Today was devoted to academic pursuits. In an amazing example of cosmic convergence, friendships forged over the last 40 years led to me meeting Prof. Gayatri, from GM University. She is an up and coming luminary in paleoseismology, who did her doctoral degree under the direction of Ramón Arrowsmith, from Arizona State University, who in turn learnt everything he knows about geology from me at Whittier College, 40 years ago*. So if Ramón is her "Research Father", I get to be her "Research Grandfather"! We also have a second point of convergence in that Gayatri is a good friend of my buddy Bob Anderson, and a third one in that Rita (the Director of BMKG) is a common friend as well. How is that for "a chance meeting" on the far side of the world?
* Actually, Dallas has a stronger claim than I do here, but since I am the one telling the story I will use poetic license and claim all the credit for myself.
Gayatri picked me up early in the morning at my hotel, and we spent the first hour exchanging news about old friends and driving through the beautiful Gadjah Mada University. I understand this is one of the oldest universities in Indonesia, and in many respects reminded me of my Alma Mater, the National University of Mexico (UNAM). They have schools for just about every area of study important to a developing country (medical, veterinary, science, and of course engineering, to name but a few). The schools of Forestry and Science have their own research forests in their respective backyards, Fisheries has its own research ponds, Medicine has its own hospital, and so on. The Convention Center and the Mosque are beautiful and impressive, and the campus is kept in great shape. Geology is under the umbrella of the School of Engineering, together with Civil, Mechanical, Industrial, and other engineering disciplines, and they just inaugurated their new Engineering tower with super modern classrooms and lab facilities. In the Rock Garden every big hunk of rock has been coated in epoxy "to protect the specimens from the weather", to which I would answer that they are rocks and thus quite capable to withstand rain, hail, and scorching sun; but then again, nobody asked for my opinion.
I was to talk about Earthquake Geology to the Geological Engineering students, and Gayatri was a bit anxious because classes do not start until next week and she was afraid not enough students would come. She should have not worried because the attendance was great, with something like 60 students and a few faculty in attendance (and we all know how hard it is to convince the faculty to attend a guest lecture). My worst enemy could not accuse me of false modesty, so I will simply tell you that I did a great job and none of the students fell asleep. Gayatri was happy and so was I.
Afterward I had a good chat with the Program Coordinator for Engineering Geology, and then joined Gayatri and some of her students for lunch. I was going to take them out to a Mexican restaurant called Loca Madre but when we got there we learnt that it didn't open until the evening, so then Gayatri pulled local rank and insisted on taking me and the students to lunch at a trendy Indonesian restaurant. The group consisted of two female sophomores, Tessa and Karla, and two male seniors, Yugi and Abid, who are currently doing their final project with Gayatri, digging fault trenches in northernmost Sumatra to expose and study the West Sumatran fault near Aceh. Very pleasant young people who obviously have great admiration and respect for their young clever professor.
Irvan had a day of rest from me, but come evening he resumed his activities as my chaperone. I was going to ride in the back of the scooter, like last night, but by now have steeled my nerves to the wild flow of scooter traffic and quite enjoyed the ride. First we went to the Mexican restaurant where I wanted to take Gayatri to lunch, and with another two of Irvan's friends we had burritos for dinner (the burritos were OK but not great, and it took forever for the one kid to bring our order, one burrito at a time). From there we went to the district of Maliboro, which is the tourist street of Yogyakarta, to go window shopping, buy a couple of colorful Batik shirts, and ogle at tourist traps that sold fake kriss daggers and tiger-hunter pith helmets. It is a good thing I cannot carry anything else in my backpack or I would come back home with a regular museum of exotic stuff.
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