Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Thursday, January 01, 2009

I'm in the middle of break right now (though that's coming to a rapid close). It's been a pretty good break with a really nice visit with my family in Salt Lake. My Dad has pretty much eliminated almost all forms of entertainment outside of his room since my mom died so we found that we had a lot of time to fill which was a really good thing. Besides the time at the gym I managed to get a lot of reading done. It seems that much of this break's material is related to the crop we know as corn but should be called "maize". So far I've "digested" both "An Omnivore's Dilemma" and "1491". The first talks about the different ways in which food makes it to our tables and has really made me reconsider what and how I eat (more about that later). The second is a discussion of the indigenous populations of the America prior to Columbus' arrival in 1492; how they got here, what their cultures and populations where like and why those cultures and societies declined and/or disappeared. Of course, any discussion of Native American culture will be centered around the role of agriculture and the predominant place maize occupied in most (but not all ) of those cultures. Both books are really full of great information and I recommend them to anyone. The other long book I'll try to finish before school starts is "Guns, Germs and Steel" which, as I understand it, discusses the role agriculture plays in the rise and dominance of societies.

The other thing I've been doing is evaluating the last year and thinking ahead and I've come up with a few resolutions for next year. Here's are some of them; in no particular order:

I resolve to lose 11 kilos (25 pounds) by April 1 (hopefully I won't look like a fool on that date). I'm sure my teammates will be excited to hear that I'd like to look somewhat less expansive. The big goal is to burn 1200 more Calories a day than I take in on average so that I lose about 1 kilo a week. This is predicated on a basal metabolic rate of 2000 Calories/day. My hope is to ride or exercise so that I burn at least 1200 Calories each day allowing me to eat a meaningful amount of food.

I resolve to modify the food I buy and eat. I would like to work towards having 30% of our food being organic. Additionally, I want to have most of that food be whole foods (rather than processed from whole foods). An additional goal is to shorten the distance from which the food comes and to reduce the food's carbon footprint. With this in mind, I also resolve to plan, plant, grow and harvest my own garden. A lot of this comes from reading the two books and thinking about where my food comes from. What I read about meat wasn't totally unexpected but to read it in its totality leads me to want to buy meat that is not raised as part of the "feedlot" culture but is raised in a way that allows the animal to be what God made it to be. I know it sounds corny but the hidden costs of eating meat from the other system is a lot higher than I'm willing to pay. Both books gave me some really interesting ideas about what to plant and how as well as how to more quickly enrich the soil without resorting to unnatural means. I have some experience with enriching the soil using compost so I won't be in totally uncharted waters. I'd like to include the GCF community in this as a lot of the food that gets grown will go into feeding them at our Tuesday night Bible study next year.

I resolve to simplify my life in terms of possessions and commitments. Like a lot of people I have too much stuff. I have more books than I'll ever loan out or read again, I have too many clothes that I never read and I have too many gadgets that I don't use or that are redundant. It's time to get these things out of my house and free up that space for something else. As many will tell you, our house is cluttered and hard to keep tidy and it has a lot to do with having more things than we need. The same sometimes goes for my time. The big thing is that I waste too much time on things that won't last; things like TV and internet (and where am I writing this???). So, I'd like to reduce the time I spend doing these things and free up that time for more reading, spiritual contemplation/prayer and personal interaction with real people. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be endeavoring to clean up a lot of things to make space for a life that is both richer and simpler.

I resolve to finish my classes. One of the things that really bugs me is that I have a bunch of great classes that are almost done. Each of these classes is just a thing or a few things away from being really tight, integrated courses. Because I haven't finished and polished them I spend too much time not focused on my students. So I'm resolving that this year I'll finish everything I've started before adding more innovation. They may mean scrapping things that aren't working and polishing things that are but I need to get my labs well edited, my activities smartly focused and my lectures integrated to support the rest of what I'm doing. The time for this will come from turning down some of the things the school asks me to do and really putting a focus on excellence.

Most of all, I resolve to live each day intentionally. I will choose each thing that I do with a purpose in mind, not just as a placeholder or as a fallback. I hope that my wife,my friends, my coach and my students will kindly and gently hold me to these resolutions.

Thanks for Reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |