(no subject)
Life's pretty damn sweet this week. I finally have enough schoolwork to keep me busy and feeling good about not holding a job outside of PSU, I have a job interview lined up Monday for work at PSU coordinating a speakers series on diversity, and in a couple weeks I find out whether my application to transfer from the Masters to PhD program has been accepted.
The quality of the light out here has been really fantastic the past few days. It's squarely and thoroughly spring - daffs and cherries blooming everywhere, and asparagus in the stores for cheap. The past week has all been clear days, but the sun's still low enough that the light gets deep into my apartment. The cats and I follow it across the floor all afternoon.
I crashed my bike last Tuesday, essentially totaling it (replacement parts were worth significantly more than I paid for it in the first place), and have since been lightly crippled physically (strained and achy - most everything worked itself out by the weekend), and hugely crippled travel-wise. I'm doing a lot of work in school right now on place accessibility and transportation modes - basically reaffirming, yet again, what a hugely incefficient idea it is to design cities around the private car. It's been interesting watching how drastically my travel patterns changed when I lost my 10mph mode and had to revert to 3mph. It left my options feeling horribly limited, and my inclination to make any extra trips completely gone. This is somewhat an extension to feelings I was already having, with my squeaky, heavy bike with its poor gear spread and hatred of hills.
So I got myself a bike today: a brand new one. Buying new leaves me feeling somewhat shocked (what do I ever buy new, other that school loans and water bottles?), but in the long run it makes some sense. Most of the used bikes I looked at were heavy and didn't have a super-low gear or brakes in a location I felt comfy with. For the price of a used bike plus the tune-up I would have gotten for it soon anyway, I got a light bike with a year of parts warrenty and free tune-ups, all the features I was looking for, plus in-brake shifting, which I've gotta say is pretty nifty. Bikes and computers - two things I could sink a number of hours into learning to rebuild/repair, but which I'd way, way rather pay somebody else to do instead.
The cats continue to be amazing. I can play four Greg Brown songs on the guitar, and I have the calluses to prove it. I'm learning to blues dance. I get to Wisconsin for spring break.
Yup, life, pretty cool.
The quality of the light out here has been really fantastic the past few days. It's squarely and thoroughly spring - daffs and cherries blooming everywhere, and asparagus in the stores for cheap. The past week has all been clear days, but the sun's still low enough that the light gets deep into my apartment. The cats and I follow it across the floor all afternoon.
I crashed my bike last Tuesday, essentially totaling it (replacement parts were worth significantly more than I paid for it in the first place), and have since been lightly crippled physically (strained and achy - most everything worked itself out by the weekend), and hugely crippled travel-wise. I'm doing a lot of work in school right now on place accessibility and transportation modes - basically reaffirming, yet again, what a hugely incefficient idea it is to design cities around the private car. It's been interesting watching how drastically my travel patterns changed when I lost my 10mph mode and had to revert to 3mph. It left my options feeling horribly limited, and my inclination to make any extra trips completely gone. This is somewhat an extension to feelings I was already having, with my squeaky, heavy bike with its poor gear spread and hatred of hills.
So I got myself a bike today: a brand new one. Buying new leaves me feeling somewhat shocked (what do I ever buy new, other that school loans and water bottles?), but in the long run it makes some sense. Most of the used bikes I looked at were heavy and didn't have a super-low gear or brakes in a location I felt comfy with. For the price of a used bike plus the tune-up I would have gotten for it soon anyway, I got a light bike with a year of parts warrenty and free tune-ups, all the features I was looking for, plus in-brake shifting, which I've gotta say is pretty nifty. Bikes and computers - two things I could sink a number of hours into learning to rebuild/repair, but which I'd way, way rather pay somebody else to do instead.
The cats continue to be amazing. I can play four Greg Brown songs on the guitar, and I have the calluses to prove it. I'm learning to blues dance. I get to Wisconsin for spring break.
Yup, life, pretty cool.