Thursday, June 28, 2012

A New Yorker in Germany

This week I am A New Yorker in Germany. After many years of driving through Germany on the way to visit and vacation in other European countries, I decided it was time to explore Germany. As luck would have it, the International Society for Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC) CYTO 2012 conference (http://cytoconference.org/CYTO/pages/default.aspx) took place in Leipzig, Germany this past week, and my husband and I were in attendance, along with some of our Norwegian colleagues. What is always nice for me about these particular international conferences is that I end up meeting American colleagues from the different places where I have previously worked—Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the University of California at San Francisco. This time around was no exception—it was a pleasure to catch up with earlier colleagues like Zbigniew, Bill, and Claudia. The ISAC conferences are special for me, because it was at one of them, in Cambridge, England, that I met my husband for the first time, and for the second time when the annual conference was held in Breckenridge, Colorado. After that, we became a couple and have since attended many other such conferences together. The society has evolved through the years to meet the changing needs of its members, but remains at its core a flow cytometry society, although it now embraces image cytometry and mass spectroscopy as it moves into the future.  

As a pre-teen and teenager, I had a pen pal in New Zealand, by the name of Lillian. We wrote to each other from the time we were twelve years old until we were about sixteen, at which point the letters stopped. But I had learned a lot about New Zealand and her about the USA during that time. When I last heard from her, she had decided to take a job working on the New Zealand railroad. I still treasure the small gifts I received from her—volcanic sand and a hei-tiki necklace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hei-tiki). I was reminded of her this past week because I had the pleasure of talking to a new conference attendee from New Zealand by the name of Kylie—it was a pleasure to meet her. Meeting her reminded me of what these conferences are really all about—encountering new people and forming new networks and connections. But it was our conversation about New Zealand films and also about how the New Zealand government has worked hard to integrate the Māori people, that I remember most. I want to find some of the films she mentioned, and to read a bit more about New Zealand society generally.

It is true what the Dalai Lama says— ‘Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before’. Because you never know who you’re going to meet, or what kind of experiences you’ll walk away with. This by itself—the excitement of unwrapping the unknown—is worth the time it takes to travel to new places. It doesn’t matter if the purpose of the trip is business or vacation. It is about staying open to the world around us. I’ll be writing more about Germany in coming posts. I’m happy we finally decided to spend some time here. From what I’ve seen so far, it is a fascinating country of contrasts.   

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Norwegian Wood festival website and Facebook site

For those of you who want to know more about the Norwegian Wood four-day music festival that takes place in Oslo each year in June, you can find information on their website: http://www.norwegianwood.no/

They are also on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/NORWEGIAN-WOOD-FESTIVALEN/115503931808030

Check these sites out. Each year there are a lot of good bands and artists that make their way to Frogner Bad in Oslo's Frogner Park. You can read about who has performed at this festival previously on the website.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Sting and The Hounds of Winter at Norwegian Wood 2012




I had the pleasure of hearing Sting last night at a packed Norwegian Wood. I got hooked on The Police songs very early, but never got to hear the band live. So it was good to finally get to hear Sting. This was his playlist last night:
·         All this time
·         Every little thing she does is magic
·         Englishman in New York
·         Seven days
·         Demolition man
·         I hung my head
·         Driven to tears
·         Fields of gold
·         Message in a bottle
·         Synchronicity
·         Shape of my heart
·         Love is stronger than justice (The munificent seven)
·         The hounds of winter
·         The end of the game
·         Never coming home
·         Desert rose
·         King of pain
·         Every breath you take
·         Next to you

He did a great version of ‘The Hounds of Winter’. My God, what a fantastic song—beautiful haunting lyrics and melody. The background vocals last night were done by a young woman who had an incredible voice—her voice sent chills down my spine. Lovely. I’m including the lyrics to the song here (pure poetry), along with aYouTube video of the song above.


The Hounds Of Winter    by Sting

Mercury falling
I rise from my bed,
Collect my thoughts together
I have to hold my head
It seems that she's gone
And somehow I am pinned by
The Hounds of Winter
Howling in the wind
I walk through the day
My coat around my ears
I look for my companion
I have to dry my tears
It seems that she's gone
Leaving me too soon
I'm as dark as December
I'm as cold as the Man in the Moon

I still see her face
As beautiful as day
It's easy to remember
Remember my love that way
All I hear is that lonesome sound
The Hounds of Winter
They follow me down

I can't make up the fire
The way that she could
I spend all my days
In the search for dry wood
Board all the windows and close the front door
I can't believe she won't be here anymore

I still see her face
As beautiful as day
It's easy to remember
Remember my love that way
All I hear is that lonesome sound
The Hounds of Winter
They follow me down

A season for joy
A season for sorrow
Where she's gone
I will surely, surely follow
She brightened my day
She warmed the coldest night
The Hounds of Winter
They got me in their sights

I still see her face
As beautiful as day
It's easy to remember
Remember my love that way
All I hear is that lonesome sound
The Hounds of Winter
They harry me down

Sunday, June 17, 2012

How NOT to win friends and influence people, part 2

I got to thinking about the different behaviors I experience in the space of a day, and about the effects they have on me. I am the recipient of both good and bad behavior. What I know for sure is that bad behavior—mean, sarcastic, insulting, passive-aggressive, psychologically-abusive behavior---has the following effect on me. I seek out specific parts of my brain and heart that will allow me to ignore the person(s) in question. That will allow me to look at them while they are behaving badly and ‘be’ another place in my head and heart—a peaceful, calm, relaxing, spiritual place. One that is far away from the person(s) in question. It works. You just have to know how to go into yourself to find it. And I promise you that it creates exactly the effect you’re hoping for—the person(s) behaving badly get annoyed and go away. It is so important to keep your cool when such person(s) go on the attack. If they cannot reach you, cannot knock you off your center, they go looking for other potential victims to dump on. And that is what they want to do—dump on you, no doubts about that. They are so unhappy inside that they want to share their misery with others. The old saying, ‘misery loves company’, is still alive and well in 2012. It takes many forms, but anyone who has experienced a ‘dumper’ knows exactly what I’m talking about.

But think about what bad behavior creates in a society made up of individuals, some of whom respond to bad behavior like I do. Enough of it, and you end up with people who turn away from leaders, politicians, authority figures—who decide for themselves how they’re going to respond, how they’re going to live each day, what they’re going to let in and what they’re going to shut out. They also decide who they’re going to listen to and who deserves their loyalty.  In other words, they cannot be easily controlled or brainwashed. So in one sense, you could argue that bad behavior creates independent individuals in some cases, at least in the cases of those individuals who have the societal freedom to respond as they wish. I don’t know what it would be like to live in a totalitarian regime, where any untoward response could be met with punishment and/or prison. I can only speculate about what could happen in a free society, like the one I live in. It still surprises me that intelligent people in leadership positions behave badly, that they dump on others (out of insecurity or their own misery?), that they blame others for their shortcomings, and that they cannot offer praise or a gentle spirit instead of criticism and a harassing nature. It’s nice to know that I can remove myself from their misery-loaded situations, instead of responding as they wish, which is to enmesh myself in their soap opera dramas. 

Saturday, June 16, 2012

How NOT to win friends and influence people

My apologies to Dale Carnegie who wrote the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, a motivational book that was published in 1936 and which is still immensely popular all these years later. I simply had to comment on some of the leader behaviors that I have been witness to this past month in my workplace, which never cease to amaze me (or others I discuss them with). I’m not the target of these particular behaviors; other colleagues are the unlucky ones for the time being.

How would you like to be at this kind of meeting, one that I recently attended as an observer, where a manager spent most of the time negatively comparing his employees to a new stellar employee? And when these employees attempted to object, as some of them did, they were told that they are mediocre (in Norwegian—‘middelmådige) workers at best, and that mostly what they do is sit on their butts and keep their jobs warm (in Norwegian—‘å ruge på sin stilling’, much like a bird would do sitting on its nest to keep the eggs warm). It’s an interesting development, and it amazes me yet again that leaders in any workplace, in 2012, have not yet understood that insults, sarcasm and passive-aggression don’t win them friends, nor do they motivate the employees who are the targets of this behavior. The targets seem to have decided to mount a counter-offense, which has led to conflict between them and the leader(s) in question. And who knows where it will all end? I am a spectator at present and will likely remain so, unless I get forcibly dragged into the fray. Perhaps all of this is a test to separate the wheat from the chaff, or to get the perceived 'lazy' employees to quit. A management strategy to get rid of dead weight. Who can really know?

I find this type of behavior so unprofessional and childish. I will allow for the following: that leaders can think what they want to think about their employees, for example, that they are lazy and unproductive, but that they should NEVER voice such opinions publicly in a meeting format, in front of these employees’ colleagues, as was the case here. I was witness to what occurred, as were several of my colleagues. None of us liked this behavior. We ended up at a loss for words--blindsided--in other words, taken aback by it, so that it is difficult to mount a response. These are the types of discussions that are best conducted behind closed doors, between the employees in question and their bosses. But this doesn’t happen in my workplace. Rather, everyone should know what the leaders think about the employees in question—a modern form for putting folks in the public stocks and letting them stand on display for all to mock. I really do believe that some leaders think this type of behavior will light fires under the butts of the employees they think are lazy and unmotivated. That treating them negatively will create a positive result. I know that it will not. How do I know this? Because I have had the privilege and responsibility of mentoring a good number of PhD and Master’s students during the past ten years, and motivating them to do a good job NEVER involved insulting them or degrading them publicly. I am happy to report that I have not treated any of them badly. Ever. The result being that they voice their satisfaction with my mentoring, guidance, help and advice. I can attest to the fact that being nice and caring about their development and progress yield results. It also creates self-confidence where there might not have been much at the start point. Helping people to believe in themselves—their talents and gifts—is a gift in and of itself, a gift that creates personal and spiritual growth in the persons who practice this. I think this is common sense, but I'm wondering if perhaps some of these leaders need to find Dale Carnegie's book on their desks come Christmas time. 

Friday, June 8, 2012

Rules for Living, from the Dalai Lama


1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

3. Follow the three Rs: Respect for self; Respect for others; Responsibility for all your actions.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

8. Spend some time alone every day.

9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.

14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.

15. Be gentle with the earth.

16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.

17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
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One of my good friends has these rules hung up on a wall in her apartment; she reads them everyday. I think that's a great idea. I've read through them more than once and each time I find something else that strikes me as important when I reflect on them. There is much wisdom in them. 

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Saying goodbye to Ray Bradbury: Your books live on.

I have previously written about some of my favorite authors and books, both this year (February 8th) and last year (August 30th). I included sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury as one of my favorite authors and The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, and The Illustrated Man as some of my favorite books. I think when I read The Martian Chronicles for the first time, I got hooked. Just plain hooked. Hooked on a genre of writing that drew me in and kept me engrossed for much of my life thus far. I couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen years old when I first read The Martian Chronicles. Even at that age I understood that we might not be alone in the universe. And even though there may not be Martians on Mars, Bradbury’s book was a fascinating entry into a world that has never stopped intriguing me. We wonder about what is out there in space, and we imagine all sorts of alien creatures and humanoids. In The Martian Chronicles, we as humans did not expect to be met by creatures who could read our minds in an effort to make us ‘feel at home’, only to turn on us in the darkness. The Martians we met on Mars looked like us—family and friends from home—and the travelers from earth, who missed home, were easily led down that path.

I wrote a post about The Martian Chronicles and Solaris on June 21st, 2011. In honor of Ray Bradbury, who passed away on June 5th at the age of 91, I am including part of this post today, the part that has to do with The Martian Chronicles. Rest in peace, Ray Bradbury and thank you for your wonderful books. For those of you who have never picked up his books, now is the time to do so. 
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(Excerpted from my post The Martian Chronicles and Solaris from June 21st, 2011):
I have been a fan of science fiction since I was a teenager, probably from the time I first read The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. I also read Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Illustrated Man and Fahrenheit 451, and enjoyed them all. Bradbury is a thought-provoking and outstanding sci-fi writer (90 years old and still with us), and his books have a haunting quality about them. You don’t forget them easily. I don’t recall all of the stories in The Martian Chronicles in detail, just that there were certain parts that were quite scary in that what was suggested was considerably terrifying. You just knew that something terrible was going to happen to some of the earthlings who made it to Mars, and it did (the third expedition was liquidated by the Martians who posed as dead family members such that the deluded (and lonely) crew ended up just giving in to the delusions). The following passage from the chapter ‘April 2000: The Third Expedition’ is an example of the type of terror Bradbury could instill in his readers: “And wouldn’t it be horrible and terrifying to discover that all of this was part of some great clever plan by the Martians to divide and conquer us, and kill us? Sometime during the night, perhaps my brother here on this bed will change form, melt, shift and become another thing, a terrible thing, a Martian. It would be very simple for him to just turn over in bed and put a knife into my heart……..His hands were shaking under the covers. His body was cold. Suddenly it was not a theory. Suddenly he was very afraid……..Carefully he lifted the covers, rolled them back. He slipped from bed and was walking softly across the room when his brother’s voice said, ‘Where are you going?’…...’For a drink of water’. ‘But you’re not thirsty’. ‘Yes, yes, I am’. ‘No, you’re not’. Captain John Black broke and ran across the room. He screamed. He screamed twice. He never reached the door”.

This was all Bradbury wrote about the actual murder of Captain John Black and the massacres of the crew of the third expedition. You knew that murders were occurring in the rest of the Martian houses who had crew members staying with them because they were the ‘families’ of these crew members, but Bradbury didn’t have to elaborate at all about them, because it was left to our imaginations to figure out what was happening to them all. Superb sci-fi horror in a category all its own.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Ridley Scott's Prometheus

Last night I did something I haven’t done many times before in my life. I attended the pre-premiere of a movie whose release I have been eagerly anticipating—Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. The film’s official release date in Norway is today, June 1st. But the Colosseum movie theater in Oslo showed the film last night (9pm showing only) to a packed house, which in and of itself was an enjoyable experience. The film was introduced by a young man who apparently works for an American company in Norway involved in the film’s promotion. At one point he asked for a show of hands for how many women were in the audience. I guess because men outnumber women when it comes to liking sci-fi films? Anyway, there were a lot of women in the audience. Never occurred to me before that sci-fi might be a genre dominated by men, since I personally know more women than men who enjoy sci-fi books and films. But never mind—I want to tell you about the film.

The story is somewhat intricate and uneven; the film opens with fantastic footage of what is supposed to be prehistoric earth; the 3D effects give the viewer the experience of actually moving over the planet in a low-flying spaceship. An alien human-like figure stands on the precipice of a huge waterfall, and drinks some kind of strange liquid in a pod. He is alone. Above him a spaceship hovers, apparently the ship that brought him there. After drinking the liquid, his body reacts violently, transforming into some strange-looking creature that falls off the cliff into the water; as he does, his body explodes, releasing the DNA that will be the precursor DNA to our own. Cut to 2089, where a group of scientists (among them Elizabeth Shaw played by Noomi Rapace, and Charlie Holloway played by Logan Marshall-Green) interested in the origins of humanity discover cave paintings on the Isle of Skye in Scotland that resemble cave paintings from other archaeological digs around the world. All of them ‘point’ to the stars; the patterns seem to be an invitation to visit that distant world, which is exactly what these scientists are dreaming about—finding the origins of man. Four years later, they are traveling in space on their way to this world, in a spaceship called Prometheus. They land on this new world, and all hell breaks loose, literally. That’s the point of these films, and also the fun of watching them. You know something bad or evil is lurking in the wings, just waiting for its chance to break free. I will definitely not spoil the film for you by describing what happens; it is well-worth seeing and you will be impressed beyond belief at the special effects and the 3D experience. I felt like I had traveled to that world after being in the theater for two hours. I found myself wishing the movie was longer, the effects were that good. The images of that deserted, barren, dark world will haunt you for hours afterwards. The fact that the plot has a few loopholes, or that there are some illogical occurrences, was not a problem for me, although I know it is for some others who have voiced their criticisms on IMDB. I am more interested in the atmosphere that these kinds of films can create, and Prometheus delivers.  It manages to create the world it set out to create, just like in the Alien films.

Mythological and biblical references are prevalent in this film. What can the story of Prometheus in Greek mythology tell us about the film’s plot? Prometheus was a Titan god who was given the task of creating mankind out of clay. Prometheus ended up in conflict with Zeus, who had given him this task, because he liked his mortal creations very much and wanted the best for them, a feeling that Zeus did not share. Zeus became angry at Prometheus for a number of things—among them that Prometheus had tricked the gods into allowing man to keep the meat from sacrificial offerings to the gods, whereas the gods got only the animal bones. As punishment, Zeus withheld fire from man; Prometheus decided to steal the fire back and deliver it to mankind, which he did. Zeus punished him by chaining him to a stake on a mountaintop where an eagle fed upon his liver, which grew back each day since Prometheus was immortal. In the film, the very idea that the scientists could obtain the knowledge of their origin can be seen as a ‘transgression’ against their divine ‘creators’ (Engineers). At the risk of over-interpreting the meaning of the film, I couldn’t help but think of the story of Adam and Eve. Like Adam and Eve in the garden of Paradise, who ate of the fruit from the tree of knowledge that ended in their being banished from the garden, the scientists are ‘punished’ for trying to seek and attain the knowledge that will place them on the creative level of their creators. The ‘gods’ are jealous; they and they alone wish to hold the keys to (knowledge about) the creation of mankind. The gods of Greek mythology were not all perfect gods—they could be angry, jealous, and vindictive—just like their creations; there were any number of wars in the heavens. The universe was thus both orderly (good) and chaotic (evil). Christian mythology describes how Lucifer the archangel, whose name means ‘light bearer’ (interestingly enough when talking about Prometheus and his bearing of fire to mankind) defied the will of the divine Creator and was banished to hell along with his followers. Lucifer and his followers are the bad angels whose sin was pride and thinking they were better than God. It is clear in the film that the distant world that harbors so much chaos and evil for the space travelers was a repository of ‘life’ guarded by alien humanoids that were tall, strong and violent. Are these the bad angels? One gets the feeling that this dark world was more like hell, where transgressors against the gods, as Prometheus was, would have been banished.

So where then is the world of our creators? Where do they live, since they do not live on this dark barren world? This is the question Elizabeth Shaw has at the end of the film. How come our creators were so unsatisfied with their creations that they relegated them to a hellish world? What was the transgression committed by the original creations? Did they attempt to trick their creators or to steal something of value to them, like Prometheus did with Zeus? Did they try to become the creators? Why did the creators choose earth as the place for their creations? Why did the alien humanoid in the first scene die such a violent death in order that his DNA would be spread in the waters of earth, as a precursor to our own? When did this happen, before or after the settling of the world on which the spaceship Prometheus lands? Why did things go so horribly wrong on this world? Why do the Engineers on this world want to destroy earth as is the plan when the giant spaceship attempts to take off toward the end of the film, and what stopped them up until this point? These remain unanswered questions at the end of the film. Perhaps they will be answered in a sequel, or perhaps not. In any case, the film opens for different questions and interpretations. And in the final analysis, it is perhaps not so surprising that as we (viewers and movie directors alike) age and approach our mortal ends, that the questions of where we come from, how did we get here, and where we (might) end up after death, preoccupy us. We would prefer that our lives had meaning and that it is not the emptiness of the abyss that awaits us. We would prefer heaven to the barren, deserted and dark world that the Prometheus found. 

Trying to understand the mystery of life

Apropos my last post, where I talked about accepting some things in this life (like my faith) that I know I will never understand on this ea...