With a preliminary idea of what I am writing about, I did a quick search on U of M's database search tools and found quite a few promising and recent articles. I am going to try to read through some of them tonight, switching to Russian when I get bored. I'm excited because this essay gives me extra motivation to finish In Defense of Food and start (and hopefully finish) The Omnivore's Dilemma; both by Michael Pollan.
What an adventure! This month has had all sorts of ups and downs, and I am happy to say that it is ending on a wonderful note. Tomorrow I will move into a new house that is further away from nature (sad) but closer to fiends (happy!). I have been keeping myself quite busy thinking, writing a little, learning Russian through RS, and tutoring when I can. In my efforts to improve my reserach writing, I have discovered the questioning that just comes from within (my last post is proof of this). To help inspire these questions, I reacctivated my netflix account and I have two films to suggest.
The first of these is You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train, a documentary about Howard Zinn that takes the title from one of his books. The film is a easy on the eyes; it has collages of old pictures and videos narrated in part by Zinn and in part by Matt Damon (LOL). It is a blend between biography, historical documentary, and an inspirational political film. Well, that description might give you the wrong idea. The film, like other historical documentaries, moves pretty slowly (which is not my favorite), but it makes up for it in inspiration. I reccommend that if you have some time on your hands, and if you have read any of his books, take some time and rent it. However, if you don't have any money(, can't find it online,) and only have enough time to watch one film . . . read on.
The second is Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore? It is a documentary that follows Jeff Smith, a professor at Washington University who decides he is going to run for Congress. He grabs some people and friends to work on his campaign, none of whom have ANY camagin experience. This is truly a mind bending film. This film inspires me much more than President Obama's candidacy and election. Sure, President Obama's was bigger and more impressive, but Smith just decided that he was going to do it, and he did it. It has made me think a lot about politics and how the democracy we want is possible. It alos reminded me that I have not defined my thoughts on hot button issues. I know what my views on them are, but I have not fully explored why they are my views and whether the should continue to be my views. Anyway, if you are relaxing in the afternoon, I suggest you watch this film (see the link at the end of the post).
Finally, I took some pictures the other day. I call it...
A Walk in the Park or Least Scary Graveyard Ever.
Music to listen to while you are looking at pictures:
Some Guster show I did not attend.
Here is another essay I would like to write: I would like to address why bad things still exist in the world.
Why does war still exist? Why do we still kill? Why do we judge and hate and lie and steal?
We do we not trust? Why do we not believe that just as I do not want to be cheated, I would not want to cheat another? Why, tell me why, can we not just live and let live?
I am seriously perplexed by this. I don't have the will to write about here at the moment, but maybe soon. I need the help of philosophers and historians and sociolgists and scientists and workers, but most of all I need people.
People, please tell me why.
English Mania
or
Revelations
This video blows my mind. Not just because of the message, but because this is the first time I have been able to take a great message away from a TED video without being cynical.
This video blows my mind. Not just because of the message, but because this is the first time I have been able to take a great message away from a TED video without being cynical.
My first revelation: For more than a year (probably two) after I first discovered TED, it was the pinnacle of global problem solving and innovative ideas. This was, of course, until someone pointed out that it was predominantly rich white old men 'innovating' solutions to the problems they (generally white old men) caused in the first place. This point has tainted my view of TED ever since, though it is beginning to loose ground. Having learned a little about social justice and identity relations, I don't think that point is much of an argument. An individual should not be blamed for the issues that have been caused by those who share their identities. While I think they should be conscious of how they appear to EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD (namely those who are not privileged, rich, white, old men), I can't discredit their ideas primarily on the fact that they are agents.
My second revelation: I have developed a sort of world view that seems to be rather literal. As far as I can tell, I generally believe that people are global citizens that happen to be confined by geopolitical boundaries. We speak different languages and do different things and look different, but we are all inherently human. I don't want to sound like a hippie (thanks Portland), but when I think about it, what feels most natural to me is that humans exist around the world, and I think that defining a person based on where they were born does not make sense. Surely, it is an easy way to classify people, but I am not country any more than my friends are their countries any more than the immigrants that 'stole' 'our' jobs are the countries they came from. Zooming out breaks down some walls and helps reduce prejudice.
My third revelation: Playing of of the second, I want to move away from viewing language as a barrier to communication. That view, one which I have held for a long time, seems counter productive. With this new world view of global citizens, not to mention globalization and "English Mania", it would make more sense to think of language as a tool. I think Walker points to this when he calls English "the language of problem solving" (see video). Just as math and music are languages, so is English; and I argue are all languages. Freeing people from the labels of geopolitical identity does the same for language. What know I am failing to communicate, (I don't want to edit this...so I am going to discredit myself instead of rewriting this paragraph) is that this is happening. English has definitely already escaped the borders of English speaking nation states. People from China speak Chinese. People from Russia speak Russian. People all over the globe speak English. As obvious as this sounds, it only just dawned on me. I want to take that idea a little further and argue that all language should be viewed as global communication tools. Because I am learning Russian (which is true) does not mean that I am becoming Russian or identifying with the nation state of the Russian Federation. I simply want to expand my capacity for global communication with other people around the world.
Not quite polished prose, those are the epiphanies I had while I watched that video a few times. I am eager to hear what you think. Comment!
R & D
The next step, according to The Craft of Research, is to look at my questions, throw out ones that can be easily looked up and answered, those that have no greater significance, and those that are purely speculative. They then suggest creating a three part statement that 1) names the topic, 2) includes an indirect question, and 3) answers the question, "so what?"
Here is my statement:
- I am researching the emergence and adoption of vegan diets* (historic and contemporary)…
- …because I want to find out how diet choices affect people, animals, and the planet…
- …in order to help my reader understand why people adopt vegan diets and lifestyles (which may help readers think about what influences their diet choices).
*It is worth noting that in talking about the history and relevance of vegan diets, I must also talk about vegetarian diets in general. It should be assumed hence forth that my use of the word vegan does not mean diets and lifestyles completely absent from animal products, but instead means diets (and sometimes lifestyles) that do not include animal flesh, and sometimes animal byproducts such as milk, eggs, cheese, butter, and honey. Because this is also sort of an essay about why I personally am vegan, I think I am going to focus on diets, but I can't promise non-diet animal products won't work their way in there.
In the essay, I want to address the following things: The emergence of a diet as a social construct rather than just something we happen to do, how diets have been incorporated as important agents in various capital industries (making the choice of what we eat much more complicated than it should be), the health and environmental impacts of vegan diets, the arguments for and against veganism (and maybe any other particular diet or lifestyle choice), and a general idea of how people change lifestyles (and why not many people seem to do it).
<!--Other questions this inspires: There are so many books about food and diet and health; why has very little changed over the past 30 years? Does the food industry and agribusiness really control what we eat? Can one really argue about lifestyle choices? Why are people offended by said arguments (what are the different reasons)? How and why do people adopt or change lifestyles in general? Can, or should, the choice of what we eat be based only on hunger and personal taste preference? I didn't actually want these questions to be hidden…You understand-->
I am still debating how broad I want this essay to be. I would like this to be the longest essay I have written to date. In fact, I almost require it to be long enough to constitute a table of contents, end notes, and indices just so I can practice using them with TeX.
Reference
Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research. 3rd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Links
The Craft of Research (Google Books)
My reSearch for Treasure
I bought a book the other day titled The Craft of Research. I am not sure why, but I was definitely drawn to the book. Perhaps it was my desire to be successful in the academic world. Perhaps it was my way of feeling competent in Powell's. Perhaps it was a call to English and away from Biology. Who knows? What I do know for sure is that I wandered that store for a very long time looking for something to read while I rehydrated, and this is what my exhausted self decided on.
It turns out my choice was a good one. I decided earlier today that I wanted to write an essay on why I was vegan. Unfortunately, this is a generally uninteresting question; one I can answer in a few words: because I thought I could. So, to improve my chances of writing a decent essay, and to practice my writing skills for the future, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to apply the suggests of this book. It is rather convenient that I am in Part 2: Asking Questions Finding Answers | Chapter 3: From Topics to Questions. While I am on the topic of practicing things I am learning this summer, I would also like to add that this will be very good TeX/LaTeX practice. Hopefully, I will improve my LaTeX skills to be proficient enough to write an essay I paid money to write...er...for a class, I mean.
The details of my preliminary questioning / brainstorming is too banal and space consuming to post as a real post, so it instead gets buried and linked to. There are six categories, some of which have subcategories, with a total number of eleven ways to ask questions. My goal was to ask at least five questions for each way, giving a grand total of at least 55 answerable/reserachable questions.
Links
Please, remember me...
When I was staying at Funkytown, I learned about a typesetting program that is widely used in academia called TeX. This definitely appeals to my relatively recent fascination with typography. Esentailly, you use a markup called LaTeX to write your document and tell TeX how to format it. TeX automatically follows all of the necessary typographical rules that other word processors do not follow. In short, it makes your document look like it should without me having to know exactly all of the rules (of course, I am still going to try to learn them. But I can make still make pretty documents until then).
My first document is a copy of the lyrics to the song The Trapeze Swinger by Iron and Wine. I am still perfecting it. I don't like that it splits stanzas, so I am looking for a way to prevent page breaks inbetween verses.
I will find a way to get it up here so all can see.
Links
The Lyrics (Mfile woohoo!)
The Great Bicycle Adventure Part 2
I have fiddled with it this morning and I give up. I am going to take it to the shop to see if they can do it for me. I just need to attach my front wheel and I'll be good to go.
Front Wheel
There was a little |_| bit of carboard on the wheel and the tightening/securing screw that goes through the axle was ziptied to a spoke.
Ok, the front wheel is attached. Time to see if I can catch the bus!
(A little while later...)
While I said I had given up, I really had not. I figured out how to put the derailleur cable casings in their crowns (I just had to play with the derailleurs, pushing them into a lower gear...they were in the highest gear which made it really hard to pull the cable! I have also adjusted the tensions enough to be satesfactory. I think they should be fine. Now I need to attach pedals and my front brake callipers.
Great news! Everything is on my bike! Pedals, brakes, the whole deal. Now I need to inflate the tires (easier said than done- I have an awful little hand pump) and I should be good to go.
(Another little while later...)
Finished! My bike is ridable! Almost. I hopped on to check the fitting and my handle bars twisted forward. I am gladd about it though; they only twist when I put pressure on them. Yes! I did that on purpose so I could adjust them when I was ready to fit it! Well done...I mean...I am so smart for thinking ahead like that!
The Great Bicycle Adventure
Things to do:
Figure out what tools I need and get them
Reattach fork and front bearings
reattach handlebars
reattach front brakes
fix cables on handlebars
insert seat & seatpost
calibrate brakes and gears
reattach pedals
I think that is it. While this is a little more than I expected to do, I look forward to getting to know my bike a little better. This will also help if i ever get around to building a bike and fixing my own bike! I will hopefully update this as I move down the list. The only bike store relatively close opens at 9 tomorrow, so I am going to pay them a visit in the morning so I can pick up any tools I need. I might as well buy the tools because I am going to have to take it apart later.
To improve the my chances of putting this back together and taking it apart again, I am going to try to write everything out (Finally! A chance to practice my orientation terms!).
First rule of unpacking things: Document everything!
Seatpost and Saddle
The seat post is wrapped first in a plastic bag, then in cardboard. The cardboard covers the bottom of the seatpost, but is about a forefinger's length from the saddle. About two inches from the top of the cardboard, the plastic is pulled out and around the cardboard. The plastic and card board are wrapped tightly with two separate pieces of packing tape.
The saddle is wrapped in a similar way, first with plastic, than with two pieces of cardboard. The bottom piece is under the posterior part of the saddle and the top piece of cardboard spans the entire saddle. The two pieces of cardboard are wrapped in masking tape... It looks like the bottom piece was attached first as there is tape wrapped around the bottom cardboard and the plastic on the top of the saddle. Then the top piece was added and a piece of tape was wrapped around the entire thing. With the combined piece in front of me posteroanterior(ly?), the tape goes from the posterior left lateral side, down and around the bottom piece of cardboard (anticlockwise), comes back up and across the top piece of cardboard (overlapping the the starting place; still anticlockwise), down and around the bottom piece again (overlapping itself). Then, when it reaches the posterior right lateral side, it moves diagonally to the anterior left lateral side. It then wraps underneath the the anterior of the saddle (anticlockwise). the piece of tape ends on the anterior left lateral side by just overlapping itself. OK. That's enough Colin. Just unwrap it fo goodness sake!
Second rule of unpacking things: broken tape is ok, broken packaging (cardboard and plastic bags) is less ok.
Notes: I've noticed that may marker rubs off of the plastic, but considering I won't be handling it much, I think it is ok. If it turns out to be a problem, I will use tape. Oh Wow! The carbon fiber seatpost is so light! I really want a bike mide out of carbon! Alright, the seatpost and saddle have been freed from their travel garments. Time to tackle the main course. I feel like a forensic biological anthropologist or something...a mortitian perhaps. I wish I had a recorder.
Frame
Viewing the bike from the right lateral side, observations are posteroanterior. The seat stays and chain stays seem to be wrapped in a cardboard-esque paper that is sealed by some doublesided tape...not tape...glue. The cardboard wrap around the left chainstay is wrapped in red cord that is threaded through the hole in the crank arm where the pedals go.
Crank Arm
The left crank ("not the same side" to the drive train) had red cord threaded through the pedal hole and around the chain stay on that side. Both were covered in a sheet of plastic with a sticky side.
Bike Rack
The left (arms/spokes/bars) that reach down to the rear axle had a little bit of cardboard on them...but not the right one. >.<
Here is a brief description of what packaging is left to strip:
Front wheel is attached to top tube and has some cardboard, cardboard around top tube and down tube, plastic around headtube and fork, carboard and ziptie around chainrings, cardboard on the handlebars, cardboard on front brake calipers.
Front Wheel
The front wheel is secured to the frame with two thick white zipties. Both are around the top tube, two spokes apart. There is a little slab of cardboard on the outside of the wheel under one of the ties (posterior) and there probably should have been one under the other...perhaps it slipped out. The posterior ziptie is also looped around the handlebars, keeping them elevated.
Notes: Success! I have removed the top two zipties without damaging them! But now I need a way to keep my bike stable so I can work on it. Normally, I would turn it upside down and rest is on the handlebars and saddle, but neither of those are attached...I am going to try to do that before I remove anything else. (A few minutes later...) Hmm, Forester says I can hang it from rafters (which I conveniently have in my garage) with clothes line. I will have to insert the seatpost though, and I don't know how well that will stay without the right tools. I will remove the rest of the packaging, then see what I need to do to insert the saddle and the handlebars. Perhaps my roommate will be nice and drive me to a hardware store.
Fork, Headpost, and Handlebar Post
The plastic wrapped around this set of components covered the entire thing. I looks like the fork went in the bag first and reached the bottom. Part of the opening of the bag was pulled over the handlebar post and secured with a rubberband. the rest is underneath the cardboard on the down tube.
Frame (Continued)
The top tube is protected by two overlapping pieces of carboard paper (same material as the seat and chain stays). The first piece was wrapped around the anterior of the top tube and the second piece covered the remaining posterior area.
The down tube has similar packaging with the addition of a folded piece of cardboard near the superior, anterior part of the tube (where the down tube meets the head tube).
Notes: One of my housemates generously offered to let me borrow her car if I need to run to the store...I wonder if there are any hardwear stores in the area... I don't really want to wait until tomorrow to finish this project. Then again, it might be a better idea to wait so I don't have more than one of the same tool (I am going to buy a multipurpose tool tomorrow no matter what so I can have on when I ride). All that is left is the carboard around the chainrings, front brake calipers, and handlebars.
Chainrings
There is a thick sheet of cardboard in a "|_|" shape that is secured around the chainrings with a white ziptie. The ziptie went through all three chainrings and was tightened around the cardboard.
Handlebars
Two pieces of cardboard. The long skinny piece was wrapped around the shift/break levels, and the bigger piece was wrapped around the shift level stub.
Notes: I should be time stamping this. It would make it more dramatic. Let's just say it has been several hours. My awesome roommate suggested hitting up Fred Meyer (West Coast Meijer)! Great idea! I am going to go there right now!
I have returned from Fred Meyer with Hex Keys! I can secure my saddle and handlebars! Though I need to figure out how the cables go. They are thoroughly confusing.
Alright. I am going to call it a night and finish working on this in the morning. I have reattached the seatpost and saddle, handlebars, and fitted the rear brake calipers. I am having trouble fitting my shift cables. There are these little notches that keep the cables in place on the bike, and I can't seem to get them in there. Once those are fitted, I need to add the front wheel and pedals, then calibrate everything. Not much at all. From what I have seen, calibration is relatively harmless and should only take an hour or so at most.
Life Update
Well folks, I have made it. I donned my cap, grabbed my axe, and became a lumberjack living high up in the hilly areas of Portland, OR. It is definitely beautiful up here. I can walk a few meters down the road and see hills and mountains in all directions. I have created a flikr to keep track of all of my pictures by month. So if you are interested you can check them out here. I am going to run around and take pictures of things later when the lighting is better. The weather is not bad either. I arrived on the last of a series of cloudy and rainy days, and it has been nice ever since. It is usually mostly sunny with the temperatures in the 50s and 60s and a little wind chill. It is a little cooler than I expected it to be, but I am sure that will change in no time at all.
Now, about bikes. In an effort to become more bike savvy, I have decided that I would like to build a bike. I am going to try to accumulate almost all of the parts on the cheap, and learn about things as I go. I have a wonderful book that I bought for a few bucks on amazon called Effective Cycling by John Forester. The book is a tome of cycling knowledge that ranges from the inner workings and assembly of bearings to the physiology of cycling to cycling culture and road rules. It includes many wonderful hand drawn diagrams of parts that I hope to recreate using my own parts. My Giant should arrive in about a week, which is going to be super helpful getting around and accumulating parts for my new bike.
I am having a little trouble deciding what to do about a job here in Portland. Firstly, I live pretty far away from everything which a) makes jobs scarce and b) makes me contemplate moving closer to town. So finding a job is not on the tippity top of my list. Whats more, the west coast time makes non-scheduled tutoring easy. All of the west coast students are logging on around 6pm Pacific Time, and staying on until 10 which is getting a little late for East Coast tutors. So far, I have been able to get on around 8pm and float for two hours to problem. Now the trick is to schedule hours that are harder to get for my time zone, then log back on later when students are abundant. I figure I have about another month of this four hours a day tutoring schedule, so I need to try to secure a job and a new place to live soon.
If you ignore the location, it is really great. I took the bus downtown and it took about 45 minutes, which could by much worse I suppose. On the way back, I had to wait at a bus stop for 20 minutes and it was in the middle of nowhere. At first, I thought oh great, this is really annoying, and I stared at the traffic. while sitting there on a medium sized road, I saw several cyclists. Some were all geared up, some looked like they were headed to work, some flew through the intersection, others labored up the hill. All in all, it was really encouraging to see people at all different levels biking for different reasons. I am glad I had the chance to just sit and observe for a bit....but now I want to join them.
Also big news: I am turning 21 this Sunday! Hooray! To make things even better, we might be hosting our first couchsurfer this weekend. He is a student from London and he is just out here exploring for a few days. What a welcoming party, eh?
Also Also not big news at all: I have suddenly become interested in maps. I started making a paper version of google's street map of SE Portland, but I was interrupted by the internet's distracting abilities. I am sure I will work on it more soon. I am also working on a google map that will document all of the cool things I find and whatnot. Check out the links for a bare-bones version I just made. I will try to find a fun way to map my explorations and escapades. (I don't actually know if the link will work. Let me know if it doesn't.)
Stay Tuned.
Links (by title length, shortest to longest)
My Maps! (Google)
My Pictures (Flickr)
Couchsurfing! (My Profile)
How about my job too? (Tutor.com)
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