I have the travel itch.
No, not the kind you get from traveling to a damp place when your feet don't dry out completely. The kind where I'm itching to travel.
I love to travel. And, surprisingly for me, the past few years' worth of travel experiences prepared me for traveling to places off the beaten path. To experience new sites, sights, sounds, tastes, sensations. To transport me out of my comfort zone, so I have the potential to experience personal transformation.
I really want to travel.
Currently, though, I do not have any pleasure travel plans coming soon. I have seriously considered it, but with a homework list a mile long, plus job #1, and job #2, oh yea, and the offspring, time (and lack of available funding) is a bit of a hindrance. I'm currently running a triage center of life. Life sustenance gets priority. But that doesn't mean I'm not mentally packing my bags and taking off on a plane to somewhere.
Ah, baggage. No matter how carefully you pack, you always bring more than you need. Go on, shake your head at me while you remember that one time you packed so minimally and carefully, and used everything you put in your luggage or pack.You still brought extra baggage.
Wherever we travel, be it to work, or school, the store, or some far off location, we bring baggage. Intentionally or unintentionally, our baggage hitches a ride. Every experience, every breath, every thought, every feeling you experience up to this moment gets packed away in your baggage. You cannot control it.
What you can control, though, is what you unpack and use every trip you take. And, you can control how you react to others' baggage. Just like going to the airport and watching that passenger wheel the clearly oversized piece of luggage to the jetway, along with the personal item that is the size of your own carry-on. You watch that person struggle with stowing it (or not!) in the overhead bin as the awaiting passengers line up behind you, each carrying his or her own baggage. Do you empathize with the struggle? Are you frustrated by every inconvenience you experienced that day to that moment, leading you to glare and exhale sharply the longer it takes? Do you step in to help shoulder the burden, quickening the process and providing a moment of ease for another, and relief for those waiting?
Baggage is not a negative association to assign a person you tried to date, but it just didn't work out. Baggage doesn't have to be an oversized piece of luggage you mistakenly carry aboard a plane. Your baggage is the accumulation of your life experiences, your thoughts, your feelings, your growth. It does not define you, but it helps to shape who you are and how you choose to greet the world each moment you are alive.
How you package it is entirely up to you. I prefer to package mine, and unpack it, intentionally. Something subtle, yet beautiful, with a dash of color to individualize it. What is your preferred package?
25 March 2014
04 March 2014
PhDLife means you join me on assignment
Hello again, blogiverse. More weeks than intended have passed since last I updated. I could easily describe all the ways in which my life is insanely busy, but it quickly starts to sound like excuses, so I will refrain. We can just chalk it up to hashtag phdlife.
I am currently working on an assignment. Not much of a surprise. And, strange, you say, that I am writing this in the midst of my assignment? Not really. This is part of my assignment. I am attempting to incorporate a variety of multimedia to fulfill the guidelines.
This assignment has many pieces. I will do my best to provide you an overview without your eyes glazing over and you getting the urge to click over to another tab. Essentially, addressing diversity and the various forms of justices (food, water, energy, climate) is the overall theme. Here's the rub, though. I consider these very human-centric. I am not saying that it is a bad thing to consider how our use of these resources is equitable or not amongst humans. And I am not saying that adjusting our use of these resources to be more equitable amongst humans is not a valid and desirable thing. I recognize that these concerns will also, hopefully, positively impact this planet with which we live. Yet, I struggle with focusing entirely on the human while considering these resources as something solely for our benefit. I approach justice as truly that, just and fair treatment. Equity. Currently, humans are taking the, well, human-sized share of the planet's resources. The other organisms with whom we share this place are forced to survive on less, or not survive at all.
So, while I acknowledge that I may be interpreting this assignment in a way that is unintended, I feel it vitally important to speak for those without a loud enough, or socially intelligible, voice. Because if those who can speak in the language other humans understand do not do so, then the melodious and beautiful voices of those who cannot speak our language will quickly die out, and this world will be lost.
I am currently working on an assignment. Not much of a surprise. And, strange, you say, that I am writing this in the midst of my assignment? Not really. This is part of my assignment. I am attempting to incorporate a variety of multimedia to fulfill the guidelines.
This assignment has many pieces. I will do my best to provide you an overview without your eyes glazing over and you getting the urge to click over to another tab. Essentially, addressing diversity and the various forms of justices (food, water, energy, climate) is the overall theme. Here's the rub, though. I consider these very human-centric. I am not saying that it is a bad thing to consider how our use of these resources is equitable or not amongst humans. And I am not saying that adjusting our use of these resources to be more equitable amongst humans is not a valid and desirable thing. I recognize that these concerns will also, hopefully, positively impact this planet with which we live. Yet, I struggle with focusing entirely on the human while considering these resources as something solely for our benefit. I approach justice as truly that, just and fair treatment. Equity. Currently, humans are taking the, well, human-sized share of the planet's resources. The other organisms with whom we share this place are forced to survive on less, or not survive at all.
So, while I acknowledge that I may be interpreting this assignment in a way that is unintended, I feel it vitally important to speak for those without a loud enough, or socially intelligible, voice. Because if those who can speak in the language other humans understand do not do so, then the melodious and beautiful voices of those who cannot speak our language will quickly die out, and this world will be lost.
Avoiding SQUIRRELS!
Where are we now, and why?
I decided approaching this assignment through the lens of some charismatic megafauna will provide opportunity to combine visual and verbal learning styles (multiple intelligences). Ok, ready for the breakdown of what that sentence means? Charismatic megafauna are the big "cuddly" animals people are often drawn to and care about most frequently. Like pandas. And elephants. Learning styles (multiple intelligences) are categories that organize in what ways people engage with and retain information. Ever try to read a huge block of text (ahem) and find you don't remember much of it? But if you listen to it, like a book on tape, you have near perfect recall? Or how playing with an item allows you to remember how it works/what it is/what it does? These all speak to your learning style in the realm of multiple intelligences. I know that, often, webpages with insane amounts of text lead me to TL;DR (too long; didn't read) territory, and I click over to something shorter and more interesting. I know this is a result of the internet culture in which I live. I accept that I am easily distracted by SQUIRRELS!
With that knowledge of myself, I searched for ways to present information in a visually appealing manner, and that are concise and interesting. Essentially, I searched for some good interpretive examples. Goodness, the interwebs are full of interesting things!
Enter the Infographic
This method of information delivery encompasses the visual (with multiple colors, pictures, etc.) and the verbal (with the right amount of words), appealing to many and enticing to read and learn.
I selected a few species to highlight, with the knowledge that these species act as umbrellas. By working to conserve and save an "umbrella" species, many other species found in the same area are helped. I do not consider one species more important than any other (especially humans). An ecosystem is a system, where all the parts work cohesively to make the system function correctly. If any part of the system is malfunctioning (such as having too many babies, or using fossil fuels that cause climate change, or creating monocultures from clearcutting for food crops), the entire system malfunctions.
Here are some examples of malfunctions.
Rhinoceros
The current plight of rhinoceros is entirely human-caused. The false belief that rhino horn contains medicinal properties perpetuates the killing of these important browsers.
Even with the knowledge that rhinoceros horn is made of the same stuff (keratin) as human fingernails, the demand is still high, and ever increasing, as evidenced by these statistics. High demand leads to high prices, which encourages more poaching. Sometimes these poachers are from poor communities and living in poverty and hunger. Money to make life a little easier is exceptionally appealing. Here is where food justice is an important topic for the rhinoceros.
The continued rate of deaths shows a bleak future.
Photo source link Graph credit: rhinosurvival.org
There are multiple species of rhinoceros, and the above statistics do not delineate which are being poached and the expected date of extinction. I hazard it is showing statistics for the white rhino, which currently has the highest population number.
Ok, please don't click away and stay away. I know this is sobering information, but it's important for you to know. And, it's part of my assignment. Stay with me!
Elephants
The story of the elephants is, unfortunately, not dissimilar to the rhinoceros. Ivory from elephant tusks (which is essentially a modified tooth) is prized and highly valued for a variety of purposes.
Again, money is the driving force behind these human actions. If these numbers continue at the current rate, it is likely elephants will be extinct in the wild within 25 years.
Governments around the world chose definitive action against the illegal ivory trade (which, honestly, seems a strange label, "illegal". We are deciding when it is ok to commodify animal body parts, without the animal's permission.) recently, by destroying stockpiles of ivory. But what does that really mean for supply and demand? Granted, these tusks and ivory pieces were not available for purchase, but the mere presence kept a modicum of control. Without the slightest possibility of acquiring the destroyed ivory, consumers are willing to pay more for any available ivory, which puts the elephant populations at a higher risk than ever.
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