It always comes down to who you know, not what you know...

I'm so happy that nepotism is alive and well in Utah.

Really, I am; because without it, I wouldn't have had one of the most interesting mornings since I got here.

I have been struggling with some access issues where I am based.  Very specific issues, with specific people, who insist on setting themselves up as gatekeepers and then withhold access to the places they've been promising to bring me for (six) months.  Frustrating as hell.  To be fair, I have had some great access to other parts of the organisation - it's just this one specific area (and one particular person) who's proving to be problematic.

Anyway, I was talking about nepotism.  A woman that I've become friendly with here brought me to a St Patrick's Day party (the irony of being the only Irish person in the house at a St Patrick's party!) and introduced me to another of her friends who works at a fairly prestigious research hospital.  We were talking shop for a little while and she offered to show me around the facility so that I could see how things are done in other places apart from where I am.  Yeay!  A bit of rounding out.

So this morning, I met her at 7.  (Yes, 7.  In the morning.  In order to get to the hospital on time, I had to get the Trax at 6:30, but the first bus past my road isn't until 6:40, which meant I had to walk twelve blocks (about 3km), which meant I had to leave my house this morning before 6!!!)  She brought me to a treatment planning conference and then brought me on a full tour of the facility - hospital and research institute - and introduced me to heaps of people.  She spent 3 hours with me this morning, showing me everything and talking me though a lot of the specifics that I was seeing.  Fantastic.

And what did I have to do to get this amazing treatment?  Apply for a Fellowship?  Request special permissions?  No.  All I needed to do was serendipitously meet the right person at the right party.  Proving yet again that it's rarely about what you know, and more often about who you know.  And for once, at least, I'm very pleased about that.  :) Happy day!

In more recent news...

My parents came to visit me last week - I don't think I've been so excited to see them EVER!  I was like a small child the day before my birthday on the day I was due to go to the airport and pick them up.  Like me, I don't think they were expecting much from Utah, what with it being soooooo high on everyone's list of places-to-see-before-you-die!  By the time they were going, I think they'd been won over by the sheer beauty of the state - even if there is some deep oddness that goes with it.  (Is there a Nobel prize equivalent for understatement?  I think I deserve one!)

They arrived on Tuesday night and on Wednesday, I met them for lunch and then we went for a wander around Temple Square (because you have to, right?  It would be like not going to Agia Sofia or the Blue Mosque when you go to Istanbul/Constantinople, or skipping the Acropolis in Athens) and a tour of the Beehive House.  That was hilarious!  Two lovely girls trying to put the hard-sell on me, my dad, and some other guy who was doing the tour: "What religion were you brought up?"  My ingrained Catholic guilt made me reply "Catholic, sorry", when I've been practicing for months that the next time I get asked that question, I'll answer "I'm a Pastafarian, but my husband and kids are Jedi".  Bah!  Now I'll have to go back so that I can have my ésprit d'éscalier moment.  Goddammit!

Tabernacle - Organ Recital

Thursday, I met the folks at the Tabernacle for an Organ Recital.  That was impressive.  The acoustics in there are incredible.

Dad wanted to get a nice jacket, or rather, Mam wanted Dad to get a nice jacket, so I suggested a suit shop that I've passed on the bus every morning for the past six months, not realising it was a Mormon clothes shop.  Seriously!

Click for larger view and see just what
a missionary can get for under $700!

That evening, we went to watch the Tabernacle Choir rehearsing.  They were in the Conference Centre for that and while the acoustics weren't as good as in the Tabernacle, it was still an amazing spectacle.  I tried to upload a short video here, but the technology gods are not on my side unfortunately.

Friday morning, we hit the road and headed south to Moab.  Dad and I hiked around Arches National Park, and this time, I got to do the Park Avenue trail and actually climbed up to Delicate Arch: it was so worth it!  We had dinner in Moab, before heading 50 miles further south to our (dingy) motel in Monticello.

Park Avenue trail

Me at Delicate Arch

Next morning, an early rise, and back up to Moab where I ran the Canyonlands half-marathon in 2:04, a personal best, thank you very much!

At the starting line

At the finishing line
(I'm going by my chip time... I started WAY back!)

That afternoon, I took the folks to Dead Horse Point and Dad and I took the trail across the headland to the Point, while Mam met us there with the car.  Thank Jeebus that she did, because by that stage, I don't think I had the energy left to trek the mile and a half back to the Visitor Centre!

Mam & Dad at Dead Horse Point

We stayed in Moab that night and on Sunday went back south to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, stopping off at Newspaper Rock on the way.

Newspaper Rock
Needles District, Canyonlands 

I hadn't been to either of these before and they were really impressive.  We couldn't go up to the actual Needles, because that would have been a full day's hike and we weren't really in that sort of mood.  Also, my legs were still a bit stiff from the day before, but we did several of the shorter trails (between half a mile and 3 miles each) and had some amazing views of the Needles in the distance.

Needles District, Canyonlands

Needles District, Canyonlands

Wooden Shoe Bridge
Needles District, Canyonlands

Back to Moab that evening and on Monday morning, we set off for the Island in the Sky in the northern end of the Canyonlands National Park.  Visibility was very poor this day, with high winds and sand blowing up to obscure much of the view, but it was pretty incredible all the same.  I'll just have to make sure to bring my Jedi family back here when they arrive in 3 weeks (EXCITED!!!).

Grand View
Island in the Sky, Canyonlands

Green River
Island in the Sky, Canyonlands

Mesa Arch
Island in the Sky, Canyonlands

View through Mesa Arch
Island in the Sky, Canyonlands

Schaffer Canyon Trail (yes, that is a road!)
Island in the Sky, Canyonlands

We drove back to Salt Lake City that evening, via Highway 128, which runs along the Colorado River and is the route of both half-marathons that I've run in Utah.  It was lovely to drive up there safe in the knowledge that I wasn't about to get thrown out of a bus and made to run back to town!  

Highway 128

Highway 128

I took a sneaky day off work on Tuesday and chilled out with the folks, cooking a big ol' dinner and my roommate Linh, her fiancé Pete, and my friend Sarah came over to meet my parents and eat and drink and generally be merry.  Mam and Dad dropped me to work on Wednesday morning on their way to the airport and I'm still here, while they're off having fun in Richmond, Virginia now.  Lucky ducks.

Hiking and Running

Last weekend, I took myself off down to Moab - a four hour drive over mountains and through desert to the south east corner of Utah.  It was well worth the trip!  

the desert

Monitor and Merrimac

Moab is a small town in the middle of a red rock desert.  It looks a lot like a more up-market version of Radiator Springs (for those of you who've seen Cars).  There are loads of places to eat, drink, make merry and spend (lots of) your money on 'authentic American Indian' crafts and jewellery.

Hiking trail markers

Dead Horse Point

On Saturday, I wandered around town for a few hours and mostly just wasted time before I headed out to Dead Horse Point for a wee spot of hiking.  The Point is a rocky outcrop reached across a land bridge that is just 30 feet wide.  There are 2,000 foot drops the whole way round.

Dead Horse Point

Dead Horse Point

Legend has it that each year, cowboys would round up hundreds of wild mustangs from the mesa, corral them on the promontory, pick out the good ones and then release the others.  One year, for some reason (the story is unclear as to whether or not the corral was removed or left behind), the remaining horses stayed on the point and died of thirst within sight of the Colorado River, hence the name: Dead Horse Point.

Me on the Point

Dead Horse Point

Starting Line at
Dewey's Bridge

On Sunday, I left my exorbitantly overpriced motel before sunrise and joined a group of intrepid mental cases on the shuttle bus to Dewey's Bridge, about 30 miles north of Moab, on Highway 128, by the Colorado River.

Sunrise at Dewey's Bridge

We huddled around open fire braziers for an hour, watching the sun come up and paint the canyon walls red, before making our way back to the road and running 13.1 miles back to Sorrell River Ranch.  I was very proud of myself, finishing a half-marathon at 5,000 feet elevation in 2:10, especially considering (a) the altitude and (b) having to stop and take photos every couple of miles.

mile 8

mile 5

It was one of the most amazingly scenic half-marathons I have every done.  It was literally awesome - breath-takingly, awe-inspiringly beautiful.  There was also free beer at the finish line, yeay!  (Yes, really, free beer, on Sunday morning, in Utah... go figure!)

Balancing Rock

I got back to Moab around midday and stopped off for some lunch before heading out to Arches National Park.  I spent about an hour and a half driving around the park and stopping at various viewpoints until I got to Wolf Ridge Ranch.

Park Avenue

Petrified Sand Dunes

Then, I'll admit, I wussed out of the 2 hour hike up to Delicate Arch and drove up to the viewpoint which was about 1km from the Arch.  

Delicate Arch
(in the distance)

After that, I turned tail and drove back to Salt Lake City.  It was a bloody awful drive... took 5 hours, in the dark, over windy mountain roads, through rain storms.  Ugh! I was a ball of sweaty tension by the time I got home, but it was still the best weekend I've had since I've been here.

Me at Arches

Delicate Arch
(official photo)

Happy Columbus Day

Though, what's so happy about commemorating an event that possibly precipitated the genocide of countless indigenous peoples on this continent, I'm not so sure.

Also, Columbus never actually set foot on what is now the USofA, right?

Oh details, details.  Never mind.  It's not like it's a Federal holiday, or anything, so that's okay.

It's not all work...

Part of the 'Fulbright Experience', apparently, is to engage in cross-cultural learning and experience. To that end, I took a day off from my packed schedule of stressing about cognitive dissonance and the eternal struggle between interpretivism and positivism, and went hiking.


Oh my sweet Lord Jesus - it was FAAAABULOUS!

We went up to the top of Snowbird (11,000 ft), partly along road, partly along trail, and the last mile runs along a narrow ridge with steep drops down to the valleys on either side. It's a moderately difficult climb in spots... let's just say that I won't be mocking people with hiking poles anymore! Some of it is rolls gently and some is very steep. It gets harder as you climb higher and the air thins out - by the time we were near the summit, I had to stop every 3 minutes to catch my breath - but what an excuse to look around and marvel at everything. The sky was a deep, deep blue; the aspens are mostly still green, but starting to turn yellow; some of the other trees have turned red and rust; the limestone outcroppings are dramatic against the red rock.  I loved every minute. We cheated a bit, and took the cable car back down to the bottom, where the Snowbird Oktoberfest was in full swing, so we had a beer and ate our hang sangers before heading from the hills.


At that height, the air is thinner and cleaner; you can see for miles in every direction. It certainly clears the perspective. Happy day.