I'm to the point where I need to better manage my scholarly outputs. I have long been an XLingPaper fan, but I am increasingly needing to be a LaTeX user.
Still on the hunt for a church in New Jersey. This week it seems the big takeaway from worship service was that they wish they were in Oregon.
When visiting new communities, especially churches, one of the American (US) common questions in the greeting and rapport building part of a conversation is the question: “So, where are you from?”
As a third culture kid this question has always been difficult to answer in a low-key way. Where am I from? Too much exoticism in the answer and the conversation gets either superficial or too deep. Also if our past doesn’t matter to Jesus should it matter to us? I mean it’s not that Jesus wasn’t concerned with the past of the people he engaged with, rather the past didn’t define the relationship. Often as Americans though we do let this information index our understanding of the people we meet. As Americans we understand this propensity and then craft our response to impact the indexing or framing of our history in the minds of the people we meet.
What is the class of questions which focus on the now, and forward rather than contextualizing humans in the past? And then what sub-class of questions can be more amicable to posturing the hearts of people meet with Jesus?
So what are some other possible discovery questions to ask? Maybe, “So, what brings you here today?” Or maybe “what makes you excited to meet Jesus today?”
Our house in New Jersey has these automatic locks by Lockly that lock automatically when the door closes. However, the net impact of these locks on human behavior is such that humans who find that the door locks behind them perceive the locks as a nuisance. Therefore, they either disable the lock or leave the door open. Leaving the door open in a home with a large-footprint open floor plan home rapidly changes the interior temperature. More traditional and pragmatic floor plans have constructed a foyer or mud room as a temperature barrier between the main living space and the entrance.
In the national conversation about home energy efficiency, locks and human interactions based on replaceable and disposable “amenities” such as locks are rarely discussed as they seem in-material to energy efficiency. However, humans interact with the internet of things (that these locks are a part of) and do create habits which impact energy consumption.
More discussed are architectural design choices in homes. But the long term impacts of not having a middle space and temperature barrier within the structure seems to be a gross oversight that many consumers and mass-home-builders don’t think about. It is something which should be brought back into the common design of newly built homes.
I put this list together for Katja's learning and exposure. The context is that she is 9 and has had 4 years of exposure and two years of bi-lingual education in French.
Au Maroc : Grand explorateur du monde, Arthur L’aventurier se rend cette fois-ci au Maroc afin de découvrir ce pays fascinant qui renferme des trésors uniques. En chanson, il raconte sa découverte d’une faune diversifiée peuplée de macaques de Barbarie, de bourricots, de fennecs, de cigognes et de flamants roses. Émerveillé, il relate son expédition dans le désert du Sahara à dos de dromadaire et sa rencontre d’un peuple fantastique qui possède une culture d’une richesse extraordinaire.
Au Zoo de Granby : Arthur L'aventurier part à la rencontre des animaux du Zoo de Granby : girafe, panda, lion, tortue, rhinocéros, lama, hippopotame ou encore tigre, effraie des clochers, rhinocéros et wallaby.
En Australie : Arthur L’aventurier réalise un grand rêve : découvrir l’Australie, ses magnifiques paysages naturels et ses animaux exceptionnels. Le voyageur préféré des enfants rend visite à sa grande amie Jade, vétérinaire au refuge Au bout du monde pour animaux blessés. Il fait également la connaissance de Matéo, soigneur animalier, et de Finlay, 5 ans, qui adore la nature. À travers un jeu proposé par ses camarades, Arthur partira à la découverte des koalas, kangourous, dingos, crocodiles et autres animaux typiques du pays.
Dans les Rocheuses : Arthur L'aventurier transporte les enfants dans un univers d'une beauté exceptionnelle rempli de trésors naturels : les Rocheuses canadiennes. En images et en chansons, les enfants découvrent les hautes montagnes, les lacs majestueux et les grottes.
Au Costa Rica : Être un aventurier ou une aventurière selon Arthur L’aventurier, qu’est-ce que ça signifie? C’est s’émerveiller, se laisser vibrer, affronter ses peurs et être accro au bonheur! Et tout ça, au Costa Rica!
Coming from Eugene, Oregon where bikes are constantly stolen and the homeless population ride $3-6,000 bikes around town, it is both a breath of fresh air and shocking to see so many people leaving their bikes around campus without locking them up.
There is quite a culture difference between New Jersey’s and Oregon. Evidently every Jersey Lawn needs this poison applied like sunshine!
With drains to the river what poisons do they think won’t leech the 20 feet from the lawn to the drain?
The big culture difference is that Oregonians who have been part of families who have lived in Oregon a long time generally are anti-pesticide. (Even though the logging industry uses pesticides without restrictions.) All over Eugene there are yard signs stating: “this yard is a bee sanctuary” and “pesticide free”.
The simple fact remains. Unconstrained capitalism allows a business to sell the poisoning of a domestic space as a product, even if that poison is liable to travel into other places in the watershed, including rivers and estuaries.
The first time Katja swam with me at the Rec pool she asked me if this was a dangerous pool to swim at. The question caught me off guard. I asked her what she meant. She said that the life guards were on the same side of the pool and talking to each other instead of watching the swimmers. So today I took a picture of one guard on break behind me and the other two chatting with each other.
Words cause our brains to make certain associations. For example, water is supposed to be fresh to be best.
So I find the following marketing posted by water fount to be interesting. First, Princeton University wants people to think their water is “fresh” but really, it’s filtered. Second, they don’t really advertise what is filtered out. The EPA report designates Princeton city water as containing PFAS chemicals. So, does the filtering actually solve that problem? It makes me wonder if drinking local is really healthy.