Living in Portland for the summer has given me a wonderful opportunity to relax, rejuvenate, and reflect; and with one week to go, I have a few thoughts.

One is that I have yet to find an area of study that reaches out and grabs me. But instead of waiting for it to appear, I should choose to pursue something I am mildly interested in, at least. While out running the other day, I realized that I have at least a mild interest in food science. I have really enjoyed human physiology, health, and the books I have read on food, food systems, the food industry, and global issues around food. Add to this the increasing importance that food science is going to have as the human race expands, as people realize that we have yet to solve world hunger, and as we potentially lose arable land to climate change. I am going to stick with the Bio major and Peace and Social Justice minor, while I start looking at my options for post graduation.

Another thought I have had is that I have done a pretty good job of developing diligence over the summer. I am glad to have the time to develop this much needed quality, the lack of which cost me in GPA last year. In order to start the semester right, I will be fasting for Ramadan. I made the decision when I received an email from my hall director asking who was fasting for Ramadan so we could be accommodated for during training. The thought of fasting had crossed my mind a few months back, but this time, it was serious. After some thought and a chat with one of my housemates--She has celebrated Ramadan for a few years, but does not identify as Muslim-- I replied to the message. I decided that fasting for Ramadan would be a good way to do several things including being an ally for the Muslim community, improving my self control, and carrying the things I have learned and developed this summer back to Ann Arbor. Apart from those personal reasons, I also agree with what Ramadan is about: recognition of, solidarity with, and aid to the less fortunate; purification, which I interpret as breaking bad habits and minimizing bad thoughts; and forgiveness. All in all, I see these good reasons to fast. To clarify, I am not spiritual or religious in the least. But I can respect the good things that are done in the name and spirit of religions, and I think I can learn some powerful personal lessons through this experience.

That is all of the big news I have for now. I'll be back in AA soon, and I can't wait to see everyone again.

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.

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)

Life Update

Here are a few updates about my life:

Diet: After twelve days of being vegan, I am positive that I will continue this for as long as is possible. I feel absolutely fantastic, and I am sure I have reduced the probability of developing many 'western diseases'. These diseases (things like obesity, various cancers, diabetes, hypertension, dental problems, etc.) have been brought to my attention by Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food (MP's website). I have only read the first third of the book, so far, in which he covers modern issues about food, about how our views of food in the industrial West have developed over the years, and give a warning about over generalizing the results of food research.

Books: Speaking of books, I have decided to embrace my short attention span when it comes to reading and read several books at the same time. This does not come as much of a surprise to me; it just feels right. To keep myself motivated, I have used the Daytum beta account I was given to log the pages I read each day. As motivation, it has worked pretty well. I was so sad that my daily average (note: it bugs me that I do not know how this average is calculated) was only 36 pages, so I started reading more. It is up to 60.5...still pretty meager, but a good improvement. Click and it will come (My Daytum).

Summer: I am going to Portland, OR. As I have told everyone who asks, something incredible will need to happen for me to stay in Ann Arbor. I am so excited to get out of here and live freely. Yes, I am already living on my own , and no, I do not hate my current living situation; I just want a change. I have been living in the residence halls for a good 2.5 years solid now, but the convenience we all love comes with a price. I am ready for a breather from my cushy room.

I am hoping to be really eco consious on my summer escape. To do this, I think I will make a list of all of the things I want to do:

• Compost (vermi- probably -> Instructable 1 | Instructable 2)
• Create a CO2 scrubber (Wiki | Instructable)
• Reduce my water consumption (start and stop water while showering, etc.)
• Find a new way to wash my clothes (Instructable)
• Air dry my sustainably washed clothes
  
• more to come! I am open to suggestions. (really, I got distracted and want to finish this post)