Conscientious | Sketchbook

The Hotel Next to the Highway

2007-01-16T08:18:46Z

There's nothing that embodies the kind of hotel I'm in better than the smallish TV set, which is made to hover in a corner of the room by means of this kind of suspension. Since the last photo I took of one of these already disappeared in what one might imagine to be the depths of the internet (reality is much too mundane for modern man or woman), I had to take a new photo, somewhat fittingly this time a digital one. I still have the old Polaroid, though, somewhere at home, and I have the nagging feeling that it will continue to exist, physically, beyond the digital life time of this new photo, and I'm not saying that because I'm old-fashioned or a cynic (even though, deep down, I might be a bit of both).

]]> Note, also, that the TV set is unplugged, which goes to show two things, namely first, that in general, I do dislike watching TV (but that's no reason to unplug a TV set), and second, that I had to plug in my laptop computer somewhere (and that is). I've worked on this blog under a whole lot of circumstances, many of which too mundane to even mention them here (even though the anti-authoritarian in me, who, to some non-negligible extent, is co-responsible for me writing this blog in the first place, often wants to let out some air from what occasionally appears to be a somewhat inflated image of this blog [now, there we got some quintessentially bad writing, and to add insult to injury I am finishing off the guardians of good writing with yet another convoluted sentence inside a pair of brackets, which are embedded in an already existing one - if that doesn't do the job, I don't know what will!]). The spectacularly unspectacular hotel next to the highway in what I imagine to be the Dutch countryside is yet another addition to those circumstance, not something that is necessarily new for me as a scientist, because if there's anything that will forever be the almost defining criterion of a scientist's life, it's those hotels where the TV sets are made to hover in the corner of the room.

Sketchbook: The Art of Travel

2004-10-29T18:01:57Z

If there ever was an art of travel I'm afraid I'm not familiar with it (likewise for the art of attending a conference). Calling it the art of travel implies there is a technique to it, something that you can do to make traveling enjoyable. But what I've found is that traveling is mosty enjoyable when I do absolutely nothing to prepare myself for it; and then I do absolutely nothing that could take away from anything that might and, inevitably, will happen (however, note to self: In the future, avoid US Airways, the worst airline in the world, even if it is just one flight out of four).

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For example, everybody told me "Enjoy the sunshine" upon hearing I was going to spend time in California. As noted before, things happen: In this case, half the time it was sort of cool, grey, and rainy. But you've got to be open to whatever possibilities there are, and Frank Gehry's new concert hall in dowtown LA looks very cool (almost monochrome) when the sky is grey.

A conference's unpredictable coincidences also allowed me to see the Getty Center with its gorgeous art and architecture. Having taken my laptop and having the occasional extra time on my hands, I managed to aim for the slightly different look-and-feel of my digital photos taken there (and elsewhere) - and I don't even have to worry too much about all that digital grain any longer. Could I have planned it? Hardly!

But I obviously could have planned what I wanted to see and where I wanted to go. Would I have enjoyed the trip more? I doubt it. Often, I find that preparation is really the enemy of enjoying travel. Did I see everything that I could have seen? Probably not. Did I enjoy what I did (and am I happy with the photos that I brought)? You bet!

Sketchbook: Introduction

2004-08-14T00:16:40Z

sketch-book n.

1. A pad of paper used for sketching. Also called sketchpad.

2. A book of literary sketches.

(2b. Conscientious' new category in the spirit of 2.)

Sketchbook: The Traveler's Aftermath (pt. 1)

2003-10-16T23:27:33Z

This is going to be the first entry about my most recent traveling, to Germany and France. It's a bit more personal than the other ones which will be (slightly unusual) travel photos only.

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For me, going to Germany is not like going to any other country. I am a German who, at some stage, decided to live someplace else. Going 'home' gives me a weird feeling. If you're also this kind of expat - and not the one who's only hanging out with his kind, longing to regain the paradise lost [those people scare me!] - you'll know this feeling of coming to a place that you know very intimately, yet that at the same time has changed. Most of you won't be expats so maybe I can explain it by comparing it with meeting a former lover, a while after a somewhat nasty - but not too nasty - breakup.

And, yes, you can break up with a country and leave it in disgust or feeling disappointed or just longing for someplace else and you'll always take some love with you. You might not realize there's that love, it might take a while for you to realize what you lost, what you didn't appreciate before, what you won't be able to re-gain.

So then you go back because you have to or want to. It's like meeting that former lover on terms that weren't decided in advance. There's the difference. You can't talk to a country on the phone and decide to meet it again. It just happens and you find yourself in weird situations. People have become strange to you. Things have changed. Inevitably, you'll be disappointed to see the place has become even more stupid and, at the same time, even cooler than before. The current whining and complaining over in Germany is almost unbearable but I also saw some art and photo exhibits which, in their variety and quality, in the US you'd only be able to see in a city like New York but certainly not in Pittsburgh.

That feeling of not knowing where I really belong, what place I'd call my home never left me, and it made things harder than I thought it would. Those US immigration officers who only say 'welcome home' to citizens and not to permanent residents (regardless of how long you've lived here) only rubbed it in - after a long and tiring flight. So what's my home? I really don't know. There's millions of things I hate about Germany and millions of things I love about it and likewise for the US. On the plus side, you get to see things that other people don't notice and you get to see it everywhere. I wonder how big of a plus that really is, though.

And I met another past love affair, to over-use the image: I went to a scientific conference in Strasbourg, France, where I stayed in one of those shitty cheap hotels that I had forgotten about already. Believe you me, if you ever think it's glamourous to work on cosmology let me tell you it isn't.