Adventures in Onionism

I'm in Takengon. I did a short solo trip in Gunung Leuser National Park (guides apparently are not required, but should you actually want to get to any specific location as opposed to just wandering around, it might be a good idea.) The jungle was cool, but it's not my favorite--you don't get any vista-type views--it's solid jungle canopy all the time that in some sense doesn't really change. Leaches and insects and monkeys and hot springs are fun, but I prefer alpine country. So now I'm a little further north in Takengon, with one more horrible bus ride (and, ummm, GI issues) remaining between me and surfing/snorkeling in Banda Aceh. 

Greetings from Kotocane, Sumatra, Indonesia. You haven't lived until you've eaten mangosteens. Seriously. So good. Also, I ate a chocolate and sweetened condensed milk sandwich fried in a crap-ton of blue bonnet. I cannot believe this was concocted in any country other than the USA.  Being vegetarian takes a little fun out of my point-and-eat approach to developing country street food (especially since I was stupid and forgot to bring a phrasebook), but all is well.

I've been doing research. Or trying to. Mostly on the Forest Service's 2001 Roadless Rule . I'd be interested to see if I could estimate its effect on local employment. I can't think of an identification strategy other than diff-n-diff , and I'm not sure how well even that will work, plus I have to build the data using GIS. Also, importantly, it's been done before . But right now I have 935 pages of exams to grade. I bailed on the WFR course I was going to take in January so that hopefully I can get more some research done (down time between semesters seems like a good time, and although I'd love to learn the material, if I ever want to graduate, I definitely don't have time to join a S&R group right now, which is a good chunk of why I wanted to take the course). I leave Sat/Sun for Indonesia. I'm TA-ing again next semester but I applied for a short job in February teaching impact evaluation stuff abroad. More on that later if it actually happe...

I just finished reading Laurence Gonzales' Deep Survival , which I guess is about the psychology of surviving. I disliked it a great deal and would absolutely not recommend it, except for the appendix which makes up the last 20 pages. The book is a very unorganized collection of ideas from Zen, Tao Te Ching , Heroditus, philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology. It's also an attempted memoir, a tribute to Gonzales' pilot father, and a collection of very short re-tellings of survival tales. I know, sounds great, right? But in trying to do all these things, and jumping around between them, it ends up doing none of the above well. Also, you may already know some of the survival accounts from Alive , Adrift , and Touching the Void , and the original accounts are far more interesting. The stories you've likely never heard of are re-told with aggravatingly little detail. I was also irked by Gonzales' repeated mentions of spirituality and following hunches, but it's no...

I did a 10 or 11-mile kayak route around Brooks Island yesterday [ map ]. I'm beginning to think I'm a land mammal. The funnest part was getting out and walking around on the island. Also fun is when you're within 20 yards of the shore and can see the big pelicans and other birds flying around. The rest of the time on the open water is kind of boring. Plus I got seasick and puked while paddling back. It's always on the way back when I'm moving in the same direction as the waves so I get lifted from behind. Maybe I'll get used to it, or maybe I'll sell the kayak for a profit and buy a packraft or a bike. In hindsight, Steven Soderbergh's movie Che is probably not worth watching. I seem to recall reading reviews when it came out about how you had to already agree with everything Che did to enjoy the film. More than that, regardless of your opinion, I think you have to not be interested in history or politics at all, because the film doesn't investiga...

1. A good argument from Albany this morning: [ht Indecision] 2. I just saw Precious . I thought Lee Daniels' cinéma vérité-esque rapid zoom and shaky camera work were distracting. I also thought it was manipulative of your emotions. At one point while I was sobbing, I realized everyone else in the theater was sobbing too, and pretty loudly, but it was just so obvious that was exactly what we were supposed to be doing at that moment that I then laughed a little. However, I thought the acting was fantastic and the movie was absolutely worth seeing. 3. After Obama's speech yesterday, I was struck by this quote in a Joan Walsh column at Salon: I'm deeply disappointed, saddened even, but I don't feel betrayed. Obama has governed like the centrist he told us and showed us he is, from his early flip-flops on FISA to his Goldman Sachs-friendly bailout policies to compromising on the job-creation parts of his economic stimulus to his tepid backing of a healthcare reform public...