possibly, I'm sure that they don't really mean it". I have no intention of going to the extent in the book, but I do think I should try to accept offers like that more often.
And in this spirit I'm going to Kerala with Kavita on Friday, to check out some open source software program for schools that the government is implementing. It feels a little weird having a professor do all the running-around-travel-arrangements (but then, the only time Kavita has reinforced her superior-professor-status has been when she insisted on paying for my coffee).
In other news, today I desperately want to be like Renee and just stay here and get a job doing freelance writing. I'm being thinking through it all morning though, and I've decided that staying isn't feasible, but perhaps I could come back next year sometime? Anyway, it may just be a fleeting impulse.