"We can not solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when
we created them." -Albert Einstein
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Argh internets!
Soooo the internet in my house is down. Has been down for the past three days. It kind of sucks, because now I have to go to the library for internet, but I guess since the library's like a one minute walk from work it's not that bad. And it's open until 9. I've dealt with worse *coughGatlinburgcough*.
On Sunday morning I looked up a couple of recipes for stuffed cabbage b/c the landowner from the planting the previous weekend had given me a HUGE cabbage from his field. Well, later that afternoon was when the internet crapped out so I was flying blind cooking this stuffed cabbage. I used some stuff from a couple diff. recipes, in addition to simply making it up myself. Didn't turn out half bad. Actually it was a damn good first attempt, the more I think about it.
Yeah, I don't really have anything else to say.
On Sunday morning I looked up a couple of recipes for stuffed cabbage b/c the landowner from the planting the previous weekend had given me a HUGE cabbage from his field. Well, later that afternoon was when the internet crapped out so I was flying blind cooking this stuffed cabbage. I used some stuff from a couple diff. recipes, in addition to simply making it up myself. Didn't turn out half bad. Actually it was a damn good first attempt, the more I think about it.
Yeah, I don't really have anything else to say.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Some quotes
I've been reading a collection of John Muir's work ("Nature Writings") and I pulled out some good quotes from what I've read so far. So, for anybody who reads this and is even remotely interested, here they are:
On poison oak: "Like most other things not apparently useful to man, it has few friends, and the blind question, "why was it made?" goes on and on with never a guess that first of all it might have been made for itself." ~John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
"Here, we are camped for the night, our big fire, heaped high with rosiny logs and branches, is blazing like a sunrise, gladly giving back the light slowly sifted from the sunbeams of centuries of summers; and in the glow of that old sunlight how impressively surrounding objects are brought forward in relief against the outer darkness!" ~John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
"No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself." ~John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
On poison oak: "Like most other things not apparently useful to man, it has few friends, and the blind question, "why was it made?" goes on and on with never a guess that first of all it might have been made for itself." ~John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
"Here, we are camped for the night, our big fire, heaped high with rosiny logs and branches, is blazing like a sunrise, gladly giving back the light slowly sifted from the sunbeams of centuries of summers; and in the glow of that old sunlight how impressively surrounding objects are brought forward in relief against the outer darkness!" ~John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
"No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself." ~John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
Saturday, November 8, 2008
quick update
I'm going to Corvallis to visit Erin for thanksgiving!!! Yay!!! Unfortunately it's more expensive than I thought it would be, and involves more sitting on a Greyhound than I would like, but I don't care. I get to see Erin!!! And then, for those who don't know (and actually read this blog), I'm coming home for Christmas for almost three weeks, actually. I fly out of here December 16th and fly back January 4th. So I'll be around for New Year's, too.
Tomorrow I have my second planting, and it's going to be muddy as all hell. Hopefully it'll be fun though. I'll stay more or less dry through the miracle of raingear, and I just hope that the volunteers will not be miserable. Especially the little kids. I'd rather deal with mud fights than complaining kids :)
Just putting it out there, but this season of The Office is amazing.
I want to go camping. Really badly. I suppose I should probably wait until it's not raining every day though...
Tomorrow I have my second planting, and it's going to be muddy as all hell. Hopefully it'll be fun though. I'll stay more or less dry through the miracle of raingear, and I just hope that the volunteers will not be miserable. Especially the little kids. I'd rather deal with mud fights than complaining kids :)
Just putting it out there, but this season of The Office is amazing.
I want to go camping. Really badly. I suppose I should probably wait until it's not raining every day though...
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Happy Halloween everyone!
I like Halloween in theory, but it's just one of those holidays that could easily be a "normal day." Obviously when you're young you want the candy, and you like dressing up. Ten years ago I'd have just finished trick or treating, and I'd be rummaging through my candy right about now (assuming that Pacific time=Eastern time, for the sake of argument. It's all time as perceived by me anyways). In Granville, the kids would have been finished trick or treating before it even got dark. I saw some random little kids with parents trick or treating in Everett today driving back from the field. Other than that, I've been pretty isolated from the whole Halloween phenomenon this year. Though I did watch the Office on nbc.com, and the beginning at least had Halloween references (Creed was a KICK ASS Joker).
I guess, like most holidays, Halloween just isn't fun if you're not around people who are into it. I miss Denison. Not the stupid drunken Halloween parties and people running around in ridiculous costumes. THAT I can live without, lol. I miss going out to Pigeon Roost and getting pumpkins, and then carving said pumpkins. I miss baking the pumpkin seeds. I miss walking around campus and hearing the freshly fallen leaves crunch beneath my feet (I believe there's a Facebook group honoring that). Essentially, I missed out on the Midwestern fall this year (the leaves were just starting to change significantly when I left). It's weird though, because it doesn't feel like it should have happened yet. All my life it's happened about a month, give or take, after I've started school. This year I didn't start school, which I THOUGHT would be the weird part, but it just sort of went unnoticed. The real "void," I guess, is that seasonal phenomena that occur September-onward just don't feel like they should be here yet, and thus some things have sort of flew by unnoticed. Perhaps that's partially because I'm in a new place, and it's been a huge transitional period. Old routines are easily forgotten in the whirlwind of the new. But I think that the academic state of mind has largely been tied to my "seasonal emotions." And this meant different things at different points in my life, I think. Most recently, and what I miss most is that the essence of Denison and, more importantly, all of the people that I am friends with from Denison, have become a huge part of my seasonal routine. So I have to re-define that routine and take back what the seasons mean, but I'm not quite sure how to go about that. It's happened before in my life (from different stages of childhood, HS to college, etc.), but somehow it's different now. Maybe it's just because the seasons don't have the same meaning in the Northwest. Perhaps this process initiated in Tennesee, which through off my rhythm even when I was in Ohio. Will something as blatant as Christmas bring me back on track? Or do I simply have to get used to the fact that connectedness with the annual rhythms has taken a new form, which I don't recognize? Is that ok? And will the recognizable seep back into my present consciousness?
Not sure if that made sense or not. It's sort of outlining some abstractions that are flying through my brain right now, and I don't feel like expending the effort to explain.
I meant to post an entry about my SERVES training in Wenatchee, WA. I was there from Tues-Thurs. Every WSC Americorps member in the state (somewhere between 700 and 950, I've heard varying estimates) was there. But at this point I don't feel like there's much to say. Even though there sort of is. I guess I just don't feel like getting into it.
I've had a strange form of insomnia for nearly a week now. I can get to sleep (more or less) fine, but it's a restless sleep (interspersed with the occasional dream that is unusually comforting, but that doesn't last) and I usually wake up in the middle of the night and can't fall back to sleep. I guess I sort of go in and out of sleep, so it's better than being wide awake I supposed, but it's not consistent with a normal modern sleep cycle. I've been getting only about 4 or 5 hours of the type of sleep that I actually need each night. It's taking a toll in a subtle way, I think, but I'm not sure how to fix it. I guess I've never been a particularly good sleeper.
Vague longings for an AT thru hike are cropping up again. It's damn impractical, and I'm not sure if I see myself getting enough out of it to justify doing it, but you only live once, right? Maybe I just need to go camping in general.
I guess, like most holidays, Halloween just isn't fun if you're not around people who are into it. I miss Denison. Not the stupid drunken Halloween parties and people running around in ridiculous costumes. THAT I can live without, lol. I miss going out to Pigeon Roost and getting pumpkins, and then carving said pumpkins. I miss baking the pumpkin seeds. I miss walking around campus and hearing the freshly fallen leaves crunch beneath my feet (I believe there's a Facebook group honoring that). Essentially, I missed out on the Midwestern fall this year (the leaves were just starting to change significantly when I left). It's weird though, because it doesn't feel like it should have happened yet. All my life it's happened about a month, give or take, after I've started school. This year I didn't start school, which I THOUGHT would be the weird part, but it just sort of went unnoticed. The real "void," I guess, is that seasonal phenomena that occur September-onward just don't feel like they should be here yet, and thus some things have sort of flew by unnoticed. Perhaps that's partially because I'm in a new place, and it's been a huge transitional period. Old routines are easily forgotten in the whirlwind of the new. But I think that the academic state of mind has largely been tied to my "seasonal emotions." And this meant different things at different points in my life, I think. Most recently, and what I miss most is that the essence of Denison and, more importantly, all of the people that I am friends with from Denison, have become a huge part of my seasonal routine. So I have to re-define that routine and take back what the seasons mean, but I'm not quite sure how to go about that. It's happened before in my life (from different stages of childhood, HS to college, etc.), but somehow it's different now. Maybe it's just because the seasons don't have the same meaning in the Northwest. Perhaps this process initiated in Tennesee, which through off my rhythm even when I was in Ohio. Will something as blatant as Christmas bring me back on track? Or do I simply have to get used to the fact that connectedness with the annual rhythms has taken a new form, which I don't recognize? Is that ok? And will the recognizable seep back into my present consciousness?
Not sure if that made sense or not. It's sort of outlining some abstractions that are flying through my brain right now, and I don't feel like expending the effort to explain.
I meant to post an entry about my SERVES training in Wenatchee, WA. I was there from Tues-Thurs. Every WSC Americorps member in the state (somewhere between 700 and 950, I've heard varying estimates) was there. But at this point I don't feel like there's much to say. Even though there sort of is. I guess I just don't feel like getting into it.
I've had a strange form of insomnia for nearly a week now. I can get to sleep (more or less) fine, but it's a restless sleep (interspersed with the occasional dream that is unusually comforting, but that doesn't last) and I usually wake up in the middle of the night and can't fall back to sleep. I guess I sort of go in and out of sleep, so it's better than being wide awake I supposed, but it's not consistent with a normal modern sleep cycle. I've been getting only about 4 or 5 hours of the type of sleep that I actually need each night. It's taking a toll in a subtle way, I think, but I'm not sure how to fix it. I guess I've never been a particularly good sleeper.
Vague longings for an AT thru hike are cropping up again. It's damn impractical, and I'm not sure if I see myself getting enough out of it to justify doing it, but you only live once, right? Maybe I just need to go camping in general.
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