Pursuing a Ph.D. is a truly humbling experience. I have worked hard on my dissertation chapters and the latest one I turned in was destroyed by my adviser. I was quite proud of my work and had two other professors praise me for it, but my adviser wants it much better. That is the humbling part. He's not trying to pick on me, just make me better. It is so frustrating, though, as a "mature" student because I am not exactly brimming in self confidence by going back to school at my advanced age. But I will persevere, it just requires that I dig deeper.

Some cool things happened lately. I attended a research seminar for graduate students that was quite informative. There were several professors there, and since this is a research institute, the mantra for professors is "publish or perish." They explained the intricacies of how to go about research and whether you want to be a pure academic or a prostitute for money (as they explained it). Interestingly enough, all said that even if you pursue the career of a "pure academic" you have to face the realities that only certain projects will be funded because they have been established as areas where that discipline is designed to go. To give an example, I am not able to get financing from traditional sources because my paper of cleaning up the air by addressing specific toxic pollutants does not speak to Climate Change. In fact, I'm not a big believer in man-made climate change, but the reality is that by addressing traditional pollutants it also cuts down on the production of green house gases (GHG). So, that seminar was a nice affirmation of the experiences I have been having in seeking funding.

I also was invited to attend a meeting of the Rotary Club of Stellenbosch. A political science professor from the University is the president of the club and she had read my bio on the website (www.larryishmael.com/bio). She saw there that I was a Rotarian (more technically, I was a Rotarian as I could not meet the attendance requirements given my travels and previous campaigns for Congress), and invited me. The meeting was very similar to ours at the Issaquah Rotary Club, although with its own unique twist. Also, there were two North American Rotary Scholars attending, one from Atlanta and another from Ottawa, Canada.

Other than the crushing blow on the feedback from my latest dissertation chapter, life is quite good here. Most days are sunny and in the upper 60s or low 70s, but some are in the upper 70s and low 80s. The Cape Town area is so beautiful that when I wake up every morning and look out the window of my flat, a sense of awe overwhelms me. It reminds me of the days I worked in Tukwila, and every morning as I crested I90 at Eastgate I could see the Olympic mountains in front and the Cascades in my rear view mirror. Or, it reminds me of driving along the ocean road from Barra da Tijuca (in Rio) to the national airport in the center of town. God has created some amazingly beautiful places on this earth of ours, and I have been blessed to live in some of the most beautiful!