Thoughts on the Direction of my Reading

I sometimes tackle reading material that makes me feel like my analytical or synthesizing abilities are lacking. I've been feeling that way about the book I've been reading for a while. This evening, it finally occurred to me that I'm reading about a field I really don't know much of anything about. That's probably why I feel like I'm lacking a framework to integrate the interesting stories and data into. It's because I am!

I'm reading Keller Easterling's "Extrastatecraft," and somehow I only just now had the epiphany that this is development theory, politics, and economics. Development theory is important stuff! Flawed development strategies are responsible for vast spatial equality on a global scale. It's part of the neoliberal paradigm that groups like the IMF and World Bank are pushing for and that so many state powers are tied up in. And of course it's central to urban issues in developing countries! I do want to learn more about it.

But I think I'd be doing myself a favor to concentrate more on things that are both directly relevant to work I hope to be doing for my master's thesis, and on a scale that, again, is relevant to that work. I should put aside other things on my list like James Scott's "Seeing LIke a State" and dig into the City Culture reader that Kate​ generously gave me, or the urban reader that Miriam​ lent me, or the William Julius Wilson book I have here.

Let's get a bit more focused here, yeah? There are so many wonderful things out there to read. I can't read all of them!

Fifty Mile Ride

I totally forgot to write about what I did today!

With other stuff I need to deal with mostly in hand, I decided to take today as a bicycling day and do the fifty mile ride I've been planning. It took more out of me than I expected. The total distance was about fifty-three miles with only short rest stops, and I think that's about my limit right now. I was expecting it to take four hours, but my final time was about five.

From Evanston, I rode down to the South Shore Cultural Center at 71st Street, via the Channel Path and the Lakefront Path. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, with the possible exception of a ridiculous number of people, mostly in sports jerseys, blocking the Lakefront Path around Buckingham Fountain. I think an ale festival was going on. I was behind another cyclist, and we were both just sort of crawling along the far right of the path as people moved, or failed to move, around us. One passing person said something like "They're called mountain bikes!" which I assume was a suggestion that we ride on the grass.

"Not this one!" I responded. Mine is a commuter.

Anyway, the lake was pretty, the sky was clear, and it was a good day. The last half of the trip home, and especially the five miles or so in Skokie and Evanston, dragged. My muscles in the front of my thighs were getting increasingly sore and painful, and I found myself strategically bending and unbending my legs while waiting for walk signals at street crossings. I'm still a bit worn out. It's good to know that I'm not at the point where I should be signing up for century rides yet.