Boston, You're My Home

You may be wondering (or not) why it's been so long since my last post. To be honest, the long silence has been somewhat by design.

It was absolutely the right decision to plan five weeks of weekend travel in a row, with the big move back to Boston sandwiched right in the middle. Just four days after my arrival back in the country, I was off to Philadelphia to see old friends, next off to Michigan to see my family. I didn't take any photos of the trip, nor will I dig any out to catch up on posting. My brain, no matter how hard I tried to crank out an update, just wanted to stay off, and I knew it was better to leave it that way.

At the beginning of last week, however, I stepped out of Logan's Terminal B and realized I had no further plane travel scheduled. My suitcases would need to be unpacked and I would have to actually pick an address and stay with it for a while.

It's been nice to be back. Everything is just as I left it. In fact, oddly so. It seems like far more than a year and a half ago I was complaining about weird guys in yoga class after a jagged return home from India. I went back today and it was still the same people. Some of them even said hi and welcomed me back.

The only weird thing is that, for me, my last frame of reference was discussing how excited I was to find the bus from Oxford to London. When I see these people again, I want to say, "Hey! That coach left from in front of my flat!" Like they were frozen in time, still curious about my English day trip habits. For them, of course, time inbetween has filled with lots of other points of reference. They haven't been thinking about it. Life has gone on.

Not that my life hasn't gone on. It's just that, last time it went on in Boston this is what I was thinking about. I'm not the same person now. But I'll adapt.

In other news, I found a job. That's another reason I didn't write: no one wants to hear how boring it is to be unemployed. I did not want to talk about my interviews. Suffice to say, I'm happy to be using my new skills and knowledge in a way I never thought I would . . . and I'm lucky to have that chance.

The downside is, my job involves a lot of writing so I'm not sure what the repercussions will be for the blog. I would like to keep it up. I know several old classmates and coworkers read it occasionally, and, hell, I enjoy it. Time will tell how often I return to it, though. If life without travel starts to become boring, I won't share that here. I'll more likely just keep shtum until something new happens and I see fit to tell the world again . . .

Gravity

As written in the Notes section of my iPod, traveling at 38,000 feet:

Please allow for an extended metaphor.

A few weeks ago I found myself making personal comparisons with a high diver, twisting and turning in midair as I completed my first draft of the dissertation, traveled to Scandinavia, attempted a trip to Stonehenge but wound up at Brighton, arranged farewell dinners and parties and picnics with anyone I could think of. To put it bluntly, preparing to say goodbye.

I came out of the acrobatics last week, shaking hands with bosses and supervisors and lecturers and friends in what finally was farewell, feeling like I was finally pointed down at the water. I have a friend from elementary school living in Nottingham, the one I called when I was first considering a Master's degree abroad. We've known each other almost two decades. Four nights ago I sat across from her and her mom in a London pub and we remarked on how far we'd come. Two nights ago I sat on a blanket in the Angel and Greyhound meadow in Oxford with classmates I'd known less than a year but who I hope to see gracing the industry newspapers. This morning, one of them had already made the Bookseller. What a cast of characters. What a life.

So I'm out of my twist and I'm pointed straight at the water. I've been focusing hard these past few months on what my first evening back will entail. A quality New England beer, a veggie chilli (two L's), a balmy Boston evening and glimpses of the Hancock Tower on Copley Square. Now I'm on the plane, it's the periphery stuff I worry about. The things like, how to pronounce 'can't', and the baseball scores, and 'line' versus 'queue'. There are many things I've missed. Things I can't put a finger on but which seem to linger beneath every attempt to listen to US radio. In a few moments I'll be back in the pool, hoping I remember how to swim, sure eventually I'll be back in the air wondering about that wild falling sensation still fluttering in my stomach.

I have no idea what happens next, but no one ever dives so they can swim. They dive for this crazy feeling of midair, the way I asked friends last night about their plans to move to London, or China, or Tehran, or beyond. Once I land, all I know is, it's time to start kicking, to come back for air so I can do it all again.

Bag It Up

There is only one thing more chaotic than living out of a suitcase:

Putting it all back in when you're done.

More Things I Wasn't Expecting to Do Today

The first: enjoy dinner at an Indian restaurant in East London with the same lovely British expats I stumbled into on my first morning in the Delhi guesthouse.

The second: Be appointed chief price negotiator, and successfully haggle the waiter into a ten percent higher discount and a few extra bottles of wine. Best customer, indeed.

The third: Go to Brighton.

We had planned for weeks to go to Stonehenge. If by 'planned' I mean, 'talked vaguely about' so that Saturday night found us googling 'trips to Stonehenge' at 2 am. We walked to the nearest hotel the next day and asked if there were any tours going, but of course in tourist high season they were all booked. Oh well. I'm told it's smaller than you expect, anyway.

Our Plan B was to hop on a train head to the coast, to the Atlantic City of the English channel.

At the end of the evening, my sunburnt face glowing over a plate of vegetarian tapas, I confessed I could hardly imagine any of the past two years of living abroad going half so well had I not been placed in such good company in our guesthouse in Delhi. I had arrived thinking I'd be traveling alone. Then I thought I'd disappear back into my country, never to see them again. Instead I find myself toasting the health of these same friends twelve months and two lifetimes away.

Isn't it nice to know that, sometimes, Plan B can be the better option anyway.

Now or Never

I was in Nepal. I was tired. I had just come downhill from Everest Base Camp and wasn't looking forward to a few extra hours in dirty, bustling Kathmandu. I needed to rearrange my flight. To do that, explained my elderly travel agent, I would need to travel by motorbike with him to the offices across town.

That's how I found myself, on my last day in Asia, perched on the back of a motorcycle weaving its way in and out of traffic. I was pretty sure the old guy wasn't keen on me clinging to him like I'd seen most Indian families do. I kept a respectful if wobbly distance until he gently said, 'Hold my shoulder, please' and I gingerly held on to him with one hand while trying to keep my balance.

My blonde hair glinted in the sun and my expression, behind my aviator sunglasses, said to the gawkers: Yeah? so?

I bring this up because it's the kind of adventure you have when you're halfway out the door. Within 48 hours I was at the bar in Boston, shaking my head to clear the dust of Delhi from my nose. (Harder than you think.) This week, I looked at what I had been missing from my year living in Europe and took a long-awaited trip to Scandinavia to stay with friends.

There I was, cycling down the street in Copenhagen with a calm but bemused smile, wondering when on earth I would ever have a chance to do something like this again. Would I ever fly all the way from America to ride the roller coaster in Tivoli? Not likely. So why not now? When there's so much to see?

My hostess, a friend from the publishing program, understood completely and ushered me from boats to museums and, just for a lark, on a quick trip to Sweden. When we played fairway games at the amusement park they let me pick the prizes, and we (accidentally) stayed past closing at the Carlsberg brewery. Sure, I could have gone to Denmark earlier in life, or later, and there's plenty of things I need to take care of in Oxford before I go. But the chance to finally see Scandinavia, with friends, is an opportunity that can't be wasted. I only hope I can share such good experiences when it's their turn to visit me in the States.

At Least We Don't Call it 'Barbie'

Last week a few friends and I gathered to celebrate the Fourth of July with a barbecue.

There were a few problems with that: first, it wasn't the fourth of July. We had to celebrate on the ninth of July because we were too busy the previous weekend, and the actual fourth was a Monday and everyone was working.

Second, there were only three Americans there. The rest of the party was made up of Germans, Australians, South Africans, Brazilians, an Irishman, and a few Brits.

Third, we were standing in the country we were celebrating independence from.

Needless to say, it was the least American celebration of American independence I have ever enjoyed. That doesn't mean it wasn't a good time. English weather threatened us with rain but for the most part we stayed dry. The grilling was fine and we had no fewer than three apple pies for dessert. In fact, we were even proud to call it 'dessert'. No 'pudding' here! Don't tread on me!

I suppose it could be worse. Another friend and I were at a grill-up a few days later and, upon looking at the menu, she burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" I asked, and she pointed at the sign.

"Polish sausage!" she giggled. This friend was, I should mention, actually from Poland.

"Oh, do you want some?"

"What the heck is Polish sausage?" she cackled. She was barely able to contain herself. Apparently, in Poland there is no such thing. It's just sausage. Who knew.

She ordered it anyway, and thoroughly enjoyed the English barbecue version of Polish sausage, just as I had enjoyed the American version of an English barbecue. Tomorrow, I plan to celebrate Bastille day with my French roommate by drinking sangria. We are all rubbish at playing to type.

London Calling

Being a longtime fan of classic British rock, it was vaguely satisfying to find myself wandering down the streets of Soho at 2 am a few nights ago, rushing to catch the last bus back to Oxford. I had the opening lyric to The Who's "Who Are You" rolling through my head on repeat: "I woke up in a Soho doorway, policeman knew my name." Now here I was, quickstepping right past the same bars I'd heard about in the songs, surrounded by friends after an evening of birthdays and conversation.

This isn't the only thing that's wonderful about living so close to London. When I first moved to Oxford, I remember planning exactly when I would catch the Oxford Tube, then staring out the window at the green fields we passed (wondering why we stopped to pick up passengers at a stop called 'Lucknow', which as far as I could tell was four houses in the middle of a field). When we entered London I looked around in awe at the hustle and bustle of the west end, then hopped on the Tube to--well, who knows. It was so long ago now I've forgotten.

Now, I stroll across the street whenever I can be bothered to catch whatever bus comes along for London. I can go just for dinner, for a drink, for a conference, and I can be back in my own flat by evening. That still hasn't deprived it of any of its wonder. A few weeks ago I took my older sister and we enjoyed imported American beers and veggie burgers from Borough Market along the Thames, not far from where Shakespeare had his Globe. We walked opposite the river from the Tower of London, in the shadow of the Shard, and then met a friend for curries in Brick Lane. Two days later, I was back in town having drinks in a riverboat with a friend from elementary school. From our window, we could see Big Ben and the London Eye making its lazy circles along the riverbank.

These are just a sampling of things to do in London. It can't even remotely describe what I'm trying to get at: the amazing diversity and life in the city. It's not very well organised and it's completely random. The White Tower where Anne Boleyn got her head removed is just around the corner from Canary Wharf.with its brand new skyscrapers. Many people dislike London for all its grey skies and (yes, occasionally) stuffy people, but now that I'm only a few weeks away from shuffling back to my side of the ocean . . . I'm going to miss it more than I originally thought.

It's been a great year. Now, as time marches on towards my flight, onwards and upwards, at the very least I can console myself with yet another lyric from The Who: "At each end of my life / is an open door."

Workaday

During the trip to Italy last week, we were given the unique opportunity to visit one of the country's most prominent publishing houses. Guinti Editorial, whose dominance includes both books and retail chains, hold their operations in a beautiful mountaintop villa down the road from our own accommodation. So, after plenty of chatting and conferencing, we trod up the road to have a look.

As we toured around the beautiful, historic villa I tried to keep a running commentary in my head of what it would be like to actually work there.

"Here I am, coming into work, making my way past the carved marble statues and through the 17th-century frescos painted in the same style as the Palazzo Vecchio. Around the corner from the fireplace with the family crest of the Medicis, where nobles plotted the family's overthrow in the 18th century.

"Oh! Look what's hanging from the ceiling above my desk!

"Time for a meeting. Look at the view from my conference room!

Not your correspondent, but she could be my boss

"Time for lunch. What shall I read in my break time. Oh, I know! The collected works of Leonardo Da Vinci bound in priceless leather volumes handmade to replicate the original documents as closely as possible!"

Then I tried to think of the perks of my former Boston office. We used to brag because we had really nice cubicles and free coffee.

....... Yeahhhhh.

Here's the Kicker . . .

'To punt' has a couple of different meanings, depending on which side of the ocean you're on. In America, it's something you do in (need I say it, American) football, where you toss the ball back to the kicker and he launches it across the field to the other end, buying you extra yards before you send out your defense.

As a result it's taken on a second meaning, when you decide not to address something right away and sort of waffle on it until you really can't help but get to work.

In the UK, it's a sport native of only Oxford or Cambridge, where you take a long flat boat out and steer it around using only a worthless little paddle and a long pole. The breed of punting can be distinguished by where you stand on the boat: Cambridge punters stand on the flat end, Oxford on the scooped end. Both of them tend to smack into the riverbank more often than float downstream.

Well, your correspondent has been doing a little bit of both.

It's been so long since I last posted because, as I've hinted at before, it's awfully difficult to take a break from intensive report writing to . . . do more writing. The good news is, one draft is (just about) done and I should be back to my regular schedule shortly.

. . . ANY other name?

In case you were curious what we did in that week in Florence:

http://publishinglexicon.wikispaces.com/

A group of students from five countries got together to discuss what words we use when we talk about publishing. The results were fascinating.

Did you know Italians have hundreds of different words for different types of children's books? And that there is a unique word just for pop-up books? For textured books? For cardboard books?

Did you know that the French googliser and twitter, but insisted on creating a new word for "digital books"?

Did you know that the german word for Search Engine Optimisation, which we abbreviate as SEO, is Suchmaschinenoptimierung? (They abbreviate it as SEO sometimes, too. I wonder why.)


Did you know any words in Slovenian?


You do now!

A Rose by Any Other Name . . .

The weirdest thing about summer school in Italy? I spent half of my time speaking French.

The course I participated in was run in conjunction with three other universities besides my own. The University of Paris, Leipzig University, and the University of Ljubljana sent their own publishing students, to talk about digital publishing in each of our respective countries. Though the common language was meant to be English, French lecturers began by admitting they were best prepared to speak in their native language and employ a translator. My notes are scribbled in a hodgepodge of languages, which was all the more confusing when it was time to go to town and I continued to merci the locals.

They, of course, said, scuzi?


Things became clearer by the end of the week, as altogether we agreed about the loveliness of the villa and drank more cappucino than could possibly be good for us. They literally served us three meals within five hours, each more opulent than the rest. That was before we went into town and saw the gelato.

Second breakfast

Fourth dessert

I made great friends with the other students, and the night before leaving for Casablanca found myself in a local bar enjoying another Italian specialty . . . A certain kind of drink which involved oranges, sugar, coffee grounds, bananas dipped in poppyseeds. How did you drink it? Following the commands of the mustachioed Italian bartender.

Chin chin!

Pisa Cake

Here's the weird thing. The Leaning Tower of Pisa doesn't just lean. It leans visibly.

It leans so that you kind of suspect one of these days - in fact, any minute now - it will accidentally topple over. They only allow 40 people to climb at one time; one suspects that's because too many people gaping down from the top levels would send the whole thing to the ground.

It was leaning before they even finished building. That's why it also seems to curve, just ever so slightly, to compensate for the tilt at the base. No one tells you about that. No one tells you about the intricate design work on its many pillars, either, and the way it gently complements the beautiful cathedral sitting directly behind.

These were the surprising bits. Otherwise, it was something I'd seen a million times in photographs. I sat in the grass with a university friend I'd bumped into on the plane, both on our way to Florence for a seminar on digital publishing. We looked at the Leaning Tower together, and I couldn't help thinking that it was too familiar to be real.

My friend, a Chinese student with a talent for photography and a travel bug almost as large as mine, flipped through the pictures on his camera until he came to the one he wanted. He showed me the screen. "This all reminds me of a palace I saw in Beijing."

I looked. A temple, very Chinese in style, with the same sort of dome as the church whose shadow we were sitting underneath. Kind of. It looked completely foreign to me. But to my friend, this courtyard was foreign, and he was trying to compare it to home.

Just when you think you've got it pegged. . . . !
-----------------------

I'm aware that I haven't posted in a while, and there is a lot of news to share from the trip to Florence, Madrid, and Morocco. Bear with me for a while, since most of my time right now is taken up by my dissertation. I'm writing as much as I can these days - it doesn't leave much creative energy for blog posts. Once the paper is done, hopefully in a few weeks or so, posting should go back to normal..

Neverending

I looked at the man in the bazaar. He looked at me.

"Two hundred," he said.

In the back of my head, a little forgotten gear gone almost rusty started to turn again. "Two hundred ... No. One ... hundred? ... I mean: one hundred!"

Just like that. I was haggling again.

I've been back from Morocco only about a week, long enough to dive into dissertation research and phone up a few publishers from Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico. Now I'm typing up the last of it before packing my laptop back into its case and catching a bus to the airport, destination Florence.

There, I'll be participating in a seminar on digital publishing with Slovenian, French, and Italian students, aaaaaaand of course sampling the local cuisine by night. (It's only natural.) On the way home, I stop for 12 hours in Madrid to see what I can see, then it's back to Morocco for my final visit to the sister, and then finally - finally - I land back in Britain.

No volcanic ash has caught up with me yet, but my goodness if this hasn't been a whirlwind month.

I'll write more about how it goes trying to speak 'e-book' with Slovenians. Meanwhile: ciao.

More Natural Disasters

Here's the sequel to last week's blog post about the ridiculous travel arrangements for my favorite travel companion and I. We managed to get reunited after an additional 24 hours of him sleeping in airports, but unfortunately between his feet touching ground in Scotland and his feet completing a 26.2-mile marathon, there was only enough room for dinner and a quick nap.

This is what we get for choosing a marathon in Scotland, though: gale force winds, hail, and yet enough sun to give us both sunburns.

We both finished, though, and in good time. Maybe limping a little. (Or a lot.) We couldn't quite relax, however, until we were safely in Morocco with my sister, drinking mint tea with our feet up.

This is where the volcanic ash cloud comes in.

Those gale force winds kept on even after the run, which complicated things at the airport. One waitress casually mentioned that the roof had blown off part of the building and onto the runway, giving us nice little heart attacks over dinner. Our plane was severely delayed, sitting just a few miles away in Glasgow waiting for a break in the weather to come pick us up and shuttle us back to London in time to make our connection the next morning to Casablanca.

If we missed our flight, there might still be time to get to London before our 10 am to Casa. Except, of course, if the ash cloud cancelled all flights from Edinburgh entirely.

Ash clouds! Honestly, after all of this, you'd think we wouldn't have to worry about ash clouds!

We were still at the bar chatting with a Scottish ice hockey player when our flight board blinked from DELAYED to FINAL CALL and started flashing red. They weren't kidding. We chugged our drinks and hobbled towards the plane just as they were closing the doors, which must have looked both hilarious and pathetic to our flight attendants. I'm writing now from the safety of Morocco and still hobbling, but at least there's a hammam in my near future instead of an airport floor to sleep on.

Now let's hope the ash cloud settles in enough time for us to get back up to London by the end of the week. I never thought I'd find my travel plans at the mercy of a volcano, but . . . then again, I shouldn't be surprised at anything anymore.

Travelin' Man

It has not been an auspicious year for travel. I really ought to pay more attention before I book my flights.

Bad enough was last month when I completely missed my flight to Morocco for very weak reasons. (I just can't read emails.) Now my favorite travel companion seems to have caught some of my bad luck.

First, he left Boston on his way to Philadelphia. His plane was delayed for two hours, which means he missed his connection to London. After sleeping in the airport, the airline put him on a plane to Orlando, Florida, which was nice, but then neglected to book him an actual seat on the flight from Orlando to London, which was not so nice. Oh, and that flight he was supposed to take from London to Edinburgh was long gone, so he's had to pay for another. Finally, he argued himself onto a flight to London and spent twelve hours sleeping on a plane, another eight hours waiting in the airport, is finally on his way to Scotland where he will land, sleep in a hostel, and run 26.2 miles tomorrow morning.

Post-race, thank goodness we've booked ourselves on a nice relaxing vacation . . . in . . . Africa.

I think next time we'll consider a staycation.

King's Cross

I've done it again. I've begun another popular book series and am now roped in to spending money on the next two or three books. At least last time it was only a trilogy. Now, I'm started George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones, of which I'm told there are six books, each 700 pages or more. I'm 85% through the first one after two days of reading, according to my Kindle, which tells you how badly I'm hooked.

The only problem is, I'm in Scotland today. That's not a bad problem by itself. I love Scotland. It's cold at the moment, and I'm far too sober, but otherwise it's absolutely beautiful.

I'm just a little annoyed because, after reading my novel about noble kings and princesses and honourable knights and dragons and warring families, I decided to take a little walk. So I went outside, circled the castle, sampled the fine dragon's ale by the Royal Mile just off of Fleshmarket Close, made my way to Horse's Wynd to view King Arthur's Seat, and . . .

Yeah, doesn't reading that just make you feel a little bit nerdy?

Because I felt a little bit nerdy.

Even though, it's not my fault this is what real Scots do!

Still, I thought I'd better switch to reading something else for a while. Wouldn't want to get carried away.

It Could Be A Long Summer

Lectures are over! Now I have nothing to do for the next three months except write my dissertation. (And run a marathon, and go to Morocco, and attend a seminar on digital publishing in Florence, and...)

I cracked open a book this morning to take stock of the dissertation process, and the first thing I read was this:

There will be occasions during your dissertation journey when other - friends, family members, boyfriends/girlfriends, partners, spouses, etc. - will make demands upon your time. On such occasions you need to remind yourself that your priority is now your dissertation - if you respond to every request for help from those around you then you will have difficulty in concentrating on your work. Self-centredness is a quality that will serve you well during your dissertation. [Biggam, Succeeding with your Master's Dissertation, p. 9]

Oh. Well.

You know? Even if it's the truth? Do you really have to put in writing how reclusive and boring I have to be all summer?

Foreign Concept

Eurovision.

Unless you're European, absolutely baffling.

I was in Greece a few years ago after their candidate had won, and I had no real understanding of why some guy's gyration-happy music video was all over the airwaves. "Eurovision!" everyone said, and I said, yeah, that's nice, but I personally found the tune a little naff.

Then I was told, no, you really have to see the whole contest. So I tuned in.

And witnessed the pride of such countries as Boznia-Herzegovina ...

... and Georgia ...

... and wondered at what the hell was wrong with Moldova when they sent these guys ...

For goodness' sake, there is a unicyclist in the band. Her instrument? Unicycle and pretend trumpet. (When the UK gave them eight points at the end, the BBC commentator sighed, "Britain. You're not taking this seriously.")

Then there was a rap number which was distinctly Greek ...


... and France sent an opera singer.

Mostly I felt just . . . sorry . . . for Ireland.

Then, at the end of every year you see how each of the countries vote. It's absolutely brilliant. Usually, it seems, Russia feels guilty and votes for whichever Eastern European country they're not fussing with (Azerbaijan this year), the UK usually tosses a few points to Ireland, no one votes for Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries all vote for one another, Cyprus votes for Greece (take that, Turkey!), and loads of countries actually vote for Moldova!?!

I loved it. And yet, as I went downstairs to grab a snack from the kitchen and found my Spanish flatmate watching the show unironically, I realised . . . I am such a foreigner. Dear god.

Something Corporate

Now, I'm no stranger to corporations. I don't fear big companies. I don't even fear talking a few numbers - witness my presentation just last Tuesday in which I outlined the economic viability of a title for which I built the Profit and Loss spreadsheet myself, line by line. These things don't frighten me like they do a large number of English majors. And English majors, as one would expect, make up a lot of the publishing industry.

Now, I had a job interview last week. It was a one-hour phone call with an editor from a company which is better known for being big than for its publishing. The concept sounded great - crossing borders, commissioning translations, international writers, etc. - but there was something about it that threw me off.

"Tell me about how you analyse data," they asked.

Data? That's no problem. We use past sales data to project whether a book will sell or not in future.

"Tell me about what goals were set for you in a previous company and how you met them."

So I outlined my previous work experience. They said: "No. What targets were you given, and did you make those targets."

Oh. Well, fine, but I liked my first answer better.

"Now, when you went to India, what were your stated goals there?"

Blah blah blah, best practices, new processes, exchanging core competencies, blah blah blah. They said: "No. What were your targets, and how did you meet them."

Oh. Well, I guess if you care about those rather than the important breakthroughs we had honing the development process for complicated projects. . . .

It was a shame, almost. Even after it was my turn to ask questions and I was given answers which matched almost exactly the spirit of my own responses, I quickly realised what was going on with this interview: they were collecting data. On me.

That data will be fed back into the corporate machine and will determine whether I'm fit for Round 2. (Don't worry. I'm probably not.)

It's a little disheartening to come back to the real world after having been a student and praising these high ideals of internationalism and innovation. In the end, you get in the door with your numbers. But really? When working internationally, when crossing boundaries like that, is it possible to really use numbers to make all of your decisions? If that were true, literal translations would be a piece of cake. You could use exactly the format of Eurovision or Jersey Shore and bring it to the other side of the ocean and it would absolutely work.

If you've lived internationally, you know what rubbish that is. There's a reason people can differentiate between The Office in the US and The Office in the UK, and it's not because Steve Carrell is slimmer than Ricky Gervais. Imagine Bollywood in Canada. It's just not one to one.

Anyways. I tried to follow up to send a thank you note to my interviewer, but was politely but firmly told I was not allowed to receive their personal information. I suppose that's about right. They didn't seem to have collected any about me, either.

Currency Exchange

I've been out of touch because of a looming deadline in our most difficult module, focusing on new product development. There is nothing quite so exhausting like standing in front of a group of your colleagues, tutors, and other publishing industry professionals to give a talk about . . . finance.



Cash money.

If this Blog Were Written Like One of My MA Papers

Basic Features
- Short sentences (jargon)
- Bullet points
- No verbs
- Boring. Illustrations!

Several of these

Numbers often complicated, presented in table:

Figure 1.1: Ugly

Overall Objective: Detrimental to future writing abilities (Harvard referencing, 2011)

Appendix A: Can I go home yet?

Happily Ever After

I suppose, since I live in England, you'll want to hear my thoughts on the Royal Wedding.

Let me put it this way: On my way home from Barcelona, I stood in front of a small family of Brits who, for reasons unknown, snapped into American accents and started making fun of random Yankee words.

"Duuude, I'm going to go eat a baaaagel on the siiiidewalk wearing paaaaants."

Really? I thought. These are the words you're making fun of us for? Bagel? Sidewalk? Pants?

Two weeks later, I signed onto Facebook as Wills walked Kate down the aisle, and noticed several American friends had gotten up in the wee hours to celebrate the nuptials.

"I wish I was in England celebrating with scones," someone had commented. "Or maybe some Cadbury's! Or some biscuits! With my tea!"

Really? I thought. Scones? Biscuits? Cadbury's? So what?

In my book, Cadbury's is just a candy bar, bagels are sold at Tesco, and the scones are rubbish here anyways and I prefer the ones in Ireland. Maybe the magic is lost on me. Anyways, since the whole affair involved someone else's future sovereigns, I caught a few moments on the BBC iPlayer and got on with my day.

I will say this: when Prince William spoke the wedding vows, it occurred to me that he has the most stereotypically English accent in England. Which is, I suppose, as it should be. Even though, just for fun, sometimes I like to ask my friends how they enjoyed "the Royal Wed-din', bruv".

French-abic

I mentioned back in January that I was hoping to practice my French in my recent trip to Casablanca. I knew that most people living in Morocco had several languages, of which French and English are usually second and third, respectively. On the other hand, since I don't know Arabic, I was hoping that we could all default to le francais and muddle along together . . . and I would for once be able to use my second language in practice.

In reality, this is closer to the truth:

What I thought I said: "We would like two salads, please."
What our waiter hears: "I'm eating two salads, maybe."

What I thought I said: "... except, please do not put any fish on my salad. NO fish!"
What our waiter hears: "Two plates of fish, please! No! Three!"

What I thought I said: (waving my hands) "No, I asked that there be no fish!"
What our waiter hears: (indicating where to place the fish) "No, I have no idea what I'm saying!"

What I thought I said: "And . . . two mint teas?" (am corrected by sister) "No. Only one."
What our waiter hears: "There are two morons here." (correction) "No. Only one."

In general, it was easier than I thought to get around, even though I did receive the occasional "What language are you trying to speak, anyway?" I suppose it would be the same as going to India to learn English. Sure, you'll pick it up, but you'll pick up some Hindi, too. Or, in my case, Arabic. La, la, la.

Photos from Morocco, Posted on Moroccan Time

Even though I've been home from Morocco for almost a week now, I haven't gotten around to sharing my experience. I must be operating on Moroccan time. It's like normal time, but two hours late.

Mosque Hassan II

Sunset during the call to prayer

Overlooking the Atlantic Ocean

What did I do in Casablanca? There's not many tourist attractions. My sister and I aren't much for shopping. We lay on the beach instead, talked about life, and tried in vain to order Moroccan mint tea. (You pour it three times before you drink it. It tastes better that way.)

We also saw a great Moroccan band performing at a local bar, including some of my favorite songs by the Gypsy Kings. It wasn't Rick's Cafe, but it was nevertheless pure Casablanca.

Bem bem bem Maria!

Why I am Not in Morocco Right Now

Because this is the email I received from my travel company, with the subject line 'change to itinerary'. (Red circle mine.)

Do you see where the departure time is? All the way over on the other side of the email, by itself, just like it was a flight number or some other meaningless piece of information?

I sure didn't!

They have a saying in Morocco, 'inshallah', which means basically 'if God wills it'. Well, God did not will this one quite yet. I have another flight booked on Tuesday so will still enjoy a quick vacation with my sister, albeit a truncated one.

To all my digital editing readers, let this be a warning to you: word wrap is not your friend!

Working Vacation

How do you travel so much and get all of your work done? Well, here's the sad truth: I'm a boring traveler. I walk and walk and walk and when I'm tired I sit at a cafe and type up papers. I had a fantastic time seeing Barcelona in this way, and I was able to get a lot done on my Language essay. (I wrote it about Spanish publishing, so I could feel like chatting to trinket vendors was doing 'research'.)

At one point, I was sitting at a cafe overlooking the Sagrada Familia and chomping on a pastry, when all of a sudden a great load of honking tourists came pouring out. Then fire trucks roared up. Whoops. Some guy decided that day was a good one to set Gaudi's still-unfinished masterpiece on fire.

Keep in mind, the building has been under construction since the 1800s. It's absolutely gorgeous, but the awe-inspiring towers are sort of dwarfed by even taller industrial cranes.

It kind of adds to the appeal, though. Maybe someday I will be able to take my children... or grandchildren... or great-grandchildren... to see the finished building. Or maybe it will take another 80 years, like they think, in which case my great-grandchildren will have to find dashing rich husbands to travel with; I'll be too tired.

But unlike Gaudi, my work has actual deadlines, so once the crowd became too much to bear I moved inside a Starbucks and watched the commotion from inside the window. Just another day witnessing a cathedral being both built and burned down.

Thoughts from Barcelona

There's something about travel that changes the way you think. Everything is magnified; all sentences end with an exclamation point.

For instance:
- You! You there, wearing the ugly red, white, and blue American flag striped t-shirt!

You look like an idiot, and for that I salute you!
- You! Girl clmibing a steep hill in a short dress and tall heels! You are similarly absurd and I salute you, too!
- This hostel smells funny!
- That building is scary!

Sagrada Familia

- No, I do not want to buy your little noisemaker, tourist attraction vendor man! Why did you sell one to each member of that large group of schoolchildren! That was very thoughtless!
- That building is even scarier! Gaudi is so scary!

Casa Battlo

- Oh no! A nude beach!
- Upon closer inspection I see that the man in the American flag shirt is German! Even better! Thank you for inviting ridicule to someone else's country, sir! In return maybe I should go to Italy wearing a German flag and yell harsh-sounding things at small children!
- I now recognise the smell in this hostel!
- Ouch! Sunburn!
- Somebody needs to take those noisemakers away from those children! I can barely hear myself think!

Silly Cow

The town of Oxford got its name because of the area in Port Meadow along the Thames where the oxen actually ford the river in the summer months. The phenomenon has been occurring for hundreds of years, and the wild cows in that great field still cross the river in Port Meadow today.

Uh-oh.

So, picture Your Correspondent after sixteen or seventeen miles of jogging, on my way home after a wonderful marathon training session. Headphones in my ears, a little sunburnt, and very very tired.

All of a sudden there is a moo. Then another moo. An ANGRY MOO.

Here they are, then, fording the river: the cows. Whole herds of cows. Where am I? Jogging past a smaller herd, consisting of mostly baby calves, which apparently Mama Cow thinks I am about to attack and kill. (No, Bessie, I'm a vegetarian!) I can see the anger flashing in her little cow eyes as she bellows again, lowers her head, and charges across the river at me.

I really should have kept my promise to find a different park. 

On the other hand, it's a great way to train for a faster time. My little tired legs were a blur as I vaulted behind the gate, which, I realised too late, was probably built to keep cows out instead of herding them in. One thing is certain: as angry as Mama Cow was with me, it's nothing compared to how angry my own Mama will be when she reads this story. Sorry, Mom! I'll find a treadmill next week, I promise!

Let's hope this is my last post involving dangerous run-ins with livestock. With that, I'm off to Spain, where I will surely be safe from marauding cows.

Oh. Wait.

Fair Thee Well

London Book Fair

They called it "back with a vengeance".

Last year's London Book Fair was described to me by many people as "eerily quiet" - not due to lack of interest, but because of the volcanic ash cloud hanging overhead which prevented any of the exhibitors' planes from landing at Heathrow. This year they made up for lost time and filled Earl's Court with chatter of ebooks, trade terms, and the latest news from Random House.

Sounds straightforward, right? You should know better. Personally, my LBF went a little bit like this:

- Day 1 - I was up in the International Rights Centre, the super-secret upstairs where you need either a red badge or a secret password to get in. This is where the agents sit who have hardcore dealing to do. No exhibitions for the public, just business. Well, I found myself at one point meeting with one of my boss's favorite customers who turned out to be a) living in Boston, b) from my hometown, and c) like me, a professed enthusiast of feather bowling at the Cadieux Cafe in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

"Feather bowling?" my boss asked, having been interrupted from negotiating a contentious agreement. "Are you making that up?"

No. For the rest of the meeting this customer let his colleague do the talking as he pulled up YouTube videos of featherbowlers and explained how the game was so rare they didn't even play it in Belgium anymore - Belgians come to Michigan especially for the fun. Huh. My boss still believes that we were making an April Fools.

- Day 2 - On the other end of the scale, I volunteered as part of the Fair to oversee the Cookery Corner, where chefs had 45-minute presentations making their favorite foods for the crowds. It wasn't the most exciting job, as the Cookery Corner permanent staff already had things well in hand, but I did learn how to cut a mango. And it's about damned time.

Then I watched the sun set over the Tower of London on my way home.

- Day 3 - I had scheduled a rash of meetings relating to my dissertation. (Latin American publishers don't often have any other occasion to come to London.) The Fair had slowed down enough and my contacts were so kind that I was actually led to one or two of the super-secret negotiating tables to ask someone what they thought of publishing in Mexico.

Everyone was a bit bleary-eyed at that point, but good progress was made, and I went home appreciating the fundamentally social nature of the publishing industry. Yes, we have stuffy industry fairs and glare at anyone who's carrying a white badge in the red-badge-only zone, but the people who work in books tend to be those who have a thing for personal expression, the creative arts, spreading knowledge.

Put it this way: after three days of walking my little legs off to discuss platform-independent content, digital licensing, and ebook volume sales, what was the first thing I did on the bus? Crack open a book.

My Fair Lady

It's official: I am terrible at vacationing.

My Easter break began last Thursday, and since then I have had exactly zero hours of downtime. In fact, I've been gearing up for what is the second-largest book fair of the European circuit: the London Book Fair.

While I hope it's nowhere near as hectic as Frankfurt was, I still have some major 'firsts' on the calendar. On Monday I will have a chance to sit in with the licensing agency I've been researching for this entire year, to discuss digital rights with a number of platforms including Amazon and Kobo. Then on Tuesday I'm actually volunteer, and there's a chance I will be leading around famous authors and finding them bottles of water. Wednesday is my day off, when I track down those elusive Brazilian publishers and try to get some interviews scheduled for my dissertation.

With all of these adventures it will be worth a moment to stop and appreciate the setting. Earl's Court, besides being the site of my previously described Great Britain Beer Festival adventures of 2008, is a historic venue for anyone who's any sort of fan of British music. How ironic I'll be sitting in my dress shirt and pressed trousers in the same room where Mick Jagger once performed this?

What A Twit

I like to set the bar high for myself. That seems to be why I've decided to focus my dissertation on a continent which I am presently not on, and where I don't really know anyone, and where I don't really even speak the language. Problem? What problem?

In this electronic age, though, all barriers are surmountable. Really, getting the attention of the right people is a matter of marketing.

First step: publicity. I've started a Twitter feed to help me connect with people working in publishing half the world away, to see what they're talking about, and to try to talk to them. You can follow me at @PublishLatAmOXB, and of course feel free to retweet whatever you'd like.

How very Publishing 2.0. Just an experiment within an experiment.

More News On That Riot

As seen from my bedroom window, just after the World Cup Cricket Finals.



I guess India must have won!

Fool's Gold

Tell me what would your reaction be if you opened The Bookseller and read this: Government Set to Curb Foreign Authors. Under the plan, bookstores would only be allowed to hold 10% of stock from overseas writers.

The Bookseller has learned Prime Minister David Cameron is set to give a speech today [1st April] outlining his latest iteration of the "Big Society". A DCMS spokesman said: "The publishing industry needs protecting from the Browns, Larssons and Meyers of this world. We think British literature should be celebrated, not swamped. Crime novels set in gloomy Scandinavian forests have an unfair advantage over our cosy domestic settings, so we have to level the playing field to protect this vital domestic industry."

I think the date in brackets gives it away. Even the trade press isn't above a good April Fools.

(... Right?) 

I Predict A Riot

It's been a bad year for your correspondent and riots. I enjoyed a Thai riot during my trip to the company sales conference and a Nepali Maoist riot in Kathmandu on May Day. There have even been riots in London over school fees, teacher strikes, and now the 2011 budget unveiled this week has incited someone to hang a large "STOP THE CUTS" banner on the road heading to my university.

So it was with a sigh that I heard a ruckus this afternoon floating through my bedroom window. Another protest, I figured, and dismissed it from my mind. Not that I wasn't distracted throughout the afternoon by the occasional loud cheer and bursts of chanting.

Eventually I got curious and wandered down to see what the fuss was really all about. To my surprise, I discovered: it wasn't a riot at all.

It was the Indian cricket team fan club. At the pub next door.

There's even someone wearing an Indian flag

No wonder I didn't know what it was. Not even Six Nations Rugby can get Brits to cheer that loudly. A trip to the World Cup Cricket Finals, tho, and the place was going wild. I even heard the sound of drums coming from inside.

Well this is much more fun than arguing over pensions. Good luck, India!

Amazonians

One of your correspondent's friends from her younger days is a raving Amazon brand advocate, and gleefully forwarded this link along to the old college circle. "Another reason to buy music from Amazon," he called it.

Just like the old days, your correspondent countered with a sigh and then a flying tackle. (We did, after all, go to a football school.) In the middle of my obligatory publishers-indignation-at-Amazon, I realized that this friend probably had no idea about the teeny tiny margins Amazon offers to publishers, the way the used book market has dissolved educational book sales, and the erosion of our preferred route to market, the chain bookstores. The punters just see Amazon as a great place to buy books.

That's kind of why I'm not sure if I would prefer to bury Amazon, or to be them. They do understand what makes customers tick.

I don't know, then. If a job opened at Amazon next year, would I apply? Would I accept? Seattle's not a bad place to live, and I can't exactly complain about the weather from where I'm sitting in England. The Kindle is doing great things for reading, and they're even starting to bridge cultures through their own translation imprint.

The real problem for me is the reliance of price on their marketing mix. Ebooks are great for consumers, especially if you price them at $0.99. I can buy loads of ebooks for that amount! But, really, is that good in the long run? What kind of book can you profitably produce for that amount of money? Should someone's Great American Novel cost as much as one song on iTunes?

It's pretty clear I will buy ebooks for higher prices than I would print books, for the convenience factor. As long as they're worth reading. If publishers stop making money and I have to slog through self-published novels--which I'm sure are great but are just overwhelming in their sheer volume--I will probably end up unhappy.

Something tells me the final answer to my internal debate over Amazon won't be settled until this trajectory is either changed or ... we hit a wall somewhere. Until then, I sure am glad I'm not employable for at least a few more months.

Interview Fail

The European CV is twice the size of an American resume. In the USA we're told to put all of our information on one page (which, as a standard 8.5" x 11" sheet, is smaller than the UK standard A4). In the UK you need two sides of A4, and, no, large font and flowery writing do not earn you any points.

After tossing on as much information as I could, and inwardly rebelling the entire time, my CV was still looking one line short. So, to balance all the line items about travel, books, more travel, and foreign things, I decided to put one mention of strictly American hobbies down at the very, very bottom.

Last Thursday, I had a half-hour interview with a Dutch company about a potential summer internship. At minute twenty-seven, the publisher looked at this final entry and started laughing to himself.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I couldn't help but notice that you like American football and ice hockey."

"Yes, sir," I replied.

He shook his head another moment, and then giggled, "How violent."

D'oh.

"It's funny," he explains, "because I don't even know girls who like European football, let alone American football. I suppose it's because you went to Notre Dame."

Yes! Of course it's because of my prestigious university, sir. That must be it.

Anyways, I can't see how my sport of choice could be any worse than rugby. I can, however, see the merit of changing my favorite sport to something like, um, baseball. Batter up.

You're Telling Me, They're Hunger Games

There's a new debate of the day in book publishing circles. Now that we're pretty clearly in the realm of e-publishing and the proportion of book sales has tipped in favor of electronic copies in the US, no one is questioning whether customers will read books onscreen. Now the question is, how much can we get them to pay?

It's sort of a shame when you hear that authors are selling their books in the Kindle bookstore for as little as $0.99, or even giving it away for free. I loved this post from Roxane Gay for a lot of reasons, but mostly for this paragraph right here:

If we as writers don’t value our craft enough to price our work appropriately, how can we expect readers to want to pay appropriate prices? If you have to basically give your writing away, what does that tell you? [. . .] I could see myself selling a short story for a buck or two but a book, a whole book? My work is worth more than that. Your work is worth more than that.  If I cannot sell my books at a ore reasonable $8-$10 price point, perhaps the market is telling me something about my writing. Humbling? Perhaps.

On the other hand, this weekend I downloaded the first volume of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins to my Kindle. Big mistake. I loved it. When, ten hours later, I finished the first book, the first thing I did before going to bed (at an ungodly hour, of course), was download the second book. I read that one in its entirety the next day. The third book was started before breakfast on day 3 and, just because I wanted to draw it out, I finished after class on day 4.

When was the last time I bought three print books in a row? Especially new? Amazon just made loads of money off of me. So did the publisher. More than I would have spent otherwise. But, my goodness, now I appreciate why it would be nice if ebooks could cost less. That's even though I know exactly how much goes into each book, and the giant commission Amazon gets per sale.

I suppose the trick is, convince publishers to drop the prices while I'm a student, so I can still eat. As soon as I go back to work for a publisher, move the prices back to normal, so I can keep eating. Doesn't that sound like the best solution?

Studious

Your correspondent has no control over the selection of her uni's film society, but when they advertised a showing of the Bollywood hit 3 Idiots . . . Well, I'd be an idiot not to attend!



The film's message is the importance of life lessons over school lessons. Real learning over school memorization. The dangers of too much pressure on students for a few meaningless grades on a paper. Sounds good to me! So I guess it's OK to spend the rest of my afternoon studying whether I should prefer Shah Rukh or Aamir Khan.

Black Sheep

My favorite complaint about Oxford is its teeny tiny size. I'm training for yet another marathon, which means sixteen- to eighteen-mile runs at least once a week, which last time resulted in a few rather unfortunate run-ins with cows.

This time, I've gotten to know the area a bit better and found a lovely path following the Thames for miles and miles, which, technically, could take me all the way to London. It won't, however, because I run in the opposite direction, north through the Thames river valley, and into wide open fields where soon there's not a building in sight. Just miles and miles of fields, and, of course, new dangers.

Mile eight of yesterday's run found me blissfully trotting along in one of these fields, enjoying the peace and quiet of the river, when suddenly, I rounded a bend and saw them coming at me: sheep! Not just one or two sheep. A herd of sheep. Maybe a hundred, maybe more.

Worse, they were being herded. There was the sheepdog barking them forward, there was the farmer driving them from behind, and now here comes me, sprinting right for them, which was no less surprising for me than for the sheep.

"Baaaaaaaaaah!" they called.

"BAAAAAH!" I cried back.

Now, of course, the sheep saw themselves as being herded from all sides, so they reacted as sheep usually do: blind panic. Sheep everywhere! I considered jumping off the narrow path, but then I'd be running through some random field and did it belong to the farmer? Would the farmer like that? I couldn't cut through the herd without dispersing sheep everywhere, and the farmer was giving me a look that, if I wasn't already running, would have set me off at a sprint immediately.

So, I turned tail and was chased for the next mile or so. By sheep. What can I say? At least it was good training: I can't remember the last time I've run so fast.

The Irish Rover

It's St. Patrick's Day today, one of my favorite holidays, if not one that I've had much success celebrating in recent years. For the second year in a row I've missed my college friends' reunion over pints of Guinness and probably just a little bit of mayhem - as alumni of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, it's a holiday we take seriously.

Last year was a wee bit harder than this one, of course. I was in India and besides the obvious technical difficulties and the paucity of corned beef and cabbage, there was one more problem with my attempts to share the holiday with my friends.

I walked into the office with a bright green shirt on and a big smile on my face, only to run smack into one of my coworkers. He looked tired, drawn, and he had a streak of white on his forehead. He explained, he was celebrating a holiday too - the days of Vasant Navratri leading up to Ram Navami - and he was fasting.

So, no green beer, in other words.

That was probably the quietest St. Patrick's Day I'd ever had. No matter where I'd spent it, though, it would probably be hard to top the time I actually lived in Ireland, the holiday's spiritual home. My sister was in town, and besides the usual tomfoolery we stumbled across a céilidh and danced like idiots with half of Dublin. The rest of the night, we [scene missing].

More than anything, today's celebration of its patron saint makes me reminisce about the good times I had there both as a student and more recently for a rather long run. Maybe it's time for an impulse trip back to the Emerald Isle . . . You never know . . .

Trinity College and Dawson St

O'Connell St looking towards the Dublin Spire

Cadbury Without Borders

An Iranian friend and I were chatting yesterday about where to go on one of our weekly lunch dates. As often happens, the conversation veered from a description of a traditional English Sunday Roast to one of our own respective traditions. As it turns out, the Persian New Year, or Norouz, begins next week.

My friend tried to describe the festive table setting Iranians have to celebrate the new year. It's called haft sin, where sin is a letter of the Persian alphabet (س). Seven foods are placed on the table, each starting with the letter sin, and each carrying its own symbolic meaning.

We were sitting in the school's computer lab, so we clicked over to Wikipedia for a full list. (It's not very easy to describe your own traditions without visuals. Last season this same friend asked me why we decorate Christmas trees and I could only quote Jim Gaffigan.) Sure enough, there was a list of seven foods - sabzeh (wheat or barley), sib (apples), senjed (oleaster), somaq (sumac), sir (garlic), samanu (a sweet pudding), and serkeh (vinegar).

"That's so funny," I said. "That sounds a lot like something we do in Italy, where we eat seven fishes for Christmas."

"Sometimes you have other things," she added. "Not just those seven." She pulled up one of the many photos of various haft sin spreads.

Haft sin spread, by Mandana Asani

"That's lovely!" I said.

"But . . . Wait a minute."

Peering closer.

"Is that . . .?"

"Um, those look like Easter eggs," I told her.

They are clearly not Easter eggs, of course. But, at the same time, they are. Hard-boiled eggs, decorated and painted, although in Iran you place them on the table where in America we hide them and make small children go hunt for them.

So we reminisced together for a while about decorating eggs. It was all well and good, of course, until she asked me about Easter.

"Um . . ." I said. Where to begin - the high religious significance, or . . . "We celebrate with . . . the Easter . . . bunny? Who lays . . . chocolate?

"Shoot, we're going to need a visual."