The Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham (1960)

Wow, I just finished reading a book that was recommended to me called The Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham. It was written in 1960, but it is surprisingly still very relevant to social issues we face today. I`m typically not big on sci-fi books, but this one really hooked me. Despite having been written so long ago, this book fantasizes about what would happen to the global society if scientists discovered an organic and limited anti-aging substance.Can you imagine? Who would get the treatments? How would this change demographics, employment schemes, social benefits, the feminist movement, and our personal relationships?

Not only is this book written beautifully, with simple yet poetic prose, but the political aspect is very engaging. Wyndham uses his characters to play differing sides to the scientific/socio-political debate of what life would be like if we lived centuries long rather than 80 years. PLUS, there is an overarching feminist debate that goes well beyond a sought after "forever-young" potion. Brilliantly written! As a botanist, I can only hope that I discover something one day that causes even a little stir in the scientific community.

Try to get your hands on this book!

Learning from our elders

We have all heard of other cultures and even our ancestors who looked up to their elders, went to them for wisdom, and accepted elders as their leaders. These days we have lost a bit of that. Many of us have distanced or fading relationships with our grandparents. We are expected to mingle within our group of peers. And politically, retired talented, achieved and wise people are considered a hindrance to the economy.

I have had a long distance connection with my grandmother for all of my life (until these past two wonderful years with her). When we would visit grandma we would try to glean stories from her past, watch her cook amazing meals, and tried to learn what it takes to become so old, so happy, and so settled in life.

It`ll be worth your Time

I need a new watch. Ever since the beautiful Victorinox watch that my mother lovingly bought me for my 21st birthday has disappeared (to be honest, I now can`t remember what happened to it...was it stolen? lost? broken? It was obviously traumatic because I remember it dearly, but have blocked the blackness out of my mind), I have felt a bit naked. Well, actually, at first, I felt naked, very naked. But then I started to enjoy the freedom of not knowing the time. But now, living in Switzerland, it`s a big necessity. The country not only makes cool, very expensive watches, but it also runs like clockwork...literally, to the second. I love running for the train these days and seeing that I still have 30 seconds before the conductor signals that the train will be leaving the station. Those 30 seconds are like gold! I can suddenly halt my sprint and slowly saunter down the train platform as if I had planned this all along.

Ok, back to the point. I need a watch. I have been looking for a new one for a while. Sure, I gaze into the windows of the hundreds of shiny watch stores in Zürich. But what I really need is something with utility. Something that will simply tell me the time, will sit well on my wrist, and is cheap and possibly sturdy enough to survive the moments when I absent-mindedly dunk it in the river or a big muddy hole.

Then I found these. The Face Watch. 

Inspiration

Wow, check out the adventure this guy, Ken Ilgunas, is doing and writing about right now. On September 4, 2012, he started out on a 1,700 mile hike of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline route. He began in Hardisty, Alberta, Canada and has been hiking south through Canada. By this past Saturday, he has already made it to Oklahoma through a series of foot pain (he broke a toe just before embarking on his journey), interviews and adventure.

He is an inspiration! Not only is he doing something that is quite interesting from an environmental policy standpoint, but he is also managing to keep up on blogging while camping and hiking. I am very impressed!! It was a personal and professional goal of mine that I failed during the Treehugger Tour 2010. The technology is getting better and I am learning with time.

Check out one of his videos from Christmas.

Zombie Masters

image source

Zombies make for a great horror movie and a good quick Halloween costume. But what makes zombies really quite funny and stomach-able is that they are not real. Or are they? (cue dark dramatic music...)

Back on track...

Well, I know it`s been a while. Actually it`s been ages since we have spoken last. I decided that it was time to pick back up on this blog. As much as it was a relief when I stopped posting, a task which was virtually impossible during my road trip which took me into off the grid places, I have been missing it. I felt like it was a bit of a personal and scientific outlet for me. I have been surprised to hear over the years from many friends that they actually read my blog...thanks guys!

You know when it really struck me though, just how long I have been silent on this blog? When I looked at my picture and saw that young smile and the words "27 year old environmental scientist." Things have changed!! Well, not the environmental scientist part, I am even more of an ecology lover now than 2 years ago. But the age part has. I am now sneaking up on 30 and hoping it doesn`t even see me coming!

So what has changed? I just finished my masters degree in Environmental Science (Ecology and Evolution) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland. Now I am standing in front of the "door of endless possibilities" again. This time it just has a few more gold etchings and windows in it. I will turn the handle, jump through to the "greener" side, and let you know what happens on the journey. 

My graduation ceremony

Flowchart Fondness

Finally, someone has created a book specifically catered to my decision making needs and my love for flowcharts. I totally want this!


Everything Explained Through Flowcharts by comedian and writer Doogie Horner.

Here's a link to an introduction to the book by the author and some examples of what the pages hold from Wired. This is soooo me!

(and yes, if you must know, I'm procrastinating/taking a break from translating mountain forest ecology articles from German to English)

My Daily Writing

Click on the image above to get a clearer view of my current chaos created with Creately

At this exact moment I am overwhelmed. I am in a wonderful place called Zurich, Switzerland and loving it, but along with this love I am getting a flood of other emotions. I am completely inundated with a sense of "new": new country, new people, new languages, new school, new lifestyle, new transportation, new words, new bed, new home, new family, new climate, new, new, new. Every second of every day is an entirely new experience, which is amazing, but there is no lull in this tsunami of "different." Without sounding ungrateful, dare I say, it's exhausting!?

But as my wonderful sister-in-law warned me, this feeling should last for the first 2 or 3 months until you suddenly start to feel less clobbered with newness and more triumphant over the flood of new information. I'm just getting to the middle of month 2. My absolutely amazingly helpful and supportive mother, Margrit, helped me through the first 2 weeks in Switzerland by flying here with me, staying with me in a hotel while she chauffeured me through red tape and bewildering contracts in German. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I don't know what I would have done here without you Mom! So technically, I calculate that the start of my immersion in Swiss culture began 1 month ago after Mom headed back to her beautiful oasis in the United States. Just yesterday, for the first time in a month, I had my first glimpse of relief. I completed almost all of the things on my to-do list without that feeling of exhaustion or defeat. And I think I even managed to do it without inadvertently offending someone in Swiss-German!! Woohoo!

During my time weaving through the newness of Switzerland, I am also continuing to write for the blog and especially reliving all the amazing adventures of the Treehugger Tour. I am proud to announce that I am in the process of transcribing the notes I recorded on my favorite handy iPod voice recorder while driving (TuneTalk from Belkin), the notes I took sitting in my tent scribbled into a few notebooks, and the great information I gathered via brochures and newspapers along the way. It's all being slowly trickled to you as I get it down in coherent words (thanks for being patient).

Here's a new great tool that I hope will keep me focused and really prompt me to write everyday, even while I'm sorting through my new life in Europe. It is called 750 words and it is a simple and motivating online tool which encourages its users to write at least 750 words a day. Hopefully it'll help me get you all the fun stories faster. Even if you're just thinking of documenting your life more often, as we all should do (I find it spiritual and cleansing), this easy tool may encourage you to write every day. Check it out here: http://750words.com/. And the creator, Buster Benson, is pretty amazing too. Check out the other things that Buster Benson has done here. Let the words flow!

I discovered 750 words and Creately through one of my favorite new websites called MakeUseOf.com.

Let the words flow!

Charlotte, North Carolina

July 7th, 2010
On the morning of July 7, I awoke in Jackie and Mark’s really beautiful home in Charlotte, North Carolina. I lolled in the comfortable guest bed they had set me up in and tried to relax after the demanding drive the day before. Jackie and Mark were both up early and left for their respective jobs while I still stretched and took inventory of what my new life held for me. I took their suddenly sweet, well trained miniature dachshund, Simon, for a walk around the neighborhood just before midday. Although this seemed like a good idea to me at the onset, Simon made it quite clear within 4 steps out the door that he did not agree. The 97º F base temperature plus the extreme humidity gave us a heat index of about 105º F that stood like a wall of invisible concrete just outside the door. After an abbreviated walk, during which Simon continued to look at me with baffled looks concerning my Homo sapien stupidity for leaving a well air-conditioned building, we hurried inside for refreshment, both panting.

Not long after, I vowed to get out of the house on my own and explore the town of Charlotte, NC because I knew I didn’t have long in the area. Knowing the extreme heat that awaited me, I thought that perhaps taking a leisurely biking tour of the city, with the wind in my face, would be more comfortable than a sweaty walking tour. I loaded up my bike once more on the back of my Corolla and followed the GPS directions to the center of town. I was shocked to see that there were brilliantly tall, modern skyscrapers nicely clustered around the center of the town, a convenient beltway around the city epicenter, and great parking and bike lanes everywhere. Wow! This is what a properly planned urban center was supposed to look like; compact (without too much suburban sprawl) and conveniently centralized (which makes it pretty nice for all forms of transportation) with beautiful landscaping and even space for urban trees. I had seen it throughout my schooling on paper, but never in practice. It felt like a tiny, bustling, state-of-the-art utopia. According to Jackie, Charlotte is one of the only cities which is still experiencing a financial upswing even during the economic downtimes of the rest of the country. Construction, scaffolding, and design plans can be seen all over the city. Charlotte was recently awarded the title of the 2nd largest financial center in the US (just after New York City). Did you know that? I certainly had no idea! Banking institutions such as Wachovia (a Wells Fargo subsidiary) and Bank of America have established their headquarters in Charlotte and are prominent developers of and investors in the downtown area. This explains why I was seeing an overwhelming number of what I considered moronically suited, uptight people walking around in sweaters (obviously for their overly cooled office buildings) during a heat index of 105º F!! It all makes sense now.

Side note of interest: According to the World Economic Forum’s ranking of the top 10 global financial centers for 2009, the US ranked 3rd and Switzerland is all the way down at 7th. I’m shocked!
I parked at a pay-meter along the street near the intersection of Trade St. and Tryon St. (the slightly elevated epicenter of the city, which surprisingly also had bike lanes). Again, I was delightfully shocked to find that it wasn’t necessary to find a frighteningly dark parking garage in a booming city like this. Just in front of the centrally located Bank of America high-rise building, I was met by a mid-day farmer’s market where I bought fresh cantaloupe and blackberries to thank Mark and Jackie for having me.
Then, with fruit in tow, I continued to ride my bike around the center of town and found some cute strips of boutiques, barber shops, travel agencies, some surprising multicultural food (Indian and Jamaican), and pubs where the World Cup was in full swing.
Still on island time, I soon realized that the city was not my speed, so I reloaded my bike and drove to another, more calm part of Charlotte, called Midwood (read about this in Design Sponge City Guide). Midwood is a very chill, laid back, somewhat hippie part of the city with a small section of the main road dedicated to stores such as:

1. Pura Vida - a great world market with fair trade goods. They are moving locations soon, so check them out soon. There, I got a new set of prayer flags for Mom since her squirrels keep taking them for nesting (this is an entirely different and totally hilarious story!).
2. The High Life Store
3. Used book store (never found a name, but I picked up some great kid books for my new nephew in spanish and my soon to be favorite travel book - a 1980s road trip guide by Readers Digest)
4. Reggae music store
5. Jamaican food

and my favorite:
6. Late Night Pawn - a sketchy narrow backdoor with a neon sign boasting the name
above the locked door.

Later, when I mentioned to her that I had gone to Midwood, Jackie also suggested I check out one of the favorite local food joints there called Penguins on my next visit. Jackie and I took Simon for a late afternoon walk at a local park, where Jackie showed me that there was still some hidden treasures of natural areas even inside the developing area.
That night, Jackie, Mark and I went to dinner at a really classy irish pub/restaurant called the Dandelion Market. The restaurant served irish food in tapas form with a really great selection of draft beers. It was not at all what I expected from an irish pub, but completely awesome and delicious! We had the:

1. Fried sage leaves (what? These tasted great and were a great conversation piece, but normally no one wants to eat a whole plate of leaves)
2. Fried pickles (YUM!)
3. Aged cheddar and ale fondue
4. Ale simmered sausage bites with hot sweet mustard (that mustard really had a bite!)
5. Steamed mussels
6. Baby back ribs
7. Grilled lamb lollipops (really good...and I love that they added a new dimension of cute to eating lamb by calling them lollipops!)

Then we had an after dinner drink at the EpiCenter (a very posh, upper deck lounge and club with an outdoor movie theater which is most certainly hopping on the weekends). We were all pretty exhausted, so we cut the night a bit short and headed home for some rest. I was thankful for the shut-eye before the long drive that awaited me again the next day. (Thanks again Mark and Jackie!)
All in all, Charlotte, NC is a really great city. Give it a few years to age out of its slightly arrogant, crazy sophomore party years (I’m exaggerating a little here), gain a little culture, and get a little more settled, and it’ll be a perfect town to put roots down in.

Five second rule??

If you didn't know already, I am in love with flow charts. I love the idea of straight forward "if this...then that" statements. And usually they are pretty fun to play with. This one is hilarious! My favorite part being the "bacon = eat it" part of course!

via MyConfinedSpace

I guess I have food on the mind. Today I went food shopping and my shopping list included the following Swiss essentials:

1. Cheese (Emmentaler)
   
2. Chocolate (a mixture of 3 different bars to compare brands...that's a legitimate reason right?)
3. Gummy bears
4. Local specialty lunch meat
   
5. Wine (really great wine comes super cheap here!)
   
6. Beer
   

And yes, that was the FULL extent of my shopping list. Not bad! I was in the cheese section for a good 15 minutes. So many amazing mouthwatering choices. The same goes for the meat, wine, and chocolate. The best gummy bears are the standard Haribo kind....yummm!