Dear all:
I got the old laptop at home this Sunday morning. This is actually a long weekend --one perhaps better spent traveling -- but I may need to go to Indonesia shortly and need to prepare.
Why? The team of government officials analyzing how to address global warming there would like us to help them develop their action plan. We are recommending a democratical process we call a scoping meeting, which would invite others to help non-governmental types help set priorities. Of course, before this they need to hold a planning meeting, and before that, they need to plan the planning meeting. Most essentially, they need to invite me, or I will never know what is going on.
Problem: The team leader, an Assistant Minister of the Environment, is a big loser. He promised to call 4 days ago so I could schedule myself to be in Jakarta by this next Friday. Next Friday also happens to be Thailand’s biggest travel holiday. So I may have to leave Wednesday just on the off chance that there might be a Friday meeting. (I should mention that I have tried to reach him about 20 times, and nobody answers his three phone lines). If that doesnt work, I will at least be in town for a major conference on the following week. Actually, my total knowledge of the conference is ZERO (it is renewable energy stuff like photovoltaics but that isnt going to stop me from making some controversial remarks in my discussion paper.
By the way, if you didnt understand, Monday is a holiday (Chakri Day, for the monarchy) and so is Friday, Songkran. It will be a great shame to miss Songkran; everyone will be throwing water on each other to celebrate. I really want to see it. Maybe I will luck out and they will schedule the meeting for the week after next.
You may have heard Stanford didn’t take me. I still am not able to blithely say “it’s their loss.” I am still waiting to hear from Harvard and Berkeley. I am still a little ambivalent on both.
Luckily I have just been signed off to work on two main countries, Indonesia and Thailand. I think this was due to my intense lobbying in DC. Now though I just heard that it would be good for me to visit the Philippines in May to get to do some interesting travel with the same people who took me on my typhoon-ridden trip to Tagaytay. How to get IIEC to pay for me to go? Good question :-)
I have gotten authorization to return home 15 July, if I so desire. And I do still.
So anyway, next weekend I will probably be bumming around Java. We’ll see how it goes.
My desk is finally organized. Moreover, I am now living on this here laptop--all my files are here now. It is a little weird. I did it to give the office an extra desktop. Now I walk into the office, plus in my power, my phone line, my priner, and my monitor.
Turns out one of our allies, a US Director at the European Development Bank, was killed on that plane with Ron Brown over in Croatia. Too bad about the whole thing. :-(
Due to mainland Chinese protests, BBC World, my main link to the civilized world, has changed satellites and disappeared from Thailand. I curse the cowardly and kowtowing Rupert Murdoch. I also curse the retarded Thai cable broadcasters who seem to have no idea how to reprogram their dishes, or more likely, who found it inconvenient and gave up. It has been replaced with an Indian channel consisting mostly of Bollywood (Bombai Hollywood) movies of couples dancing in the rain and around poles and never quite kissing and singing Hindi in high-pitched nasal voices that I still can’t imagine humans making. In any case, the main problem is that I can’t follow this Korea thing.
It is now really really hot here. The sun is intense, it is soupy at night, and they say it will be warmer still in Jakarta. What to wear???
IIEC Asia could be in big trouble. Apparently we have lost favor with some importnat people in the Thai government. In addition, it appears that we are the subject of an investigation by the immigration people, who think we may not actually be a nonprofit (unscrupulous comapnies have set up nonprofits to conduct business in Thailand). On the other hand, the same people with whom we have lost favor are willing to entertain further work with us, and we are truly a nonprofit. So maybe this is just paranoia on my part, but the more you know about Thai politics, the more likely you are too worry. You will know how this story turns out soon enough, because we need to be reauthorized by 13 August.
As you all may have heard, one of my biggest problems is with my director Terry. Curiously, though, my return has liberated me of worrying about this. Perhaps it is knowing I will be outta here; perhaps it is Thailand permeating my soul; perhaps it is the investigation and looming uncertainties over whether waht I did made a difference. Terry went off for two weeks’ vacation on Friday, and amazingly, each day I got closer to his departure, the less concerned I was. This is a degree of self-control that I had not previously been able to master.
One good thing is that we are finally hiring a new Thai staff member, a professor of international environmental law at one of the local universities, and I will be talking to him this week about what work there is to do. This unfortunately will probably not make my work load any lighter, since he will only be working 2-3 days per week. This is because he has just been accepted for an assistant dean position, which will mean an extension of his duties, although not much difference in salary. In all probability we will eventually lose him. So we probably need to begin another job search -- an exhausting process here. Of course, we should have done this all a year ago, but that wasn’t my decision.
As you can see, in the spirit of dialogue and openness, I should have a talk with Terry, and I will do so when we both get back.
In recovering from the US, I havent had much of a social life, but I will keep busy this weekend fairly well. Everybody from the office seems to be heading out of town or at least not coming in for work.
Anyhow...gotta go...........
Daniel