high-school flashback

I had written an old friend from high school when I was in Peru and she just replied. It's so crazy to think about, the high-school person she knows, and what's happened to her as well as me. She got married and moved to Georgia because her husband was transferred there for his work. And her dad just died two weeks ago. So she's in Saint Paul now...but I am not. It's also nice to catch up, since I don't plan on going to any high school reunions. High school was dreadful.

I also keep accidentally running into blogs and stories from people in the Twin Cities. In the book Wasted, she refers to what is obviously the Hard Times Cafe. Another story in a feminist anthology refers to Minneapolis, and another blog was talking about the bazillions of coops and natural food stores that are there. I don't feel depressed or regretful, but I kind of think that people who never leave the Twin Cities have a good point. You found a good place, don't mess with success. You don't need to move. On another end, you have peopleents who are always somewhat sad and want to go back to their home country, but already have an established life here. And I know some people don't like where they are from, or don't like to stay in the same place. But it's nice to have the sense of security you get from a place called home.

potluck day

I went to a vegan potluck today. Vegans are generally more interesting than raw foodists, because they tend to be interested in things besides health. Health is important but a narrow focus to have. That being said, one guy I met who went vegan for health reasons is actually TA-ing an online class at Cornell for Colin T. Campbell (author of The China Study) called "Vegan Nutrition". 

One of my co-workers sent me a new WIC magnet is Spanish, about storing your breastmilk. It's great because I love it, and who else would think to give me something like that? I was really lucky to work with them, and can't believe we still write back and forth. WIC is a really special place (even if I think the corporate subsidies do more harm than good ultimately).

One of my old co-workers is kind of like a pen-pal now, she likes to hand-write letters. She is in her late thirties and was single and kind of lonely when I started working with her. It was kind of like, "I'm 35 and still single, is this ever going to happen?" I think it was just frustrating for her, because life doesn't always work out how you plan. Anyway, she had started dating a nice guy about a year ago or so, and they moved in together before I left. I just got a letter from her saying they discussed it and they are going to get married. I'm so happy for her. Additionally, she has been working for the state WIC, trying to increase access to fruits and veggies in low-income neighborhoods, as her own pet project. It's really small and difficult but important work. I'm really surprised she has taken this on. It's so nice when people surprise you and actually care about something outside their small sphere.

random thoughts

It's so funny, being in an MS program while being skeptical of it all. There are much better ways of finding out the information you get from science, that tends to be more harmonious as well. Not to say you don't get any useful information from science. But if all this energy went to internal investigation and meditation (etc) instead of research, we'd be in a much better place and have even more valuable information. I just laugh at some of it. You do all this work, but there are so many places to make mistakes, and you might not get anything in the end. By not even considering that there are other ways of getting knowledge, you miss out on so much. It's so self-limiting.

The other problem with science is that your expectations do affect to what you get to a certain degree. Sometimes it's not enough to affect the results so the results are still meaningful. But sometimes it's just totally altered, albeit not always on purpose. The question you are asking, your framing, the inherent worldview, the limitations of what you can measure make a lot of the data worthless.

I went to my first class, and I'm going to learn to drive a tractor. It's great, it's so funny.

blah

Someone is really unhappy because he's unemployed and doesn't have any friends and is stuck here. Unless he leaves. I don't know what he expected in moving to a new place. I miss the Twin Cities a lot but am very glad to just be getting a Master's. I was talking to my mom and I realized she was the same age as me when she moved out to a small college town (for my dad, I was a baby) in OR. She was very depressed (the winters are depressing) and she said that's just normal. It took her about a year to adjust, they were out there four years. It made me feel better, that it's a normal situational response. But he is a problem.

I don't know what to do so I am reading some yoga and taoist writings, they all say the same things in different ways.


I joined NOFA-NY, the Northeast Organic Farming Association, yesterday. I love this kind of group. People that are just trying to push things forward steadily, positively. They do a lot of work to directly help small organic farmers.

This article on the history of the group Vegan Outreach is extremely interesting, even if you don't know about the group. One of the founders became a dietician, not to promote a vegan diet, but to figure out why some people don't feel as well on a vegan diet and help resolve these problems.

He starts a temporary, get-rent-paid job as a dishwasher today. I hope it goes well, he's been in limbo for so long.

The department orientation was today and there was loads of free food. There was so much that I got to be a super-picky vegan and load up on fruit and veggies over the processed options (which they also had). A nice alternative to free pizza.

That is all. Hopefully things will get more exciting.

weekend update

On Friday, we went out with some grad students with my department. We went to several bars in Collegetown and talked about the bar we'll be going after a seminar on Weds. It was so funny because these people don't know me. They don't know that I generally don't go out, never had a drinking or partying phase, and am completely acting to do any of these things. By the end of the night, I was sick of it already. But I need to go out and make friends and talk to different people and have these experiences. I feel like I'm a spy, playing the role of a grad student who likes to go out and have a good time, but secretly will report back on what they do. I missed out on the partying gene, completely. I've felt like a curmudgeon since I was child. But I'm proud of myself for acting the part well; apparently I was very believable. 

Tomorrow--hort department orientation, Weds--listen to talks by various grad students, up in Geneva, NY) and register for classes.

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I have tons of red bell peppers and am eating just loads of them. They're great plain and in stir-fry. I love produce and this is saving me tons of money. I spend enough as it is.

Someone told me about this book on relationships that is very interesting... hard to find a partner interested in these ideas, though. It's a way of combining spirituality with sexuality.

last full week before classes start

Friday is new grad student orientation, followed by a Horticulture dept BBQ (getting to know you-type event). I'm excited to meet people. Plus I still get paid my stipend, but am not actually "working" ;). 

On the research farm, we're harvesting cabbage and peppers, so I have lots to eat. I also got a huge bag of tomatillos from the organic breeding trials (finding varieties that work better for organic farming) and have been making tons of green salsa to eat everyday. It's funny, lots of people comment on how much produce I eat, and that they would feel sick if they ate that much (like when I ate a cauliflower head during a meeting). Probably that would have been true for me too, in the past. I'm so lucky I can enjoy all our bounty. You just have to work up to it, and then it makes you feel so great.

He is ambivalent about Ithaca. It is a bizarrely small town, and I'm not really impressed by it's "progressiveness"--I'm sure it's exceptional for a town, but it's not special compared to the neighborhoods I used to live in, or have visited in other cities. It's growing on me, though. And the natural beauty is so great..gotta go watch the sunset.

new friend

I hung out with my new friend today. He's from Chile and is really enthusiatic about everything here, choosing to focus on the positive instead of feeling homesick. We were happy to find each other as friends since we're both new here. We are on a similar wavelength. And I was happy to listen to him talk about this crush he has. It was really sweet, and made it clear that things are platonic. 

We speak in Spanish and English, mixed, since we both need to improve our skills. I showed him the library and he was blown away--there is nothing like it in South America. The concept of libraries is fantastic, and the library here is really great. I helped him get his first library card.

I met some new grad students today, so now I have some friends. Yea!

I'm trying to figure out how to say everything I am currently learning about in Spanish, to keep my skills up. "Labranza minima" is minimum tillage, which is what my advisor has a grant for.

I wish all I had to do all day was gather fruits and vegetables, and walk around and help whoever needed extra help. Everything with careers and money is so silly and made-up. I don't even see how agriculture can be sustainable, to be perfectly honest. Especially the way it's done here. If you don't put your waste back in, then it's not a true cycle. You can get some nitrogen-fixing with legumes, but it doesn't make up for everything you are taking out. You have to close the loop at some point, you can't keep taking. It won't work in the end. We should at least figure out how to cycle waste before we suppose it could be sustainable.

I'm not feeling that discouraged, I'm not feeling depressed. I just can't pretend this isn't silly when it is. I'm not particularly good at pretending, but we all have to do it so much, that I still often do. The first week, people kept asking me things I didn't know the answer to. I felt like I was supposed to know, but I wasn't sure how. So I just said that I had no idea, and lots of people thought that was funny. Now it's been awhile, and it looks bad if I keep saying that. So I make up answers and people seem satisfied. I figure I'm doing as well as anyone else.

I am completely alone in the apartment right now, except for this little plant someone gave me (the girl I had been living with). She gave it to a co-worker, who didn't water it, and figured it was dead. She said I could have it and see if it lived. When she gave it to me, I was having a conversation with her boyfriend about animism and other things. I basically said that the plant had a degree of sentience (those obviously very different from our own) and that I cared about the plant a lot. He didn't know what to make of what I was saying, because I was able to speak with him at his level of logic, and then I was making (to him) logically absurd statements. Normally I wouldn't bother discussing such things, but he is largely Buddhist and believes that everything is essentially connected.

Anyway, I don't know what this plant needs, but I attend to it everyday, and it not only came back to life right away, but is prospering incredibly. I don't care if it a coincidence, it doesn't matter. I'm so happy it's here and doing so well. That's all that matters in the end.

more on the farm

Most of the summer help for the research farm is finished, which means I will be driving out to the farm from the campus by myself quite a bit. In the fleet vehicle, which is a big pick-up truck. I got by so many years without driving regularly at all, never having a car or driver's license. And now I have to drive a truck around.

The first part of my research project is pretty much planned. I'll be looking at cover crops in a reduced-till organic system (only the rows themselves will be tilled, with a deep-zone tiller--it goes very deep). We will compare timing and seeding rate (when and how much is planted) to see how much biomass (hopefully resulting in weed suppression) is created under the various circumstances.

Being out on the farm makes it so hard to ignore how awful conventional agriculture is, and how organic really isn't enough. Organic just means poisons aren't being put into the ground. You can still have monoculture, heavy tillage, heavy organic chemical use, lots of machinery (lots of gasoline) and other harmful practices. Organic is just a starting point. Permaculture has to be a goal.

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I saw a family today with two small children that were trilingual. Mom spoke Spanish, Dad spoke German, and living here, they spoke English. Wow.

first harvest day

Cabbages and peppers at Spiral Farm (organic) in NY.

We harvested cabbage today! I made some vegetable soup with it. You peel back the outer leaves (they're pretty tough to eat) and cut the bottom of the head off.

I want to make sure I see everything I want to see here, before things get busy with school. This weekend I want to go to the store Ithaca Tofu and see everything they have. Besides making their own tofu, I know they have noodles made from yam starch that I like much more than wheat. I also want to visit the Eco-Village soon. 

The Dalai Lama also has his N American HQ here, I'd like to meditate there sometime.

tired of work already

I forgot how hard waking up early to a harsh alarm is, and then having to do things that are neither interesting nor beneficial. It didn't feel like I was on vacation in Peru because it was often uncomfortable and not relaxing. But I guess I was, and now I'm not. That's an adjustment. I'm actually really glad that classes will be starting because I feel like I'll have a certain degree of autonomy that I don't right now, managing my own time.

I took a Spanish assessment test online and got 30% of it wrong. It's so funny because I know I can speak much more fluidly than a lot of people who could do much better at it--but I honestly didn't understand some of the things I got wrong, I had no ideas what the words meant. I have a long way to go.

starting research

Biodegradable mulch at the research farm

"Ridge tilling" test plots

I have to come up with a plan this week for my Master's project. We need to plant next week in order to have two years of data, and it's getting late to plant cover crops... if you plant them too late, you either will have to kill them too early (when they are harder to kill, making them more likely to come back as weeds), or plant your crop too late to get good yield. I don't really know as much as it sounds... I will just do whatever it takes to come up with a decent question yielding data that will be helpful to small organic farmers in the area. So that's what I have to do this week, figure it out. 

I'm also (on my own) going through an organic farming training online at the Rodale Institute.

Going through my books while unpacking, I found my Advanced Yoga Practices book... very interesting ideas and techniques there.

long week

This week has been bizarre. Monday I made a wrong turn biking to work. I ended up way out of the way, in the country (also very hilly, I had to walk my bike in parts). So when I got to where we carpool at school, they were gone. I called and was told to take the blue truck to the farm.

At home everyone thinks of me as someone who doesn't drive. The Thursday before I left, before going to Peru, I miraculously passed my driver's exam and finally got my license. Of course I have hardly any experience still, but they don't know that. So, I had to drive by myself for the first time ever, in a huge blue pick-up truck. ("They let you!?" said Roman. "They made me!" I replied).

Backing out, I got stuck (I actually failed the 90 degree backing up part of the test--in part because I had almost never done it before). I thought, if I keep trying to pull out, I'm just going to mess up the car next to me. It was actually worse than that, because having the truck stuck out halfway was blocking a bunch of traffic. So I was going to go get someone from the Plant Sciences Building to help me pull it out, when some guy offered to help me. He was Cornell, I felt intuitively that he was genuine. So he did pull it out for me. He asked if I was going to drive it now, and I said, yes I had to. He said, okay, well, good luck. And by the way, you're beautiful. Just drop-dead gorgeous.

I was kind of baffled, being sweaty, tired, and in glasses--but the guy helped me out, and didn't ask for anything in return, so I was grateful. And yes, I drove the truck there without incident, without even getting lost. 15 miles, over highway.
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Other things... An older man (like 70?) at the coop who said, "Wouldn't it be easier for you if you left the bike here and I take you are your groceries home?" "What!? No."

And then another guy I met (my mom's age?) complemented me on my tan (in a non-suggestive way) and told me about how the sunblock industry has been working for years for proof that their product prevents skin cancer, that they would love to put it on a label, but they can't. They spend billions of dollars and there's no proof still that sunblock prevents skin cancer. I don't know that means that you shouldn't cover up with clothing (since I do believe that too much sun ages the skin), but it was an interesting point. He introduced himself and we talked about other things and I guy he's sort of my friend.

Who are all these different people I'm meeting? My life is a cartoon. For sure I'm more open than I've ever been.

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Roman finally came, that's a weird adjustment. He's getting to know the place and missing home, but I am physically and mentally tired from work and trying to figure out my Master's project. My research may be on looking at ways of reducing tillage with a cover cropping system, all organic. Details must be decided on this month so we can start planting right away in April.

I don't live by any close friends right now, except for Roman. It's strange. I like having lots of alone time but I like it to be interspersed with time with people I care about, too. It's not so bad though. I'm just tired right now.

alone at new place

My computer died unexpectedly, so I am alone at my new 2 bd (finally) until he comes in a few days. I'll get a land line through my broadband connection on the 6th (unlimited local and long distance for $30/month!). I get to unpack and go shopping for fun things like toilet paper.
No phone, radio, CD player, computer, or anything. I'm at the library right now and I can actually go to the Plant Science building anytime--and Ithaca actually feels safe enough to go to that at 3 in the morning (if I wanted to).

The work is starting already. I'm new to horticulture, so I was given a huge stack of research articles and books to read through. I feel like I can pick up new information better than I used to, so the challenge will be to test that and really push myself, without working unsustainably hard. I have to know where my balance point is. That makes some kind of meditation practice, whether it be moving or still, really important. I meditated for just fifteen minutes today and all these unexpected feelings came up. My uterus is really confused after the (less than) two years of hormonal birth control... I guess I just have to keep going there and feeling what there is to feel. I still haven't had my period since I went off it, and now it's been three months. I guess it can take up to a year.