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There’s a super-interesting article at Slate about exit signs in America versus in other countries. It mostly focuses on the fact that we use a text-based exit sign (which is now so ubiquitous that we may see it more as a symbol) rather than the ISO pictogram of the running man on the green background.

This is one of those things you don’t think about until you’ve traveled outside of America – which isn’t all that many of us, all things considered. The first time I ever traveled outside of America was when I went to Japan with my best friend Kat. I want to say that it was in 2000 or early 2001. None of the signs were familiar, and that was a pretty intimidating experience in and of itself. At that time, I’d also only had one semester of Japanese language and had been out of school for a couple of years, so being able to actually read signs that were in Japanese was out of the question. It actually took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that the green running man meant that there was an exit to be found.

Of course, now that I know that the green running man means there’s an exit to be had nearby, I’ve got that information stored in my brain and I’ll never lose it again. But like I said, it was actually pretty difficult to figure it out at first, and I think that’s because I want exit signs to look like our exit signs. That’s what I’m used to, if nothing else. If you should me a black sign with illuminated text on it, even if the text wasn’t in English, I’d automatically assume that it must be an exit sign.

The same thing goes for road signs. I don’t think anyone would disagree that our road signs are insanely wordy. But it’s easy for us, since we read English and have been around these signs our entire life. I am still incredibly confused by the traffic signs in England or in Japan, as well as the road markings, since they’re just so different. I still remember when Mike moved to the US; he was just baffled by our signs and had a couple wonderfully ranty moments about how stupid some of them were. However, I think if you took Mike and plopped him down in Japan, and then were crazy enough to give him access to a car, he’d be able to drive just fine. Whereas I’d be a gibbering mess in the corner, because not only do they drive on the wrong side of the road, I wouldn’t even know what the stop signs look like.

It’s just a small, interesting way that we’ve accidentally isolated ourselves from other countries. Going to a place where you can’t speak the language is an intimidating proposal to begin with. Once you get there and realize that you can’t even recognize something as simple as an exit sign or a stop sign just really drives that discomfort home.

We slept late on Christmas; I think it’s been years since I woke up early on Christmas morning. I’m one of those people who, given the chance, goes to bed around two in the morning and wakes up between nine and ten. Mike and I sat around a bit to wake up, then drove over to my parents’ house for the actual Christmas festivities. It was wonderfully snowy and a little icy; a beautiful, classic sort of Christmas morning where it’s just cold enough to keep the snow fluffy but not so cold that you have to bundle up too much.

My brother and his girlfriend were already there, having spent the night. My mom was already bustling around the kitchen, a cup of coffee (fortified with Bailey’s) at hand. A random selection of Christmas music played over the speakers in the living room.

We were on something of a schedule, since April (my brother’s girlfriend) had to be to work in the evening and we wanted to have dinner and dessert done by then. So we tried to get down to the business of opening the little pile of presents under the tree early, but were confounded first by my brother vanishing, then by my dad, then by Mike receiving a phone call from his parents. We settled down eventually, taking out time opening gifts and examining each item with a smile. I can’t think of many pleasures greater than watching someone open a gift you’ve given them and smiling at it. We kept the gift giving fairly low-key this year; none of us are feeling that wealthy, after all, and at least Mike and I have a wedding to save up for. But there were still plenty of smiles to go around. The coolest of the gifts was definitely the one that April gave to my mother; a cork board she’d made from wine bottle corks.

Presents opened, we sat and talked, eating fudge and drinking coffee. Our family friends Diane and Glen arrived, and suddenly my mother realized that we’d gotten distracted, that we were behind schedule to get dinner ready. She ran off to the kitchen, with my dad and I following to help her get the food ready. My dad had somehow converted the grill on the back porch in to a second oven, where he roasted some root vegetables. I peeled hard-boiled eggs to top off the salad, while Mike prepared the asparagus to be baked, then opened up some bottles of wine. In the end, it all came together beautifully and we had a warm, wonderful meal that barely fit on the table. We ate and drank, laughed and talked, surrounded by good company and the warmth of good spirits. With dinner done, I was lazy and let other people help with the clean up while I finished up my glass of wine. We moved in to the living room and relaxed, talking about whatever came to mind, about going to Hawaii on vacation one day, about politics, about the wedding, since we can’t seem to go five minutes without it coming up.

Around seven in the evening, Mike and I headed home, laden with leftovers and cookies and lots of hugs. And that was our Christmas.

I’m sure this all sounds very ordinary, and perhaps a little boring. I think that it is (ordinary, at least, not boring); what I did for my Christmas was probably not all that different from what most other families who celebrate this holiday do, year after year. Perhaps the one difference you can find, aside from quirky little family traditions, is that we didn’t go to church, and we didn’t say grace before the meal. My family is a bunch of atheists and agnostics, after all, and we celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday.

I find this all worth mentioning because of things like this, where the Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, said:

People who reject the idea of a God -who think that we’re just accidental protoplasm- have always been with us. What bothers me is the implications -which not all such folks have thought through- because really, if we are just accidental, if this life is all there is, if there is no eternal standard of right and wrong, then all that matters is power.

It’s been a week and a half since I read that, and it’s still upsetting me.

Actually, having “thought it through,” I think all that matters are the things that define Christmas with my family; smiles, laughter, being surrounded by the people I love most, and the hope that many other people share this happiness as well.

Graduation was lovely. Dr. Lang Farmer is the department head now, so he gave a fairly brief little speech. He really emphasized how important our degrees are, not because of the knowledge that we’ve learned to earn them, but because we’ve presumably also learned to think about things critically and to not accept facts at face value. He made an incredibly good point about the importance of critical thinking, and how training in the earth sciences field gives us a foundation for that sort of thinking.

So I got to stand at the front of the auditorium with my nine other undergrads and get a little applause, as well as a pretty diploma cover and a nice coffee mug. I’ve been in at least one class with each of the guys I graduated with; it was an odd thing to notice, since I’ll be surprised if I see any of them again any time soon.

Celebration dinner is tomorrow, and after that all I can really do is wait for my grades to finish posting, then see what the two schools I applied at for graduate study have to say.

As for the last bit of my post title, I just heard about Senator Schumer mouthing off to a flight attendant, then calling her a “bitch” under his breath. That was a jerky thing for him to do, and I hope he makes a proper apology. That would be a jerky thing for any man to do, regardless of his politics. I could go in to more detail about the language issue, but Dan has made the point much better than I could. I tend to believe that words only have the power that you choose to give them**; on the other hand, you simply cannot ignore the historical baggage that goes with a word, or the way the rest of the culture understands it. The “porch monkey” scene from Clerks 2 springs instantly to mind.

** Though this admittedly operates as an excuse for the fact that I curse like a sailor at the slightest provocation.

I only just realized that I missed my regular Wednesday posting date; I apologize. This was finals week, and things have been a bit strange and hectic. I did my last final on Tuesday, but on Wednesday there were holiday packages to mail, and many a thing to check and double check to make sure I’d be ready for Friday. For tomorrow, at this point. Well, today, actually, since it’s a few minutes after midnight as I write this.

I’m graduating with my BA in Geology (second major in Japanese Language and Culture) tomorrow at around 11. I’m excited, to be sure. I’m off the hook for school, at least for one semester. No homework! No early classes! I can read what I want! I may even have some extra cash on hand since I can work more, though most of it needs to go toward the wedding.

A bit of it, I’m not sure how I feel about, though. I haven’t graduated from anything since I was in High School. I’ve elected this time around to not wear the funny robe and hat, since I just can’t get myself excited about being one face among hundreds in a stadium. I’ll be going to my department graduation, of course. And after? Well, I’ve put in my grad school applications; I imagine I’ll find out if I’m going to be going back to school in a month or two. What if I don’t? What if I do?

It’s funny, but you’d think someone less than a year away from being thirty would know what she’s going to do with the rest of her life. The more grown-up I become, though, the more I’m beginning to realize the dirty little secret of being grown-up. Older may mean a little more experienced, maybe even a little wiser, but as you slowly count the days by, the change is so small, so incremental that you never notice the difference until it’s been ten years and you’re wondering what the hell you were thinking when you were 19. I’m a different person than I was when I graduated high school, yet also still the same.

The end of an eleven year journey didn’t fill me with a sudden strong sense of my life calling. It’s really just left me with an incredibly expensive bit of paper and the same questions I’ve always faced. What do I want to be when I grow up? What am I good at? (Too many things, if I’m being honest with myself, to be willing to just pick one and stick with it.) Where will I be in another ten years? I don’t have any better idea now than I did when I was 18 or 19. And this expensive paper, this degree, what does it actually mean? To be honest, I don’t feel smarter than when I started out. Maybe now I know what various sedimentary structures look like, or the significance of the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, or what Gender Queer Theory is, but knowledge has never been the same as wisdom. I may know more things, but I still approach many problems and wonders with a profound since of puzzlement, and deep down I’m still just as worried that this time, I may not figure out the solution.

Some small part of me wants to be afraid at this thought, because so many people my age and older make it look easy. They have plans. Some wanted to get married, some wanted careers, some wanted a family. Some knew what careers they wanted and got themselves there. Some knew what careers they wanted and didn’t. But I also know that I’m not alone, because we all have doubts, and I think that beneath the surface of any confident person that hasn’t crept across that terrible dividing line into the realm of the fanatic, there’s still that uncertainty, that question.

What do I want to be when I grow up? I still don’t know. Maybe in another ten years, I will. Or the ten years after that… or the ten years after that…

I think this post makes an interesting point.

Actually, when I originally posted about the Peter Watts incident, the two examples that sprang instantly to mind about people being hassled by the border patrol or immigration were the problems that Fouad and Aki’s friends had. Later, Chelsea reminded me that she’d had a nasty run-in with the US-Canada border patrol, which makes for an awful story all on its own.

Fouad is British (if I’m remembering correctly), though he’s of Pakistani descent. So you can imagine the sort of hassle he would be subject to any time he’s trying to go anywhere near the United States. Aki’s friends are Japanese, and a rough-looking bunch if you don’t know them, so also very obviously not American and not white. I suppose the thing to consider here is if you find it all that surprising that they were hassled, as opposed to Chelsea (though if you’re young and college-aged, that opens up the whole “must be doing drugs” can of worms, I’m sure) or Dr. Watts. When I heard these various stories, I was shocked and outraged each time – but hearing it from Aki’s friends or from Fouad didn’t surprise me. Because I think I’ve gotten to the point that, even if it’s still appalling and it still pisses me off, people who made the awful mistake of being brown and wanting to visit a foreign country getting hassled in airports or at border crossings is par for the course.

And that is really, really not okay, from any angle you approach it.

Just home from my Japanese History Final, which I think went quite well. I feel like a 4.0 semester is within my grasp.

Update on Dr. Watts’ site. And there’s an article in at least the online version of the Toronto Star. There have actually been a few other articles now, including one I saw from the AP. It sounds like things are going as well as they can at this point – he’s gotten back most of his stuff, other than his laptop and thumb drive, which Homeland security is no doubt crawling through in the hopes of finding something, anything damning.

Here’s hoping things continue to improve.

ETA: Canadian sci-fi authors rush to Peter Watts’ defense.

Fiore puts it well.

I don’t really have much more to say about the ridiculous situation. The SGU did a great job in episode 228 and 227 talking about it. I can’t personally speak authoritatively and I don’t have anything really unique to say other than this: attacking scientists for being grumpy, bitchy humans doesn’t change the preponderance of the data; it just makes the grumpiness and bitchiness feel much more justified. Panting hysteria over the use of the word “trick” may help you shore up your own worldview, but to someone not scrabbling for evidence of a world-wide global warming conspiracy, it starts sounding like sad desperation.

The world didn’t end yesterday.

Next in big news: Sun STILL rising in the east!