Taking a break from engineering

I have been a lazy blogger since I have been in Scotland. I am not really sure why, Scotland is terrific! I have had my ups and downs, but I just did not really find it justified to post those moments to the public.

However, hey! I have something to say today! This post is dedicated to my anthropology paper, which I am only 300 words in and should have started it earlier, but also I would like to explain my reasoning for taking an anthropology class as an engineer while abroad. This blog was initiated after my trip to Bolivia with Engineers Without Borders in 2010 because there is more to aid work in developing countries than just the brute aid and financial support. This is why I find anthropology important. Anthropology is the study of humans, human interaction, social history, artifacts, not very engineery. However, anthropology provides us with an opportunity to explore the way other humans around the world work. American aid work has been notorious for raising money for inexperienced aid workers to go to a remote village, build a water pump, feel like they have saved the world, then leave with an awe-inspiring cultural experience. Little did they realize, the pump they built only lasted 3 weeks after they left, none of the locals knew how to fix it, and on top of that, they completely dried up the aquifer residing below their village, which also damaged their agriculture. So which is better: inexperienced aid workers helping a village improve its infrastructure or not helping a starving village at all?

Makes you feel guilty, doesn't it?

I think every aid worker should take a course, join a group in anthropology, or think before they act to sign up for a volunteer project in another country. It gives you an alternative perspective on how much you are actually helping a village and what damage you could inflict.

Back to my paper, I am writing about a specific cultural artifact from Bolivia, a coca bag. Coca is very important in the Andean culture. It promotes good health, wavers hungers, and supplies a bit of energy to keep going through the day. A lot like the way a cup-a-joe is used in America--without it, I am not sure I can go on with my day. I would like to share with you one of my encounters with the locals one day at the job site, when we were collecting rocks to make gabion wall structures.
 

“Collecting large rocks for the drywalls needed in the rural road reconstruction for the last two hours in the hot Bolivian sun, it is time for another coca break with the locals. As an American engineer, I am not used to having five to six coca breaks throughout the day, however these breaks are absolutely necessary in the Quechua culture. Each adult carries a colorful patterned pouch either around his neck or in his belt strap full of dried coca leaves and a paste of vegetable ash.  An elder, missing most of his front teeth and green ooze dripping down the corner of his mouth, offers his coca bag towards me, wanting me to partake in their coca break. He opened his bag and gestured that I take a handful of leaves and a pebble-sized amount of ash. Clueless about how to properly put the coca in my mouth, I timidly placed a few leaves with ash in my mouth and slowly chewed. The locals grinned like they just watched the funniest moment of their day and gestured that I had to take a lot more into my mouth. I stuffed my mouth full of leaves, like a squirrel preparing for winter, and chewed up the leaves until they were a manageable size. This all became increasingly difficult to do because my tongue became numb. The dried coca leaves became a big oozing wad of green juices, and now I was the one with a green-toothed smile.”-July 2010

Coca break with the village workers

I am writing about this because I remember before I became more acclimated to the Bolivian culture, I was frustrated at how many breaks the locals took when there was work to be done under a short time frame. I was absolutely oblivious to this daily routine and thought that they were just getting high on the job for the fun of it. Silly me. On a serious note, they were not getting "high," coca is used among the peasants because it numbs pain, hunger, and provides a little energy to make it through a labor intensive day. By the way, it takes some four hundred pounds of coca leaves to provide a pound of relatively pure cocaine. I was associating this harmless vital cultural experience, with own my tainted cultural views of cocaine in the US.

Anyways, for all you engineers out there, maybe we should initiate coca breaks on job sites--but more importantly, educate yourself outside of math, science, and structural analysis.

W

This is my first time on exchange at a new university. Some of you have studied abroad before and know the ups and downs of the experience. Actually, psychologists have studied this particular phenomena of the "w-curve" for study abroad students and have charted the student's mental state over the the period of time they are there, see Figure 1.

Figure 1: The W-Curve

Currently, I should be somewhere in between the Honeymoon stage or the Follow Up Orientation given my three week mark since my arrival to Scotland. To be honest, I am not following the curve at all... I started out fairly low, done a few loop-de-loops on the honeymoon stage, hit rock bottom, sky-rocketed up off the page, and now I am numb-like a deadbeat graph on a cardiogram. I have hit a few complications in my study abroad experience so far, primarily due to the lack of communication in this education system, but I have overall enjoyed my time here. I have met a few very pleasant people, who have helped me see the shy sunlight of Aberdeen. If I was in Seattle, I am pretty sure my emotions would be identical, even with my host university. The point is, maybe its not the environment that affects me, its just my outlook on a day to day basis.

When you catch me on a high peak, I am on top of the world! It's not that I am actually on top of the world (although I do love my mountain climbing...), but I suppose its just how I rolled out of bed that morning. If you are worried about my mental health, I am fine, I can work through this. The only thing that helps me get healthier and happier is when people support and push me to do the things I need to do.

It's me, not my environment.

Cheers.

In the Highlands

It has been four months since my last blog, four months of tired reality. I had writers block, my life did not seem ever so exciting, and I just kept my thoughts in my head.  However, when's the best time to write publicly so all your loved ones can follow you? When traveling in Scotland!!! Yippee!!! So that's the truth--this blog remains as a traveling blog, however, I will still keep my title, "Existential Engineering" because I am in Scotland for that very purpose...


Things I have learned thus far:
-"Fit Like." C'mon, say it with me... "FIT LIKE" or "Fit Like?" This means, "Como estas?"or "What's up?" Or any other form of greeting you feel fits your mood.
-Cobblestone was invented way before high heels
-They really don't wear anything under those kilts...
-Ultimate Frisbee is a universal way of meeting excellent local people.
-Haggis is quite good--Just don't ask what's in it, as you wouldn't want to know what McDonald's Hamburger meat has in it either.
-Relocating yourself every three months really changes your personality and perspective on your surroundings.

Now, I could go into vast detail about each of those things, but I don't want to take up your precious time belaboring all my thoughts until nonsense. Instead, I want to tell you about a brief moment which occurred in my first week here.

It was my first Thursday, going on my sixth day at the University of Aberdeen. I met with my adviser the previous Sunday to sign up for my classes, which were to befall the follow day. My intent is to take as many courses in global development and a course in coastal engineering if I can at the university, and hope that some of those credits will transfer back towards my Civil Engineering Degree with Global Health minor. After introducing ourselves, the first words out of my advisers mouth was, "The classes you have signed up for will not work, and some are not even offered anymore." Great. I told my advisers at home I would take these classes, they approved them, I was going to get credit while in Scotland, and everything in life would be perfect and fair. Ha, nope. After my meeting with him, I managed to find some classes that worked with a schedule, and I would just drop in on classes throughout the next few days to see which ones fit. The one class I was very happy to actually get into was a "Issues with Marine and Coastal Management" course, which would be very particular to my location in Scotland and the oil industry in the North Sea. Monday, I sampled a few classes I was enrolled in, but after twenty minutes of each, I decided they were not really my level (1000 and 2000 level courses for freshman).

(Sorry, I realize I am supposed to be describing a brief moment, but I swear this sort of builds up to that moment.)

Anyways, after trying a few of these classes that were not really a good fit, I was excited to attend my Coastal Management class on Thursday, a 4000 level course. I show up to the lecture hall on time, and await scholarly Scotsmen students to enter with a profound impressive professor ready to enrich my brain. Twenty minutes into class time, I sit in an empty classroom. My head hung a little low, my faith in the Scottish educational system had decreased, and I was starting to miss my host university. I needed internet to figure things out, email my adviser, check the time schedules, so I headed to the newly built library across campus. The day before I had badly twisted my ankle on some cobblestone, and somehow gained a vicious cold by sharing a dram of whiskey with someone. It was at this moment, all my injuries, jet lag, time scheduling, loneliness, and sadness was upon me. The library is a seven story glass building, jutting out in the middle of a 600 year old campus. At the library's elevator,  I pressed the 7th floor button. As the elevator doors were closing, a young man jumps into the elevator with me. I smirk at him in acknowledgment and he smirks back in satisfaction. Still, my head was hanging rather low. He says in his wonderfully cheerful Scottish drawl,
"You know, the 7th floor is the best view of the city. The granite really sparkles off the suns reflection and the sea."
"Yeah, that would be lovely to see," I reply with a hint of gratitude.
"You are not from around here, are you?" He notices my American accent.
"Nope, just got here about a week ago."
"Ah, you will truly come to love it here, just give it a little while." He says as the elevator stops at the third floor, and then he steps out and gives me a friendly smirk "Good-Bye."

At the top of the library, I quickly walk to the nearest wall and press my hands onto the glass and look down. His words were true.

The New University Library

St, Marchar's Cathedral, oldest church in Scotland, which I had the pleasure of touring in my History of Art class. My course schedule is working out after all.

The shore of Aberdeen, about 2 km from my flat, oil rigs in the distance.