Day 26: Monkey mind

Today was a bit of a mindless day, where I just wasn't entirely present. It happens to everyone from time to time though; some more than others, and I think in general, I've become a lot more present over the past couple of years. Despite this scattered-ness, a lot of good things still came out of the day.


What went well?

1. Got started on the next project for  positive psychology research, and managed to get some coherent thoughts down on the study design. While at the positive psychology center, I hung out with a couple of guys there on their lunch break and really enjoyed talking to them.
2. Finally got my bank card...3 weeks later.
3. Went and saw my Intro Buddhism professor for more guidance on my research paper, and now I actually have a solid direction, thanks to his helpful suggestions. Basically, I'm going to trace the history of the word "mindfulness" - how often it's been used in different years and how the meaning has changed across time, and therefore when it started being used in relation to Buddhist ideas. Apparently noone's actually done this before, so it'll actually be a unique scholarly contribution, hopefully. I also managed to write my research proposal straight afterwards, so feel like I actually got something done today and that I finally know where I'm going with this.
4. My phone fell out of my pocket in the library onto seat, but I realised 5 mins into my walk back and it was still there when I went back. Maybe there is a benefit to mindless email-checking after all??

What did I learn?

• Fresh Grocer does indeed sell tofu! I think I finally know my way around it now, so it shouldn't take as long to do a grocery shop in the future.
• Putting on gym clothes gets you in the gym mode. I changed into some gym clothes to do my laundry, and suddenly I felt like going to the gym (I had been planning to go tomorrow). So I did - even though I never go at night. Lesson: if you ever feel too tired or unmotivated to go, just put your gym clothes on. Seriously. You can decide to not go after you've gotten changed, but you probably will - what you wear is a powerful cue (unless you're one of those people who just wears gym clothes everywhere) and it'll feel silly to have to get changed back without going.
• The paper size is different here. I should have caught on when I noticed that the paper at the library was different when I was photocopying stuff, but I thought that it was a quirk of the photocopiers there. Nope! US Letter seems to be the standard here, and I realised when I printed something off and the top got cut off (US letter is shorter).

Miscellaneous thoughts

• There is so much free food around here. Where there are dorms or clubs and societies there are events, and where there are events there is food (seemingly a huge incentive for people to go!). So it's quite possible to spend negligible amounts of money on food if you are super skint and don't care about what you ingest :P Case in point:

The events board in my dorm. There are at least 5 events involving free food on here.

• Another difference that I don't think I mentioned is their approach to research papers over here. The reason that I was in such a kerfuffle about where I should go with my research is that they give you basically no restrictions (or guidelines, for that matter) on what topic to write on. Whereas in Australia it's normal to be given an entire 1-2 page assignment brief including a list of topics to choose from, here you just get told how many pages (not word count) the research paper should be...everything else is up to you! As long as it's related to the course somehow (and it doesn't even have to be closely related, unlike in Australia where in my experience, your assignments are often supposed to be grounded in the course material). The flip side is that professors are therefore much more accessible as advisors for your research paper, and it's normal to check in regularly with them for guidance during the process of researching and writing the paper.

Day 20: Crashing faculty meetings

What went well?

1. Got my paperwork in for music lessons for credit 2 hours before the deadline.
2. Intro to Buddhism lecture. I think this is going to be a regularly recurring WWW, but seriously, it's that good. e.g. to illustrate the concept of "karma" as simply meaning chains of effect and causality, the professor suggested all the possible effects if he punched a student in the face: he'd probably get beaten up by his friends, get fired, students would post on twitter, it would get in the news, etc etc.
3. Caught up with a new friend for coffee today, had a lovely chat, and it turned out that I was going to audit the lecture she was also going to afterwards.
4. That said lecture was for positive psychology, and the professor was super efficient and absolutely clear even while talking super fast and going super fast in general. I think it'll be a great class to audit.

What did I learn?

• Double-check anything you're putting into your calendar. So I turned up to the Solomon building (where the Psychology department lives) this afternoon for a colloquium, found the room, and was about to take a seat when I was informed that it was a faculty meeting. Checked the event page and turns out it was on Monday. WOOPSIES.
• Religions edit their scriptures all the time to take out the bits they don't like, and Buddhism is no different. But with all the edits they did, they never removed the gruesome details about the Buddha's death - namely, getting food poisoning from eating rancid pig, getting bloody diarrhoea, and then dying from that. No wise and impressive final words, just deliriousness. Man, that is a depressing story. So why keep it? To show that the Buddha was a human - just like everyone else, he got old, got sick, and died. He was born a man, and died a man.
• There's a U-shaped distribution for life satisfaction, declining from 18 years, at its lowest at 50-53 years, and then life gets consistently better from then onwards! You hear that, mum & dad? You can expect good things from now onwards! ;)



Graph from Stone, Schwartz, Broderick, & Deaton (2010)

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Miscellaneous bits and pieces

Lecture hall for Sociology of Mental Illness.

Just FYI, it's ok to wear gumboots on campus. People do that here. I wasn't sure before I started seeing them everywhere, hence why I ended up buying better boots for the snow. But if you have tramping/hiking boots, you can wear those too! People do that too.

Day 18: Really good news!

What went well? 

1. Ok, so this is a huge WWW for me: I'll be starting as a research assistant at the Positive Psychology Center next week!! I am super duper excited and really grateful for this opportunity to gain some real research experience. I'll be spending at least 6 hours a week getting involved in the various projects (this awesome social media project is one of them), and am really looking forward to it. Did I mention that I'm excited?!?!
2. Ancient Voices rehearsal reminded me of how therapeutic singing can be. I think it produces a comparable endorphin/dopamine rush to exercise, for me anyway :P
3. My Intro Buddhism lecture was really engaging and interesting again. The professor taught us about the early life of Gottama the Buddha, and he really told it like a story, filled with hilarious modern-day analogies, dramatic reenactions and exaggerations, and gruesome details. This professor seriously has talent in engaging (and even entertaining!) his students.
4. Got a couple more parcels in the mail, and enjoyed mindfully popping the HUGE bubble wrap.
5. Started the morning with a group meditation session that a classmate organised.

What did I learn? 

• Schools are seen as both a scapegoat & saviour for societal problems (e.g. obesity, poverty, violence), and this tendency is particularly strong in the US.
• Ascetics back in ancient India sure engaged in some weird practices in their quest for spiritual salvation. Like, holding their arms above their heads until the blood drained out and the muscles died, tearing their eyelids out and staring at the sun until their retinas burned out, repeatedly running themselves into a stake...super weird.
• Society really doesn't like it when norms are broken. My professor for Sociology of Education told us a story of how for a sociology assignment, he had to go and break a societal norm (not a law). So he went and tried to pay more for an item at a store (e.g. insisting on paying $5 instead of $3.50). The shopkeepers were at first confused, then just bewildered and uncomfortable, and then completely pissed off upon finding out that it was for an assignment, and basically told him to get out. Uncomfortable!! People just don't know how to react when norms are broken. Another suggestion for the assignment was to ask someone on a plane if you could finish their unfinished meal. Hahahaha. Imagine the reaction...how would you react? Anyway, the point of the story was that Durkheim, the father of sociology, argued that though we may claim to be individuals, in the end, we're all conformists, and it's a good thing (otherwise how would society function?)!

Miscellaneous bits & pieces

I think the pavement on 37th street, between Spruce & Walnut Streets, is petty neat because it's paved with Benjamin Franklin's sayings. Here are some:

"Lost Time is never found again."

"Little Strokes Fell great Oaks." I LOVE this one. A simple reminder that even the most onerous tasks can be broken down and conquered by constant, persistent small steps and efforts.

"Genius without Education is like Silver in the Mine."

Also, here are a couple of things I find weird about American culture:

1. When you say "thank you", sometimes they'll respond with "uh-huh" or "mmhmm".
2. It's very common to eat in class. Not like eating in class is expressly prohibited in tutorials (the no-food rule & norm is pretty strong in lectures), but most people don't eat in class in Australia. But it seems like it's totally normal and ok to do so here. I still find it weird though.

Day 10: I found my dream club...

This morning, I did some reading and also admired the architecture around the Quad:

In the afternoon, I went to the Student Activities fair, where all the student clubs were advertising their clubs and getting sign-ups. There were SO MANY CLUBS. They took up 3 floors of Houston Hall.

Just a snapshot of the action.

I was so pleased to discover the Philomathean Society, which I am definitely keen to join. It's basically the dream club for students who are actually intellectually engaged, love learning, believe that learning should take place outside the classroom, and enjoy talking about things that actually matter.

It's also pretty exclusive (elitist?), with a strict admissions process (but anyone can attend most of their events). You have to complete three steps:

1. A 4-6 minute oral presentation on a topic of my choice.
2. An informal, one-hour round-table-style interview with members of the Society.
3. Submit a work of creative/critical value. No constraints on form, it just needs to fit through the door.

Here's their brochure:

I think I'll present on mindfulness or positive education, but I'm still deciding on what to submit. I've narrowed it down to:

1. My blog post, Reflections on Meditation Boot Camp
2. A sociology essay reconceptualising the idea of "Adulthood"
3. A sociology essay discussing structural challenges for young people's mental health
4. My Sunset Haiku from first-year psychology

So I have a question for anyone who's reading this - which one of these do you think is most interesting/creative/critical?

What went well? 

1. Discovering the Philo society and getting really excited about the prospect of joining.
2. A bunch of exchange students randomly congregated at the activities fair so we just chilled together for ages.
3. Still appreciating the total silence of the Fisher Fine Arts Library.

What did I learn? 

• Man, I am so out of shape for yoga. I just went to my first class in two months (it was a free trial class at the gym) and it was surprisingly intense.
• Probably not much from my speed-reading efforts (using fingers to pace, moving eyes down page as fast as possible) of my Intro Buddhism textbook. The instructor's assigned 125 pages of reading just for next week, and I sped-read about 100 pages in two hours, but I think my comprehension would be about 20% if I'm generous. But hey, since I'm doing the research option, that's all the time I can afford to spend on the reading, since I need to spend extra time on research.
• From a mindfulness reading, This is your brain on mindfulness (Baime 2011): There are two distinct neural networks that contribute to our experience of a self; one that contributes to a descriptive narrative, consisting of thoughts about what is happening and what we are; the other underlying a more direct experience of sensation and emotion in the present moment. These two areas are linked, such that activity in the "present-moment" awareness region activates the storytelling region, which explains why beginner meditators constantly and reflexively shift to thinking just as they've experienced a fleeting moment of mindfulness. This shift is literally built into the nervous system. The good news is, mindfulness practice enhances the ability to disconnect these two regions to reduce the likelihood that a mindful experience will automatically be followed by a self-centred monologue. Even the habitual patterns that are deeply built into the body can be changed with practice. The changes that happen at a neural level with mindfulness practice are significant and fantastic.
• Thoughts after speed-reading sections of my Intro Buddhism textbook: I've realised that it's probably a mistake to want to say, "Buddhists do X", or "Don't Buddhists do Y....?", or "Buddhists believe Z". I now realise that there is so much internal diversity within different Buddhist schools, and they all vary so much in what they believe and what they practice.

Day 7: Positive Psychology Center Visit

What went well? 

1. It snowed this morning! It was really pretty watching it through the window.
2. Finally got to the gym! It was the first time I've exercised properly since I've gotten here (although carrying all the stuff I bought to my dorm was a pretty good arm workout tbh).
3. First Contemplative Sciences and Human Development seminar. There are only 10 students in this class (yes, 10), and many of them are meditators, and one has even done the 10-day silent retreat like me! Again, my classmates were very engaged in discussion. I think it's going to be a great class.
4. Visited the Positive Psychology Center!

I was here to meet a postdoctoral research fellow, who very kindly showed me around and introduced me to people here. It was a real highlight to see where the bulk of positive psychology research is happening.

What did I learn? 

• Professors here are far more "fluid" with their syllabuses. They all say that they reserve the right to amend the syllabus, to change readings, requirements, etc. This is quite different from UniMelb, where the syllabus is pretty much the Bible (in most subjects I've taken). For example, in one of my subjects last year, the lecturer wasn't allowed to change our final exam from a sit-down to a take-home, even though the students all preferred the latter, just because that was what had been written in the handbook & syllabus.

Day 5: Exchange Student Orientation Part 2

We started the morning with our immigration check-in, before a brief campus tour and lunch at a food hall, Houston Hall. Hey, the food wasn't as bad as people had made it sound. I thought the options were actually pretty good. I mean, this salad I got was probably the healthiest thing I've eaten since I've gotten here:

Although, I don't get why the walnuts were "candied" - who puts sugar in their salad?!

One thing that I've definitely noticed though, with regard to food, is that healthy food is significantly more expensive than unhealthy processed fast food. For example, that salad was $6.50, while a McChicken burger is about $1.50. This must be a big contributor to why poverty and obesity go hand in hand, and it's largely due to the messed up farmer subsidy systems here.

Here are a few more photos from the tour:

College House. The architecture here is breathtaking. 

The Broken Button. Legend has it, Benjamin Franklin broke a button here? And apparently, one of Penn's "traditions" is to have sex under the broken button before you graduate. #collegeshenanigans 

The Fisher Fine Arts Library, where you get stared at if you breathe too loudly. I'm so glad there's actually somewhere to study where silence is enforced by efficient librarians (compare to "silent" sections in libraries at UniMelb).

The oldest standing building in Pennsylvania.

The "Dueling Tampons".

After lunch, we had some more orientation sessions on public safety, sexual violence, cultural adjustment, and using the library. I actually learned a few interesting and reassuring things about Penn's public safety systems and programs:

1. Free walking escorts anywhere around campus, 24/7
2. Free transit rides at night around campus
3. Guardian, which you sign up for on your phone, allows Penn Police to use GPS to pinpoint your location if you call them. You can also set a timer where you call and set a reasonable amount of time for you to get to a location, and leave a voice message that describes where you're going, what you're wearing, etc. Then when you get to the location safely, you call the number and enter a pin code to deactivate the timer. If you don't deactivate it, they'll send the police out to find you.
4. Free RAD (Rape Aggression Defense) Self-Defense courses. I'm really keen to sign up for one of these.

The exchange student orientation leaders put on a hilarious skit that encapsulated all of the possible cultural differences we might come across, in completely stereotyped form:

"Frat party"

Other memorable moments in the skit included:

• American guys confusing the hell out of an Italian guy with frat language - "brother", "servant" (pledge), "Greek"
• An over-enthusiastic American roommate, keen to become "BFFs"
• American students eating in class and dying to contribute to the discussion, with no substance whatsoever in their contributions

It was really cute.

I then went on a library tour of the Van Pelt library, which is kinda the "main" library. It's got 6 floors and is incredible. It blows UniMelb's Baillieu, Law Library and Giblin Eunson completely out of the water. I can't believe I get to study there. Will take some photos next time I go. And there are about 11 libraries in total at Penn. Really excited to see all of them. I'm still in awe at how well-resourced this place is.

Bought some dinner for cheap ($4.50) at a food truck, but I will start cooking soon (a few times a week), once I schedule in a grocery run.

So in summary:

What went well?

1. I was really impressed by all the public safety initiatives in place.
2. The cultural adjustment skit was hilarious.
3. Learning about some of the history and stories behind some landmarks at Penn.
4. Being excited about the awesome libraries here.
5. The exchange student leaders are all really friendly, nice and helpful.

What did I learn?

• The dining halls are actually pretty good! There are plenty of options, and they are very very vegan friendly.
• There is way too much stuff to do here, it can get overwhelming. Too many events to choose from, too many possible clubs to get involved with, too many cool people to hang out with...#decisionfatigue. I think to be strategic with this, I'll set aside maybe 30 minutes at the end of every week to research and decide on what I really want to do and go to in the following week.
• Penn has so much more tradition, history and culture. There's a story behind everything here.
• There's a 30 day "grace period" after the J1 visa program end date, but if you leave the US before the end of that grace period, it automatically ends, so you can't re-enter the US unless you get another visa (or a visa waiver, in the case of New Zealand). That was a really important piece of information for me to learn, since I'll be travelling to Canada during my grace period, so I'll need to apply for that waiver sometime.

Class starts tomorrow and I can't wait!! I'm also going to audition for an early music ensemble, Ancient Voices. My voice isn't exactly in peak condition at the moment with all the talking I've been doing these past few days, meeting all these new people, but hopefully it goes ok!

Also, I'll go and update my post from yesterday now, since that was a bit sparse.

Day 3: Settling In (aka "buying lots of stuff")

Today was a day of buying lots of stuff. Seriously, look at how much stuff I bought today. 

I started the morning off with a grocery run. I was a bit over-ambitious in the amount of stuff (including several bottles of soy milk & cans of beans) that I thought I'd be able to carry back. The good news is, the check-out lady double-bagged everything so none of the bags broke!! It definitely wasn't a breeze though. Also, I laughed when I saw this at the grocery:

Notice the sign: "Healthy Dinners". Now look what's inside the freezer. Cheese pizzas, cheeseburgers, pies...so, uh, what's "unhealthy" then?

Something funny: I ran into someone coming out of the building on my way back in, and asked if he lived there. Turns out, he's the Faculty Master of the house! Woops. Anyway, after having some breakfast, I walked to the Dr Martens store about 30 mins away and bought a pair of boots, which will hopefully withstand the rain a bit better than my current ones. Some scenes from the walk:

Squirrels!! So cute.

Football practice. Very American.

The water in this river is browner than the Yarra. That is saying something. It is actually brown!

Immediately after dropping those boots off in my room, I went on the Target trip organised for the exchange students. There was a bus to take us there and back, which was much needed. I bought a ridiculous amount of stuff there - kitchen equipment, towels, bedding, bin, lamp, etc…basically everything you need to move into a new house!! Which is basically what I was doing here, since the room only came with a bed, desk, chair, drawers, and shelves, and the communal kitchen is very very sparcely equipped. It was amusing to see how much stuff everyone managed to fit onto the bus (e.g. including furniture like chairs and mirrors).

Yellow bus. Just like in the movies.

After unpacking some of the stuff, I went and joined the exchange students for dinner. Most people went for American food at Copabanana, while I went and joined a group of people at Mad Mex, which was very vegan-friendly (they even had vegan cheese & sour cream!). It tasted great for about the first half, then I realised how large the portion was. I think one thing I need to learn is that I don't have to always finish my plate. It's actually a terrible habit to have when portion sizes are oversized.

The exchange students were all really friendly, and I'm really looking forward to spending more time with them. I met people from Germany, Switzerland, Turkey, Hong Kong, England, France, and SO MANY people from Australia. Literally, there are two guys from Sydney at Stouffer with me, and I met another guy from Melbourne (there should be another five from Melbourne too), another from Sydney, and a couple from Brisbane. I think I've met more Australians than Americans so far!

After dinner, we met at Copabanana for a "party", which was slightly awkward when it turned out that they wouldn't accept foreign non-passport IDs, even for people who were legit over 21 (aka not me). So we sat there awkwardly for about 30 minutes until the rest of the exchange students arrived. They are really, really serious about policing the drinking age here. Anyhow, some people went back to their colleges to get their passports, and it was still a nice gathering. I hesitate to use the term "party" though :P

What went well:

1. Having a bus to take my stuff back from Target. It would have been much more difficult with public transport.
2. After lugging two loads of "lots of stuff" back to my room, I am extra-grateful to be living on ground floor.
3. Having my room set up and settled in, so hopefully I won't have to buy and carry lots and lots of stuff again, and will be able to start cooking soon. It's especially good that this has been sorted well before class starts on Wednesday.

What did I learn?

• I need better earplugs (or need to adapt to the noise). It is much noisier in University City than at home in in suburbs of Auckland or my room back at college in Melbourne, especially because my window faces the street. Lots of traffic, shouting, and sirens at night.
• I need to be realistic about how much stuff I can actually carry back relatively comfortably when shopping.
• I don't notice hunger when I'm active and busy all day.
• It is sometimes a bad idea to finish off an American-sized portion size.
• How to use blinds!! I have struggled with blinds all my life. I generally manage to avoid the ones at home, but now I am faced with using blinds daily since my room has them. I just couldn't figure out how to get the blinds down on both sides (not just one, making it an awkward slope with one side refusing to come down), so I decided to Google it, and found this: Problem solved! The 45° angle tip worked!
• How to connect to AirPennNet (campus wifi) on my MacBook. To connect, you had to launch an SetUp Wizard by connecting to the AirPennNet-Help network, but unfortunately it didn't pop up on my computer, and I wasn't able to access the link to the wizard since it wasn't connected to wifi. So I used my phone as a hotspot, and entered the address for the setup wizard on my MacBook, and voila! It worked!

By the way, if you're mentally screaming, TL;DR!!!, don't worry, this loquacity won't last for long. Once class kicks off, I will definitely be keeping my updates short and sweet! :)

Day 2: Move-In

Today, I entered University City, which really is like a city in itself. It feels a lot bigger and more sprawled out than UniMelb. I moved into my new residence, Stouffer College House, which is also much bigger than my old college in Australia, and has six sections (A - F) with a lounge and kitchen in each. One of the first things I noticed, which made me laugh a bit, was the number of posters about using alcohol responsibly, e.g.:

A hint at the culture at Penn?

So are smart drinkers "scientists" then?

And here's my room:

Yay for the single. Most people have at least one roommate.

So then I went and got my bank account set up (Wells Fargo) and a new SIM card (T-Mobile: $50/month, unlimited talk/text in the US & 500MB 4G data). I was going to make a trip to Target to get necessities like bedding, toiletries and cooking equipment, but then it started raining so I got lazy (since it was a 1.5 hour walk or 45 min bus ride away). Instead, I bought most of the things I needed at CVS Pharmacy (it was much closer) and decided that I could go without bedding for a night since my room's got heating anyway. Holding out for the Target trip organised for exchange students tomorrow.

Today also felt a bit fuzzy and slow due to tiredness from travelling/sleep deprivation, so I'm hoping I'll be more awake tomorrow.

Some more pictures from around campus:

I just got told that people pee on this bench. DO NOT sit on it!!!

What went well:

1. It wasn't nearly as cold today as it was last night. It was about 16°C during the day.
2. It only started to really pour down when I was about 3 minutes away from my college house.
3. Managed to connect to the university's wifi with no trouble on my phone (will figure out how to get my laptop connected soon…)

What did I learn?

• My boots are really, really not waterproof! Hence, I'm going to buy a pair of (vegan) Doc Marten's tomorrow. I've heard good things about these shoes.
• I feel really vulnerable without internet/mobile data in a new city. It felt so good getting connected again at T-Mobile, because there's a certain security of having Google Maps always at hand.
• I need to get a unit-converting app for my phone. People still talk in Farenheits and imperial units over here!
• I'm not really sure what to do when I'm directly asked by a person for money. This happened twice to me - once outside a corner shop, and once inside CVS. Normally, I would give when directly asked, but just judging by the number of times I was asked today, it looks like it would be a daily occurrence? At a loss. That's two marks against my "kindness manifesto"...
• They don't include tax in the prices here, so it only appears on the final bill (8%). Totally weird.
• It pays to pack an umbrella/rain jacket, just in case it is raining the first day you get to a new place. Woops.
• If you're planning on buying a lot of stuff, bring a better shopping bag. The plastic ones from CVS were super-flimsy and one broke as I was walking back (holding about 6 bags, with more stuff in my backpack).
• Don't wander around after dark. I don't mean to scare my parents (who are reading this), but I'm pretty sure I just heard a gun shot.........#staysafe