Oh Happy Day [Jim]
Exciting News!!!
The TV schedule for EPSN India is posted on-line for the upcoming 14 days. Football starts in two weeks. And…*both* the Sunday Night Game and the early Monday night game for week 1 are televised here! 5:30 am on Monday morning and 4:30 AM on Tuesday morning.
Alas, the 2nd MNF game (Raiders at Chargers) is not televised.
Classes have started and thus far have been going well. The Western Civilization class has been quite interesting. The first class was on Homer. Plato and the development of the Athens tradition; the second class was on Abraham, Moses, Jesus and the development of the Jerusalem tradition; today was going to be on the culmination of Athens (Aristotle and Euclid), the culmination of Jerusalem (Christian Theology) and the early synthesis, but we never got to the synthesis—there was 45 minutes of questions on Christian theology.
Last Friday, I also had a question and answer session with the first year MBA students—two hours of questions on a huge array of topics: e.g., outsourcing, agricultural price supports in America, free enterprise zones, polices for economic development, infrastructure, health care in America, the “political and economic unrest” in the wake of the pictures from the prison in Iraq, corporate social responsibility, corruption, investing in bankrupt firms, and more.
One student I talked to yesterday mentioned that I was the first Westerner to whom he or most of his classmates had ever spoken From what I can tell, almost all the students here are from Kolkata itself.
A few of the class norms are odd—students all stand up and say “Good Mooring Sir” when I enter the room. (I think I will try to convince my MHC students to do this—it will be an interesting sociological experiment.) They are invariably enormously polite when talking to me; they always look surprised when I talk to them in the hall or whatever. They take attendance in every class here—and they do it by calling out numbers—every student has a number.
In the Western Civ course, I asked how many students would be willing to fail out of school in exchange for knowing the Truth. Not one of them would take that offer. Similarly, none of them would be happy if God walked into the room and told them the Truth. In the US, I usually get most students giving those answers, but never such unanimity. [And the students here aren’t unanimous on other questions, so it isn’t just a reluctance to say something different—at least I don’t think it is that.]
Also, the school day runs from 10:30 to 5:30 with two half hour breaks—every day of the school week--that is 30 hours of class a week—an MHC student has 10 hours of class a week.
Mansi asked about the difference in Kolkata this time compared to the last time I was here. As many of you know 5 yeas ago I thought Kolkata (then Calcutta) was a dying city. Now it is split. Most of the city has the same problems as before, but there is an overlay of a middle-to upper class society on top. There is a whole set of western-style stores here now which most of the city would never enter, but those of a certain social and economic class could now buy almost everything at them. The coffee shops are exactly like that too. It is mostly young, affluent Indians in these places. I can imagine that in another 5 years, one will be able to function in this city with very minimal contact with the way most Indians in town are still living. Thus, it isn’t obvious to me how the city will remedy the problems it had and has, but there is emerging a whole society independent of the mass of Kolkata.
The subway is another interesting sign—last time I was here, it was quite strange—the subway was clean, modern and ran on time. It is still all those things, but it now has added Smart Card technology—I just wave a smart card over a scanner to get on and off, and it keeps track of the balance on my card. Now remember, this is in a city where most people don’t have credit or debit cards, internet connections, or anything else modern—and the city spent the money to put in smart card readers in the subway.
In other news:
1. The ever-popular book reports:
David Lodge: Nice Work. I presume since he has published so many novels that Lodge has at least a decent number of readers, but I cannot figure out why any non-academic would enjoy his books at all. This is the third one I have read, and they have some charm for their depiction of academic life, but I can’t find much other reason to read them.
Graham Greene: The Tenth Man. A nice novella presenting a reflection on cowardice; not the best Greene book by any means, but still very good.
Kurt Vonnegut: Breakfast of Champions: Vonnegut is almost good. He is silly, but engaging and has something to say. But, and here is the problem with his books, while I have read half-a-dozen of them, I cannot remember anything about any of them. They are so light, they just evaporate. So, while I thought this book was decent, I suspect, I won’t remember a thing about it in 2 months.
Dashiell Hammett: The Thin Man
and Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon: At the library, I picked up the Library of America copy of Hammett's complete novels, so there are still three more to go. He is interesting. An exceptionally good writer in the crime fiction genre. (In many ways, he helped define the genre). Most impressive though was how different the two books felt—the detectives were strikingly different and the books reflected the nature of the detective. Cleverly done.
Charles Wheelen: Naked Economics: This is one of those economics books for people who know nothing about economics. A decent entry into the genre, but not one I would recommend to anyone. I find the title particularly inane—it is economics devoid of all the graphs and equations and hence “naked.”
2. The Institute has also brought in someone to teach a course on Indian philosophy twice a week—it started Monday, and I agreed to attend. It should be interesting to say the least.
3. I had the first of what I expect to be many questions from a student today asking how he could get into a graduate program in the US.
4. Today I met with the head of a goverement energy program modelled after the Tennessee Valley Authority. I also talked with one of his assistants about their plans to modernize. It was interesting; they are both new at this job and they both seemed highly competent.
The TV schedule for EPSN India is posted on-line for the upcoming 14 days. Football starts in two weeks. And…*both* the Sunday Night Game and the early Monday night game for week 1 are televised here! 5:30 am on Monday morning and 4:30 AM on Tuesday morning.
Alas, the 2nd MNF game (Raiders at Chargers) is not televised.
Classes have started and thus far have been going well. The Western Civilization class has been quite interesting. The first class was on Homer. Plato and the development of the Athens tradition; the second class was on Abraham, Moses, Jesus and the development of the Jerusalem tradition; today was going to be on the culmination of Athens (Aristotle and Euclid), the culmination of Jerusalem (Christian Theology) and the early synthesis, but we never got to the synthesis—there was 45 minutes of questions on Christian theology.
Last Friday, I also had a question and answer session with the first year MBA students—two hours of questions on a huge array of topics: e.g., outsourcing, agricultural price supports in America, free enterprise zones, polices for economic development, infrastructure, health care in America, the “political and economic unrest” in the wake of the pictures from the prison in Iraq, corporate social responsibility, corruption, investing in bankrupt firms, and more.
One student I talked to yesterday mentioned that I was the first Westerner to whom he or most of his classmates had ever spoken From what I can tell, almost all the students here are from Kolkata itself.
A few of the class norms are odd—students all stand up and say “Good Mooring Sir” when I enter the room. (I think I will try to convince my MHC students to do this—it will be an interesting sociological experiment.) They are invariably enormously polite when talking to me; they always look surprised when I talk to them in the hall or whatever. They take attendance in every class here—and they do it by calling out numbers—every student has a number.
In the Western Civ course, I asked how many students would be willing to fail out of school in exchange for knowing the Truth. Not one of them would take that offer. Similarly, none of them would be happy if God walked into the room and told them the Truth. In the US, I usually get most students giving those answers, but never such unanimity. [And the students here aren’t unanimous on other questions, so it isn’t just a reluctance to say something different—at least I don’t think it is that.]
Also, the school day runs from 10:30 to 5:30 with two half hour breaks—every day of the school week--that is 30 hours of class a week—an MHC student has 10 hours of class a week.
Mansi asked about the difference in Kolkata this time compared to the last time I was here. As many of you know 5 yeas ago I thought Kolkata (then Calcutta) was a dying city. Now it is split. Most of the city has the same problems as before, but there is an overlay of a middle-to upper class society on top. There is a whole set of western-style stores here now which most of the city would never enter, but those of a certain social and economic class could now buy almost everything at them. The coffee shops are exactly like that too. It is mostly young, affluent Indians in these places. I can imagine that in another 5 years, one will be able to function in this city with very minimal contact with the way most Indians in town are still living. Thus, it isn’t obvious to me how the city will remedy the problems it had and has, but there is emerging a whole society independent of the mass of Kolkata.
The subway is another interesting sign—last time I was here, it was quite strange—the subway was clean, modern and ran on time. It is still all those things, but it now has added Smart Card technology—I just wave a smart card over a scanner to get on and off, and it keeps track of the balance on my card. Now remember, this is in a city where most people don’t have credit or debit cards, internet connections, or anything else modern—and the city spent the money to put in smart card readers in the subway.
In other news:
1. The ever-popular book reports:
David Lodge: Nice Work. I presume since he has published so many novels that Lodge has at least a decent number of readers, but I cannot figure out why any non-academic would enjoy his books at all. This is the third one I have read, and they have some charm for their depiction of academic life, but I can’t find much other reason to read them.
Graham Greene: The Tenth Man. A nice novella presenting a reflection on cowardice; not the best Greene book by any means, but still very good.
Kurt Vonnegut: Breakfast of Champions: Vonnegut is almost good. He is silly, but engaging and has something to say. But, and here is the problem with his books, while I have read half-a-dozen of them, I cannot remember anything about any of them. They are so light, they just evaporate. So, while I thought this book was decent, I suspect, I won’t remember a thing about it in 2 months.
Dashiell Hammett: The Thin Man
and Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon: At the library, I picked up the Library of America copy of Hammett's complete novels, so there are still three more to go. He is interesting. An exceptionally good writer in the crime fiction genre. (In many ways, he helped define the genre). Most impressive though was how different the two books felt—the detectives were strikingly different and the books reflected the nature of the detective. Cleverly done.
Charles Wheelen: Naked Economics: This is one of those economics books for people who know nothing about economics. A decent entry into the genre, but not one I would recommend to anyone. I find the title particularly inane—it is economics devoid of all the graphs and equations and hence “naked.”
2. The Institute has also brought in someone to teach a course on Indian philosophy twice a week—it started Monday, and I agreed to attend. It should be interesting to say the least.
3. I had the first of what I expect to be many questions from a student today asking how he could get into a graduate program in the US.
4. Today I met with the head of a goverement energy program modelled after the Tennessee Valley Authority. I also talked with one of his assistants about their plans to modernize. It was interesting; they are both new at this job and they both seemed highly competent.
posted by Jim Hartley | 7:47 AM
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