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Here Goes School!
Sep. 3rd, 2015 09:14 pmThere is enough time in the day to do all of this stuff. I just need to be a better manager of all the individual portions of said days.
I'm in love with the silent reading room on the bottom floor of Bird Library. I also do not understand why you would go into the silent reading room to read something while listening to headphones. You could do that anywhere, right? And the music wasn't very loud, but it's called the silent room for a reason. With no other noise, I could hear all the sibilants quite well and ended up putting the earplugs I keep in my purse in my ears. On the plus side, there was a library info fair today that included tables of free brownies and things. I grabbed some on my trips back from the restroom and thanked one of the library staff for fueling that day's study session.
I've read seventy pages into John Rawls' "A Theory of Justice." I've never really read philosophy before. He certainly likes to state things, then restate them a little differently, then re-restate them... It's interesting getting a glimpse into economic theory and indifference curves too. Not something I'd dealt with before, but they make sense.
I had a brief talk with my Poli-Sci prof. about my thoughts on a class paper topic: a comparative look at various places that have tried to pass the so-called "Idaho Stop Law." (In short, a state-wide law passed in the early '80s in Idaho that, essentially, allows cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs.) She feels that might be too limited, and too subject to idiosyncratic conditions in Idaho leading to it's passage. And it would be hard to interview people who were involved in the policy debate that long ago. (Gulp; I'll be doing interviewing for this?) She suggested a broader look at bike-friendly transportation policy, which is probably what I'll do.
She pointed me at an interesting chapter in an edited volume called "The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice," which I found at the library and read. It was about the way the discourse of 'giving up your car' naturalizes the use of cars and elides the way policy has given motorists all of the 'carrots' and bicyclists all of the 'sticks.' That our 'choice' of one conveyance over another isn't, in fact, a free choice; it is constrained by all these other policy and planning choices. The concept of sacrifice associated with giving up your car is an artificial construction that merits attention. Not ideas I hadn't encountered before, but well put.
In the basement of the library is a room with a small sign saying "book sale." I happened to notice it on one of my trips to the restroom and ducked inside. I emerged, somewhat to my chagrin, with the two volume compact version of the complete OED. I made one of the women behind the counter very happy in giving it a good home; It had been her copy, she told me with a smile. That made me feel even better about having bought it, because I am sentimental. And at $4, I couldn't pass it up. Miriam Boon is right; I need to be accompanied by an adult at thrift stores and book sales.
I went to a students-only event called Taste of Westcott over in, appropriately enough, the Westcott neighborhood. Various groups were setup in tents to talk to students. When you talked to three of them, you could trade your punched card in for some tickets for food samples. There were more than three I was interested in. I talked to reps from a local activism group called Syracuse Peace Council, the county public library, the local Green Party, and a ride-sharing service for students called Zimride. I have lots of papers from them, and I hope that I can find time to get involved in some politics. The food was decent. I passed on the chain pizza places and used my three tickets on half an eggroll, some vegan and vegetarian pasta dishes, and a big chocolate chip cookie. Mmm, cookies!
I spent 7:45 on schoolwork yesterday, including 5:15 meeting with Mark and doing IP research. I've done an hour worth of research today, involving talking to librarians about historic corporation resources (I have an email address for a subject matter expert to get in touch with on that) and looking at a biographical collection of British business leaders. There's a similar American one, in four volumes like the British one, but SU doesn't have a copy. So I ILLd it. We'll see if they actually send the whole set! I'm hoping some of the people I'm interested in will be in it, and it will also help inform the template for the biographies that will result from the research.
So anyway, I need to do four or five more hours of research a day this weekend to ensure I have 20 hours in for the week. Plus I need to get reading done this weekend. I will not come near averaging 8 hour days this week, but I'm working up to it.
Speaking of items in the library, how cool is it to check out a book and be told "It's due back in a year." *bounces* I feel special.
So that's today.
I am feeling a little anxious about classes next week. I have a couple hundred pages of reading I think, and a couple of short response papers to write to get ready for the seminar discussions. We're not wasting any time here! I'm glad I started on the reading for Poli-Sci a week and a half ago!
I'm in love with the silent reading room on the bottom floor of Bird Library. I also do not understand why you would go into the silent reading room to read something while listening to headphones. You could do that anywhere, right? And the music wasn't very loud, but it's called the silent room for a reason. With no other noise, I could hear all the sibilants quite well and ended up putting the earplugs I keep in my purse in my ears. On the plus side, there was a library info fair today that included tables of free brownies and things. I grabbed some on my trips back from the restroom and thanked one of the library staff for fueling that day's study session.
I've read seventy pages into John Rawls' "A Theory of Justice." I've never really read philosophy before. He certainly likes to state things, then restate them a little differently, then re-restate them... It's interesting getting a glimpse into economic theory and indifference curves too. Not something I'd dealt with before, but they make sense.
I had a brief talk with my Poli-Sci prof. about my thoughts on a class paper topic: a comparative look at various places that have tried to pass the so-called "Idaho Stop Law." (In short, a state-wide law passed in the early '80s in Idaho that, essentially, allows cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs.) She feels that might be too limited, and too subject to idiosyncratic conditions in Idaho leading to it's passage. And it would be hard to interview people who were involved in the policy debate that long ago. (Gulp; I'll be doing interviewing for this?) She suggested a broader look at bike-friendly transportation policy, which is probably what I'll do.
She pointed me at an interesting chapter in an edited volume called "The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice," which I found at the library and read. It was about the way the discourse of 'giving up your car' naturalizes the use of cars and elides the way policy has given motorists all of the 'carrots' and bicyclists all of the 'sticks.' That our 'choice' of one conveyance over another isn't, in fact, a free choice; it is constrained by all these other policy and planning choices. The concept of sacrifice associated with giving up your car is an artificial construction that merits attention. Not ideas I hadn't encountered before, but well put.
In the basement of the library is a room with a small sign saying "book sale." I happened to notice it on one of my trips to the restroom and ducked inside. I emerged, somewhat to my chagrin, with the two volume compact version of the complete OED. I made one of the women behind the counter very happy in giving it a good home; It had been her copy, she told me with a smile. That made me feel even better about having bought it, because I am sentimental. And at $4, I couldn't pass it up. Miriam Boon is right; I need to be accompanied by an adult at thrift stores and book sales.
I went to a students-only event called Taste of Westcott over in, appropriately enough, the Westcott neighborhood. Various groups were setup in tents to talk to students. When you talked to three of them, you could trade your punched card in for some tickets for food samples. There were more than three I was interested in. I talked to reps from a local activism group called Syracuse Peace Council, the county public library, the local Green Party, and a ride-sharing service for students called Zimride. I have lots of papers from them, and I hope that I can find time to get involved in some politics. The food was decent. I passed on the chain pizza places and used my three tickets on half an eggroll, some vegan and vegetarian pasta dishes, and a big chocolate chip cookie. Mmm, cookies!
I spent 7:45 on schoolwork yesterday, including 5:15 meeting with Mark and doing IP research. I've done an hour worth of research today, involving talking to librarians about historic corporation resources (I have an email address for a subject matter expert to get in touch with on that) and looking at a biographical collection of British business leaders. There's a similar American one, in four volumes like the British one, but SU doesn't have a copy. So I ILLd it. We'll see if they actually send the whole set! I'm hoping some of the people I'm interested in will be in it, and it will also help inform the template for the biographies that will result from the research.
So anyway, I need to do four or five more hours of research a day this weekend to ensure I have 20 hours in for the week. Plus I need to get reading done this weekend. I will not come near averaging 8 hour days this week, but I'm working up to it.
Speaking of items in the library, how cool is it to check out a book and be told "It's due back in a year." *bounces* I feel special.
So that's today.
I am feeling a little anxious about classes next week. I have a couple hundred pages of reading I think, and a couple of short response papers to write to get ready for the seminar discussions. We're not wasting any time here! I'm glad I started on the reading for Poli-Sci a week and a half ago!
