Annotated Source

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7926559.stm

"Exiles keeping Tibetan identity alive" by Eleanor Thomas
BBC Radio 4, Dharamsala

I wanted to take a step back and look at the forest as a whole, instead of focusing too much on the trees. Eleanor Thomas took a part in making  A Tibetan Odyssey: Fifty Years in Exile for BBC, which I will have to check out sometime. It's audience is those who are new to the Tibetan issues, and aims towards creating a sympathetic viewer. This article is rife with great quotes from Tibetans in exile, including:

"I want to see Tibet as an independent country and all the Tibetans can welcome His Holiness inside the Potala [Dalai Lama's palace in Lhasa] with a great joy. Most of the time that is what I dream about."

"I've been trying for a long time to get a picture of the old home but I think it is unrecognisable now. As an exile I suppose in a way I have never felt I have a home anywhere."

"I remember annual picnics, festivals and visits to the monasteries, horse-riding; it was very close to nature."

So much of what I have found in long, long-winded journal articles (not that I fault their long-windedness - have you seen my blogs posts lately?) are simply hoity-toity restatements of these issues. The journalist, as any good journalist would, has selected her quotes based on a point she is trying to get across to her audience, but it seems that in this case she has picked quotes that also characterize some of the wider problems. These include the importance of the Dalai Lama as a spiritual and political leader, the lost nature of the exilic condition, and an idealization of home.

Kinda crazy how folks with PhDs say the same things folks who haven't ever been on university grounds do, but they take 30 pages to say it. Kinda crazy how I do the same thing...

Write Yourself a Manual

Inspiration comes from unexpected places.

I went to BYU's Acoustics Research Group (ARG) meeting this morning. For those of you who aren't familiar with all the weird things I'm into, I spent a large portion of last year conducting acoustics research on the Nigerian Udu clay pot drum, culminating in a presentation at the meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in San Diego in the fall. We are still working on finishing the paper and publishing it (look in all your upcoming acoustics journals for "Equivalent circuit modeling and vibrometry analysis of the Udu Utar Nigerian drum!"), though progress has slowed a bit due to my professor taking a post at Los Alamos National Laboratory and me having, as always, a rather busy schedule. Anywho, I like to go to the meetings for the free food and the friends I have made, as well as to look for more opportunities for research on weird and obscure instruments. Hopefully I will get to do an analysis of Gamelan instrument tuning, but that probably won't happen until after India comes and goes.

The meeting focused on proper and thorough documentation of one's work. A big problem, especially at university labs, is the high turnover rate of researchers. People graduate, switch majors, get married, etc., etc. Large and small projects often have to be set aside for months or years. When new folks come along and see a half-completed project, they jump on board only to find that they basically have to start from ground zero because all the last researcher left behind were results of experiments without any notation as to how the experiment was set up, what the 239th line of code does, what the names of their files mean (ttl2Version1.8? What is that?! The person who wrote the file name probably forgot too.), ad nauseum. This problem also occurs when time comes for thesis defenses, dissertations, or graduation boards.

"What protocol did you use to obtain these results?"
Trying to remember, thinking back four years...
"Umm... Seven?"

To avoid problems like this in the future, the presenter said, it's a good idea - a great idea - to write yourself a manual as you go along. Include things like:

Research methods
Motivations
Findings
Purchase orders
Equipment and settings
Plans

I can't tell you how many times I've worked through half of a math or physics problem, set it down to get a drink of water, and come back wondering, "now why in the heck did I do that? I'm sure I was going somewhere with that derivation..." and had to start over. There's a mindset that occurs when in the middle of hard work that has to be recaptured when work is resumed, and methinks something like a manual would help with speedifying the recapture process. The idea is to not trust your brain, and to leave notes detailed enough so that someone else could easily pick up where you left off.

I don't know about you, but I don't trust my brain. My plan is to keep more detailed notes, including the items above and probably adding in more things as trial and error works its magic. This will help with the field study. It will probably also help with whatever else I end up doing with my life.

On a closing note, there is also a bit of sick pleasure I get from knowing I will leave behind notebooks upon notebooks of mostly useless information for my great-grandkids to dig through when they're doing family history. Buahaha. Beau Hilton VII, you just try to find the touching anecdotes. I dare you.

HUM 201 Journal Entry 6

Confession

            My parents, Christians both, looked forward to the day when Thy grace should be shown forth in them through the birth of a long-awaited third son. This birth was to coincide with the day of the celebration of the birth of our Lord, December Five and Twenty. But Thy ways are mysterious, Thy care for the salvation of Thy children is great, and Thou saw fit to send forth travail upon travail and greatly multiply their sorrow. Ten days and a month before Christmas I was sent into the world, a baby premature and without wherewithal to survive independent of all machinery and medical alchemy. Truly, Thy grace provided the dross of my weak mortal coil with the substance to become gold. I have often since reflected on Thy mercy toward me, Thine very own unworthy creature, for had I been born a mere third of a century earlier the doctors of medicine would not have had the contrivances available to keep me from an early and tiny grave, cold in the November ground. How I wonder at the millions of my brothers and sisters who were fated to draw first and last breath in the same hour, at the unmarked graves in plains and jungles, and, especially, at the bereaved and grief-stricken mothers and fathers who bury their children and water the tombs with their tears. My father related to me his experience watching me struggle for survival in the infirmary, how he promised my soul to Thee if Thou wouldst but grant me life. My mother was in another infirmary, the birth of this small child having taken its disastrous toll on her as well. Some days later we took our departure, and though a metal carriage bore our physical bodies, our spirits were borne by Thy winged chariot. Forever will I praise Thy Holy Name, O Luminous One, for Thou are as a light shining forth out of darkness.

            In ignorance I grew, knowing not the fate from which Thou hath saved me, nor the reality of my soul’s true Possessor. I supposed I was my own, despite my parents’ teachings and examples. I made a mockery of Thy gospel and ordinance, supposing my sin to be cleansed as if by sorcery upon my impending baptism. I reveled in the opportunity to curse and spout blasphemies, to bear all manner of false witness, to build myself up in pride in the eyes of my peers – and all of this before my ninth year! Forsooth Thou art the Wise and Merciful, the All-Knowing, slow to anger and quick to absolution, for Thou didst cleanse me from my sin in the waters of cleansing; Thou began my conversion in the same holy waters used by others to complete their conversion. The path of Thy plan brought me to purity, a fresh life consecrated again to Thee. Perfection? Nay, the only Perfection worthy of the name is in Thee and Thy Holy Son. But for a moment I was, in Thy broadness and liberality, perfect and clean, prepared for communion with Thee on the Sabbath days. I sought from the day of my consecration to obtain and have discourse with Thy Holy Spirit, to be taught from on high rather than attempt to teach my Lord. As a youth I took part in all manner of foible and insecurity, and yet I knew on Whom I leaned and in Whose Rock a place was cleft for my repose. Lusts of puberty mixed with ignorance of Thy ways, and I fell and was picked back up, the wave of my incontinence known only to Thee, and my cries filled Thy ears, begging in all humility to become worthy of Thy presence. With patience Thou used my parents as instruments in Thy hands to mold me into a worthy tool, a key fit for opening hearts to Thy wisdom and goodness.

            With wonder I watched, nearly detached from my earthly body, as Thy preparations came to fruition. I did nothing but what I deemed necessary; I left to Thee the increase. Thou had multiplied my sorrows in sore repentance, and then multiplied my repentance in friends and neighbors in Christ. When I was a bad man, Thy direction moved me towards the good; when I was, in some ways, a good man, Thy direction moved me toward the better. I never stole, but I cheated on occasion – Thy Spirit haunted my conscience and stole from me the cheating tendency. Thy providence shielded me when among the heathen, and protected me from poisons of the body and mind. I watched friends fall prey to the demons of drink and noxious herb, but Thy grace held them close to me in friendship. My abode was open and free to all, and though on occasion my precious things left hidden in the pockets of the unsavory crowd, love and charity paid in gold what was lost in silver. When the fright of evil substances robbed friends of their wits and filled them with fear and uncertainty, our humble couches gave them room to rest and our pantries filled them with meat. We dedicated our home as a temple to Thee. My father worked to provide for temporal needs and neglected not the weightier matters. My mother saw to our true education, to education in Thy light and ways. She welcomed all with open arms, indeed she fed the hungry, gave rest to the weary and clothing to the naked. Though she bore but five children, she was and is the mother of many more.

            What praise is owed to Thee, what love of Thine is yet unrequited! This is the holy work of Thy kingdom, to emulate Thy way and character, to lay up in store blessed and sacred possessions in Thy courts above, to eschew evil and the vanity of this material world. Without doubt this world is but a vanity, vanity of vanities, and pride is but enmity towards Thee. May Thy grace cleanse from me all vanity and pride through the Atonement of Thy Son, and may Thy Spirit create in me a clean heart. Cast me not from Thy presence, but save me at last in the house of my great and truest Friend.