"you are not used to this kind of life; therefore the indications bypass you. yet you are a serious person, but your seriousness is attached to what you do, not to what goes on outside you. you dwell upon yourself too much. that's the trouble. and that produces a terrible fatigue."
"but what else can anyone do, don Juan?"
"seek and see the marvels all around you. you will get tired of looking at yourself alone, and that fatigue will make you deaf and blind to everything else"
-- The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, Carlos Castaneda
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
cant i just farm for a while?
i went to do important things at the capitol too.
and this one because its funny. i really want this kind of leather jacket. but alas. fail.
and this one because its funny. i really want this kind of leather jacket. but alas. fail.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Travels With Herodotus
my own copy of Travels With Herodotus has a crease in the middle from ample time folded in my left back-pocket of my navy-blue skinny jeans. it is a book just large enough to fit in one such pocket. having been with me when I experienced one of Washington D.C.'s more dramatic storms this summer, it also bares the mark of water damage -- so much so that the blue of the jean material has rubbed off along the book's spine and page edges.
and yet, I feel that is how Ryszard Kapuscinksi, its author, would have preferred it to be. the polish journalist, who passed away in january of 2007, spent his working life writing reportage of the third world for the Polish Press Agency. his pieces tended to fall more towards the literary side of reportage rather than on the technical and objective edge. commentators often note how his pieces read more like novels than journalistic material. but Kapuscinski was always a writer of experience rather than the nitty gritty, finding ways to grab hold of something everyday and extrapolate it into its wider meanings.
which is what Travels most notably does. its 275 pages are an odd mix of reportage, autobiography, and ancient greek history -- something that would seem to not make sense. Travels is Kapuscinski's attempt, and his last piece at that, to draw out an overview of his years abroad, the people he met, the places he saw, but ultimately, how he felt and what drew him to each. above all, the book is a glimpse into why we travel, why we move. he sums it up best in the following lines, which alone were enough to keep me reading:
"I wondered what ones experiences when one crosses the border. What does one feel? What does one think? It must be a moment of great emotion, agitation, tension. What is it like, on the other side? It must certainly be -- different. But what does 'different' mean? What does it look like? What does it resemble? Maybe it resembles nothing that I know, and thus is inconcievable, unimaginable? And so my greatest desire, which gave me no peace, which tormented and tantalized me, was actually quite modest: I wanted one thing only -- the moment, the act, the simple fact of crossing the border."
and yet, I feel that is how Ryszard Kapuscinksi, its author, would have preferred it to be. the polish journalist, who passed away in january of 2007, spent his working life writing reportage of the third world for the Polish Press Agency. his pieces tended to fall more towards the literary side of reportage rather than on the technical and objective edge. commentators often note how his pieces read more like novels than journalistic material. but Kapuscinski was always a writer of experience rather than the nitty gritty, finding ways to grab hold of something everyday and extrapolate it into its wider meanings.
which is what Travels most notably does. its 275 pages are an odd mix of reportage, autobiography, and ancient greek history -- something that would seem to not make sense. Travels is Kapuscinski's attempt, and his last piece at that, to draw out an overview of his years abroad, the people he met, the places he saw, but ultimately, how he felt and what drew him to each. above all, the book is a glimpse into why we travel, why we move. he sums it up best in the following lines, which alone were enough to keep me reading:
"I wondered what ones experiences when one crosses the border. What does one feel? What does one think? It must be a moment of great emotion, agitation, tension. What is it like, on the other side? It must certainly be -- different. But what does 'different' mean? What does it look like? What does it resemble? Maybe it resembles nothing that I know, and thus is inconcievable, unimaginable? And so my greatest desire, which gave me no peace, which tormented and tantalized me, was actually quite modest: I wanted one thing only -- the moment, the act, the simple fact of crossing the border."
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The District
c
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/07/monkeys-verbal-skills.html
an excerpt...
"Cotton-top tamarin monkeys may look like little fluff balls, but these primates are not lightweights when it comes to learning at least one basic component of language. A new study found that these monkeys can tell the difference between prefixes and suffixes.
The discovery, reported in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters, suggests non-human primates, and possibly many other animals, share some skills associated with human language."
based on things i like reading, and what im doing in this internship, and how much i like reading Scientific American and Discovery News, im thinking maybe of going into science writing. not science journalism (although thats a part of it), but writing about public health, nature, and culture. that could be cool. MIT has a really good one year program.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
sometimes that feels like life.
im sick and dont know how that happened. im sitting here at work sneezing uncontrollably.
i woke up at 5 am today. dont know why either. i slept in my bed for the first time in weeks -- ive been sleeping on my couch usually because it reminds me of sleeping in a hammock and i like that.
i went to a hearing at Capitol Hill today on reinstating the Superfund tax. it was enjoyable. half of it was on background to Superfund and Love Canal so i was suprised how well informed i am. Lois spoke on the issue of hurricane and weather risks in relation to Superfund sites, something i hadnt put much thought into before.
her sister, who lives in Montana, gave a talk on mining in the region and the need to have a Superfund tax. a scientist from Portland's port authority gave his own pitch on the difficulties in reinstating Superfund when you dont have a single polluter and chemical to target -- such as, when, you have a port that has had 100 years of come-and-go industrial activity, with a wide range of toxic exposure.
but the speakers pointed to the need for the tax. Obama has outlined the importance of Superfund in his budget, but pushed it to the 2011 agenda. Gibbs and the others agreed that the time is now, more than ever, to push the bill forward. without the tax, it is impossible to clean up the thousands of thousands of sites across the country. Gibbs touted the "pizza" concept: for evert $10,000 of profit an industry makes, only $12 goes to Superfund cleanup if the bill is reinstated and financed through the federal government -- the price of a large pizza. also, without the legal tax, cleanup funds must come from taxpayers, all 100% of it. which is, unmistakably, unethical -- ask people suffering from cancer clusters, birth defects, and misscarriages to pay their own money to clean up an industry's pollutants = wrong.
port authority man made another good point -- for the EPA to do Superfund cleanup, they must take $s out of other environmental research agendas like global warming, infectious disease, etc. things that are important, in other words, get reduced funding for common-good issues because the government wont push polluters to pay.
in short, Superfund should be reinstated. Lois gave a quick memory from when Pres. Carter visited Love Canal to announce the evacuation of the 900 families there -- when Carter came, he told Lois that "there will never be another Love Canal." they were going to made a federal fund, a super fund, he told her, to make sure that people without financial resources wouldnt have to be ignored by the government. and yet thirty years later, sites still exist, now at more risk than ever due to climate change.
did i mention that all an industry has to do is declare bankrupcy to avoid Superfund taxes?
what else...
tomorrow i am voltar-ing to the Capitol Visitor Center once again with Stephen to go to a reception for the new director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. should be awesome. i get to shake hands and be known as "Dan the Intern". in fact, today I lent my laptop to the congressman's aide for his powerpoint presentation. only, my computer sucks and freaked out and didn't work, as usual. it wasn't too embarrasing. i managed to make my desktop pretty clear. except for a jpeg called "coffee", which is a map of coffee trade i posted earlier. which Lois and the port authority guys found hillarious. but then i helped out with technical difficulties the best i could, mad respect.
im incredibly exhausted but will be going into adams morgan tonight to relax with some people i met last week and went to fireworks with. i showed them Kramer's Books in Dupont Circle, where we had some pretty good veggie pizza and an awesome brownie sunday. i was tempted to buy an Irish Coffee because they are like crack and all, but $7 is pretty hefty.
oh and i went food shopping, if you can call it that at the 7/11, and bought mango, bread, milk, rasin bran, and 2 hard boiled eggs. the eggs come with a salt and pepper packet. which to me is exciting. this sunday i am going to the farmer's market in dupont circle and loading up on a weeks worth of actual produce. which is cheaper than the 7/11. and maybe find out if i can do some volunteer work at a farm nearby. i emailed Paul from the TLS department at Bard about working there or volunteering or i dont really care what next year, but, as the last time i emailed him, he didnt get back to me yet.
in Janurary Orion Magazine, this amazing collection of writings about place/nature/culture, accepts submissions on practically anything related to science, nature, agriculture, sustainability. my aim is to submitt a piece.
also thinking of starting doing something more productive on this blog than just writing about my life. seems somewhat egotistical. since all i do is read non-fiction now, im going to start posting book reviews. maybe ill also put them on Amazon.com, but ill start here and see what kind of feedback i get. that's a hint for leave feedback when i post a review.
within the week ill write one for John McPhee's Pine Barrens. im in the middle of Jan Morris's Trieste - and the meaning on nowhere, her reflection on her city, Trieste, which lies along the Adriatic coast to the very east in Italy. much like Pamuk's Istanbul, it seems to be about the legacy and experience of a city whose identity is very much now a memory, whose past is its only glory in the midst of empire, and who now, like its inhabitants, finds itself a liminal entity, betwixt and between, belonging-as Morris's title puts it-nowhere. although unlike the city of Istanbul, poised between East and West, Morris's Trieste "belongs" somewhere between the past glory of the Hapsburg Empire, the development of Western Europe, and the now diminished Eastern Europe. a place within Europe, but outside of it. its prose is slightly awkward at times, but of course i like the concept and its a good read.
one more.
i woke up at 5 am today. dont know why either. i slept in my bed for the first time in weeks -- ive been sleeping on my couch usually because it reminds me of sleeping in a hammock and i like that.
i went to a hearing at Capitol Hill today on reinstating the Superfund tax. it was enjoyable. half of it was on background to Superfund and Love Canal so i was suprised how well informed i am. Lois spoke on the issue of hurricane and weather risks in relation to Superfund sites, something i hadnt put much thought into before.
her sister, who lives in Montana, gave a talk on mining in the region and the need to have a Superfund tax. a scientist from Portland's port authority gave his own pitch on the difficulties in reinstating Superfund when you dont have a single polluter and chemical to target -- such as, when, you have a port that has had 100 years of come-and-go industrial activity, with a wide range of toxic exposure.
but the speakers pointed to the need for the tax. Obama has outlined the importance of Superfund in his budget, but pushed it to the 2011 agenda. Gibbs and the others agreed that the time is now, more than ever, to push the bill forward. without the tax, it is impossible to clean up the thousands of thousands of sites across the country. Gibbs touted the "pizza" concept: for evert $10,000 of profit an industry makes, only $12 goes to Superfund cleanup if the bill is reinstated and financed through the federal government -- the price of a large pizza. also, without the legal tax, cleanup funds must come from taxpayers, all 100% of it. which is, unmistakably, unethical -- ask people suffering from cancer clusters, birth defects, and misscarriages to pay their own money to clean up an industry's pollutants = wrong.
port authority man made another good point -- for the EPA to do Superfund cleanup, they must take $s out of other environmental research agendas like global warming, infectious disease, etc. things that are important, in other words, get reduced funding for common-good issues because the government wont push polluters to pay.
in short, Superfund should be reinstated. Lois gave a quick memory from when Pres. Carter visited Love Canal to announce the evacuation of the 900 families there -- when Carter came, he told Lois that "there will never be another Love Canal." they were going to made a federal fund, a super fund, he told her, to make sure that people without financial resources wouldnt have to be ignored by the government. and yet thirty years later, sites still exist, now at more risk than ever due to climate change.
did i mention that all an industry has to do is declare bankrupcy to avoid Superfund taxes?
what else...
tomorrow i am voltar-ing to the Capitol Visitor Center once again with Stephen to go to a reception for the new director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. should be awesome. i get to shake hands and be known as "Dan the Intern". in fact, today I lent my laptop to the congressman's aide for his powerpoint presentation. only, my computer sucks and freaked out and didn't work, as usual. it wasn't too embarrasing. i managed to make my desktop pretty clear. except for a jpeg called "coffee", which is a map of coffee trade i posted earlier. which Lois and the port authority guys found hillarious. but then i helped out with technical difficulties the best i could, mad respect.
im incredibly exhausted but will be going into adams morgan tonight to relax with some people i met last week and went to fireworks with. i showed them Kramer's Books in Dupont Circle, where we had some pretty good veggie pizza and an awesome brownie sunday. i was tempted to buy an Irish Coffee because they are like crack and all, but $7 is pretty hefty.
oh and i went food shopping, if you can call it that at the 7/11, and bought mango, bread, milk, rasin bran, and 2 hard boiled eggs. the eggs come with a salt and pepper packet. which to me is exciting. this sunday i am going to the farmer's market in dupont circle and loading up on a weeks worth of actual produce. which is cheaper than the 7/11. and maybe find out if i can do some volunteer work at a farm nearby. i emailed Paul from the TLS department at Bard about working there or volunteering or i dont really care what next year, but, as the last time i emailed him, he didnt get back to me yet.
in Janurary Orion Magazine, this amazing collection of writings about place/nature/culture, accepts submissions on practically anything related to science, nature, agriculture, sustainability. my aim is to submitt a piece.
also thinking of starting doing something more productive on this blog than just writing about my life. seems somewhat egotistical. since all i do is read non-fiction now, im going to start posting book reviews. maybe ill also put them on Amazon.com, but ill start here and see what kind of feedback i get. that's a hint for leave feedback when i post a review.
within the week ill write one for John McPhee's Pine Barrens. im in the middle of Jan Morris's Trieste - and the meaning on nowhere, her reflection on her city, Trieste, which lies along the Adriatic coast to the very east in Italy. much like Pamuk's Istanbul, it seems to be about the legacy and experience of a city whose identity is very much now a memory, whose past is its only glory in the midst of empire, and who now, like its inhabitants, finds itself a liminal entity, betwixt and between, belonging-as Morris's title puts it-nowhere. although unlike the city of Istanbul, poised between East and West, Morris's Trieste "belongs" somewhere between the past glory of the Hapsburg Empire, the development of Western Europe, and the now diminished Eastern Europe. a place within Europe, but outside of it. its prose is slightly awkward at times, but of course i like the concept and its a good read.
one more.
Monday, July 6, 2009
i find this crite-sheet to be hillarious.
"Solid student. Consistently high quality work. Good understanding of the material. Quiet in class, but did well engaging with his group."
im glad my biology professor had enough time to write full sentences. oh wait..
tomorrow for work i get to go to a Superfund hearing on Capitol Hill.
because im bored and falling asleep as i update this web site for work
i frantically emailed my writing professor about career advice and such based on what he knows of my interests and my writing thus far.
meh!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
legumes and risk assessment
compiling epidemiologic studies on solid waste incinerators. waiting for my boss to give me feedback on my fact pack suggestions. slightly bored at work. so im researching graduate schools instead. figures.
im looking at anything between epidemiology, agriculture, infectious disease, and capacity building.
johns hopkins has MPH concentrations in sustainability & health and in infectious disease. they have certificates in community-based health research.
tufts has a dual MPH/MS in nutrition. one of the nutrition concentrations is a MS in agriculture, food, and environment. the MPH concentration could be in epidemiology or general public health or global public health.
ucdavis has a MS or MPH in epidemiology with concentrations in infectious disease and in wildlife epidemiology. they also have a MS in international agricultural development with a number of concentrations, in geography and in plant pathology of interest to me.
yale has a dual MPH/MEM, masters in environmental management.
id say those are the four im looking at right now, leaning towards the dual degrees in epidemiology and agriculture.
i emailed the TLS department @ Bard about ways i can contribute and participate in the community garden. theres also a farm near New Paltz that accepts volunteers and internships, and its only less than a hour away. i also have wednesdays and fridays off next sem, and gardening has always been good stress relief. and exercise.
maybe i should email allen wright about how he got involved in gardening. also, i heard paula kline's name come up at work yesterday. somebody mentioned her name in regards to a Quaker School coalition. funny huh?
im going through about 1-2 books a week depending. istanbul: memories and the city was really fantastic. i hope i can write something like that eventually. i didn't know Pamuk was originally in architecture school before he dropped out to become a writer. his family and friends in Turkey did not approve.
also finished fear of small numbers. and was suprised at how much i enjoyed it. Appadurai is one of the few anthropologists ive read who can actually write for an audience beyond scholars and students.
a bend in the river was also great. i dont read novels enough and i was pleased. took me the round-trip to NYC to finish it, but worth it. had a similar melancholic feel to it as did istanbul. i also picked up and read voices of marrakesh. to be honest, didn't like it. its very short, but thats not the problem. the author was in the city briefly, with literally no knowledge of arabic or berber dialects. as is such, he didnt understand anything that was said to him beyond hand motions, gestures, etc. which are important, but you miss out on a lot. he required on french translation, which must have annoyed people. youd think youd try to learn some of the language. but also, the book just didnt hold my attention. it was a short collection of sketches almost, which usually interests me and my writing style, but not this time. ive also started jaguar smile by rushdie, one of his few nonfiction works about nicaragua. but im getting the same feel for it as i did voices. rushdie at least understands spanish, but hes only in the country for three weeks. not that one shouldnt write about a place unless they go for long periods of time. i like the idea of offering solely a glimpse, but im not sure how well the idea works in practice. so far im getting frustrated with each chapter and feeling i havent really learned anything about nicaragua or the people's point of view, just glimpses of conversation and activity in the town square. its well written, thats for sure. but im having a hard time getting through it.
NYC was great and it was nice to see people again, or to have a social life in general, for that matter. i went to a Bulgarian bar/night club, which was hillarious and typically American-ized eastern european. also went to a nifty chocolate-bar down in St. Marks. also, very proud of myself, i did not get lost on the subway, as usually happens to me. i think im learning...
i also fixed my syllabus for diana & i's tutorial. renamed it to "Participatory democracy, health, and the environment". made three clusters instead of four. a month for each. removed a bunch of readings and added a bunch on participatory environmental management, especially in agriculture and food security/autonomy. i really need to write my participatory democracy essay, ive done all the readings. but diana is also in Brazil, so i don't think punctuality matters in this case.
last night i was tired after work so walked around looking for a calm bar to relax for a few minutes in. i went into one, which was on a roof, and it was busy and crowded and everybody was wearing suits. i left. i found another small sports bar and ordered a whiskey w ginger ale and watched whatever game was playing for a few minutes. then i got a pretentious salad at Cosi's. then it began to rain. so i got an ice cream cone and walked home in the rain. and then i researched plant pathology some more and realized that to get a degree in it, you have to have oodles of undergrad courses in biology. so, there goes that. i dont feel like taking chemistry, organic chemistry, calculus, statistics, biochemistry, genetics, botany, etc.
although i do already have a lot of biology courses: biodiversity, amazon resource management & human ecology, fundamentals in ecosystem ecology, ecology & evolution, biology of infectious disease, ecology of infectious disease, biostatistics. 7. for a minor. so take that, ptretentious graduate school admissions. besides, its not like Bard has the most wonderful depth of courses. expect for economics and literature...
im staying here for the 4th of july and am excited. a few friends will be in the area. were going to explore used bookstores, thrift stores, museums, and the zoo. i have a list printed out and folded in my pocket.
i sumbitted my resume for future whatevers to PATH, a Seattle and DC-based global health organization. they do community-based solutions to health issues such as emerging infectious disease transmission, accesible and easily-usable health technologies and sanitation measures, access to vaccines and basic medicine. their solutions are meant to be sustainable in the communities they work with, socially and culturally appropriate, and of course, empowering to the degree that the community can maintain the processes on their own and hence the NGO will no longer be needed -- ie, sustainable. they seem really cool and somewhat exactly what im looking to do, and they had an option to submit a resume for whenever jobs and internships open up. why not?
i emailed a few professors about coffee and my Watson idea. i got a few useful replies. jeff had some good suggestions about places to go. he works w/ Turkey so i hope that helps. he gave a name or two of people i should get in touch with to learn more and maybe get some contacts. i also emailed alice and she had some good critiques and questions for me to think about. im going to focus on Arabica coffee. you might not be able to see it on the map, but its the red areas and lines. jeff suggested i look into India for consumption -- a big coffe culture is emerging there. if i do Arabica, then i can integrate my desire to travel by boat and follow 16-18th century trade routes.
pre-1400 coffee was grown primarily in Ethiopia. around 1400-1500 traders took coffee plants to Yemen, and from Yemen to India. around 1600 coffee expanded from India to Indonesia, and
during the century the Dutch and Portuguese colonialists took coffee plants West around Africa to Western Europe. where coffee consumption skyrocketed and coffee houses became a big thing, not just as places to relax and get caffinated, but more to exchange ideas. they became mini-universities, in a sense, and were key areas where news, science, and literature grew and were exchanged between professionals. around the 1700s, Europeans began exporting Arabica coffee to be grown at their plantations in Latin America, namely in Costa Rica and Colombia.
so, thats where the Watson will take me, it seems. if i get it, ill start in Ethiopia for production, then to India for consumption, then to Indonesia for production, then around Africa to the Netherlands for consumption, then into Turkey for consumption as well, and then to Costa Rica or Colombia for production. along the way, ill be looking at community-building and exchange of knowledge and ideas. as to a social agenda, i want to explore food security and fears of how climate change will impact the coffee enterprise. but only for farmers, but also for consumers as well. agricultural losses impact both local livelihoods of farmers and producers as well as cultures and community centers that in some way, rely on coffee as well. and i think the country choices work really well in a way that will let me link together historical pieces on trade in these areas and on coffee houses and on the inequality in production. maybe i can even get a book out of it. but it would teach me a lot about agriculture, community, food anthropology, food security, international trade, and, yes, let me be on a boat.
i havent shaved in over a week.
im looking at anything between epidemiology, agriculture, infectious disease, and capacity building.
johns hopkins has MPH concentrations in sustainability & health and in infectious disease. they have certificates in community-based health research.
tufts has a dual MPH/MS in nutrition. one of the nutrition concentrations is a MS in agriculture, food, and environment. the MPH concentration could be in epidemiology or general public health or global public health.
ucdavis has a MS or MPH in epidemiology with concentrations in infectious disease and in wildlife epidemiology. they also have a MS in international agricultural development with a number of concentrations, in geography and in plant pathology of interest to me.
yale has a dual MPH/MEM, masters in environmental management.
id say those are the four im looking at right now, leaning towards the dual degrees in epidemiology and agriculture.
i emailed the TLS department @ Bard about ways i can contribute and participate in the community garden. theres also a farm near New Paltz that accepts volunteers and internships, and its only less than a hour away. i also have wednesdays and fridays off next sem, and gardening has always been good stress relief. and exercise.
maybe i should email allen wright about how he got involved in gardening. also, i heard paula kline's name come up at work yesterday. somebody mentioned her name in regards to a Quaker School coalition. funny huh?
im going through about 1-2 books a week depending. istanbul: memories and the city was really fantastic. i hope i can write something like that eventually. i didn't know Pamuk was originally in architecture school before he dropped out to become a writer. his family and friends in Turkey did not approve.
also finished fear of small numbers. and was suprised at how much i enjoyed it. Appadurai is one of the few anthropologists ive read who can actually write for an audience beyond scholars and students.
a bend in the river was also great. i dont read novels enough and i was pleased. took me the round-trip to NYC to finish it, but worth it. had a similar melancholic feel to it as did istanbul. i also picked up and read voices of marrakesh. to be honest, didn't like it. its very short, but thats not the problem. the author was in the city briefly, with literally no knowledge of arabic or berber dialects. as is such, he didnt understand anything that was said to him beyond hand motions, gestures, etc. which are important, but you miss out on a lot. he required on french translation, which must have annoyed people. youd think youd try to learn some of the language. but also, the book just didnt hold my attention. it was a short collection of sketches almost, which usually interests me and my writing style, but not this time. ive also started jaguar smile by rushdie, one of his few nonfiction works about nicaragua. but im getting the same feel for it as i did voices. rushdie at least understands spanish, but hes only in the country for three weeks. not that one shouldnt write about a place unless they go for long periods of time. i like the idea of offering solely a glimpse, but im not sure how well the idea works in practice. so far im getting frustrated with each chapter and feeling i havent really learned anything about nicaragua or the people's point of view, just glimpses of conversation and activity in the town square. its well written, thats for sure. but im having a hard time getting through it.
NYC was great and it was nice to see people again, or to have a social life in general, for that matter. i went to a Bulgarian bar/night club, which was hillarious and typically American-ized eastern european. also went to a nifty chocolate-bar down in St. Marks. also, very proud of myself, i did not get lost on the subway, as usually happens to me. i think im learning...
i also fixed my syllabus for diana & i's tutorial. renamed it to "Participatory democracy, health, and the environment". made three clusters instead of four. a month for each. removed a bunch of readings and added a bunch on participatory environmental management, especially in agriculture and food security/autonomy. i really need to write my participatory democracy essay, ive done all the readings. but diana is also in Brazil, so i don't think punctuality matters in this case.
last night i was tired after work so walked around looking for a calm bar to relax for a few minutes in. i went into one, which was on a roof, and it was busy and crowded and everybody was wearing suits. i left. i found another small sports bar and ordered a whiskey w ginger ale and watched whatever game was playing for a few minutes. then i got a pretentious salad at Cosi's. then it began to rain. so i got an ice cream cone and walked home in the rain. and then i researched plant pathology some more and realized that to get a degree in it, you have to have oodles of undergrad courses in biology. so, there goes that. i dont feel like taking chemistry, organic chemistry, calculus, statistics, biochemistry, genetics, botany, etc.
although i do already have a lot of biology courses: biodiversity, amazon resource management & human ecology, fundamentals in ecosystem ecology, ecology & evolution, biology of infectious disease, ecology of infectious disease, biostatistics. 7. for a minor. so take that, ptretentious graduate school admissions. besides, its not like Bard has the most wonderful depth of courses. expect for economics and literature...
im staying here for the 4th of july and am excited. a few friends will be in the area. were going to explore used bookstores, thrift stores, museums, and the zoo. i have a list printed out and folded in my pocket.
i sumbitted my resume for future whatevers to PATH, a Seattle and DC-based global health organization. they do community-based solutions to health issues such as emerging infectious disease transmission, accesible and easily-usable health technologies and sanitation measures, access to vaccines and basic medicine. their solutions are meant to be sustainable in the communities they work with, socially and culturally appropriate, and of course, empowering to the degree that the community can maintain the processes on their own and hence the NGO will no longer be needed -- ie, sustainable. they seem really cool and somewhat exactly what im looking to do, and they had an option to submit a resume for whenever jobs and internships open up. why not?
i emailed a few professors about coffee and my Watson idea. i got a few useful replies. jeff had some good suggestions about places to go. he works w/ Turkey so i hope that helps. he gave a name or two of people i should get in touch with to learn more and maybe get some contacts. i also emailed alice and she had some good critiques and questions for me to think about. im going to focus on Arabica coffee. you might not be able to see it on the map, but its the red areas and lines. jeff suggested i look into India for consumption -- a big coffe culture is emerging there. if i do Arabica, then i can integrate my desire to travel by boat and follow 16-18th century trade routes.
pre-1400 coffee was grown primarily in Ethiopia. around 1400-1500 traders took coffee plants to Yemen, and from Yemen to India. around 1600 coffee expanded from India to Indonesia, and
during the century the Dutch and Portuguese colonialists took coffee plants West around Africa to Western Europe. where coffee consumption skyrocketed and coffee houses became a big thing, not just as places to relax and get caffinated, but more to exchange ideas. they became mini-universities, in a sense, and were key areas where news, science, and literature grew and were exchanged between professionals. around the 1700s, Europeans began exporting Arabica coffee to be grown at their plantations in Latin America, namely in Costa Rica and Colombia.so, thats where the Watson will take me, it seems. if i get it, ill start in Ethiopia for production, then to India for consumption, then to Indonesia for production, then around Africa to the Netherlands for consumption, then into Turkey for consumption as well, and then to Costa Rica or Colombia for production. along the way, ill be looking at community-building and exchange of knowledge and ideas. as to a social agenda, i want to explore food security and fears of how climate change will impact the coffee enterprise. but only for farmers, but also for consumers as well. agricultural losses impact both local livelihoods of farmers and producers as well as cultures and community centers that in some way, rely on coffee as well. and i think the country choices work really well in a way that will let me link together historical pieces on trade in these areas and on coffee houses and on the inequality in production. maybe i can even get a book out of it. but it would teach me a lot about agriculture, community, food anthropology, food security, international trade, and, yes, let me be on a boat.
i havent shaved in over a week.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 1)
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn't matter much to me.
No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right.
That is I think it's not too bad.
Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Always no sometimes think it's me, but you know I know when it's a dream.
I think, er No, I mean, er Yes but it's all wrong.
That is I think I disagree.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i think or at least feel as if im coming into my own, somewhat. i think im falling for language and attempting to express myself constantly. ive taken a liking to memoirs and memory and recounting memory shaping it through a place.
i think i might ask my professor from my cultural technologies of memory class to do a tutorial in the spring on memoir and anthropology. how cool.
struggling. do you do what a part of you is passionate about but you have little actual experience with, or do you go with that burning in your heart? epidemiology and public health consulting seem wonderful and practical. but so does doing my all to become a writer. then again, one can do both, can't we?
i dont like long books and treatises. i like them pocket sized. whats the point of a book that wont fit in your back pocket? you cant exactly take it around with you if its not. i think books should be about moving and traveling. they should be mobile and portable. i dont like carrying a backpack around the city.
cities cities and cities. read invisible cities by calvino in a day. the metro system was made for book readers. in fact, i read the most when im moving, on the train, on the bus, on the boat. its when i sit in my room that i read the least.
why must i always be going somewhere? its as if im afraid to be still.
working through arjun appadurai's fear of small numbers. hes an anthropologist but one of the few whose writings flow rather easily. and ive liked his other writings. they always make me ponder.
today i picked up copies of orphan pamuk's istanbul: memories and the city and v. s. naipaul's a bend in the river. im reading pamuk's now. its excellent. memories are fascinating things, especially good reflections on them.
its funny how i dont write about my internship at all.
i like it enough, but when it comes down to it, i dont feel like explaining it. im updating fact packs on environmental health hazards & summarizing and synthesizing full cost accounting reports.
gross, those two words sound awful to say out loud.
maybe its just that activism can be a little frustrating? mind games and manipulation. mostly of images. maybe its just me. but why the obsession with children's faces as a tool to get support and donations?
chej is a strong organization. i like the organizing and technical assistance component and am proud to be a part of it. im looking forward to helping write summaries of successful environmental health struggles around the country for the "action line" component of our publication, everyone's backyard. but im not huge on most of the nation-wide campaigns we run. BE SAFE, the campaign for precautionary and prevention action around things like hazardous waste and improper use of toxins before they are released to the public (what i am doing the full cost accounting for) is useful and important, i think. but the green schools and pvc campaign i just can't really get into. i know its important, toxic shower curtains and children's toys and baby bottles and all. its just not my thing really. really.
im hoping that eventually i get to go to one or two or more of these conferences that stephen, my boss, goes to. thats what id really like to do. see how you explain the science and technical stuff and use it to organize public opinion. maybe soon. either way this will be a good experience. every day is at least somewhat different.
ive been thinking about the watson. im making a list of professors at bard to email this weekend. about their area of specialty. any good resources. potential contacts.
right now im thinking...
production:
colombia
indonesia
ethiopia/angola
consumption:
turkey
greece/italy
morocco/portugal
ive love to spend a year traveling by sea, train. playing checkers and chess. smoking hookah and talking politics & philosophy. working in fields of coffee beans. fair trade. local culture. feeling the breeze. moving.
all those things i never shut up about.
im in a good mood. you'd think a weekend with nothing to do or nobody to see might be dull. but its nice in its own way.
speaking off, im off for more coffee and reading. im wearing my jean shorts right now. love it.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn't matter much to me.
No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right.
That is I think it's not too bad.
Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Always no sometimes think it's me, but you know I know when it's a dream.
I think, er No, I mean, er Yes but it's all wrong.
That is I think I disagree.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i think or at least feel as if im coming into my own, somewhat. i think im falling for language and attempting to express myself constantly. ive taken a liking to memoirs and memory and recounting memory shaping it through a place.
i think i might ask my professor from my cultural technologies of memory class to do a tutorial in the spring on memoir and anthropology. how cool.
struggling. do you do what a part of you is passionate about but you have little actual experience with, or do you go with that burning in your heart? epidemiology and public health consulting seem wonderful and practical. but so does doing my all to become a writer. then again, one can do both, can't we?
i dont like long books and treatises. i like them pocket sized. whats the point of a book that wont fit in your back pocket? you cant exactly take it around with you if its not. i think books should be about moving and traveling. they should be mobile and portable. i dont like carrying a backpack around the city.
cities cities and cities. read invisible cities by calvino in a day. the metro system was made for book readers. in fact, i read the most when im moving, on the train, on the bus, on the boat. its when i sit in my room that i read the least.
why must i always be going somewhere? its as if im afraid to be still.
working through arjun appadurai's fear of small numbers. hes an anthropologist but one of the few whose writings flow rather easily. and ive liked his other writings. they always make me ponder.
today i picked up copies of orphan pamuk's istanbul: memories and the city and v. s. naipaul's a bend in the river. im reading pamuk's now. its excellent. memories are fascinating things, especially good reflections on them.
its funny how i dont write about my internship at all.
i like it enough, but when it comes down to it, i dont feel like explaining it. im updating fact packs on environmental health hazards & summarizing and synthesizing full cost accounting reports.
gross, those two words sound awful to say out loud.
maybe its just that activism can be a little frustrating? mind games and manipulation. mostly of images. maybe its just me. but why the obsession with children's faces as a tool to get support and donations?
chej is a strong organization. i like the organizing and technical assistance component and am proud to be a part of it. im looking forward to helping write summaries of successful environmental health struggles around the country for the "action line" component of our publication, everyone's backyard. but im not huge on most of the nation-wide campaigns we run. BE SAFE, the campaign for precautionary and prevention action around things like hazardous waste and improper use of toxins before they are released to the public (what i am doing the full cost accounting for) is useful and important, i think. but the green schools and pvc campaign i just can't really get into. i know its important, toxic shower curtains and children's toys and baby bottles and all. its just not my thing really. really.
im hoping that eventually i get to go to one or two or more of these conferences that stephen, my boss, goes to. thats what id really like to do. see how you explain the science and technical stuff and use it to organize public opinion. maybe soon. either way this will be a good experience. every day is at least somewhat different.
ive been thinking about the watson. im making a list of professors at bard to email this weekend. about their area of specialty. any good resources. potential contacts.
right now im thinking...
production:
colombia
indonesia
ethiopia/angola
consumption:
turkey
greece/italy
morocco/portugal
ive love to spend a year traveling by sea, train. playing checkers and chess. smoking hookah and talking politics & philosophy. working in fields of coffee beans. fair trade. local culture. feeling the breeze. moving.
all those things i never shut up about.
im in a good mood. you'd think a weekend with nothing to do or nobody to see might be dull. but its nice in its own way.
speaking off, im off for more coffee and reading. im wearing my jean shorts right now. love it.
Monday, June 15, 2009
ive decided.
im going to be a damn good writer. im going through a new book every couple days it seems. today i was bored at work so i made a four page long reading list. public health will make a good profession-but writing nonfiction should always be in there. my friend Ups' sister works in the public health field and does international health consulting and workshops in mostly rural areas. ive decided consulting and assistance is really what i want to do. something botton up. my superviser does that, science and technical assistance. holds workshops and presentations to town hall meetings, consults via phone and email. helps interpret technical documents.
but he says that the organizing and the politics always comes above the science. the science can strengthen your argument and give some sharp evidence, but in the end its the organizing that matters.
im collecting narratives of health workers and of impacted bodies and impacted landscapes and will try and start shaping some narrative of a senior project. ive been researching dioxin through and ecosystem ecology lens in Alaska and Canada and Siberia. dioxin gets absorbed by plantkon and such, which, following the food webs and trophic interactions penetrates into the diet and collective body of fish, into seals, into whales, into birds. the ecosystem becomes saturated with dioxin. humans too, native communities that still rely on traditional food supplies of seal and whale blubber not only for diet but also for cultural legacy. and then dioxin penetrates too into their fatty tissue, into breasts, into breastmilk, contaminating the bodies of newborns and generations to come. its the landscape and the physical bodies that become toxic. its the fish, the birds, the water, the flora, the fauna, the social, tudo.
i have two classes on ecosystem ecology and too many on anthropology and so it seems to be a topic close enough to home. close indeed. studies warn not to drink non-organic milk or meat products due to the presence of dioxin. all this talk is making me think of becoming a vegetarian again. if not just for the reason Antonetta asks, "What does my body consist of?"
good question.
but so im trying to read more memoirs-that-present-themselves-in-context-of-the-landscapes-and-time. again, i have a list. its too long. but i cant get enough of it.
ok ok now enough. ive already read 1/2 of Invisible Cities by Calvino today. time to finish the rest on the porch downstairs.
im going to be a damn good writer. im going through a new book every couple days it seems. today i was bored at work so i made a four page long reading list. public health will make a good profession-but writing nonfiction should always be in there. my friend Ups' sister works in the public health field and does international health consulting and workshops in mostly rural areas. ive decided consulting and assistance is really what i want to do. something botton up. my superviser does that, science and technical assistance. holds workshops and presentations to town hall meetings, consults via phone and email. helps interpret technical documents.
but he says that the organizing and the politics always comes above the science. the science can strengthen your argument and give some sharp evidence, but in the end its the organizing that matters.
im collecting narratives of health workers and of impacted bodies and impacted landscapes and will try and start shaping some narrative of a senior project. ive been researching dioxin through and ecosystem ecology lens in Alaska and Canada and Siberia. dioxin gets absorbed by plantkon and such, which, following the food webs and trophic interactions penetrates into the diet and collective body of fish, into seals, into whales, into birds. the ecosystem becomes saturated with dioxin. humans too, native communities that still rely on traditional food supplies of seal and whale blubber not only for diet but also for cultural legacy. and then dioxin penetrates too into their fatty tissue, into breasts, into breastmilk, contaminating the bodies of newborns and generations to come. its the landscape and the physical bodies that become toxic. its the fish, the birds, the water, the flora, the fauna, the social, tudo.
i have two classes on ecosystem ecology and too many on anthropology and so it seems to be a topic close enough to home. close indeed. studies warn not to drink non-organic milk or meat products due to the presence of dioxin. all this talk is making me think of becoming a vegetarian again. if not just for the reason Antonetta asks, "What does my body consist of?"
good question.
but so im trying to read more memoirs-that-present-themselves-in-context-of-the-landscapes-and-time. again, i have a list. its too long. but i cant get enough of it.
ok ok now enough. ive already read 1/2 of Invisible Cities by Calvino today. time to finish the rest on the porch downstairs.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
more
soon ill update this.
my internship is. i research environmental health problems for communities and groups that apply to CHEJ for assistance. i help gather information into fact packs, which we then distribute to help in the understanding of the problem. my job currently consists of finding new medical studies, articles of interest, or policy updates. but more on this later. theres much more ill be doing. such as GIS mapping.
gone to the zoo.
met some of Dana's friends from American U.
might start doing Krav Maga.
spend a lot of time at Tryst, an excellent bar/coffee shop/lounge where i go to grab a Guiness w/ expresso (a Dufrain) and read a book or work on my tutorial, which i am far behind on.
the bulk of my time is spend wandering to parks, getting something nice to eat and drink, and reading. ive read 3 books so far and am constantly hungry for more. im starting another Calvino tomorrow. i love reading on the Metro.
i feel torn between wanting to do grassroots/bottom-up public health work and desperately wanting to be a writer like Chatwin or Kapuscinski or Orwell and write about the human condition. anthropological and ethnographic, but not anthropology or ethnography. its funny. a whole discipline set up around writing on the human condition and everyday life, but by a group who, far and wide, are not good writers. for it takes a lot of talent to sucessfully portray the magic of daily life and the condition. The Road to Wigan Pier was so great.
so heres some more, adapted from my amazon.com wishlist. just to add to the others, just because.
Birds Without Wings
by Louis de Bernières
Speak, Memory
by Vladimir Nabokov
Desierto: Memories of the Future (Paperback)
by Charles Bowden
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
by James Agee
Stranger in the Village of the Sick: A Memoir of Cancer, Sorcery, and Healing
by Paul Stoller
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
by Rebecca Solnit
Lines: A Brief History
by Tim Ingold
My Life as an Explorer
by Sven Hedin
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
by Peter Godwin
The Great Railway Bazaar
by Paul Theroux
The Soul of the Rhino
by Hemanta Mishra
Spider's House: A Novel
by Paul Bowles
The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit
by Elias Canetti
i realize its ideas of the body, place, and memory that get to me, for the best writing i enjoy to read. the experience of remembering being, physically, in a space and place.
i think i will incorperate this into my senior project. Body Toxic was inspiring to read as a piece of literature but as social commentary and i think something like that...
the used bookstore in adams morgan will be a good place to start. all this reading makes me inspired, to be honest. its a nice break from everything else, even if it does lead to me being a bit anti social. but theres always the good conversations in parks with strangers.
hope for humanity.
my internship is. i research environmental health problems for communities and groups that apply to CHEJ for assistance. i help gather information into fact packs, which we then distribute to help in the understanding of the problem. my job currently consists of finding new medical studies, articles of interest, or policy updates. but more on this later. theres much more ill be doing. such as GIS mapping.
gone to the zoo.
met some of Dana's friends from American U.
might start doing Krav Maga.
spend a lot of time at Tryst, an excellent bar/coffee shop/lounge where i go to grab a Guiness w/ expresso (a Dufrain) and read a book or work on my tutorial, which i am far behind on.
the bulk of my time is spend wandering to parks, getting something nice to eat and drink, and reading. ive read 3 books so far and am constantly hungry for more. im starting another Calvino tomorrow. i love reading on the Metro.
i feel torn between wanting to do grassroots/bottom-up public health work and desperately wanting to be a writer like Chatwin or Kapuscinski or Orwell and write about the human condition. anthropological and ethnographic, but not anthropology or ethnography. its funny. a whole discipline set up around writing on the human condition and everyday life, but by a group who, far and wide, are not good writers. for it takes a lot of talent to sucessfully portray the magic of daily life and the condition. The Road to Wigan Pier was so great.
so heres some more, adapted from my amazon.com wishlist. just to add to the others, just because.
Birds Without Wings
by Louis de Bernières
Speak, Memory
by Vladimir Nabokov
Desierto: Memories of the Future (Paperback)
by Charles Bowden
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
by James Agee
Stranger in the Village of the Sick: A Memoir of Cancer, Sorcery, and Healing
by Paul Stoller
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
by Rebecca Solnit
Lines: A Brief History
by Tim Ingold
My Life as an Explorer
by Sven Hedin
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
by Peter Godwin
The Great Railway Bazaar
by Paul Theroux
The Soul of the Rhino
by Hemanta Mishra
Spider's House: A Novel
by Paul Bowles
The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit
by Elias Canetti
i realize its ideas of the body, place, and memory that get to me, for the best writing i enjoy to read. the experience of remembering being, physically, in a space and place.
i think i will incorperate this into my senior project. Body Toxic was inspiring to read as a piece of literature but as social commentary and i think something like that...
the used bookstore in adams morgan will be a good place to start. all this reading makes me inspired, to be honest. its a nice break from everything else, even if it does lead to me being a bit anti social. but theres always the good conversations in parks with strangers.
hope for humanity.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
on travel and time--and the invisible
The Tree Where Man Was Born
by Peter Matthiessen
Dispatches
by Michael Herr
In Patagonia
by Bruce Chatwin
The Travels of Ibn Battutah
by Ibn Battutah
Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff
by Rosemary Mahoney
The Shadow of the Sun
by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Regarding the Pain of Others
by Susan Sontag
A Golden Age: A Novel
by Tahmima Anam
The Road to Wigan Pier
by George Orwell
Invisible Cities
by Italo Calvino
The Plague
by Albert Camus
Folding Paper Cranes: An Atomic Memoir
by Leonard Bird
by Peter Matthiessen
Dispatches
by Michael Herr
In Patagonia
by Bruce Chatwin
The Travels of Ibn Battutah
by Ibn Battutah
Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff
by Rosemary Mahoney
The Shadow of the Sun
by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Regarding the Pain of Others
by Susan Sontag
A Golden Age: A Novel
by Tahmima Anam
The Road to Wigan Pier
by George Orwell
Invisible Cities
by Italo Calvino
The Plague
by Albert Camus
Folding Paper Cranes: An Atomic Memoir
by Leonard Bird
Sunday, May 24, 2009
over / done
driving away from bard never felt so good.
im sunburnt, read The Gift again, ran, do pushups.
the semester is over and all the things along with it.
i want to be my own person again. put the pieces back together.
spend time knowing myself, being myself. being ok with fragments.
ill miss friends but know that starting next year afresh will be what is needed.
its about doing the best at what i do. what that is i dont know yet.
but its time to see people again, time to relax, time to pretend, time to be.
and i deserve it.
im sunburnt, read The Gift again, ran, do pushups.
the semester is over and all the things along with it.
i want to be my own person again. put the pieces back together.
spend time knowing myself, being myself. being ok with fragments.
ill miss friends but know that starting next year afresh will be what is needed.
its about doing the best at what i do. what that is i dont know yet.
but its time to see people again, time to relax, time to pretend, time to be.
and i deserve it.
Friday, May 22, 2009
lets re-do
i am almost finished my paper.
i am going to get a haircut.
go for a run outside.
go to the waterfall.
go out to dinner with friends one last time.
pack.
go to the tent party.
wake up and pack.
and maybe even just leave saturday.
i have to get out of here. this shitty awful semester just keeps going. not at all how i wanted it to turn out. things happened. it all pulled through. now is what it is. summer looms so close in the yet distance. i can't wait to just get away and be on my own again. im tired of sarcasm, cynicism, pessimism, and jadedness. the weathers great, i can't wait to be back with westtown kids for a week and just randomly go to a creek. or just drive somewhere. i miss the random play of it all. i miss things and people feeling real, not covered up by layers of jokes and weird acts. it'll feel good to just be me again in the process.
i don't know what the fucked happened this semester. but im glad its coming to an end.
i am almost finished my paper.
i am going to get a haircut.
go for a run outside.
go to the waterfall.
go out to dinner with friends one last time.
pack.
go to the tent party.
wake up and pack.
and maybe even just leave saturday.
i have to get out of here. this shitty awful semester just keeps going. not at all how i wanted it to turn out. things happened. it all pulled through. now is what it is. summer looms so close in the yet distance. i can't wait to just get away and be on my own again. im tired of sarcasm, cynicism, pessimism, and jadedness. the weathers great, i can't wait to be back with westtown kids for a week and just randomly go to a creek. or just drive somewhere. i miss the random play of it all. i miss things and people feeling real, not covered up by layers of jokes and weird acts. it'll feel good to just be me again in the process.
i don't know what the fucked happened this semester. but im glad its coming to an end.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
putting the fragments and pieces back together
Toni Morrison's Beloved.
"me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. we need some kind of tomorrow"
"she gather me, man. the pieces i am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order."
powerful quotes.
"me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. we need some kind of tomorrow"
"she gather me, man. the pieces i am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order."
powerful quotes.
fragments of memory
life in Jau National Park
artisans outside of Manaus
Manaus Opera House
traditional pottery in Belem
fruit vendor in Belem
Eldorado do Carajs massacre memorial
made of local wood
river travel to mangrove forest
from Curuca
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
PA-150
Dan Becker
May 5 2009
PA-150 takes you from the start of the Tocantins River to the south of Pará, the second largest state in Brazil. The section of the Transamazon highway goes for thousands of kilometers, at least an eight-hour drive-and that's only to the expanding urban city of Marabá. Along the way south, you’ll note the gradual disappearance of forest, of familiar açaí palms, of the typical river traders so common in northern Amazonia. Squatter settlements, cattle ranches, and logging regimes replace these typical images, the contrast becoming more unavoidable as you travel red dirt roads. Each small town and roadside community along the route smells of rubber, fire, and churrascos, the Brazilian standard for a meal of various meats grilled on skewers. Pass through enough towns and eventually you'll reach a fork at PA-257. You’re almost at the very south of Pará state.
Right before you start on PA-257 you'll drive by a roadside memorial, a scar from Brazil's developmental project of the 1960's and 1970's-"land without people for people without land", that was the governmental slogan of the time. Fueled by paranoia over Western economic dominance, President Medici's regime initiated the construction of massive industrial projects throughout the southern Amazonia, converting lush forests into productive mechanical landscapes. The land had no people, after all. An influx of hydroelectric dams, railroads and highways, and immigrant labor settlements from the South of Brazil arrived to feed the demands of the development project that rhetoric stated to propel the country into greatness. Construction and their floods sacrificed agricultural fields and numerous small towns. Some populations were given warnings to evacuate, others were not, their legacies now faintly surviving in the dozens of social movements for justice in the region. The largest of these dams, Tucurui along the Tocantins, powers the Great Carajás Project, just west of PA-257 and the city of Paruapebas.
Carajás is the largest mining site in the world. In 1967, a United States Steel Company helicopter flew over the region and, low on fuel, made a forced landing-to their luck they found a mineral reserve containing concentrations of iron up to 66 percent. Not willing to allow a Western company control over such wealth and power, the Brazilian government pushed the majority of shares into the hands of the Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, now known as VALE throughout Pará and its neighboring states. In 1985, VALE obtained complete control of the mineral deposit and began extraction of the 1.5 billion tons of iron ore within.
And like any other hole in the earth it sucks in and consumes. In this case, consumes labor and bodies. The Project pays low wages to the landless poor , the same workers who it's creation and production displaces and limits. It is not as if there have been no reactions though. The name of the roadside memorial you passed on the way to the collosus from PA-150 is known as Eldorado dos Carajás. On April 17th, 1996, the state military police murdered nineteen landless agricultural workers who engaged in the continual and daily struggle to obtain a better livelihood for their families. They were members of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra, the Landless Workers Movement, the largest social movement in Latin America, to which its members fight for their right to productive land. Visitors stop and lay flowers at the base of the memorial, itself crafted out of nineteen wooden logs from fauna typical of the region.
According to Brazilian law, land must meet a "productive and adequate use" standard. The MST identifies unproductive rural land that is not meeting the ordained "social function" and occupies the tract. Through struggle, eventually some settlements become recognized for their land use, and the residents will begin to establish schools, plantations and agricultural fields, community centers, medical shops. Eventually, small towns are born. The process repeats itself until some justice comes into existence, but at the price of great suffering and loss-the South of the state is one of the most bloody and violent in the nation.
Upon our roadside stop I didn't have flowers for the memorial, only my eyes. To say I can honestly comprehend the struggle and the suffering would be offense and insult. Even for a Paranaense in the state's capital of Belém, the concept that lies at the memorial and the nineteen names it lists is foreign-for an outsider like myself, even more so. All the same, I wish I had had flowers, something at all besides silence to acknowledge what eyes recognize.
Monday, May 4, 2009
write
INFP
apparently i should be a writer and work for non-profits connecting different people, consulting, and helping bridge differences. thanks psychology for summing me up in a ten minute quiz.
no but really. it all makes a lot of sense. 1% of the population. makes sense i always feel pretty alone and selfless. i am.
While they are usually quietly adaptable, INFP's may dig in their heels when something threatens their important personal values and defend their values eloquently in writing. These warm, serious, insightful people love new ideas, especially if they can see the benefits for people. As such, they can do a great job on the company newsletter. INFP's are perfectionists in ideals. Their career path often takes them to the non-profit world because they work for more than tangible rewards.
Below are some of the advantages and challenges INFP's face when writing:
Strengths | Challenges |
| Often find wonderful, unique phrasing to paint a picture with words. Excellent writers on themes with human interest. Good at building bridges between different work groups. Rewrites are no problem— often love to revise. | Writing tends to be lengthy and they fall in love with the words. May assume readers know more than they do or agree with theses. Because they empathize so strongly with others, may soften the message too much. They can always find a more clever phrasing, so may have trouble letting go. |
apparently i should be a writer and work for non-profits connecting different people, consulting, and helping bridge differences. thanks psychology for summing me up in a ten minute quiz.
no but really. it all makes a lot of sense. 1% of the population. makes sense i always feel pretty alone and selfless. i am.
this is facinating to read about
Characteristics of INFPs
Myers-Briggs description
According to Myers-Briggs,[11] INFPs focus much of their energy on an inner world dominated by intense feeling and deeply held ethics. They seek an external life that is in keeping with these values. Loyal to the people and causes important to them, INFPs can quickly spot opportunities to implement their ideals. They are curious to understand those around them, and so are accepting and flexible except when their values are threatened.
Keirsey description
According to Keirsey,[12] the tranquil and reserved exterior of the INFP masks a passionate inner life. Healers care deeply about causes that interest them and they often pursue those causes with selfless devotion.
Occurring in only about one percent of the population, Healers can easily feel isolated. They value harmony and integrity in human relationships, seeking unity of mind, body, and spirit but often find these values to be out of step with the more concrete pursuits of the rest of the world. Feeling "different," they may wonder whether something is wrong with them. But those differences—an ethical nature, a devotion to ideals, a commitment to harmonious interaction—are in fact some of their greatest strengths.
Other descriptions
The polite, reserved exterior of INFPs can at first make them difficult to get to know. They enjoy conversation, however, taking particular delight in the unusual. When INFPs are in a sociable mood, their humor and charm shine through. Disposed to like people and to avoid conflict, INFPs tend to make pleasant company.Devoted to those in their inner circle, INFPs guard the emotional well-being of others, consoling those in distress. Guided by their desire for harmony, INFPs prefer to be flexible unless their ethics are violated. Then, they become passionate advocates for their beliefs. They are often able to sway the opinions of others through tact, diplomacy, and an ability to see varying sides of an issue.
INFPs develop these insights through reflection, and they require substantial time alone to ponder and process new information. While they can be quite patient with complex material, they are generally bored by routine. Though not always organized, INFPs are meticulous about things they value. Perfectionists, they may have trouble completing a task because it cannot meet their high standards. They may even go back to a completed project after the deadline so they can improve it.
INFPs are creative types and often have a gift for language. As introverts, they may prefer to express themselves through writing. Their dominant Feeling drives their desire to communicate, while their auxiliary intuition supplies the imagination. Having a talent for symbolism, they enjoy metaphors and similes. They continually seek new ideas and adapt well to change. They prefer working in an environment that values these gifts and allows them to make a positive difference in the world, according to their personal beliefs.[13]
Cognitive functions
Drawing upon Jungian theory, Isabel Myers proposed that for each personality type, the cognitive functions—sensing, intuition, thinking, and feeling—form a hierarchy. This hierarchy represents the person's "default" pattern of behavior.
The Dominant function is the personality type's preferred role, the one they feel most comfortable with. The secondary Auxiliary function serves to support and expand on the Dominant function. If the Dominant is an information gathering function (sensing or intuition), the Auxiliary is a decision making function (thinking or feeling), and vice versa. The Tertiary function is less developed than the Dominant and Auxiliary, but it matures over time, rounding out the person's abilities. The Inferior function is the personality type's Achilles' heel. This is the function they are least comfortable with. Like the Tertiary, the Inferior function strengthens with maturity.[14]
- Dominant Introverted Feeling (Fi): INFPs live primarily in a rich inner world of emotion.
- Auxiliary Extraverted Intuition (Ne): INFPs engage the outside world primarily with intuition, adept at seeing the big picture, sensing patterns and the flow of existence from the past toward the future.
- Tertiary Introverted Sensing (Si): This function gives INFPs a natural inclination toward absent-mindedness and makes them more easily distracted.
- Inferior Extraverted Thinking (Te): This function helps INFPs focus on external details but, being the inferior function, requires the expenditure of greater energy and is not as reliable.[15]
Later personality researchers (notably Linda V. Berens)[16] added four additional functions to the descending hierarchy, the so-called "shadow" functions to which the individual is not naturally inclined but which can emerge when the person is under stress. For INFP these shadow functions are (in order):
- Extraverted Feeling (Fe)
- Introverted Intuition (Ni)
- Extraverted Sensing (Se)
- Introverted Thinking (Ti)
Correlation with Enneatype
According to Baron and Wagele, the most common Enneatypes for INFPs are Romantics and Peace Seekers.[17]
Sunday, May 3, 2009
INFP: "Questor". These people are idealistic, self-sacrificing, and somewhat cool or reserved. They are very family and home oriented, but don't relax well. High capacity for caring. High sense of honor derived from internal values. 1% of the total population.
NFPs feel internal turmoil when they find themselves in situations in which there is conflict between their inner code of ethics and their relationships with others. They feel caught between pleasing others and maintaining their own integrity. Their natural tendency to identify with others, compounded with their self-sacrificial dispositions, tends to leave them confused as to who they really are. Their quiet personalities further feeds their feelings of depersonalization. The INFP's quest for self-identity then seems even more alluring — but increasingly impossible to attain
NFPs feel internal turmoil when they find themselves in situations in which there is conflict between their inner code of ethics and their relationships with others. They feel caught between pleasing others and maintaining their own integrity. Their natural tendency to identify with others, compounded with their self-sacrificial dispositions, tends to leave them confused as to who they really are. Their quiet personalities further feeds their feelings of depersonalization. The INFP's quest for self-identity then seems even more alluring — but increasingly impossible to attain
As with all NFs, the INFP will feel lost and perplexed at stressful times. As stress builds, INFPs become disconnected from their own personality and perceived place in life. They will lose sight of who they are in relation to time and place. They may not make basic observations, while instead they will focus on the more abstract and symbolic meanings of a particular interaction. This can sometimes baffle those who expect more direct communication and a fairly concrete relationship.
information-graphics...designer
college professor
researcher
legal mediator
social worker
holistic health...practitioner
occupational therapist
diversity manager
human resource...development specialist
employment development...specialist
minister/priest/rabbi
missionary
psychologist
writer: poet/novelist
journalist
editor/art director
organizational development...specialist
creepy facebook, creepy
i took a personality quiz on facebook. 7 questions. this is what i got.
did facebook just sum me up in a few questions, getting more of me than some of my friends?
Your Result: You are a type 1C person
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
i want spontaneity. i want dreams. i want random, even chaos will do.
and im not finding that here. bard was fine for two years, but after last semester, this is nothing. i find myself asking, almost weekly, "why bother?"
i think back to what my l&t professor told me-"you're the kind of person who will really succeed here." and i have. my grades are great. im quiet in class discussion, but contribute good points when i feel the need. im a strong writer and thinker. not overly critical, able to emphasize with authors, their plights, their imperfections. i listen, i consider, i give. i have a sense of seriousness. maybe sometimes i take things at face value, but thats because its too much to be critical all the time, and that misses the mark anyway.
and i know i will succeed. no worries there. i try to hard and am too determined to make something of myself and to prove myself to ever fail. and im too patient to just give up. and put too much faith in people to become self absorbed. but then i let dreams carry me away into thought. sometimes i would rather just isolate myself than to go interact with people and be false. at least im me alone. i guess that makes me a bit of an introvert. then again, thats what descartes did for a day. served him well.
but i cant deal with everything being the same day after day. i learn new things, but other than that it is routine. im glad spring is here and the weather makes me content and lively. i feel stiffled by my friends sometimes. some of them. i feel almost like im insane, or should feel like i am insane-everyone treats things i want to do as crazy. which might be true, but whats the fun of just sitting around watching youtube or going to kline? no, sorry, but id rather just go randomly drive somewhere, randomly do something. anything. last weekend a friend and i just randomly ordered a large pizza and played video games and then i passed out. kind of boring, but sponteneous and fun.
sometimes i do handstands on the grass. people think im weird. ive stopped caring.
if my job ends up being anything other than field-based, i think ill go crazy in a bad way. teaching wouldnt be as bad, im sure that it must be fun seeing peoples minds open up daily. who knows. i guess one could just say the same of learning as a student, and see how well that turns out...
i want to end up talking about gift theory randomly for an hour. i want to go down and swim by the waterfall. i want to walk to red hook. i want to read calvino out loud. i want to wrestle. i want to be taken seriously, because these arent just weird or crazy antics. theyre expressions of doing something rather than swimming along. im at this small hipster alternative indie school. why is it hard to find people who want to do random shit? everyone tells me im really chill. that i end up doing whatever, hanging out with whoever, etc. its more of a desperate search and throwing my arms out there for anything to fall into them. i dont care. really, i dont. i just want to feel alive, not dead stuck in traffick. today i had two two-hour lectures. i almost fell asleep in both.
write write write do.
and im not finding that here. bard was fine for two years, but after last semester, this is nothing. i find myself asking, almost weekly, "why bother?"
i think back to what my l&t professor told me-"you're the kind of person who will really succeed here." and i have. my grades are great. im quiet in class discussion, but contribute good points when i feel the need. im a strong writer and thinker. not overly critical, able to emphasize with authors, their plights, their imperfections. i listen, i consider, i give. i have a sense of seriousness. maybe sometimes i take things at face value, but thats because its too much to be critical all the time, and that misses the mark anyway.
and i know i will succeed. no worries there. i try to hard and am too determined to make something of myself and to prove myself to ever fail. and im too patient to just give up. and put too much faith in people to become self absorbed. but then i let dreams carry me away into thought. sometimes i would rather just isolate myself than to go interact with people and be false. at least im me alone. i guess that makes me a bit of an introvert. then again, thats what descartes did for a day. served him well.
but i cant deal with everything being the same day after day. i learn new things, but other than that it is routine. im glad spring is here and the weather makes me content and lively. i feel stiffled by my friends sometimes. some of them. i feel almost like im insane, or should feel like i am insane-everyone treats things i want to do as crazy. which might be true, but whats the fun of just sitting around watching youtube or going to kline? no, sorry, but id rather just go randomly drive somewhere, randomly do something. anything. last weekend a friend and i just randomly ordered a large pizza and played video games and then i passed out. kind of boring, but sponteneous and fun.
sometimes i do handstands on the grass. people think im weird. ive stopped caring.
if my job ends up being anything other than field-based, i think ill go crazy in a bad way. teaching wouldnt be as bad, im sure that it must be fun seeing peoples minds open up daily. who knows. i guess one could just say the same of learning as a student, and see how well that turns out...
i want to end up talking about gift theory randomly for an hour. i want to go down and swim by the waterfall. i want to walk to red hook. i want to read calvino out loud. i want to wrestle. i want to be taken seriously, because these arent just weird or crazy antics. theyre expressions of doing something rather than swimming along. im at this small hipster alternative indie school. why is it hard to find people who want to do random shit? everyone tells me im really chill. that i end up doing whatever, hanging out with whoever, etc. its more of a desperate search and throwing my arms out there for anything to fall into them. i dont care. really, i dont. i just want to feel alive, not dead stuck in traffick. today i had two two-hour lectures. i almost fell asleep in both.
write write write do.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
"And don't criticize What you can't understand"
Medical and Ecological Anthropology Research
Community-Based Public Health (CBPH)
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/290178/36
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45960
http://www.saudeealegria.org.br/portal/index.php
http://www.saudeealegria.org.br/portal/index.php/home/conteudo/10
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
give me a boat and a pen and a notebook and ill do whatever need be.
things come together.
This group provides focus for the diverse activities taking place in Oxford in this disciplinary area. The locati
on of this group at the Institute of Human Sciences , School of Anthropology , acknowledges that study of human-environmental relationships is an interdisciplinary venture that requires comparative, archaeological and anthropological perspectives, and naturally falls within the multidisciplinary remit of this Institute.
The primary activity of this group is to provide a focus to the study of human ecology and evolution at Oxford through a seminar forum. The group comprises of research associates with primary affiliations across the University of Oxford . Members of the group are directly involved in multi-disciplinary research, using some combination of anthropological, ecological, historical and evolutionary frameworks in the understanding of human-environmental relationships. Using inter-disciplinary perspectives, the remit of the group is to pursue the study and understanding of ecology and culture; human evolutionary ecology; nutritional anthropology; disease ecology; and human reproductive ecology.
Interactions between under-nutrition and infection lead to patterns of growth faltering that begin from about the age of weaning. Growth faltering is common in developing countries and usually is associated with high mortality rates. It is largely due to the combined stresses of low nutrient intakes and exposure to infectious agents associated with the introduction of foods other than breast milk and the weaning process. While easy to describe generally, the combined influence of under-nutrition and infection on growth and development is complex, varying with disease ecology, age of the child, and the type and pattern of infant and young child feeding. In addition, the duration and severity of infection and repeated infections influences the extent to which disease plays a more dominant role in growth faltering than under-nutrition, while cultural patterns of infection management influence the duration and sometimes the severity of infection.
This project examines the importance of low-grade infections and breastfeeding patterns on growth faltering, in populations experiencing both early growth faltering and high infant mortality. This work has implications for understanding the diversity of disease and nutritional ecologies of both contemporary and past populations. The project has three foci: the impacts and interpretation of under-nutrition and infection on physical growth and development among poor rural communities in the contemporary world; the effects of emerging and changing infectious disease ecologies on human populations; and ecological interpretations of child growth patterns among past populations. This involves collaboration of Prof Stanley Ulijaszek with colleagues at the University of Cambridge.
MSc in Medical Anthropology: 1 year
Community-Based Public Health (CBPH)
Educational Objectives
To develop students’ skills and competencies for careers in both community-based public health practice and research, particularly for applications in underserved urban settings. By marrying training in these two areas, this certificate will prepare future community public health practitioners and researchers to collaborate.
The certificate will train recipients in the skills and knowledge necessary for community-based public health program development, management and evaluation, community-based participatory research (CPBR) and other research in community settings. It will also train students in the following key competencies for community-based public health practice and research, including:
Cultural Competency Skills and Attitudes
• Identify the role of cultural, social, and behavioral factors in determining the delivery of community-based public health
• Utilize appropriate methods for interacting sensitively, effectively, and professionally with persons from diverse cultural, socioeconomic, educational, racial, ethnic, and professional backgrounds, and persons of all ages and lifestyle preferences
• Develop and adapt approaches to problems that take into account cultural differences
Linking Social and Environmental Causes of Disease and Community Health
• Define, assess, and understand the health status of populations, determinants of health and illness, factors contributing to health promotion and disease prevention, and factors influencing the use of health services impacting communities
• Understand the historical development, structure, and interaction of national and local public health and health care systems
• Identify and apply research methods appropriate for community-based applications
Community Dimensions of Practice Skills and Attitudes
• Promote the utilization of leadership, team building, negotiation, and conflict resolution skills to build community partnerships and maintain key stakeholders
• Utilize best practices for engaging in effective community partnerships
• Identify community assets and available resources
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/290178/36
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45960
http://www.saudeealegria.org.br/portal/index.php
http://www.saudeealegria.org.br/portal/index.php/home/conteudo/10
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
give me a boat and a pen and a notebook and ill do whatever need be.
things come together.
rules
flashbacks of memory to walking down sweat filled days in the streets of Sao Luis. sitting on the porch against the sounds across the bridge. days of awkward interviews, disappointments, challenges, sore legs and coconut water. listening to music within safe headphones with the moon and the starts. sweat-filled shit hangs on the clothesline from the earlier hours. certain songs trigger the time then.
not fun.
not happy.
but endearing.
working.
pushing.
i crave to learn more of participation. senior project will be on it.
http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/participation
capacity building. consultation. training & education. empowerment.
food security. animal vectors for disease. ecosystem approach to health. epidemiology
Biology of Infectious Disease
Ecology of Infectious Disease
Photography, History and News
Contemporary Cultural Theory
Senior Project
considering going back to Brazil and Projeto da Saude e Alegria. or find a similar project in USA.
and thats that. might be the bandana. or the clothing from Brazil. or the hot sweaty weather. comforting, regardless.
Orwell's five rules of writing:
not fun.
not happy.
but endearing.
working.
pushing.
i crave to learn more of participation. senior project will be on it.
http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/participation
capacity building. consultation. training & education. empowerment.
food security. animal vectors for disease. ecosystem approach to health. epidemiology
Biology of Infectious Disease
Ecology of Infectious Disease
Photography, History and News
Contemporary Cultural Theory
Senior Project
considering going back to Brazil and Projeto da Saude e Alegria. or find a similar project in USA.
and thats that. might be the bandana. or the clothing from Brazil. or the hot sweaty weather. comforting, regardless.
Orwell's five rules of writing:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
watched scences from Dark Knight. Joker discussing anarchy and chaos and equality never gets old.
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