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Hey guys, After 4 years in London, Felix and I moved to Ithaca, in central NY state, in Aug 02. It is a great respite from the cost and crowdedness of London. We got ourselves a house with more than twice the space at less than half the price. The town combines the best of great cinema, visiting speakers/artists, and restaurants in walking distance along with great biking (road and mountain), great cross-country skiing and decent downhill nearly from the front door. The Finger Lakes region makes a surprisingly good holiday - and we have an airport where you have to check in a half hour before flying. All are welcome! Since life in Ithaca is rather quiet and Felix's PhD studies are so demanding, our last good story and holiday was the summer we moved, where we intended to mountain bike along the continental divide from Jackson, Wyoming to Mexico. About a third of the way into the proposed 1800-mile trip, we left the desert and entered Colorado. To cut a long story short, I was exhausted, the heat was 10 degrees above average every day, we crossed dry stream after dry stream, and, on a day where I was particularly hot and dehydrated, a forest fire exploded into a mushroom cloud a few miles from us. Scary. The next day, as we inhaled smoke and hit a paved road into Steamboat Springs, Colorado, we rode into swarms of locusts. Armageddon is no time for a bike tour. I removed the hand keeping the bugs out of my mouth only to signal my turn into the first car dealership I saw. Felix had no choice but to follow. Our used Subaru Outback is our souvenir from that trip. As are memories of some of the best mountain biking in the west that we rode after buying the car. Well, I have neither a PhD nor children but am now 'applying' for both. I just finished my MA in Ed and Development that I was working towards part time in London and I miss it enough that I'm applying for a PhD at Cornell in Adult Education and development. I'm also trying for a federal fellowship to fund my studies where I'd learn Hindi along with my subject work. Building on those great foundations from Fiji. First I forgot all my French and then my little bit of Hindi when studying German after getting married. (Un)fortunately, Germany didn't manage to keep any of their colonies, so it is a pretty useless language in development. Can communicate well with the in-laws, though. Felix is working towards his PhD in development economics. We're also now working on the kid thing, hopefully not too late! I'm glad I decided on both before reading the other updates, because otherwise I'd feel like I was caving into peer pressure ;) In the meantime, I'm enjoying consulting as a learning designer for eCornell, putting some of their face-to-face classes online. Bahut dhanbad to Eric for running this show! It is so great reading about what y'all are up to. Reuniting would be great! Cheers, |