Spring Thinking

As usual, I did not achieve the things I'd hoped to over spring break. I have only myself to blame for my plans to overachieve and my capacity to underachieve. Here is what I had planned to do...

1. Clean house from top to bottom
2. Post a bunch of new blogs
3. Hem up towel scraps to donate to animal shelter
4. Rest
5. Spend time hiking
6. File taxes (I tend to procrastinate...)
7. Read ahead for all my classes
8. Visit friends in Iowa

and here is what I achieved:

1. Did a few dishes
2. Posted no new blogs
3. Broke sewing machine needle on first towel
4. Got sick
5. Took two great hikes at Three Creeks Conservation Area
6. Filed taxes
7. Did not read... for classes
8. Not only visited friends, but also got lost in Iowa and discovered the American Gothic House & its accompanying museum, hence the picture.

So it wasn't a total loss.

Also while in Iowa, I had a great opportunity to talk to my friend TJ about education. He's getting his masters in teaching, and while we were there, the local paper ran a front page story about best and worst high schools in Iowa. Unfortunately, the school he has been teaching in was the second-to-worst in the state.

We spent time talking about why that is, and his frustrations teaching there. The conversation ranged from a lack of teacher and parent expectations (TJ has been reprimanded for putting application questions on his tests, as multiple choice ones seem to be preferred in this school), to lack of student engagement. Why aren't they interested? Why don't they care? What would help?

Although when we left, TJ was still dangerously teetering on the edge of leaving the teaching world for good, and we hadn't answered our own questions, we had started asking them, and I got a chance to think a little bit more about my topic.

Progress? Maybe not astronomical, but I engaged my brain cells for at least a portion of the week on a topic that I found relevant, so I'll take it.

Going to Extremes

It is hard to find any sort of balance in life. I am an avid subscriber to the pendulum theory: the idea that society has a tendency to swing back and forth between extremes, rather than settling for a happy medium. I honestly don't know if we can ever change that, but change begins on an individual basis, so it's worth a shot.

Keeping in line with the pendulum, much of what I find in research tends toward extremist views. To some, living a healthy life with exposure to nature requires living in an area best accessed by helicopters (except helicopters are evil), with no access to, dependency upon, or interaction with the outside world. Others perpetrate the belief that nature is outdated and we may as well accept the virtual world as the new reality and not worry about these things at all.

I'm hoping (in reality, and with my planned blog) to land somewhere in the middle. I want to live a life that is conscious of nature, appreciating it and caring for it as best as possible. On my own, I might develop a more extreme vision of what this means, but thankfully (as I mentioned to Donna today) I'm married to a Wii-addicted, internet-poker-playing, tech-loving math geek. He won't let me swing too far.

Projected Finality...?

As I attempt to progress toward my final project, I am experiencing some difficulty. I started off with the idea of discussing the idea of living sustainably, becoming a compassionate carnivore, hobby farming, and the like. All fine and good.

But the more I research this, the more I realize that it is not my primary motivation toward living such a lifestyle. My children are. They are also hypothetical, but that doesn't stop me from thinking ahead...

Books like Richard Louv's "Last Child in the Woods," call attention to an issue that I think about a lot. Kids just aren't spending the time in nature that they used to.

Not everyone thinks that is such a bad thing. Our society is changing. Indoors, children have access to things that their great-grandparents would never have dreamed of, all through the internet. They have video games, television, and a myriad of distractions that are a normal part of life today. Read my previous post, and you'll see that I'm not rejecting all of that, but I am still concerned.

Researchers have begun to study the effects of nature on children. They have found that kids with ADD & ADHD experience significantly reduced symptoms after exposure to nature, and they are exploring the implications of these studies.

So... I've checked out a few books from the library, I put a bunch of bookmarks on my del.icio.us account, and I think I'm making progress.

Wii are busy...

Ok, the month of March is really getting to me, as my poor neglected blog can bear witness. My mother-in-law (she's a nice one!) decided it would be a good idea to celebrate Andy's birthday a little early. Not in and of itself a bad idea, but it was trouble! I was looking for a Wii, and I'd just lost a week in which to do so. Who knew it would be so hard???

Probably all of you. But I don't live in the world of video games. I don't even play video games. (Seriously. The first time I ever played one was when I was 20. I'm terrible at them.) So I spent the last week scouring every inch of Columbia, getting tips from small business owners and customers who overheard my plight, breaking speed limits and driving recklessly, only to see Wiis walking out the door in the hands of their proud new owners.

Finally I found one. I walked in, and there it was, under the glass counter in its little white box... surprisingly little for its ridiculous price tag. But Andy is turning twenty-seven and he's feeling a desperate need to reconnect with his childhood, and that is priceless. Right?

I have to admit, I've played it a little. I actually kicked Andy's butt bowling. I KO'd my boxing opponent in the first round. It's almost even fun... but I wasted a whole week finding it, so I'm determined not to waste this week playing it too! I think I'm back...

Happy Pi Day!

Not that there's a shortage of holidays this month. In my family we're celebrating my father's birthday, my husband's birthday, St. David's day, Pi day, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, etc. Pi day could easily be overlooked.

But today is 3/14. It's kind of like 3.14, which is awfully imprecise, but apparently good enough to celebrate. We're having chocolate cream pie and apple pie with friends, just because we can. So happy Pi day, everyone! More coming soon...

Five Mushrooms makes me hungry!

No that's not a typo, or a lousy attempt at Engrish. Five Mushrooms is the name of the wiki that I've finally decided to talk about! Check it out here. I've found a lot of wikis on topics that I'm interested in, but very few that I could endorse.

This one is a different story. It still seems to be a work in progress (follow the mushroom link to shitake, and there's no info), but that's a good thing. Wikis are works in progress, right?

The color scheme is basic and pleasing to the eye, with a simple brown bar at the top (recalling mushrooms?) and white background, with subtle advertisements on the right hand side, but my favorite aspect is the site's organization. Links are easily visible and accessible, and generally divided into food categories such as vegetables, fish, mushrooms, etc. Links under each of these categories lead to fivemushrooms.com, which is a culinary search engine extraordinaire!

Overall, I'm drawn to this wiki for its layout and topic, both of which I find appealing. Plus, it's got a great name. This is a wiki I could envision editing! (And yes, that's the sound of Donna cheering in the background...)

Wiki Woes

I've spent the better part of my free time today (only about an hour, but hey I don't have a lot of free time on Thursdays...) looking for a wiki that I like. Bad news- I'm having a really hard time finding any. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but my searches have yielded very few interesting results.

Google proved sketchy for specific wiki searches, so I turned to a few wiki providers like wet paint to search their pages. I tried searching for sustainable living, farming, goat farming, backpacking, etc, and I got a lot of hits, but what I found was a lot of pages with very little content. Many of the links on the pages led to nothing, few even had pictures, and content was a rare find. I don't know if they were all just very new, or whether they were just poorly maintained, but they were definitely disappointing.

I'm giving up for now. Wikipedia is the only wiki I've found that I like, and maybe that's my problem. I'm searching for wikis like I search for blogs, limiting my search to really specific topics. But with Wikipedia, I've found that its appeal is its far reaching capacity. Wikipedia doesn't specialize in any one thing: it has a little bit of everything. Is that just the nature of the wiki beast? I'm not sure. But that's all I'm going to get for today... more to come tomorrow!

Me, wiki?

No thanks. If it weren't for the assignment I see pending, its unlikely that I would ever edit a wiki. I really don't like changing things that other people have written. If someone writes an article that I disagree with or find gaps in, I'd much rather go to that person and give him or her suggestions than actually just hop in and edit. The whole idea makes me nervous. It's almost like crossing out passages in books that I think I could write better, or writing notes in the margins not just for me, but for the world! It feels so... presumptuous.

I guess I'll have to work on that. Maybe I can find a niche (there's that word again!) that I'll feel comfortable working with. Lets see where today's class takes things.

Virtually Communicating

So this one isn't in direct response to our readings, or assignments. But I think it's a good example of what can happen to communicating (or trying to) sans facial expression, vocal inflection, etc.

My husband has a close-knit group of friends that he has kept in touch with since grade school. Most of them are married now, and the couples are spread throughout the country. Recently, one friend announced (through facebook) that he and his wife of seven months are expecting.

I posted the following on his wall: Well we wouldn't have guessed that you guys would be first, but CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

He posted on mine: thanks! but who did you expect to be first? :)

I on his: I don't know... but come on, So & So* and So & So* have 4 years, and we've got 5 to compare w/your 7 months! Guess you guys just know how to get busy... PLUS So & So* have been married for what? 3 or 4 years? I guess I was counting on them. ; )

He on mine: I would have to argue that years married is not an indicator of readiness for children :) Plus we're all getting more around the age of childbearing anyway! I hope we all have little bundles of joy soon enough!

Wow- all of a sudden I'm afraid he thinks I was commenting on his readiness for childbearing... Note to readers: if you didn't already know, that is TABOO in any format! I'm also wondering why we feel so compelled to put little smiley and winky faces all over the place. Is this our indication of the emotion that posts lack? If so, is he indicating that he's not offended? I hope so!

Now I'm off to craft a carefully worded apologetic post that indicates my enthusiasm for his step into parenthood, particularly when compared to all of his other friends' relatively slow progress in that area. Maybe I'll even throw in a punctuation face for good measure. Or maybe I should just call him...

*Names have been removed to protect the innocent.