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Music and other misc
11/27/2011 - 22:49

 I just moved to Chicago recently and have been settling into my new job and new apartment (in Lincoln Park), so that's the cause of most of the silence recently. In the meantime, I've been enjoying some music. I'm a huge fan of a type of music called joiking, which is a traditional Sami style of singing that is mainly wordless chants. I mentioned Torgeir Vassvik in another post, who has a traditional album and a jazz-fusion (very popular in that region) album. Here are two joik bands I've been listening to. One is Adjagas, which has kind of a rootsy folk sound:

Another is Wimme, who uses an electronica background:

From another part of the Arctic, comes this deer song involving throat singing from the Even tribe of Siberia. Someone in a comment mentioned that the only polar people whose diets we can study are the Inuit, which is not true. There are many circumpolar indigenous peoples. In Siberia (a massive part of the world) there are several tribes that have been poorly studied in the past, but there is some interesting research coming out of there right now. I keep meaning to read The Reindeer People, which is about the Even.

In Siberia, shamans combine a distinctive imagery of reindeer and of bird-flight. Their costumes sometimes include imitation reindeer antlers, occasionally tipped with wings or feathers, placed on the headdress or attached to the shoulders at the very point where reindeer are tattooed on the Pazyryk mummies. Like the participants in the Eveny midsummer ritual, shamans may ride to the sky on a bird or a reindeer. But their relationship with these animals goes far beyond mere riding. One shaman is suckled by a white reindeer during his initiatory vision as he incubates in a bird's nest on a branch high in the tree that links earth and sky. Another becomes a reindeer himself by wearing its hide, while hunters with miniature bows and arrows surround him and mime the act of killing. The hide is then stretched across the broad, flat drum that the shaman will beat as accompaniment to his trance. Another shaman, seeking to consecrate his reindeer-skin drum, is guided by spirits as he combs through the forest to find the location where the reindeer was born and traces every place it has ever visited over the course of its life, right up to the point where it was killed. As he picks his way through bogs and over fallen branches, he picks up the scattered material traces of its existence — snapped twigs, dried dung — to gather together every possible part of its being, and then moulds them into a small effigy of the reindeer. When he sprinkles the effigy with a magical ‘water of life’, the drum comes to life. Like a reindeer itself but with enhanced power, it is now capable of bearing the shaman aloft with its throbbing beat to nine, twelve, or more levels of the heavens.
 

I also enjoyed this throat singing from Eivor, an artist from the Faroe Islands:

 If throat-singing and joiking just aren't your thing, here is a baffling and gorgeous music video I've been enjoying from a indie folk band called Phosphorescent:

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Reflections on homeschooling
09/28/2011 - 21:23

 I've noticed people get kind of upset when you insult your parents. I think that's why homeschooling raises so many hackles whenever I mention it. When I was reading Bryan Caplan's Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, which argues that people worry too much about how much their parenting will affect how their children turn out. He quotes all these studies that seem to show that parenting doesn't matter. Unfortunately, almost all of them are studies done on contemporary Western people.

Who really raises children in contemporary Western societies? Where do children spend most of their waking hours? Time surveys show that many children spend as much time in school as with their parents and some children spend more. School is like a third (or second) parent.

I went to school first in pre-K, at a small Waldorfish school, when I was 5. That's a little late to start pre-K, but I was quite small and sickly for my age and it became evident I had some learning difficulties by the time I was in Kindergarten. We couldn't afford to keep sending me to private school and neither the private school nor the local public school provided very good special-ed programs for children who are intelligent, but think a little "differently" to put it nicely.

So I was homeschooled. Often portrayed as a smothering and isolating thing, I never experienced it this way. I did several sports (even though I didn't want to, but my parents said it was good for me), played outside every day for hours, was never bullied for being a nerd, read lots of books for fun, did lots of church activities, hung out with my grandma, played elaborate games with my sister, and generally wasn't very isolated. I didn't need special ed classes, my mother worked with me one on one and eventually I surpassed "normal" kids in standardized test scores. My mother wasn't much for laboratory chemicals, but luckily there were enough homeschooled kids in the area that I took lab science classes taught by a former schoolteacher once a week for several hours.

I first went to school when I was 15, to a "mixed income" public school in Georgia. It's weird because I have very little memory of that year, well, of learning anything. I was in normal classes at first, where I was bored, then I was shifted into the "gifted" program, which was much more engaging. I do remember my "tech ed" class which we spent goofing off on MS Paint and where our teacher would tell us stories about the slaughterhouse where he used to work. I vowed to become a vegetarian.

We went through metal detectors every day and we weren't allowed to carry backpacks when we were in the building because they said we might hide weapons in them, but people found ways to be violent anyway. I remember some boys pushed another boy into a window outside the auditorium and there was glass and blood everywhere. I found the environment demoralizing and oppressive. I got sick often.

Boy was it a culture shock when my family moved to Illinois and I went to a "public" school that's the kind that makes people believe in public schools. Ivy covered walls, rowing and sailing teams instead of gang fights, relative freedom, teachers with PhDs, classical literature…I got an excellent education there in literature, art, and history. I have no idea what happened in science, but I took honors chem my sophomore year and was unlucky enough to get the hardest teacher in the entire school. I received a C- and was told by the department head not to bother taking physics. Luckily, some incredibly kind science teachers later encouraged me and I found ways to get around my weaknesses and later earned As in all my chemistry courses in college. College was, in general, much easier for me than high school had been. I went to a large state school, so it was the kind of place where self-initiative, not obedience, was what was important. I was used to teaching myself things, so I did well. I graduated top of my class, compared to the 50% percentile I was in when I graduated high school.

Whether or not homeschooling makes kids antisocial or weird is a matter of intense argument, but my personality is strikingly similar to my sibling and relatives who have different schooling. If anything, I think regular school often makes weird kids still weird, but miserable for being weird. Throughout most of human history, kids spent time with other kids and other people of all ages. You put a group of thirty children of the same age with a solo female (usually) teacher and no wonder it's Lord of the Flies out there.

Some of those weird kids ultimately come to hate their third parent. I know because I've dated and been friends with many people who went to school and would want to homeschool their children.

But for other people, homeschooling is an insult and they treat it was immense hostility. I agree it's unsettling. It doesn't work for everyone, it's not always consistent (as if regular school is), people might be taught the "wrong" things, and doesn't ultimately provide a large-scale solution to the education problems that are plaguing the United States at this moment. It's quite similar to the bizarre objection to the Paleo diet, that it can't work for everyone in the world to eat "paleo," so there must be something wrong with it.

I think the only thing that homeschooling left me at a disadvantage with is that I failed to learn to obey. Not that I think it's really a bad thing, it just makes me unsuitable for certain jobs, religions, and other institutions. But I suppose there is still room left in the world for disobedient people since I do OK, even if I occasionally have to pause to bristle at the nonsense we have to endure. 

I'll never forget the time in high school when I took Great Books, which had some student-led discussions as part of the curriculum. One I led was "Is homeschooling a good idea?" Almost everyone attacked it savagely. Then I revealed that I had been homeschooled. People were shocked. It's as if I had told them that bread wasn't good for them…

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I'm leaving New York
09/10/2011 - 12:39

 When it rains here the windows of the buildings behind mine look like they are crying. The raindrops make dark trails in the wet cement. I want to open my window and hear the rain, but I only have one window and it is taken up by the air conditioning unit. I'm not sure whether to take it out or not. I seems like autumn comes so slowly here and one day it's 60 and the next day it's 85 again. I try not to do so much here because I know I am leaving. I've known that for a long time, but I haven't had the strength to do it before, but this time I've set the date and given notice at work and with my roommates. I have to go through with it this time.

It was set up for failure from the beginning. Moving from a place I truly loved, New York just couldn't compare. I tried to make it here. I remember when the plane touched down they pilot said "Congratulations, you've arrived in the greatest city on Earth." Yesterday I sat on the tall grey rocks on Central Park and looked up at the buildings on Central Park South. I imagined that it might be the greatest place on Earth if you lived on one of those beautifully terraced penthouses. But for me it's been a constant struggle. It's been utterly humbling.

I think living abroad had given me a false since of independence. I really did think I could make it anywhere. And in some ways I have made it. My income has increased from minimum wage and more than quadrupled. I have a job. I have an apartment. But I don't have very much else. I don't know why I couldn't fit in here. I don't know if it's something wrong with me or the place, but in the end after a long day of work and two hours on the subway, I do withdraw. Unfortunately that's how I deal with stress, but I never understood the mechanics of this place anyway. Everyone lives so far away from each other and they are always so busy anyway.

I find myself always looking at Uppsala on Google Streetview. Whatever day they chose to take their pictures, it was a perfect day. The sun is shining and the colors of the buildings, a muted yellow and Falun copper red, contrast perfectly against the blue sky. I play a game where I start in the city center and then make my way home to Ultuna, right outside the city, a cluster of red houses among the forests and green fields of late-summer grain. Perhaps it's August, like it was when I first came there. I had trouble dealing with the loss of that place, with the loss of my boyfriend from there. In the dissolution I drove many of my old friends away and failed to make new ones. 

But at least something came of it. I took my first biological anthropology class and met Dr. Ralph Holloway, who told me on no uncertain terms that it would be a waste if I didn't do a PhD in something. It had been some time since I had received that kind of academic encouragement. When his class ended and he went on sabbatical I was very sad and realized how much I missed some things about academia.  

Last year when I fainted and ended up in the hospital because of my low blood pressure, I lay there alone and realized my life would be a lot better off if I were near my family. My family doesn't live in New York, they live in Illinois. My father has a farm now in Wisconsin. I'll study for the GRE, learn how to drive, hopefully learn how to farm, and because the Midwest is cheaper and I'll have more social capital, I'll actually try to achieve my dreams rather than having to focus on making ends meet. No, Chris won't be coming with me. I'll be leaving behind some wonderful memories of us, but it was an issue of the wrong place at the wrong time. I've been torn about how much to write about stuff like this here, but I writing about my own life has always been part of my blog. 

I've learned a lot here, but it's time for a new journey to begin. 


Counting miles before we set
Fall in love and fall apart
Things will end before they start

 

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Feel Better
09/16/2010 - 21:28

Once again I'd like to thank everyone who commented with kind words on this blog, sent me emails, and even took me out to dinner when I was down. Yes, I am feeling better both physically and mentally. My job situation is looking better and I also have some answers about my health.

So apparently my blood pressure is very very low, sometimes dangerously so. It's genetic, but it's definitely exacerbated by things like inactivity, staying up late, eating erratically, and general stress. My mother and grandmother have had issues with it as well. My doctor gave me a month to try to improve it myself or he said he'd have to put me on drugs. I thought that was ridiculous, so I'm working on it myself and we'll see what happens at my next exam.

Some things that are working:

- Exercise: an obvious one, but what seems to work particularly well are sprints punctuated with things like pushups, squats, and pull-ups

- Licorice and yerba mate tea in the morning. I quit coffee! Yay! Licorice is well-known to raise blood pressure.

- I am salting my food better, taking Natural Calm, and paying more attention in general to the mineral content of my diet.

- I am trying my hardest to eat more. If you had told me three years ago when I was chubby that this would be a struggle I would have laughed, but I'm not used to eating massive quantities of food. Despite what some people might tell you, fat actually is pretty damn satiating. So I'm eating lots of yams, but I find those pretty filling too. Unfortunately the only paleo foods I seem to be able to overeat are nuts :( 

- I am spending lots of time relaxing on the grass in the park in the sun. Even if that means I fall asleep on my keys and they make a rather unpleasant mark on my stomach and I also end up bitten by several insects.

- A survey of the medical literature shows, dare I say it...that certain romantic activities are very important in the regulation of hormones related to blood pressure. Definitely jives with my experience, though I haven't decided how to apply this knowledge yet.

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Unwelcome Visitor
07/18/2010 - 20:54

I tried to think hard of the bumblebees with tufts of yellow pollen looped gently on their fuzzy legs hovering above bright pink and golden sunburst flowers in the town square of Uppsala, Sweden. The town market with bottles of fresh red current saft gleaming ruby against the noontime sun. My house, red from the Falun copper mine paint so ubiquitous there, beside the gardens filled with happy people harvesting corn, trellis beans, and the last of the summer’s raspberries. The dark forest paths where birds bathed in glades. My pictures from when I arrived there in August are all idyllic like that. That was another life that I found myself reliving as I lay in the MRI, trying not to hear the whirring buzz of the machine.

I had woken up one night unable to move, on the floor, in a pool of various bodily fluids. Hot and dizzy, I struggled for the phone, stumbling, my ears ringing.

And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin

“Possible idiopathic adult-onset seizure.” “Idiopathic”— a pathetic euphemism for the unknown. Was it the tick bite? The strenuous move a mile in the simmering city heat? The fact I had known what stress was doing to me, yet continued to drive myself onwards deep into the late hours of the morning, forgetting to nourish myself in any sense of the word?

In the claustrophobic chamber, I wanted more than anything to be somewhere else, to find another place where I could feel at home.

I have an appointment with the neurologist for more tests. Nobody is invincible. The doctors (and I) doubt very much this had to do with eating paleo, especially since after the move I’d not been eating terribly well.

Eating decently at the hospital was a huge challenge. I threw out the idea of being paleo, but I wanted to make sure I was at least gluten-free, so I didn’t have to add horrible stomach cramps to the doctor’s to-do lists. Gluten intolerance affects 1 out of 100 people...they must have some accomendations? Right?

Wrong. Breakfast passed, lunch passed, and soon became clear that I just wasn’t going to get fed. I begged the nurse for some food and she returned with some juice, the only gluten-free option, she said, “until regular dinner hours.” A well-meaning but obvious ill-informed resident tried to give me a sandwich on white bread. “It’s white bread, not wheat, so it’s wheat free!” he proclaimed.

The first tray was a disgusting Salisbury steak with pasta and flour-laced gravy. Eventually I got some chicken, carrots, and rice, with a sickly sweet fruit cocktail. The next day I must have missed breakfast hours while in the MRI. I was a little shaky from hunger and bleary from a sleepless night sharing a room with a elderly woman with severe dementia...but lunch was coming soon? They passed out lunch trays and I got nothing. They kept saying my food was coming, but it never did. Not until I wandered through the ward and complained to the attending did I get something, but clearly they misunderstood again— the tray included a slice of individually sliced bread, but at least the main meal was edible.

I probably would have been much much worse off if it weren’t for generous friends who brought me food. New York Methodist should be able to accommodate people with very basic food intolerance and allergies, but it’s scary that they would serve those kind of meals to well...anyone. Can’t everyone agree, even the low-fat facists, that sugar and white flour are poison?

I’m hoping to get well and avoid the hospital again- that the seizure was just a fluke. Would be nice not to have anything like that happen again... and to find a place and a life style that prehaps could prevent me from suffering the amount of stress that might have triggered my condition.

Thank you well-wishers across NYC Paleo, Twitter, and everywhere in between!

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