the human spirit

On a trip with my parents through the states of Washington and Oregon, I picked up a small gray stone from a sun-drenched beach. I loved its warmth and its smoothness; and I use it to remind myself of our connection to environment whenever I feel disconnected in a world of concrete.

On Tuesday night, Jane Goodall came and gave a talk. She was launching a Roots and Shoots program - environmental sustainability, making a difference, not giving up despite our anger wrt to the legacy from previous generations. She had an aura - an aura of integrity is the best way I can describe it. Several times she credited her PhD supervisor (she went straight from secretarial school to PhD without BA or MS) for supporting her, and steering her in the right direction. We were lucky enough to have met him earlier this year at a formal dinner at one of the more formal colleges - an adorable old man with a great passion for teaching and for learning. He did sociology and anthropology, biology, zoology, a whole range of things. I believe he taught a class on human sexuality until, as he explained, he didn't think it was a decent thing for him, a 70+ year old man, to teach teenagers how to do it.

The Friday before, I was sitting in a lecture hall in the Department of Chemistry, listening to the UK's Chief Scientific Advisor, David King. His talk was around Science and the government, tracing his advice to the government, some salient programs (the foot and mouth, climate control, UK scientific position wrt other countries, etc.). Although he never addressed it directly, it was the first time I realized with such clarity the tension between providing the UK government with a scientific competitive edge/advantage on the one hand, and being dedicated to worldwide advances in human knowledge and to global advice (e.g. global warming). It was also horrific to learn (I at least didn't know) that top UK seismologists had been to India and Indonesia the past summer to raise the need for a broad tsunami alert system in the area, which the governments said they couldn't afford. Some of the scientists were so alarmed (since a 1979 study they'd known it was the most unstable of plate boundaries), that he/she went back and put posters on beaches warning of tsunami signs in November, a month before the catastrophe. (Now, why should I be more horrified: it doesn't change the impact of the tsunami. )

I guess what I'm getting at is that although this place can be awfully stifling in creativity, suffocatling soaked in traditions and hair-pullingly slow in implementing changes, there is also an outstanding amount of lectures and possibilities in knowledge cross-pollination once one learns where to look.