Pacific Northwest, Down Under

I just read an Op-Ed piece in the Times, written by one of my favorite writers, Brian Greene. Not surprisingly, in his article called "Put a Little Science in Your Life", he says a lot of things that draw an amen from me, but one really great point he makes is that when teaching, there's a lot of drilling and rigor involved and technicalities to learn, but it's okay- crucial even- to take a break from these micro-learning activities to tell the students about current research, theories, and applications. Storytelling is not just for kindergarteners or English class. In science and math classes, the students may not be old enough or knowledgeable enough yet to understand everything you're telling them, but that doesn't mean they aren't picking anything up. It's really about planting seeds in their minds that they will pick up on later, when it becomes more relevant or comprehensible. In fact, that aura of mystery that surrounds abstract, unfathomable ideas may be just the kick they need to want to keep going with the drilling and technicalities.

The train ride from Tacoma to Portland was lovely. Water paralleled the tracks almost the entire way down, and lush, green vegetation surrounded either side in all forms, from wild sky-high leafy trees to tame farmlands with their freshly mown grass. The girl I sat next to was returning from visiting her boyfriend in Seattle, and when she told me that, I was instantly taken- whimsied away, you could say- by the utterly romantic idea of having to take a train ride every week to visit my boyfriend. I have funny ideas about romance, I know.

The actual weekend in Portland was just as wonderful. I went with Tom and his friend Steve, who was visiting from Australia, and Steve's friend Liz gave us a great weekend tour of Hawthorne, the hippie neighborhood she lives in. In her neighborhood, the houses and shops are unique-looking, not mass-produced cookie-cutter types, and there is even a house that looks like it is made of construction paper (because of the way it is painted, not how flimsy it is). The day we got there, we went to Bagdad cafe, and had good, hearty happy-hour food, including delicious cajunized tater tots, mmmm. Steve, who taught English in Japan for a year, would call them oishi ("delicious"), which he remembered by the classy mnemonic:

"She's delicious!"

"Oh-is-she desu?"

There was a talented street musician strumming away at his guitar just a few feet away from our outdoor seating, skateboarders rolling by on a regular basis, and pedestrians dressed as buckaneers and other strange fixings, though Halloween is long past (or long to come). The cafe was also a movie theater that showed second-round movies for $3 a pop, and they have a few of those, Liz told us, in the area. Basically, all we did all weekend was eat out, drink out, and nap in. It was quite refreshing and relaxing. We also took the piss out of* each other and got the piss taken out of because apparently that's what Aussies do for fun, and if you can't take a joke, then you can't survive Down Under.

Some things to know about Portland are: Bikes are ubiquitous. If you want to fit in, you better get a bike and use it! And also, they are known for their bridges, microbrewery beers, (Tillamook) cheese, and dormant volcanoes. The weather is very much like Tacoma-Seattle weather: mild, temperate, cloudy, and if it rains, it's really a misty rain, and it smells just as good.

*roughly translates as "made fun of"