Spring in Minnesota is a Marathon

It is March 26th, and in Minnesota we have finally entered the part of winter when the snow has more or less melted and the weather has warmed up to more or less stay above freezing. However, unlike other, more normal parts of the world, spring won't actually begin until about... May. It is overcast and windy and after a very warm and enjoyable Spring Break last week, winter is now getting its second wind. This always happens. Ever since I was a child, winter comes in about three parts. The first comes in late September when the jet stream comes clambering down from northern Canada and sits on the state like a fat man sitting on comically on a small dog. We wimper and groan but realize we are powerless to do anything about the situation. We put on our heavy sweaters, soon to be replaced by heavy coats, hats, gloves, boots and scarves. Anywhere from early October to mid-December, snow begins to fall and continues consistently until about... well, May. The second part is the truly bitter fridigity of January and February when we are lucky to have temperatures breach zero farenheit. Going outside becomes a mix of extreme sport and deathwish. Eyelashes freeze shut, blinding people. On sunny days, the snow becomes a polished mirror, blinding people. Icicles dangle precariously from the eaves of houses, falling when they reach critical mass, blinding people. The ice on sidewalks compounds and compacts, making mobility a trecherous affair prone to skids and slips, blinding people. Roving bands of wolves and polar bears scavange the land for scraps of food, blinding people. Blindness is commonplace. The third part is what we are currently in. The fat man has realized he has sat on a small dog, and the small dog has begun to bite him in the butt. He rouses, but under his own weight collapses again and again as he starts to rise. It is a painful procedure, especially since so many of us are blind from the second part of winter. It will probably snow once or twice before winter can officially be declared over. Of course, some of the less optimistic members of society will simply say that winter is taking a breather. Summer is winter's half-time. The coach has called a timeout, but play will resume soon. I don't think anyone in Minnesota really, truly objects to global warming. Of course, the travails of winter are paralleled by the travails of summer, when the heat, humidity and mosquitos make us all pray for winter's quick return.

The weather aside, life continues much as it always does. Half of my classes are canceled this week because the Geography faculty are in Las Vegas for their annual conference. It's nice to have my mornings off, but it hasn't helped me to resume a normal schedule post-Spring Break. My normal bedtime is still around 2:30AM. Granted this is an improvement from the 5AM bedtime I had last week, I am still not able to operate until about noon. My evening classes this week were alright - I had a midterm on Monday that went so-so. The exam - in Paradigms of Global Leadership - was in the format that we were given ten terms (like "Action", "Patience", "Power", "Nobility") that we had to define, elaborate on the definition, and give their relevance to the theme of the class. It's always hit or miss, because there is no way to study for it except by being familiar with all the concepts and having luck and bullshitting on your side. I'll see how it pans out. Last night's class was a bit of a crapshoot as well. We were informed on Sunday evening by our professor that we had, as she put it, "sixteen short, but difficult" chapters to read. 305 pages of David Harvey's graduate-level text on Postmodernity. We were all confused.

Last week, it was my Grandma Anne's 84th birthday. She and Judy came up to Minnesota, along with my Uncle John and Aunt Diana, my father's cousins Sylvia and Nina and his cousin Jim. It was a very nice, multi-day affair with lots of picture taking and eating together. Since just about everyone who reads this journal was there, I won't elaborate on the details. I enjoyed it a lot, and I am very much looking forward to going to see Grandma Anne and Judy in New Mexico in June.

I have gotten still more photos developed from my sojourn in Europe. These are from Barcelona (when I was there in October with my friend Kristina), the Lunaret Zoo in Montpellier and the Cevennes mountains north of Montpellier. Enjoy!

(Figures 1-6: The Alain Achilles Table Tennis Gym; the Stade Phillipides Tram Stop, the stop for my house; an apartment building near my house; the view from my grammar classroom in Batiment B, looking west at the Mosson District; oryxes at the zoo; my friends (L-R) Javi, Meg, Ping, Hector and Mike - we were having a picnic in the zoo)

(Figures 7-11: A view of a pasture near the Cave of the Laughing Bull; from Montaigoual looking south towards the Mediterranean; the Montaigoual Weather Recording Station with (L-R) Jesse, Jade and Renee, my friends from the University of Pennsylvania; a view to the north; looking down the mountain)




(Figures 12-18: My faithful companion, Kristina; our faithless steed, the Eurolines bus from Montpellier to Barcelona; the base of the statue of Christopher Columbus; the Placa Real; the CaixaForum Museum, built inside of an art noveau factory; another view of the same; Kristina presents the interior architecture)

(Figures 19-23: La Boqueria, the big market on the Rambla in Barcelona; soooo many fruits and vegetables and spices; the fish market; a fruit vendor; a dried fruit and nuts vendor)

(Figures 24-29: The interior courtyard of La Pedrera; I can't remember what this building is, it might be a bank; the Placa Catalunya; on the Rambla (L-R) Matt, Renee, Kristina and Jesse; the super convenient escalator up the side of the hill to the Parc Guell; Barcelona from above and out to the sea)

Les Fools! Uhuhuhuhuh!

Today, I got my grades back from France. Contrary to what I had expected (namely that I would fail several of my classes), I passed them all! My lowest grade was a B- in my Geography of Developed Countries class (which makes me slightly upset, because it lowers my Major GPA slightly) but I got 3 As, and 2 A-s. So the sorted affair of Peter goes to France is now more or less over. I am almost on Spring Break - I have a short paper to revise by 5, and then I'm done. Love to you all.

100 Posts!!!

The content of this post shouldn't detract from the awesomeness that is the 100th post. Below is a finished draft of my map on foreclosures in North Minneapolis. Tomorrow, we are presenting to the representatives of the Federal Reserve Bank and various community leaders what we have so far, and will get feedback on how much more information is needed and in what direction for the project.

(Figure 1:Foreclosures in North Minneapolis, 2002, 2005-2008)

College Life Is Not Conducive To Journaling

Today is what, March 5th? Yes. Tomorrow, I have my first midterm, in Disciplines and Methods of Geography, or Disco Meth for short. I feel adequately prepared for it, although I will be spending the next several hours reviewing my notes (paltry though they are - I've never been a fantastic note-taker, but I'd like to believe I'm getting better at remembering details and big ideas). Disco Meth isn't the most interesting class, as it is mostly just the application and analysis of statistics to geographic problems, but it's required for the major and Professor Smith is a nice woman and the TAs explain everything if you ask. I'd be doing better if I asked them. For instance, on my first two problem sets, which I completed on my own the nights before they were due, I got Cs. On the last two, for which I went in for help, I got As. I've still got another 8 problem sets due in the semester, and I intend on acing them all. The midterm is I think a quarter of my grade, so I hope I do well on it. Other than that, I only have one other midterm - for my IS seminar, Paradigms of Global Leadership, but that is after spring break. My days seem suspiciously easy, which will change during spring break when I'll begin work on the multiple final projects I have, one for each class.

On the IS end of things, my unofficial major, things are going smoothly. In Paradigms of Global Leadership, I gave a presentation on Monday on The Just Prince by Muhammad ibn Zafar al-Siqilli, a Sicilian Muslim writing in the 12th century about the exercise of power and good governance. It's an interesting book, especially reading it having recently read The Prince by Machiavelli. The Just Prince is a lot less Machiavellian than The Prince in that it heavily incorporates morality, religion and not always inducing fear amongst the populace to maintain control. It's also interesting that it was written 300 years before Machiavelli's book, and was probably unknown to the Florentine. I get to present on the 2nd half of the book next Monday. Professor Samatar also said on one of his many inspirational jeremiads that "students should be intimidated by their professors, but in the end ought to kill them." He quickly qualified that he didn't mean this literally, but rather that a professor ought to inspire a student to work hard enough to become smarter than the professor themself in the end. I think that might take a bit of effort on my part, but I'm working on it.

My other IS class, Culture and Global Capitalism, is progressing about as excitingly as hitting my hand with a hammer would be. Professor Ciafone is nice, but this is the first time she's taught this class and it lacks a lot of thematic structure, so we vacilate from neo-Marxist critical theory about "what are things" and "can or cannot all things be bought" to an economics perspective history of the corporation written by the editors of the Economist (and who are authors of The Right Nation: The Rise of Conservatism in America, a book I received as a joke present for my last birthday from Emilio). Today, we went to the Mill City museum, which was interesting because I'd never been before. We met with a retired miller, who has worked in various capacities as an international consultant and an engineer and was a wealth of knowledge. That was very neat, and I would've liked to have heard more from him had time permitted. I have to write up a 4 page discussion review by next Friday, which unless I forget about it until Friday morning, ought to be a sinch. Is that how you spell sinch?

Urban GIS is going well - I completed the data compilation for a map showing the spatial trends of foreclosures in North Minneapolis. I've attached a picture. It's a preliminary map, so it lacks a lot of the details and clarity that a finished product would have. It's also not fully overlayed, so the data compiled is still raw - in other words, I haven't finished tinkering with it. The yellow are properties that have been foreclosed at least once in the years of 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, or 2008, while the orange represents twice, and red represents between three and four times. My goal is to make a map that presents where properties have been foreclosed upon more than once in multiple years - i.e., X property was foreclosed in 2002, 2005 and 2008, or something like that. I'll also be working on a second map that will show the value of foreclosed properties at their time of sale to the bank, but that is entirely theoretical at the moment.

(Figure 1: A map of foreclosed properties in North Minneapolis, 2002, 2005-2008)

Beyond school, nothing much is new. I booked myself a flight to go to New Mexico to visit Grandma Anne and Judy from June 10th to June 17th, and I am quite excited about that. I am also looking for a house for myself and my three future housemates, Ian, Chelsea and Joe, the latter of which I lived with my sophomore year. That is all.