Fascination with tornadoes

This last Sunday, a string of deadly tornadoes wreaked havoc in the USA. 29 deaths have been accounted for, numerous towns have been destroyed, and people are still making sense of what happened. Meanwhile, the news channels are showing the same wreckage again and again.

But if we seperate the risk from the phenomenon, tornadoes take on a whole different allure. When you watch tornado videos on Youtube, you can't help but feel oddly fascinated by them. I mean, it's like God extended a finger down from heaven and swirled it around, like one would swirl a tequila.

South Dakota tornado, by Carsten Peter for National Geographic.

Most everyone falls into two categories: either you're morbidly fascinated by tornadoes, or you're panicked by them. You can't really ignore it. Such extreme power demands attention.

To understand tornadoes, meterologists dedicate their lives to studying their formation. Some go out on the field to film the supercells that are responsible for making tornadoes. But it's obviously a high-risk job. Last May, a famous Storm-chaser, Tim Samara, was killed doing what he loved best.

Here's what happens: Springtime in the USA means that cold air from Canada meets warmer air coming in from Mexico. Since the two masses of air come from different directions and at different speeds, this creates a vortex between the lower layer of air and the higher air. The vortex is horizontal; however, it can be tilted upwards until it forms a funnel cloud, which you probably recognize as the tail of a tornado. To understand more, watch the video below by Science America.

But why do the US have so many tornadoes? They have over 1000 tornadoes per year, making them the planet's favorite tornado place, being that the second is Canada (more than 100 tornadoes per year). Well, it's because of the convergence of air from the Gulf of Mexico and Canada and the enormous difference of temperature between them. The temperature shock creates greater winds, which in turn create thunderstorm supercells, nearly essential for tornadoes. Furthermore, the two American mountain ranges (the Appalachians and the Rockies) channel the convergence of the two air masses over the giant plains that stretch across the Midwest. This combination is so dangerous that part of this area is called the Tornado Alley.

Tornado alley by NOAA.

But tornadoes can be seen in nearly all parts of the world, such as demonstrated by the video below of a waterspout in Florianopolis, Brazil, in 2008.

Sometimes I wonder if the reason that we're truly fascinated by tornadoes isn't because they're great and powerful- it's because they have the power to kill us, and because we're naturally fascinated with everything that can kill us. Just like Formula One- nobody really watches it for the race itself.  You watch it because people race each other in combustible machines that reach 270 km/h. It's the brush with death that captivates us.

But that's another story.

Keep tuned for more on Tracking Stories.

Different kinds of books

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.” 
― Gustave Flaubert

Everyone reads with different eyes and a different background. You may read Romeo and Juliet and think it's the most wonderful love story that ever existed; your neighbor might think it's a horrible story in which teenagers disobey their parents and then kill themselves after being three days in love. However, most books can be sorted out into five categories, depending of what you seek in a book.

#1. Instructive books

The ones you read to instruct you in some way, be it English litterature, historical events, great Classics, or fabulous writing.

#2. Books that you read to understand other people's experiences

These books can be fun, depressing, enthralling- all depends on the author's capability to express a person's view or experience. Books like these include John Green's The fault in our stars, a beautifully written book about a teenage girl with terminal cancer that makes you laugh as well as cry, The curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon about an autistic boy, and Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden which is pretty much self-explicit.

#3. Books for leisure

These are the books that you take with you to the beach, that sit at the bottom of your purse so you can read them in the subway, or the ones you spend an entire afternoon reading because you can't put it down. With these books, you're not looking to learn anything- but maybe spend a great time in a land far, far away.

#4. Books that you keep on your nightstand

We all have them- those books that you open when in need of spiritual guidance, for self-improvement, or maybe What to expect when you're expecting. Books like these reassure us and give us comfort at any time we need them.

#5. Books that you read to understand your experiences better

This is a really subjective category, but I'll go ahead and fill it with my favorite.

The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot is a brilliant written story of what it is like to for a girl to grow up in New York in the early 2000's. Aside from the similarities between Princess Mia and myself, I could relate to every one of her experiences. The fact that she's disgusted that the cafeteria accidentally served her meat? Right there. Thinking that her temperature of 100°F is going to get her killed when actually it's nothing? I've panicked over the same thing. Freaking out because she has to give a speech about accepting the Genovian crown? Well, actually, no. But it's these additional problems that make Mia so loveable- if she can deal with being a princess AND a high school student, surely you can too. 

Cultural shock

Part of Tracking Stories is, actually,  tracking stories. What this means is that either I do some research, or ask other people about their life experiences, and hopefully write about something you haven't seen before. Thus, today's article is about cultural shock based on several experiences I've heard from people of different ethnic groups.

 Part of living on planet Earth is accepting that there are people who live in cultures that are radically different from yours and learning not to get offended by them. And part of living in other countries is getting to use cultural difference as an excuse for your weirdness.

"You mean that French don't drink tea five times a day? Well, that's just the way we do it in Brazil. . ." (NOT).

Below I've compiled a list of the most shocking cultural shocks that you might come across in your wordly travels.

#1. Greating people

This was the most fun and awkward cultural shock ever. Chances are that if you are American or Canadian (pratically the only two countries in the world to not engage in some sort of physical contact at greetings), you've experienced it too.

Horses by National Geographic. Photo by Anthony M. Tortoriello.

In most countries of Europe and in Brazil, people greet each other by kissing each other on the cheek. Usually there is no lip-cheek contact, and people press their cheeks together making kissing sounds. It sounds weird, but it's not.

To make matters more confusing, in Brazil, people greet each other with one kiss on the RIGHT cheek. In France, it's two kisses starting on the LEFT cheek. You can imagine the awkardness of trying to kiss the right cheek when you've recently changed from one country to another.

Even more complicated is that in France, depending in what region you live in, the number of "bisous" changes. People can give two, three, or even four kisses depending on their regional culture. Here in Marseille, the rule is two, but near Avignon which is just a hundred kilometers away, people greet each other with three kisses.

#2. See you at seven o'clock

Ah, the famous ponctuality and the fashionably-late statement. In which countries does seven o'clock mean seven o'clock?

Atocha train station in Madrid, Spain

7:00 PM (as in, 'I will meet you at the café at 7:00').

USA: 6:55-7:03
France: 6:59-7:01
Russia: 7:15-7:20
Brazil: 7:30- ???

Being a radically ponctual person means spending a long, long time waiting for other people to show up in Brazil. But Brazilians don't mean harm by it. It's just part of Brazilian culture. This started with showing up a little late at events, so you get the 'best' of the party, the time that people are already tipsy but not too drunk. Unfortunately, this habit spread like wild-fire to the point that even when meeting a single person at a café, you can count on the person being late.

And in Russia, it isn't appreciated if you show up "early" at someone's house (by early, I mean seven o'clock sharp). Showing up fifteen minutes after the fixed rendez-vous gives the host time to prepare its house.

But as a general rule, it's safe to be ponctual (unless you're going to a Brazilian party, in which case you should be two hours late. Not kidding).


#3. When you're in a completely different universe that hasn't had contact with white people before

You've embarked on a journey to the end of the Earth on a do-gooder mission. The only problem is that when you finally meet the natives of the village you're visiting, they run away crying because they've never seen a white person before and they think you're a demon.

Harvest Festival in Swaziland. National Geographic, photo by Joyce McClure

This can happen on several different levels, whether you're visiting a neighboring country and everyone starts to stare at you funny when you wear sandals, to certain radical countries who may arrest you for your religion or political beliefs. The trick here is to know what to expect and when the unexpected happens, to handle it as calmly as possible.

#4. Hair 

 Another thing that may shock you when you cross hemispheres is how people (for fairness sake, I'll only mention the ladies) use their hair. Many, many girls pointed this out to me as being the first cultural shock they experienced when crossing the Equator (in both directions). But if you think about it, it's only a matter of resources. Americans have a wider variety of hair products at hand, so why not make life fun with a bit of chop n'dye? Brazilians, on the other hand, tend to care less about the actual color and length of the hair, but use other products (like bananas) to make it shinier. That said, American girls also tend to spend more time on their hair before leaving the house each morning, straightening/curling, as Brazilians tend to go with the towel-dry/shake hair method. While this obviously isn't true for all Americans and Brazilians, it gives you a general idea of how women's hair behave in these countries.

Brazilian actress Camila Pitanga. Source: Globo

American actress Jennifer Aniston. Source: Getty Images

#5. Snow

It's funny how snow is treated in different countries. The more rare snow is in a city, the more panicked the population becomes when there are a couple of flurries outside, and the more unprepared the city is in case there is a significant precipitation.

But what's even more funny is when your school has been canceled due to mere flurries in the South of France, while in the Alps, just a couple hundred kilometers away, people are still going to school if they have snow up to their knees. And in Russia, kids still go to school when it's -20°C outside. Talk about harsh.

Culture shock happens when you've moved from a non-snowy/snowy environment to one that's the complete opposite. No one shares your opinion of snow, and you're either the only one that's super enthusiastic about seeing lots of snow or laughing at what people call "winter".

What you think of snow (beautiful, dangerous, cold, annoying) also defines who you are and where you come from. And if you're from North-East Brazil, chances are you'll explode with happiness at the chance of seeing snowflakes, while a German will just shake its head and prepare its snowboots.

Snow dusting the mountain tops in Palhoça, Brazil, 2013. It probably hasn't snowed there in a hundred years. Source: Diario Catarinense

How Internet actually hinders our research

We've all seen this picture before.

Black bear chasing photographers.

Sure, we've all laughed at the fat guy or at the one stumbling. We've all came up with the joke "You don't need to run faster than the bear, you just need to run faster than your friends." But did you ever stop and wonder if the picture was fake?

You probably did, seeing that there is no source cited. In fact, if you type in Google "bear chases photographers", you'll get a dozen of the same picture posted on tumblr, lol.com, and other LOL sites. Each one has a different joke and a smiley face. But who actually cared to track down the original source? (if there is an original source, to begin with?)

I tried. All I came up with was a couple of Google+ profiles of photographers posting this picture and asking their friends, "is this real or not?" Unfortunately, people were too busy laughing to answer. It is a really funny picture. 

All this does is highlight the real problem here: in the land of Internet, you have no idea what is true and what isn't, because anyone can write anything (like me, writing about virtually anything in my blog). Internet is easy to use, but also a whole lot more harder, because you have to double-check each resource. Whereas when you research books, the whole thing was edited, revised, and double-revised before publication, saving you the trouble of having to verify information.

And the worst of the Internet is that it's very easy to copy something and make it yours (in fact, only two seconds with CTRL-C/CTRL-V). And this is catastrophic when it comes to writing academic papers. It's all too easy to use Internet as the know-it-all resource, and end up abandoning trusty old books in the process. It's very easy to slap together sentences from different sources, top it with a title, and hand it in as "your paper".

It makes me sad. I've had to pluck up my courage a lot of times to tell the itchy truth to even my closest friends. You can't, can never, ever, copy/paste and then hand it in as your words. 

But it occurred to me that maybe some people didn't get the same anti-plagiarism classes that I had in 5th grade. So here goes a shortened version of it. Avoid these traps, and you'll be fine. 

#1. The Basic Plagiarism

The golden rule of plagiarism is THREE WORDS. Copy more than three words from a source, and it's considered plagiarism.

Now, if the words happen to be "United Nations Security Council", that's okay, because it's a name that you can't change. But if the words are something like:
 " the Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security" (the United Nations Security Council, at http://www.un.org/en/sc/)

 That's not okay. If you want to use the exact sentence, you need to cite the source, like I just did. If you want to use the concept, then go ahead and change the sentence into something like:

 "The Security Council are the ones responsible for preserving peace in the world."

See what I did there? No three words are the same.

So, to sum it up: If you copy/paste more than three words from a source, it's plagiarism.

#2. The "Pro"

The plagiarism "Pro" goes a little further in its quest to copy and paste the world. The "pro" takes words from different sources and puts it together in one sentence. 

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (Wikipedia) and has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Two copy/pastes in one sentence! The professor is never going to catch that!

Actually, the teacher will. Besides using software like "Plagiarism checker", usually it's so obvious that all you have to do is type some words in Google and the phrase will come up.

Don't do this. It's lazy. Read both articles and sum it up your own way (though I don't recommend Wikipedia).

#3. The ultra, plagiarism champion

Original source: The Security Council takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression. It calls upon the parties to a dispute to settle it by peaceful means and recommends methods of adjustment or terms of settlement. In some cases, the Security Council can resort to imposing sanctions or even authorize the use of force to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Your words: The Security Council is at the top in realizing the existence of a menace to the peace or a terrorist attack. It asks the different parties at dispute to resolve it by peaceful ways and suggests methods of adjustment or terms for a deal. In many cases, the Security Council can turn to sanctions or even permitting force to establish or restore peace and security in the world.

Haha, very clever. All you did was take the exact same paragraph, a dictionary for synonyms like thesaurus.com, and substitued virtually every word.

This is still plagirism. You didn't do any work, aside from substituing the words. Go back, read the article, and resume it WITHOUT peeping at the original source.

#4.  Self plagiarism

Yes, this is still an offense, though your past-self is less likely to get offended than if you copied from someone else. Here's how to commit self-plagiarism:

You take a paper that you turned in last year, copy/paste some sentences/paragraphs/the entire thing, or maybe you translate it into a different language. Then, you hand in a new paper with parts of it copy/paster from your previous work.

This is also a lazy way to avoid doing new work. Nice try. Even if they are your words, a new assignment means doing new work, and not borrowing from your other papers.

You may be inspired from your previous reports, but not copy and paste from them. Never.

So, to avoid falling into the Internet trap, I suggest that you do two things:

1) Use books. Learn to research other sources other than the Internet. Go ahead, venture into that dusty section of the library that hasn't been visited in years. Be different.

2) Forget that CTRL-C / CTRL-V exists. What? What are those letters you're talking about? I don't know, haven't used them in a while.

Be happy and be smart. Remember, copy/paste in writing only creates copy/paste personalities, and you don't want that, do you?


"The problem with the Internet is that you don't know if what's written is really true." Aristotle, -6000 BC

In the middle of nowhere and at the heart of Provence

Metropolitan France is divided into regions, which in turn are sub-divided into 96 departments. Each French departement carries the name of its main characteristic - usually its main geographical feature, such as an important river or mountain. While its useful for tourists to know exactly which attractions they should visit when entering a department, having 96 departments in a little country can get confusing sometimes. Especially when your friends refer to them by number.

"So, where do you come from?"
"Oh, not far. I'm from 04."
"Ahaaam. . ."

And then the clueless gringo takes out his portable French map and looks up the corresponding number. If you happen to take maps with you to parties, of course.

The 96 departments are listed alphabetical order, but are spread out over the territory. Vaucluse is in red.

But other than impressing your friends by knowing French geography, there is really only one thing you should know about the French department numbers, which is: Don't go into Marseille if your license plate ends with the numbers 75. Seriously. Parisiens are not well treated down here.

That said, I didn't have high expectations when entering the department of Vaucluse. As far as I knew, the name "Vaucluse" didn't mean a river, mountain, or anything else potentially exciting for an environmental scientist. I expected to encounter a very boring, middle-of-nowhere land where grass didn't grow very high because goats were constantly eating it.

What I did find was a beautiful blue river, the prettiest red rocks I've ever seen, and a sign saying : IT IS FORBIDDEN TO BOTHER THE VIPERS.

I thought it was a joke, but no. Vipers do exist in France.

Vallis Clausa, the origins of Vaucluse.

The name Vaucluse comes from "Vallis Clausa", which is Provençal for "closed valley". It gets its names from a closed valley (no, really?) but what's remarkable about it is the karstic network. Basically, the rock formation drains rainwater underground and it all springs out of the Earth at one spot : the "Fountain of Vaucluse". It looks like an innocent glassy blue lake. But it drains a watershed of an area of 1000 km², forming the Sorgue river.

"Vaucluse" should really be named "Blue River of Paradise". Really. 

Today it's an important tourist attraction, and the city of "Fontaine de Vaucluse" knows how to handle the attention. You'll find a short scenic path winding up a gentle slopewith craggy mountains following you on each side, bordered by the lovely Sorgue river on the right and provencial boutiques on the right. The ice cream is particularly notorious.

A typical view from the path.

And if you have time to spare in this lovely department, don't miss the Ochres of Provence. They are red/orange colored rocks that rival those of the Grand Canyon, except on a smaller scale. The rocks' odd colors come from millions of years ago, when France was covered by a tropical forest. For centuries, mining companies plowed these lands to extract color pigments from the ochres. Today, most of them are in disuse, as natural color pigments have been gradually substituted for chemical compounds. The sites have left colorful scars across in Provencial Colorado, and today, it is another profitable tourist attraction.

Colorado Provençal

An old mining site at Roussillon

Unless, of course, you study environmental science and your school takes you to these sites for free ;) But that's not to say that it's all fun and games- we study hard. The fountain of Vaucluse, for example, is a classic portrait of what I'm currently researching - karstic networks that drain water from large watersheds. Who's to say that beauty and work can't be together?

As a friend of mine said, "It's a magical place. You ask yourself- where does the water come from? As a scientist, I know, but I still like to believe that it's unreal."

Thanks Seb for his English interview and for my GERIMA class that I'm so proud of, because they make these experiences unforgettable. 

10 reasons to love Marseille

Last week I told you about Marseille's story- the immigrant's city. Now here's a list that will change your heart about this city and make you want to live here.

#1. Marseille is all about blue. Blue cloudless skies, blue sea, blue butterflies. I've never seen so much beautiful blue in my life before moving here. Imagine waking up everyday during summer and seeing a gorgeous, blue sky outside that invites you to take a dip in the clear, blue sea. Now that's pretty close to paradise.

#2. Marseille breathes. Marseille has 800,000 people and within one year, you will know half of them.

Brazilian protest in June, 2012

Vieux Port during a busy spring Saturday. March, 2014.

Fire festival in April, 2013

#3. Marseille is an ancient Greek colony and its architecture doesn't let you forget it.

#4. Marseille has the best park in the world. No, seriously. In what other park do you see peacocks, green wild parrots, large woody areas, a lake, and grassy plains where children can play and college students can study? Oh, and top it off with a rose garden and everyone speaking in French. That, ladies and gentlemen, is Parc Borély.

#5. Ever heard of someone saying that it's not possible to surf in the Mediterranean? Here in Marseille, you can.

#6. Pretty sunsets. Every time there is a sunny day. That'll be about 300 sunsets per year.

#7. Marseille has free boat rides if you have a transport card.

#8. Within a couple of hours you can be across the country by TGV.

#9. There is a piano in the Saint Charles train station in Marseille, which anyone can sit down and play.

And finally, number 10, this is how my classroom looks like.

Marseille, an immigrant's tale

Marseille is an immigrant's city.

I'm not saying this because there are a lot of foreigners here. There are a lot of foreigners. There are a lot of Maghrebian people who cross the Mediterranean and don't go much farther than Marseille's Vieux Port. But there are also Germans, Spanish, Brazilians, Chinese, Italians- people who like me, were attracted to Marseille as if the Notre Dame de la Garde had a beacon attached to it with a sign saying: WELCOME, FOREIGNERS.

WELCOME, FOREIGNERS! Drop your luggage here!

However, there are also a lot of French immigrants here. In fact, almost everyone I've talked to in Marseille is an immigrant of some form. Rare is the one who has spent its entire life in Marseille. Everyone in my class at Aix-Marseille Univeristy, for example, came from a different region in France and for different reasons, ended up in Marseille.

But we all have something in common- we all want to get out.

Marseille is the passing-through city. No one really wanted to be here in the first place, and is just using the city as a means to accomplish something. It might be to finish one's studies at the university. It might be to find a job in one of the France's most diverse cities. It might be in pursuit of the sun or a love affair. I've seen everything in these two years that I've been living here, and one thing is for certain- Marseille is not dull.

But once the person's objective is accomplished, it's Au revoir, Marseille. This is not a city you dream of living in. And, because no one wants to keep living in Marseille, it continues to be treated the way it is- like the common room of your boarding school. It's fun to use it, but since it's not yours, you don't exactly keep it clean and decorate it with flowers.

That's not to say Marseille isn't beautiful. I mean, look at this:

Sugiton, Marseille.

And this:

Les Goudes, Marseille

Marseille is colorful, Marseille has nature, Marseille has spirit. Marseille has all that and the benefits of being a large city like Paris, except it's in the South, it has cleaner air and 300 days of sunshine per year. And it's just next to Provence so we get to have cheap lavender, soap, and olive oil.

If Julia Roberts said in Eat, Pray, and Love that all cities have a word, Marseille's is transit. And I couldn't think of a more lovelier, exciting city to be in during my transit time.