penn

Mass transit

I've always loved riding mass transit; how much nicer to read a book or people watch while traveling than it is to pay attention to the road?

In Portland, Oregon, I particularly enjoyed riding their light rail, the MAX. One of the more enjoyable parts was the inclusion of art amongst the advertising panels. Almost every train had at least one poem up somewhere on the walls. Here, I share one I found this evening while browsing through some old photos. If you can't read it at this size, you can click through to my flickr page, and it should be readable there.

Random bits

yeah, yeah, shamelessly lifted from Zandria

1) I had to take a drug test this week, as I just got hired. I'm working for the city of Ann Arbor over the summer. I'll be teaching a kids day camp at a canoe livery, so we'll be doing environmental ed with a boating/aquatics spin. The drug test was really nifty, actually. You do the standard pee in a cup, but it's a special kind of cup. It has a little thermometer, so they can verify it's actually from your body. Then, I had to peel a big strip off, and it exposed a bunch of meters. Two lines means no drugs, and I had two lines straight across. Woot! (side note: this was the expected result.) In retrospect, I really should have taken a picture. It was really sweet. It's an instant drug test, and the lady never had to touch the cup. Once I was done, I poured out the urine and tossed the cup in the garbage.

2) I'm still working on my 101 things, but I've been lazy about crossing stuff off. I'm starting to think I'll just cross stuff off at the end of the month unless I write a specific post about it. Recently, I've had plenty of stuff to write about, so I haven't written about the mundane items. For example, I tried to give blood a week ago. My crit was too low -- a common occurrence for me -- so I couldn't donate. But I did try!

3) I got a Nikon D40 as my graduation present. It is pretty rad. I used it to take all my Chicago pictures. I anticipate lots of fun with this little baby. I'm still in the market for a compact little point and shoot I can use for the everyday carry type of camera.

Millennium Park

The famous bean of Millennium Park:

me and my new baby (a nikon d40!):

the skyline in the bean:

As seen from the top of the Sears Tower:

Love through art

As seen at the Art Institute in Chicago:

Out and about in Chicago

There was plenty of time spent walking around and exploring Chicago, so I have more pictures to share of the fabulousness. I really liked downtown Chicago! Lots of panhandlers, which is not my thing, but everything else was awesome. Chicago has street art almost everywhere, it is fairly clean, and it is simple to navigate. This is just a small snippet of photos, and I'll put more up later this week.

the Congress Hotel:

an awesome building:

Shedd Aquarium

Last Friday found me narrating the action at Shedd Aquarium to Wes on our trip to Chicago. It was super fabulous! I think it may be my favorite aquarium ever except for the lack of a touch tank. I've got a few select photos here to share with you fine folks.

The impressive exterior:

Yours truly, right outside the Shedd, enjoying a sunny and somewhat warm day:

Chicago bound

My train leaves in less than an hour! Back on Monday with pictures!

I leave you now with something particularly pithy I wrote today:

During the Gilded Age in Holland, tulips traded for outrageous sums. The most prized of all tulips was the beautiful “flamed” variety, with a dark base fading into lighter tips. Breeders tried to replicate this pattern by crossing parent plants, but they were unable to consistently produce flamed offspring. This pattern could only be reliably replicated after a scientist discovered that flaming was the result of a virus that infected tulip bulbs. In such a way, art and science came together, and the intermingling of two disciplines resulted in greater learning. I learned this story while studying abroad in the Netherlands, and I have taken the lessons to heart when teaching others about science. Disparate disciplines in school do not exist in a vacuum in nature, and integration of subjects is key to promoting greater learning and understanding. By connecting environmental science and ecology to art, music, theater, and other subjects that children intuitively understand, we can help even the less than scientifically minded understand both how and why we should care for the earth.

Leah Lemur

Madagascar, ring tailed lemur
Originally uploaded by danielguip

One of my largest challenges in teaching is remembering the names of all my students. Somehow, I just don't have a great memory for names, even though I can recognize all my students. A few semesters ago, when doing introductions, one of my students said he was "Pete, from Pittsburgh, who likes penguins." I never had a problem remembering his name, so a great name game was born.

This semester, I was Leah Lemur, and a few of my students have continued to call me this even though we're two weeks in to a seven week semester. Of course, I don't mind. Lemurs are pretty awesome animals. After all, in the movie Madagascar, the lemurs had a non-stop dance party to "I like to move it." And what, really, is better than non-stop dance party?

Voting

Unbeknownst to me, there was a vote today in Ann Arbor. Apparently, it was advertised this morning in the local paper, but I don't read that. I only happened to know there was a vote because I dropped by the library on my way home.

As a good citizen, I went by my local polling place to cast a vote. The votes were pretty much school levies and the school board, and almost every race was unopposed. As an extra good citizen, I didn't vote in the real races, as I don't want to be a random influence. I did vote in the unopposed races, as I'm unsure whether or not you need a minimum number of actual votes cast to validate an election.

Interestingly, I was voter #9 in my local polling place today. And I went by at 7 pm. Wow!

Total side note: I just saw an ad for visiting Puerto Rico, and it ended with "no passport needed for US citizens." Um, yes, of course. It's part of the US. I can't believe there is still a sizable population of people who don't realize that.

Why blog?

I've kept a blog for over four and a half years. This fact is often astounding to me; I didn't intend to be writing for this long when I first started blogging. In the beginning, I started to blog because I wanted to feel like my voice was heard. Ironically, the only person who read my first blog was my friend Juliana. The first blog was on blogger, and it didn't really have commenting ability. I moved over to typepad almost as soon as it started. My first official post was October 8, and it was pretty lame.

Through blogging, I have found that I am not alone. Keeping this blog has followed me through good times and bad. I chronicled my semester in Europe (first post and last) and my three weeks traveling New Zealand (starting here). I've had two boyfriends in the time I've been blogging, and I have now graduated from two different programs (BS in Biology and MS in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology). My blog has even seen a few low points, although I have not chronicled everything. Most importantly, my blog has led me to meet many amazing people, and I anticipate that I will continue to meet more wonderful people as I continue to blog. Yes, I will keep blogging. This post is definitely not an ending announcement.

In any case, back to the people. I've got a lot of friends that I've met through my blog, and people from my life here have often expressed surprise about my internet friendships. When I go to meet internet friends, my friends here crack jokes about getting names and being prepared to call the police. To me, however, meeting someone on the internet is not that far afield. I bring people home from the frisbee field, and I've made friends at bookstores and coffee shops. As I see it, the internet just extends the realm of interaction.

As has been mentioned frequently in recent times, we are in a period of intense and rapid change. Technology is altering the way our society functions. For my generation, the internet is just another component of our changing world. Over time, my blog has been less about garnering attention and more about making connections. I use my blog (and read the blogs of others) to keep up with friends, meet new people, remember details about my life, and reach out into the world to see who is there. Community has always been important to me, and I see my blog as another way I can form community in this world.

Today, dooce wrote a similar post in her monthly letter to her daughter. She writes much more cogently than I do, and I encourage all of you to read her words. They brought me to tears. Dooce writes about her family, and she makes her living from her blog. Her career decision has sparked a high level of vitriol in many, but she continues to do her work in the face of conflict. And why does she blog? She blogs for the same reason I do, and for a reason similar to many others I read: it truly is all about the community. Just as we learn from others around us, we can also learn from the words of friends and strangers that we read on the internet. Life is not so simple anymore; our words, preserved in these "pages," can follow us into the future, and more people than every before can look into our lives. But this is our expanding world, and there is much more to gain from the strength of community than there is to lose by our conscious decision to publish bits and pieces of our lives.