Random Commentary, TA style

Think You’re Resourceful? Psh…Think Again.

tra13 — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:20:48 +0000

My friend JD is living in West Africa right now, and she recently passed along a list she’s made of the many ways in which Africans in her village are resourceful. The next time you’re tempted to berate the present condition of the Michigan/U.S. economy and think you don’t have enough, remember this list and think again. And hey, maybe there’s even a tip or two here that you could use…

I have compiled a list of the top ten most resourceful things I have seen since arrival. Ok, here it goes…

#10 ~ They use plastic rice bags as wash rags for the dishes.

#9 ~ They use old tin cans as graters (poke a few holes in the bottom and it’s good to

go.)

#8 ~ They use their head wraps to grab hot stuff off of the fire after it is done cooking.

#7 ~ They fit more people than what you would think humanly possible in the back of

what we call bush taxis (about the size of a small truck).

#6 ~ They use dinner’s left over oil if they run out of hair gel.

#5 ~ Our friend came over the other day and wanted to make sure we weren’t wasting

anything, so she went through the trash and salvaged a couple of containers and a taco seasoning bag for her cousin to use as toys.

#4 ~ They turn bottle caps into tables.

#3 ~ They use sand and a little water to clean the black soot off of their cooking pots.

#2 ~ #2 ~ Sitting is very important here, you aren’t in someone’s house for one minute before they are inviting you to sit down, and sitting on the sand is not good, so they use anything and everything they can find to sit on, from buckets to pounding pots to taking off your shoes and sitting on top of them.

#1 ~ #1 ~ And resourceful thing number one has to be when I saw someone use an old truck frame turned upside down as a fence around their living compound.

“Maturing”

tra13 — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:40:40 +0000

A friend and I were having a conversation today about this process of “maturing.” Aka, looking in the mirror and realizing we’re definitely not 21 anymore. We get excited when we get carded. Dying our hair is partly for fun, partly out of necessity. I wear suits to work most days, she wears scrubs. We have lists of responsibilities and both we and others around us will feel the repercussions if those responsibilities aren’t met. We’re serious about playing the part God has for us in life.

I used to refer to this as “getting old,” but that was when I used to freak out about being an adult. Most of the time, I can get past that now. Guess I’ve been a “grown up” for long enough.

So, for the recond, I’m not getting older, even if I look and act differently from one year to the next. No, I am not getting old. I’m “becoming more mature.”

But do me a favor and don’t ask my high school students about this…

One week, two days to go!

tra13 — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:52:39 +0000

Yup, I’m counting down – one week and two days until the end of the semester! I absolutely cannot wait. Strictly from the lecture/class discussion and even readings standpoint, it’s actually been a pretty enjoyable semester. But I’ve also had so many papers due that sometimes I’ve felt like I’m getting a degree in journalism instead of IR. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy writing, and I’m not the worst at it either – but there are only so many research papers a brain can take in any given period of time. After a while they become incredibly uninsightful.

For anyone who has been trying to track me down recently – only one week and two days until you’ll have a pretty darn good chance of catching me! Well, sort of…I have a one week break before starting spring/summer classes, during which time I’m on call for jury duty. (What were the chances of the timing on that working out so “perfectly”?) But I do plan to enjoy the summer, despite having to slave over textbooks. So by all means, give me a week and two days and hunt me down! I’d love to see or at least talk to you.

Academia vs. Wikipedia

tra13 — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:37:22 +0000

It’s the perfect example of the internet vs. higher education, time magazine vs. peer-reviewed journal, instant vs. brewed coffee. What is it? The ultimate showdown: Academia vs. Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is known in most higher ed circles as the impetus behind terrible research, unscholarly “wisdom” and terrible student study habits. On nearly every class syllabus handed out these days you’ll find these sequenced words in bold: WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A CREDIBLE SOURCE.

While many “adults” have yet to figure out the idea behind “wiki” spaces, the web pages that can be edited by anyone, anywhere, at any time, students have no problem grasping the concept. That said, I have yet to find a college student on any American campus who regularly edits Wikipedia with whatever s/he wants, just to have a source to credit for their paper to back up their thesis. At any rate I can still understand the reason a professor would abhor the use of the site as a resource for academic papers.

But what cracks me up in the academia vs. wikipedia debate isn’t that professors make it a point to cross the site off the resource list, or that students may occasionally mis-use the site, or that there may be information contained on the site that isn’t true. What cracks me up is the line that I will hear at least once a semester from nearly every professor.

When the class is done and the few students with questions stick around to talk to the prof, at some point you will hear the following conversation:

Student: “I didn’t understand what you were saying in class about the effect that this situation had on such-and-such a city.”
Professor: “I’m sorry. Just check out the definition on Wikipedia, it will explain it a lot better.”

My prediction? Wikipedia will easily outlast the feigned hatred it sustains from the academic community.

Michigan Drivers are AWESOME

tra13 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:21:35 +0000

I saw one of the funniest things today. This guy was in the middle lane, getting ready to cross the oncoming lanes of traffic to turn into a driveway, and he totally missed the drive. I mean, he completely missed it, by like three car lengths. He just turned right into the yard. Except the curb was too high for his car, so he hit the curb and got stuck. Mind you, he was now blocking two lanes of 60 mph traffic with his car. After about 5 seconds of what I can only assume to be shock at his own stupidity, he backed up his car, turned it around a little better and made it into the driveway. Hilarious…

Compassion (and I mean the noun)

tra13 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:59:16 +0000

I’ve been struck lately by something very simple: Jesus’ consistent attitude of Compassion.

“When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them…” This phrase or something like it appears throughout the Gospel recollections of Jesus’ life here on earth. Jesus would sneak away from the huge crowds, only to have them track him down and bring more problems for Him to attend to. Yet, though He sought refuge and solitude, He always “had compassion,” and rather than driving them away, He would care for them.

This idea really struck me this morning, I think because I feel like lately I’ve been witnessing a lot of NON-compassion. It amazes me how some people can be so cold and harsh towards other people. Maybe someone did something that was rude or unkind, but rather than look on them with compassion, the human tendency seems to be to resign them forever to the depths of hades. Heaven forbid entrance to anyone who has snapped at you once! And while I feel like I’ve been watching this tendency in other people all week, honesty would say that on many occasions I’ve been shocked at my own ability to be everything opposed to compassion.

I hope that when I’m mistreated, I’m able to look past the immediate personal affront to see the hurt that people are experiencing. I hope I can see them through Jesus’ eyes of compassion. I hope the same for you.

You found the new site!

tra13 — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:31:09 +0000

If you made it here from the blogsavy site, you’re in the right place! I haven’t been able to update anything on blogsavy for the past week, and just yesterday received an email from the site saying they were experiencing serious maintanance problems and would likely be shutting down. So…here’s the new site! I’m glad to still be on a WordPress setup…infinitely better than a site like Blogger! Unfrotunately, the available themes here are rather lame. Maybe I’ll get a chance to play with the HTML sometime in the future to make this layout a little more “me.” Until then, what you see is what you get. I’ll be back in the blogosphere with new posts soon! Come back to visit me!

Oh, and I know the last site wasn’t accepting comments…hopefully this new site will take care of that problem.

Dig

tra13 — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:55:36 +0000

I had a big idea
I had a crazy eye
I broke the sacred seal
I told a lazy lie

I’ve had my conscience bent
I’ve had my patience tried
I’ve been up in the desert and
Down by the riverside

Will the eagle fly
If the sky’s untrue?
Do the faithful sigh
Because they are so few?

Remember when I cried?
Remember when you knew?
Remember that look in your eyes?
I know I do

And count the stars to measure time
The earth is hard, the treasure fine
To the sea, I’ll crawl on my knees

Feel it coming in
Feel it going out
Water covers sand
Blood covers doubt

So I begin again
Again, the healing bow
There was a time when I might have surrendered, but not now

Consult the cards to measure mine
The earth is hard, but the treasure fine
At the sea, I’ll wait on my knees…

“Dig” ~ Jars of Clay

Back Home and Reflective

tra13 — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:44:29 +0000

I’m back home from a weekend away at a wonderful retreat with my Compassion peeps from around the Great Lakes region. There are a million thoughts running through my head right now, and I hope to share many of them with you over the course of the next week. Right now, however, I’m still processing and reflecting on the words and attitude and vision of the weekend. So I’ll just leave you with the following reference: Matthew 25:31-46. Look it up and read it (it’s in the Bible, and Matthew is the first book of the New Testament. If you don’t have a Bible, you can find it by visiting www.biblegateway.com). This is one of the passages that has been my driving focus over the weekend, and I’ll be sharing more.

The Michigan Adventure

tra13 — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:19:20 +0000

No, I’m not talking about the theme park. I’m talking about the fact that I spent three hours driving home from Grand Rapids tonight. Tonight – March 27. Three hours for an hour and fifteen minute drive? Yup. Thanks to the worst snow-related weather I’ve driven in all winter. Did I mention it’s late March? Almost April? Technically Spring? You follow me?

The reader’s digest of my story is as follows: I leave GVSU’s campus about 9. I was so ridiculously tired (I’ve had less than three hours of sleep a night for the past three days) that I actually found myself genuinely amused by the fact that it was snowing so badly I couldn’t see the road. You know that natural high you get when you’re so tired you feel like you’re floating outside your body, observing all your actions from afar? Yeah, I had that thing going on. So I’m cruising along down the freeway at about 40 mph, when I notice that my windshield wiper blades are completed iced over. No big deal. I roll down my window to grab the blade and snap the ice off. Slight problem: the blade snaps in two and then flies off my car. Hmmmmm, I thought to myself, this is mildly inconvenient. Turns out it was more than just mildly inconvenient. My windshield was completely covered in snow and ice within about 45 seconds. Great driver that I am…and being in the remarkably good exhaustion-induced mood that I was…I shrugged it off, rolled down my window and stuck my head out the side of my car so I could see, crawling along at a snail’s pace. This didn’t work so well though. Every time a car came up behind me, I had to pull my head back inside so they could pass, which left me driving blind. Since the next exit wasn’t for another six or seven miles, I finally gave in and pulled off to the side of the road to call a tow truck. 40 minutes later, I make it to Portland and fit my car up with a new gas-station-quality blade. Another hour later, I make it the remaining thirty miles home, just before midnight.

Michigan. Always an adventure.

Hey, I’m off to Indiana for the weekend for a retreat. Catch y’all next week! If you haven’t checked out the page on My Compassion Kids recently, you should. I added a bunch of information this week. Laterz.