Category: FreeForm

  • Twenty Years of Boredom

    30 minute challenge – Q&D blog post… I have been having a renewed relationship with lyrics and poetry of late (and when I say ‘of late’, I mean for the last 4 years or so.) I find myself reaching for snippets of poetry when faced with difficult ideas, situations, concepts… My high school English teachers…

  • Peak Oil and the Zombie Apocalypse

    Have you ever had this conversation? Amy: I’m sort of worried about this peak-oil thing. Bruce: Yeah. What are we going to do when we can’t afford to fill our cars? Amy: Well, groceries are going to get more expensive. Bruce: We might have to fix up those old bikes. Amy: And I guess that…

  • Why Dilettante?

    Dilettante: (according to Merriam Webster): an admirer or lover of the arts a person having a superficial interest in an art or a branch of knowledge When I first drafted this post, I began with a list of the projects and activities that I have worked on, played with, or investigated since July, but it…

  • Poem: The Morning After

    The Morning After… Awaking in a rented bed The morning after the Wedding He gazes upon his Newly Minted Bride “Do you take cream in your coffee?” he poses “I do,” she replies and Grins

  • Sun Chips is Missing an Opportunity

        So, the Sun Chips Bag. I saw an article on The Atlantic regarding the new compostable bag, which is being suspended (although possibly only in the US) because it is loud. I scoffed. I did. “How could we be so superficial,” thought I. And then I went to the grocery store in search…

  • Water, again

    Unsurprisingly, spending a day reading other people’s blogs about water has got me all fired up… er. Something like that. So, now that we know that, what do we do? I know that I have trouble confronting numbers like: 900,000,000. That’s the number of people who don’t have access to clean water, or even minimally…

  • Water, Water Everywhere

    This post was written to participate in 2010 Blog Action Day. Today the world is writing about Water.     Let me start with position. I live in a swamp (or possibly a marsh, according to one of my regular commenters). The photo in the header was taken in my back yard. My front yard…

  • The Dance of Balance

    Welcome to the October Carnival of Natural Parenting: Staying Centered, Finding Balance This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have shared how they stay centered and find balance. Please read to the end to find a list…

  • Never underestimate the power of a good bumper sticker

    Somewhere in southern Ontario, there is a black jeep whose bumper proudly proclaims, “Not all those who wander are lost.” I know this because I was behind it one day. I turned to my friend beside me and asked, “What do you think that means?” She said something witty about not following them. It happened…

  • In defense of Theory

    This is a very long article (word count 1800)  that I wrote several years ago to explain why I spend so much time immersed in theory, even though I am deeply concerned with practical implications. The examples are specific to education at the university level, but the idea of the connection between theory and practice…

  • Poem: Calling in…

    For a change of pace: Bad beat poetry about universities. Calling in… Apathetic. I’m too tired. And my chest hurts anyway. And somehow I just don’t care. About your priorities, And all your pet projects, And the fact that you guys just can’t Get it together. So you’ll buy a $60,000 multimedia Whiz-bang high def…

  • My Feminism Includes Foucault

    Or, Why My Blog Will Never Make Money My story may be so common as to be trite. There’s nothing special about “Intelligent young woman scuppers academic career to support husband and children”. Oh, what the hey, let’s throw a “promising” in there for good measure. You can choose where. I like to think of…