Wu Wei

I'm a sucker for quizzes

Thanks to lovimoment I found this

Your Linguistic Profile:

40% General American English

35% Yankee

15% Dixie

5% Midwestern

5% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

After my kids have been to expensive American schools you'd think they could do better than their mum but only on the general American English. It seems we are the same on Yankee. Must be some sinister connection there somewhere, for Brits.

Of course I always knew this one too.

Your Hidden Talent

You have the natural talent of rocking the boat, thwarting the system. And while this may not seem big, it can be. It's people like you who serve as the catalysts to major cultural changes. You're just a bit behind the scenes, so no one really notices.

What's Your Hidden Talent?

And how to get more upfront and noticed so they pay me more????

And it seems they can predict your personality from the fact you like blue:

You are dependable, popular, and observant. Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness. In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do. You are unique, creative, and expressive. You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while. And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Except I only got 40% on the "are you weird" quiz.

A Tale of Two Education Systems

In Britain everyone is complaining that A levels and GCSEs are too easy, and standards are slipping
Too many students get high marks, so it is difficult to find the best students for university. Yet at the same time employers are complaining that basic literacy is poor.

In Greece we have the opposite story:

What purpose does it serve to have an tertiary education entrance system that allows a candidate to register at a university faculty with a grade of 1.53, when 20 is the maximum and 10 is the pass mark?

Since yesterday, this has been the question people have been asking those in charge of the country’s education system — politicians and academics.

This case (albeit exceptional) of a candidate being accepted into the faculty of German philology with such a scandalously low examination score average indicates all too clearly the degree to which the current university entrance system has diverged from whatever its original goals might have been, and marks the sad end of an age that all of us would definitely like to forget.

At least as of next year, an attempt will be made to take some tentative step towards averting a complete breakdown of the system, since candidates will have to achieve at least the pass mark in the entrance exams in order to be accepted into the country’s universities and technical colleges. more

This is the university system which refuses to allow any type of quality control or performance assessment, tries to prevent foreign universities setting up in competition in Greece and as only recently agreed to speed up accreditation of foreign degrees. So much for the European Common Higher Education!

At least in communist countries, the standards in the subjects that were taught were high, and schools were good. Greece couldn't even get that bit right!

And now there are further complaints about the quality of the education here:

Every year around this time, the announcement of university entrance grades paves the way for a new wave of entrants into our higher education system. Their journey often leads nowhere, however; not just when it comes to acquiring a profession, but even as regards the cultivation of knowledge. It is commonly known, after all, that neither our schools nor universities fulfill their mission adequately. The rare exceptions only prove the rule.

The matter is crucial, since the quality of education largely determines a country's level of cultural development as well as its economic capability. Investment in human potential is widely considered the most important and productive of all. Yet in Greece the education system has no solid internal logic, it makes insufficient use of modern technology, and it does not cultivate things like judgment and independent thinking among pupils and students. Everyone talks about the information society, but little is done to bring it about.

The fact is that we are champions at producing semi-literate graduates. Especially in large faculties, students can get a degree with little study. That does not bother anyone, because of the prevailing perception that a degree is a passport to a profession. But the Greek economy can no longer absorb the high number of university and technical college graduates. Restricting the number of university entrants is clearly not a solution, but degrees should be given only to those who deserve them.

This is why radical reform is needed, beyond the changes in entrance exams of past decades. Conditions are ripe for such a policy leap that will establish a new mentality, introduce curriculum changes and create a reliable mechanism to assess teachers and students at all levels. Public opinion has largely shed its prejudices and is ready to accept daring changes.

This idea that assessment is necessary or even useful has been a long time coming, and will be hard fought by teachers, as well as parents who expect to buy both education and exam results for their children.

But it is a sad conclusion of the government of a transition economy (for that is what Greece is) that it needs a less well educated workforce rather than a more educated one. When Greece is way behind the new EU Member States in use of IT in education and in society in general, to lower standards further can only push Greece further down the league.

There are plenty of jobs that graduates could do especially in a growing economy, but when badly educated older people with habits of corruption and cronyism have many higher jobs in government and industry, they will never get on the ladder let alone become senior managers.

Eastern Europe managed an exceptional transition between 1991 and 2004 to a market economy. When will Greece start?

Whatever happened to the Passport Agency umbrellas?

The Guardian reports:

The 1,200 brollies symbolised an archetypal government computer fiasco. They were bought in 1999 to protect thousands of anxious applicants for new passports, forced to queue in the street as the agency struggled with a new IT system.

In the event, the umbrellas were never deployed in earnest. The great passport panic, caused by a decision to introduce new IT simultaneously with a change in the rules, was over within weeks.

With hindsight, the agency's IT problems were just teething troubles, albeit of the screaming all night variety, which should have been foreseen. Since then, so far as we know, the system has worked.

.

I remember my passport needed renewing and I was wondering how the hell I was going to manage to get back to the UK and get it done with queues for weeks. Then I remembered that Embassies could issue passports and got it done in half an hour. Only snag, it's not machine readable so that at passport controls I have to wait for the details to be typed in every time, and I'll have to get a new passport if I ever want to go to America.

You can read what happened to the umbrellas in the end, here

From one extreme to another

Remember when I didn't have any work and there were no enquiries? Well now we have the other problem.

So far this week (someone in Brussels has come back from holidays and shifted a lot of projects off his/her desk):

1. 3 months immediate work in Iraq (well based in Amman, Jordan) offered by the people who sent me to Kosovo. Have they forgotten that I have work to do? Had to turn it down, though it seemed a good project working out what the EU could contribute to energy policy in Iraq. It seems the WOrld Bank is playing 3rd fiddle (or should that be viola?) to USAID and DFID, leaving the cello or double bass for the EU.

According to a colleague already in Iraq, the Minister is too busy dealing with the 22 hour power cuts in Baghdad to worry about reforms and restructuring, and the Americans are against competition and market reforms (either from their own cockups in California, or because they want some nice fat power purchase agreements when they refurbish some power stations).

2. Ministry project in Kosovo offered by a Spanish firm I haven't heard of. This is really a follow on from my current project with more scope and an interesting and more serious approach to insitution building, with gender and ethnic monitoring and training. Plenty of bright women in evidence already in the Ministry but its hard to tell who is a Serb. Also for the first time there is something dealing with job losses in the power sector resulting from the restructuring. I would enjoy this project I think.

3. Ministry project in Bosnia offered by a company with a bad reputation. Lots of friends in Sarajevo and I like the people in the Ministry. Again a sensible approach to institution building. Life in Sarajevo would probably be more fun than Pristina.

4. Ministry project in Azerbaijan (out of the blue from the firm I used to work for) Not really clear how this project gets done, lots of political risks and not much desire for reform in Azerbaijan. Decided I don't have enough days next year to do this one. (Just how did that happen??)

Decided to work out exactly how many days I have available, as most new projects will start in Nov or Dec. What with moving, and days on project in Moldova if that appears, it seems most of my time till April is already spoken for, which makes starting a 2 year contract in November a bit problematic.

5. It seems I am down for both TSO (don't ask, it's too complicated) projects in Kosovo with my previous firm even though I never worked in a TSO. Still all my best jobs are the ones where somebody else thought I could do it even if I wasn't sure.

6. and another one in Montenegro

The boss says there are more where those came from.

So the dilemma is: since you can't bid on more than one EU project at a time, and they have all come up at once, how to pick both the winning firm and the winning project. It would be frustrating to have nothing in April and have to wait again.

And then there's the full time job I applied for in Kosovo this month. Still I never get jobs, only projects.

Who knows what the next year will bring? At least it is interesting speculating. But nothing in Ukraine yet.

Where do you come from? (2)

Throwing papers away before moving, I spotted the definitive version (or at least a written version) of the famous Transcarpathian anecdote, which explains (partly) where my father came from:

A visitor, encountering one of the oldest local inhabitants, asks about his life. The reply: 'I was born in Austro-Hungary, I went to school in Czechoslovakia, I did my army service in Horthy's Hungary, followed by a spell in prison in USSR. Now I am ending my days in independent Ukraine.' The visitor expresses surprise at how much of the world the old man has seen. 'But no!,' he responds, 'I've never left this village.'

Assuming some of the story about my father's past is true, if he had stayed in the village, he would have been to Romania instead of Czechoslovakia and Hungary. If another part is true, it would have been Poland instead of Romania.

This story comes from Judy Batt's paper Transcarpathia: Peripheral Region at the 'Centre of Europe'. That the research project is called "Fuzzy Statehood' and this requires a series of FAQs which can be found here shows that it is not just the maps that have fuzzy boundaries.

However, there are those of us who know that the Centre of Europe is really in Lithuania.

Europos Parkas (Open Air Museum at the Centre of Europe)
A diverse group of international artists have come to this 55ha sculpture park to express their own unique visions of the centre of Europe, which, according to the French National Geographic Institute, lays some 14km to the north of the place. Home to over 90 permanent sculptures by such global celebrities as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Dennis Oppenheim and Sol Le-Witt, everything is exhibited amidst a charming, some would say idyllic area of woodland. The year 2002 saw the park making it into the Guinness Book of Records as containing the largest sculpture in the world made from television sets (about 3,000, and including as its centrepiece a rapidly decaying concrete Lenin), the maze-like 'Info Tree' by Lithuanian visionary sculptor and founder of the park Gintaras Karosas. Here Karosas has found the perfect ‘place’ to construct his landscape artwork aptly labelled "The Place". Picture a pond, some boulders and four giant rusted steel poles in the midst of a plush green forest and you, basically, get the picture. The park also recently unveiled the playful sculpture of Mindaugas Tendziagolskis titled "Mobile Games". The construct incorporates art and ancient Lithuanian games and meant not to just be viewed, but also played.

You can find their excellent website here.

Lenin shot at Finland Station

This intriguing title has been picked up by 3quarksdaily and refers to an article by Slavoj Zizek, a dialectical materialist philosopher and psychoanalyst (a nice mixture!) in the London Review of Books. It begins:

Why is the flourishing genre of ‘what if?’ histories the preserve of conservative historians? The introduction to such volumes typically begins with an attack on Marxists, who allegedly believe in historical determinism. Take this latest instalment, edited by Andrew Roberts, who has himself contributed an essay on the bright prospects that would have faced Russia in the 20th century had Lenin been shot on arriving at the Finland Station. One of Roberts’s arguments in favour of this kind of history is that ‘anything that has been condemned by Carr, Thompson and Hobsbawm must have something to recommend it.’ He believes that the ideals of liberté, égalité, fraternité ‘have time and again been shown to be completely mutually exclusive’. ‘If,’ he continues, ‘we accept that there is no such thing as historical inevitability and that nothing is preordained, political lethargy – one of the scourges of our day – should be banished, since it means that in human affairs anything is possible.’

Zizoj points out that most what if histories begin with some revolutionary event being avoided and are therefore rightwing what ifs. He wonders why. For him the history we live in at the moment is already an alternative history as we failed to complete the revolutions attempted.

He suggests that the Ostalgie (nostalgia for the Communist past) among many intellectuals (and ordinary people) from the defunct German Democratic Republic also a longing not so much for the Communist past, but rather for what that past might have been, for the missed opportunity of creating an alternative Germany? One can certainly say that the dreams of an alternative were not met. Some people did believe the propaganda and were devastated when communism collapsed and everything they had worked for and believed in proved to be false. But sometimes I think the Ostalgie (which occurs everywhere in forme communist countries, not just former GDR) is also the fond remembrance of youth when everything was possible and one was strong, healthy and full of ideals. I can't imagine Ostalgie applying to any other generation than my own.

He also makes the following interesting observation from his psychoanalytic background:

The post-Communist outbreaks of neo-Nazi violence can also be understood as symptomatic outbursts of rage, displaying an awareness of missed opportunities. A parallel can be drawn with the psychic life of the individual: in just the same way as the awareness of a missed private opportunity (of a fulfilling love affair, perhaps) often leaves its traces in the form of irrational anxieties, headaches and fits of rage, so the void of a missed revolutionary opportunity can result in irrational fits of destruction.

But I'm not sure that this parallel works so well. It's not clear that psychoanalytic hypotheses (I refuse to call them theories) for individuals apply to groups, particularly large groups.

Decision made

Somewhere over the holiday we all agreed to move to Oxford so that Sloph had a home during vacations from Oxford, Bee could do her GCSEs as she is desperate (?!) to do and I had a home somewhere when I am not in Kosovo and probably Moldova.

The only one who will not have a home there is Nibbles the cat, because she didn't have her rabies injection in time. So she will be having an extra holiday in Ljubljana. When I got home from holiday I was treated to a lot of miaouling and scratched heels, so God knows what she will make of being packaged off somewhere else for 4 months. Still, as a well travelled cat, it will not be the first time for her.

So now I am busy making lists, and trying to throw stuff away. We've only been here two years so you wouldn't think it would be so bad, but it always is.

Not only do we have to throw stuff away, we also have to find places to send stuff that is useful. With hardly any recycling and no Oxfam shops to take things to, I'm not sure where it all should go. We have left stuff out by the rubbish skip and it has been "recycled" quite quickly but I'm not sure stuff goes to the really needy that way.

The timetable for moving is pretty tricky given we have to organise quotes, and pack up in time to get to the UK for Bee to start school on 5 September and I have to find somewhere to live, sort it out, and do two weeks in Kosovo. Thank God Sloph is around as well to stand in with Bee when I'm not there.

Holiday Part 4 boating

After Epidavros I stayed on the boat near Poros while G and J attempted to sail. They had been trapped moored off Poros with repairs and a visitor from Houston who found everywhere too hot without a/c and had retired to a hotel. Here are some pictures of Poros.

So after the theatre visit we put to sea intending to cruise round the coast, mooring in small bays at night and taking the dinghy ashore for taverna dinners. At first all went well and we anchored off this pretty bay with some other boats. I managed a first for me: to swim in deep water round the boat which was great as it was really hot. We had dinner on board the first night. After that we watched for shooting stars, just the right time of year for the Perseids on 12/13 August.

For me sleeping on a boat at anchor was another first and though it was hot I slept like a log in the main cabin. Next day we were all lazy and then the problems started: the outboard motor would not start so we had dinner on board again. On Sunday we were not sure any shops were open and so Gerry rowed ashore in another bay where there was a taverna to get bread and bottles of water.

Finally on Monday we went for a sail out into the Saronic Gulf. J and C (their 11 year old son) followed G's instructions and I asked stupid questions as it was my first sailing trip. G was very patient with his answers. Although I wasn't able to be useful on board I really loved it. J and I discussed whether I was too old to take up sailing and how long it took to become competent. However I suspect that I was seeing it in ideal conditions: Greek weather in August. The reality of sailing in England would be wet and miserable. I know from experience that I am not good up Welsh hillsides which have the same problems. Still it would be a way of meeting some new people.

The wind was too strong for us to get back to moor easily in Poros so we ended up back in our bay again, using up all the food left on the boat for our last dinner. I slept out on the cockpit under the stars which took a bit of getting used to but I slept soundly and was glad of the cool breeze that developed in the night.

Next morning we dashed into Poros to have a hearty breakfast and watched the ferries coming in and out. I was sad to go as I would have enjoyed more sailing, but I needed to get back to arrange packing and moving. I set off just before noon, taking one of the water taxis to the mainland and retrieving my car. I drove along the windy road to Epidavros, making a false turn and ended up at Megana. Then I returned on the windy road to Epidavros but as I wasn't feeling in a rush, I stopped at the old harbour to have a lunch.

Holiday Part 3 Books

I managed to finish several books including

I started reading this before but got stuck as I wasn't awfully fond of Lolita as a book. In fact the literary criticism is not the most interesting since I had not read any of the other books except the Jane Austin. But it was very interesting as a memoir of the times in the late 70s and 80s and what changes there were for women after the fall of the Shah. Her descriptions of the lengths they had to go to, just to escape the morality police, and the effect of "policing" her lectures and discussions show what life is really like in Iran today. No wonder she finally left to go back to the States.

It brought back memories of my own Iranian friends of the time when I had just started my PhD in Birmingham: a young journalist and her husband who were studying too, and M, a young guy who my boyfriend at the time was teaching English. M seemed to be in England to escape SAVAK, the Shah's secret police, but it was never clear why. I remember him for his wonderful Iranian dinners, which I already wrote about here, but also for his set of essential skills which we no longer possessed. At our Brecon cottage, we had to stop him catching and killing one of the local sheep for a barbecue. He offered to clean my car by hosing down the inside, as a substitute for driving it into a nearby river. When I looked horrified, he explained that cars had plugs in the bottom which when removed let the water out, and of course he would remove the carpets first. To earn some money he did paintings of flowers on velvet which seemed to sell well in Moseley where we lived. In the end he went back after the revolution leaving me with a carpet (which I still have) in exchange for his fare. We wrote a few times since then and once I got an email from him sounding tired and sad. I regret that I never managed to get to Iran to see him.

My first Dan Brown! Haven't got round to reading the Da Vinci Code yet. It was the most popular book on the beach. I enjoyed the book but thought the ending a bit feeble.

Sloph spotted this in Athens airport so we had to buy it for our usual dose of string theory explaining the beginning of the universe (no we don't understand it any better now) and for her to understand calculus since she missed out in the IB syllabus. We both enjoyed it.

Sloph brought this to get ahead on her reading list. I realised that I had never read anything much on this period since school where history was taught in the "write down in your notebooks what I write on the board" style. When I got into it, I realised I could hardly remember which king was which and in what order, though it didn't matter too much. The first British Empire was shortlived, and Davies claimed that the problems of what to call it were solved by ignoring the Scots Irish and Welsh and their claims to independence by calling the whole four kingdoms England, which everone in Eastern Europe has certainly done ever since, knowing little about Wales and Scotland and only about terrorim in Ireland. For me it was interesting to look at history as a research subject and realise what sources could be used for that period. Learning to use sources properly is now part of high school education, but wasn't in my day. Actually it was an interesting and readable book for a layperson.

Holiday Part 1 Beach

The decision to go to Lesvos was made on the spur of the moment. Bee and Sloph were too lazy to make any decisions apart from: hot and a beach with sand. So decided to go for Lesvos rather than Crete as had never been before. Cost of boat and car was as much as plane with late booking so decided to fly.

Arrived Wed at 16.30 not knowing where to go and without transport and accommodation (very Greek). Mytilini was very hot after failed attempt to hire any car so sat in cafe trying to make phone numbers in guide book work (mostly without success, even with local help). In the end plumped for Petra (see the website with photos here) in the north on the grounds that the Women's Agricultural Coop (recommended by both Lonely Planet and Rough Guide) answered the phone and could find us a room. All the guide books said Lesvos was big and you needed a car to get about so we were surprised that a taxi took only an hour to get to Petra.

The Women's Coop was friendly and provided a room with two beds no a/c or TV and on the ground floor overlooking the street. A third camp bed was provided, but at 30 Euros it didn't seem good value or safe. So in the morning we found a much better one, nearer the beach for the same price and moved there.

Petra was just what we all ordered: long sandy beach, shallow water with waves, plenty of cafes and tavernas with good food. Prices pretty much like those in Santorini last year which was absolutely empty. Petra was busy but not overcrowded, and the tourist population mostly Greek and Scandinavian. Not too noisy at night but plenty of choice for dinner. Kids enjoyed the waves and I enjoyed not having to worry about food and meals.

In discussions over dinner, we argued about whether the moon rose and set or was fixed in the sky. They both claimed it was fixed in the sky and they had never seen it set. As a result several meaningless holiday snaps are of the moon in the sky from which it was not possible to prove anything.

We quickly established a routine which the kids refused to break. So no sightseeing, trips to the next village or to further afield. Getting a good tan and sleep were the only objectives. Later the kids progressed to riding the waves and I explored the back streets. I even climbed the 114 steps up the rock up to the church.

Here's the evidence!