The Ajuma Shuffle ... or Scuttle

One of the earliest phenomena to attract my attention here were the Korean ajumas (ah-joo-mas).  Ajumas, are a species unique to Korea, certainly unlike any known to the US.  Although technically I believe Ajuma means married woman, what you can expect is an older woman who invariably has short, permed hair and an exceptionally large visor.  They are easy to spot by their  ability to scuttle at  high speeds, their low centers of gravity, and their staunch tenacity.  

Although Ajuma's are certainly known for their feisty attitudes and unyielding sense of entitlement and superiority in all matters, (you are more likely to be forcefully pushed out of the way by a zealous ajuma than to actually sit in that seat on the bus, so I've found it best to always opt for standing) the first time I really noticed them, which, mind you was within my first 24 hours here, was doing what has been termed the "ajuma shuffle." Ajuma shuffle is a bit of a misnomer really- there is no shuffling involved- it's much more of a high velocity scuttle.  While the scuttling may occur at any instance, (again, don't even think about that seat on the bus...or getting in the elevator first...or being in the way in any possible sense of the term) it's most noticeable when the coveted green "cross" sign blinks at a cross walk.  That little green man lights up  to guide you across the five lane street in safety and without fail, ajuma's half a block down start the scuttle.  I swear you can see the head tilt down, the body tense, and the sense of "I will have that" is almost palpable.

At first I thought it was just plain hilarious to watch these five foot tall older women do the shuffle to make the light.  But now, after being here for a month and a half, I have to say not only do I get it, but I'm behind the shuffle one hundred percent.  While I would certainly not go so far as to say I support the general rudeness that is "acceptable" with being an ajuma,  I do support the shuffle.   Traffic lights here are horrendous- it takes positively forever to cross the street, and I still can't work out the system.  You would think that being able to cross one way on one side of the street, you could cross the same way from the opposite side of the street, but no.  Of the four crosswalks at any given intersection, the little man only lights up one at any given time.  It can be infuriating to watch people cross to the side you want to be on from the opposite side of the street, and know that your little man won't lead you there for at least another 5 minutes...even though all cars are stopped and you could cross right now.  (Some misplaced sense of guilt at the idea of running across holds be back every time...I even feel a little guilty when I J-walk. Where, mama, did this come from?) Needless to say, I quickly learned that the ajuma shuffle is an entirely understandably act, and though I can't claim the term ajuma, I will say if I see an intersection light up and I'm within reasonable scuttle distance, I'm scuttling right along with those ajumas.

Shuffle aside, the ajumas here really do present an interesting cultural norm.  Respecting one's elders is so deeply ingrained that ajumas really do have free reign, and often don't hesitate to use it.  I will always let an older person, man or woman, take a seat on a bus or the subway before I do.  Always.  I will give up my seat on the bus or subway to an older person any time I see them standing.  I guess my mama must have done something right in raising me, because I feel physically uncomfortable if I'm sitting and an older person isn't.  But that's the thing- I will give you the seat, my seat, any seat- anyway.  Not because you are entitled to it, not because you are superior to me, and certainly not because you just elbowed past me while giving me a challenging look to make sure that I understand that seat is yours, but because I do respect you.  There is no need to be rude about it.  Ajumas' sense of entitilement to respect often negates their actual deserving of it.  Growing old is certainly something to be proud of and to be respected, and while it is a free pass to wear funny hats and oversized visors, it's not a free pass on manners.  Ajumas, if you've raised your babies right, there is no need for you to be rude.

Apart from the frequently dour tempermant with regard to public transportation, Ajumas really are a delightful species.  After all, they are the proponents of the ajuma shuffle, an act that when witnessed, brings me joy every time.   

Happy Birthday Buddha! (Well, from May 28th)

Lotus Lantern Parade- Seoul 2012

This dragon was HUGE...It was held up by about 30 or so monks.  

Teaching in all its Glory

Well, my first week officially teaching has come and gone... and it was certainly interesting.  The curriculum that I am to teach is entirely derived from the TOEFL, and when I say entirely derived, I mean ENTIRELY.  Though there is to a certain degree flexibility in how I teach the material, there isn't in the material itself.  This translates to me covering the most boring, absurd, and inappropriate material you can imagine to middle and high school students.  What, you may ask do I mean by boring, absurd, and inappropriate? Last week, I had to give a group of 11-12 year olds a reading on the concept of paradigm shifts, and then proceed to read a lecture on it.  Or there was the class of 11 year olds who had to read about, and then regurgitate to me the Ancient Greek Emission Theory of Light and then compare it to the Modern Wave Theory of Light.

For the high schoolers in my actual TOEFL classes, the material is equally dense and uninteresting.  The way the TOEFL class works, is that students come in, take a practice TOEFL test on the computer, and then once taken, my co-worker Rick and I go over the test material with them.  It's broken into sections, and I go over the 6 speaking questions with them.  Last week, my favorite question involved them listening to a short lecture on a brief history of rocket science, and then identifying three pioneers in the field and summarizing their contributions.  Though much of the language in the lecture was not necessarily beyond their comprehension, much of the material was.  Hell, some of it was beyond my comprehension. I don't know how to elaborate on velocity in a vacuum or the fundamental equations of rocket propellants (or something like that...I have no idea what it was). In a nut shell, my job is to teach them to pick up key words and phrases, that allow them to regurgitate material that they neither comprehend nor have an interest in.  Talk about teaching to the test.  That is what I do.  I feel I can say with certainty that were all native English speakers forced to take the TOEFL, a good number of them would certainly not do favorably.  (We also learned about the Roswell Incident... what is that you may ask?  Well, I could tell you all about it since I lectured on it last week, but if you really care just google it and read all about flying saucers in 1947.)  On the plus side, I think I will leave this experience being a bona-fide encyclopedia of completely random information. (everything from Borax and cedar oil as a means of ridding your house of fleas, to the lost colonists of Roanoke).  Here come my year-long American history class full of everything that I never learned in high school, and where I'm the teacher.

The seeming absurdity of the material aside, the people that I work for at SLI- Seoul Language Institute, are lovely.  I feel I have a solid support system, and I enjoy chatting with the people I work for and with.  One thing that I think is telling of the company is that everyone teaches.  My boss- the guy in charge of the entire branch- is in the classroom teaching, as is everyone else that does administrative work. I really appreciate the sense of connectedness and equality that this engenders.  Also for the most part, the students are hilarious.  The English names they give themselves highlight this- I have 2 Mia's (one is a boy) and a Mi-mi (also a boy), I have a Captain America, Darth Vader, Haha, and Egg (his head is a bit egg shaped..) to name a few.  Though they are admittedly sometimes quite obnoxious.

Case in Point:  Last night I had the unfortunate pleasure of learning about a game that young kids love to play...it literally translates to "poop stick."  It involves sneaking up behind someone and putting your index fingers exactly where you imagine you would from the not so clever title of the game.   Needless to say, as appalled as I was, I couldn't quite contain my laughter.  Though it was with a strong warning that I would physically hurt anyone who tried that on me and I would not apologize. And I'd probably would fail them too for good measure.

Anyway, I'm off to go read about mucus and its function and composition (antiseptic enzymes and proteins you know) for one of my classes tonight- at least this one if for 15 years olds.

Seorak-San National Park

Maddie and I went to Seorak-San on Monday and Tuesday as we didn't have school (still not sure why) and it was absolutely fantastic. Seorak-San (Snow-Peak Mountain) is Korea's second largest land based National Park and a UNESCO world biosphere reserve.  It's considered by many to be the most striking mountainous area in the country- which says quite a lot as about seventy percent of the country is mountains.  It was breathtakingly beautiful, with views all the way to the East Sea (Most Americans know this body of water as the Sea of Japan, but refer to it as such here and you'll get an earful about how it's more Korean than Japanese and a terrible misnomer) tumbling waterfalls, and unbelievable rocky cliffs and snaking valleys.

Hiking is more or less a national past time in Korea, and on weekends the subways are full of people in hiking gear getting out of the city.  It tends to draw people that are older, and they all look great doing it.  There is very much a set Korean "hiking attire" which includes not only lightweight dark pants and a lightweight neon hiking jacket, but walking sticks and fancy mini-backpacks to boot. Oh and headgear.   You should see the headgear.  Picture everything from massive sun visors for the ladies to hiking fedora's for the men.  (I really want a hiking fedora... breaking the gender norms!) Needless to say, though subways are already notorious for good people watching, on weekends they are particularly great.

One of the things that I most appreciated seeing on this trip was that literally everyone, of all ages, gets out.  Not only did we come across a number of young kids on school trips visiting the park, but there were even more older people.   People who in America would likely never be capable, much less wanting, to do some pretty serious, and at times grueling, hiking.  Though the park is definitely a tourist (Korean and non) attraction and accommodating as such, (ie. there is a cable car that you can take almost to the top of one of the peaks before climbing the remainder of the way) it's not a park that you can drive into, snap a couple of pictures, and be on your merry way.  Actually, I don't think you can even drive into the majority of the park.  There is a big parking lot at the outer edge that I think you have to use.  The park is seen by foot.  If you want to see it, you have to hike it. And the thing is, everyone from babies to women I would put in their 70s was there appreciating it.

Seorak-San is also dotted with Buddhist temples, one of which, Shinhueng-Sa, is the third district headquarters of the Jogye Buddhist Sect.  It's really quite amazing to come upon these unbelievable temples and monks way up in the cliff faces and crags of mountains. It's such a beautiful experience, and I think it intuitively makes sense that places of worship should be in the midst of natural beauty.  I have found my Divine Being more in the natural world than I have in any religious institution.  The world we live in is the most inspiring thing humanity has, and it is I think easy to forget that.  Or for many perhaps ever fully realize that. 

The most invigorating part of our trip was the hike to the top of Ulsan Bawi- a rocky outcrop in the Mountains formed by a volcanic intrusion- that sits about 900 meters above sea level.  There are over 800 stairs throughout the climb, as a series of metal stairways and ladders have been erected to make it possible without ropes.  It's pretty intense.  While I don't have a hear of heights, I do have a fear of ladders.  Irrational? Perhaps, but real none the less.  I more or less ditched Maddie towards the end of the hike when it was essentially metal stairs in the sky because I couldn't handle stopping to take a break.  I just had to concentrate on getting off the stairs and ladders and onto the peak. And on breathing regularly too.  As a result of my irrational or not fear, I have to say I think I climbed the last part quite impressively time wise.  I was treking by people left and right.  

Overall, it was a fantastic trip, and I left it with a new goal- find a middle-aged Korean hiking buddy.  Maddie suggested I simply pick one at random on the subway and employ stalker-like tactics, but I've opted for joining Seoul Hiking Group instead.  Though being a subway stalker would probably make for a better blog post.  Pictures to come.

First you're 23, then you turn 24, but the whole time you've actually been 25! Welcome to Korea: where age has never seemed more arbitrary.

My 24th year has officially arrived, and I must say I'd consider it arrived in style. (Though in Korea I'm considered to be 25... and have been since the 1st of January)  The Saturday night before my birthday I met a number of foreigners at a party in a park before heading into Seoul to go out for dinner and drinks with Kyu-po.  My request was that we go somewhere I would never be able to navigate on my own (given I speak absolutely no Korean... and the only word I've picked up so far is "please", which Kyu-po informed me isn't really please, but more like "give me that", it wasn't to hard of a request to fill.) Oh, and I know the word for "5" too.  And I almost have hello.  But that really is the extent of my Korean vocabulary at this point.  Anyway, we went to a funky underground restaurant that served traditional Korean food, and was delicious.  Kyu-po ordered as the menu was entirely in Korean and I didn't particularly care what we ate, and we ended up with tofu with Kimchi (fermented veggies with spices...it's a staple here, but the kimchi at this place was the best I've had so far), mussels in some sort of white garlic sauce, and an as yet-to-be-determined-in-English chicken organ sauteed with veggies and a garlic dipping sauce.  Everything was delicious.  And made all the better by rice wine and Soju (a Korean alcohol that doesn't taste like anything...it's so easy to embrace! Though I suppose that's all the more reason to be slightly wary of it...)  Though my actual birthday was pretty low key- it was spent recovering and preparing for my own 24th birthday present to myself- a trip to Seorak-San National Park.

Name Changes, Tantric Sex, Cooling Systems, and Missed Stops: Korean Misadventure #1

Though I've been here for several days now, I feel the need to elaborate on my very first Korean misadventure. (Which did in fact begin before even leaving the States.  Actually, come to think of it, the whole protracted story of my beating the odds and ending up here at all is kind of a misadventure.  Were I a superstitious person whom fate showed signs, there is no way I ever would have made it, because I must say, everything from the timing of my Federal background check to the misspelling of my last name on my boarding pass proved an obstacle.)

The Many Mishaps that landed me in Suji, South Korea:

1.  My employer misspelled my last name when booking my ticket, and apparently it wasn't able to be changed, so after spending 45 minutes in the middle of the night with a ticketing agent at the check-in counter in the Minneapolis airport, I held my breath and made it through security.

2.  On my flight from Denver to San Francisco I sat next to a middle-aged Californian man reading a book entitled The Heart of Tantric Sex, which I can say with no hesitancy features very detailed illustrations. He then thought it appropriate to comment both to himself and to me on said illustrations.  Needless to say, much of my time on this flight was spent either pretending to be asleep or reading my own book intently- both which were done with my ipod in.

3.  My flight out of San Francisco was a misadventure in and of itself.  After boarding the plane, and finding my seat next to a Korean guy close to my age, I realized I was horribly overdressed in my thin sweatshirt and jeans for a flight in a stuffy plane whose temperature was about 90 degrees and had no working AC.  This hot hot situation was my first exposure to the Korean way of handling a not so ideal situation.  While most Americans in this situation would likely begin to complain loudly and get frustrated, the guy next to me begin to fan himself using exaggerated hand gestures while giggling and saying "oh so hot hot hot! so hot! oh!" He was not alone.  Soon I was giggling and smiling away about the heat and the absurdity of it along with those Koreans around me.

When we had been sitting on the plane for about 20 minutes, they made an announcement that there was a problem with the cooling system (no really?) and that we would all have to de-board the plane as it couldn't be flown as was.  So de-board we did.  The mechanics were able to fix it fairly quickly, but we were now 2 hours behind schedule.  After once again boarding the plane (which though fixed, was still just as hot, as apparently the AC wouldn't kick in until the engine had started) and getting situated, we were delayed yet again by an overhead compartment that refused to close.  Though that took the mechanic less than 5 minutes to fix, it took him 20 minute to actually get to the plane, delaying us further and resulting in more people shedding more clothes.

4.  The 12 hour flight continued with out incident.  The biggest incident was that the flight crew ran out of beer about 8 hours in.  (Korean men know how to drink!)  They were then relegated to finishing off the white wine and miniature plastic bottles of cheap whisky on ice.  Woe is us.  A long boring flight with no beer.

5.  After landing in Incheon International Airport, I was met by my very dear friend Kyu-po, but there was no sign of my boss, Mr. Park.  Apparently Mr. Park had the date of my arrival mixed up, and as such wasn't there to take me to my place.  Kyu-po was exceptionally helpful in finding a bus to Suji (Suij is about 15 minutes outside of Seoul) and coming with me to meet my childhood friend Maddie, who is teaching at the same school I am. Unfortunately, we missed the Suji stop where Maddie was going to meet us, and ended up having to back track in a taxi which we took to a random street corner where we stood waiting for Maddie to meet us.  I should add, throughout all of this it was raining buckets.

Conclusion:  It was a long day (or 2?) or travel, but a lovely misadventure and quite a start to my time here.  I'm exceptionally grateful to have friends here that I already know (Shout out to Kyu-po and Maddie... thanks again for straightening out the chaos), and looking forward to making more.

South Korea: The Next Big Adventure

After a rather long hiatus, I'm back with an update on my latest adventure: South Korea.  As those of you who looked at my tumblr blog from my time in the Middle East know, I went back and forth with this decision for quite a while.  Originally, I had been planning on coming to South Korea last August...and then it was this past February...and now here it is April, and I am (finally) here.  I really needed to think about why I was planning to go to South Korea and if it was the right thing for me to be doing at this point.  One of the biggest dilemmas for me was intellectual: do I really believe that I am qualified to, and should be, teaching English in South Korea?  Not exactly.  I am in no way qualified to teach in the United States, so what makes my teaching in a foreign country not only permissible, but dare I say desired?  I have no interest in being a teacher- I never have.  Kids drive me nuts.  Don't get me wrong, I have strong opinions regarding the education system in the United States, and a tendency to read about it for pleasure (I watch movies like The Lottery for fun, and read education blogs, and articles in my free time) which, I blame on my Mama and her inability to separate work and home.  (Anecdotes about little kids being naughty, sneaky, inquisitive, compassionate, and downright hilarious paired with equal parts ranting and bafflement at the absurdity of education policy comprises the majority of dinner table talk at my house.)

That said, as much as kids drive me nuts, I love them.  The most fulfilling job that I have ever had was taking middle and high school girls backpacking for the first time.  And while I am perhaps not as outwardly passionate about the English language as I am about backpacking,  I am passionate about the value of a second language, so having the opportunity to help kids become fluent in English while at the same time learning about Korea from them is pretty hard to pass up.  And while I think that the ideal way of learning a language is finding yourself entirely immersed in it through living somewhere that it is spoken, short of that, the next best thing in a classroom setting is hearing it from a native speaker and being forced to use it to communicate and converse with them.  Had my high school Spanish teacher been a native speaker, not only would she might actually have taught us something, but she certainly wouldn't have taught us that ello was the word for he/him. (It's el...not ello).  I could go into much greater depth with my pondering about the meaning of my being here, but I suppose when it comes down to it the short of it is that I'm here, I will be here for at least the next year, and qualified or not I'm going to spend hours of my day teaching Korean students English.  And so it begins- my next great adventure.

SisterSister

Here is, I think, a good opinion piece about the whole Invisible Children Kony 2012 campaign controversy. 

Tracie McMillan.  I think I'll read her book.

Click here to read an article by her about Food and Income Inequality in America. 

I think her second  point is particularly valid. 

Definitely not produce in the US.  This is in Jordan. 

A Boundary Waters Weekend

Last weekend I went up to the boundary waters with a group of women that have known me forever.  (Forever starting when I was three.)  One of my oldest friends, Emma, is the director of a wilderness camp at the end of the Gunflint Trail, which is where we spent the weekend doing yoga, snow shoeing, making art, and of course, doing lots of eating.

Growing up my family spent a week in the boundary waters every summer (they still do, I unfortunately haven't been able to join them since graduating from high school) and being up there this weekend was lovely.  It's a place that is not only beautiful, but moving.  The solitude of the place combined with its wild nature makes for an invigorating place to spend time.  This was the first time that I have been up there in the winter, and while I can't say that I would forgo its summer adventures in favor of those of winter, the winter does hold a different sort of appeal.

It was so great to see real snow, as that has been rather lacking in Minnesota this year.  Having a foot or so to play in made me realize I did, in fact, miss it.  I am notorious to my family and friends for complaining about winter weather.  I prefer to think of it not at complaining but as stating facts, but it remains that I hate being cold, I hate how long it lasts, I hate how much longer it takes to do everything and how much harder it is to do everything, I hate the freezing feeling when you first get into your car and know that it's not going to warm up for at least 5 minutes, and the list goes on.  But I realized being up there, for as much as I don't like winter, I love the atmosphere created by snow.  Perhaps it's simply because having grown up with it and not experiencing it this winter I'm subject to being overly nostalgic, but regardless of the reason for my sentimentality, my weekend in the boundary waters did wonders for my mental health.  (Even if we did drive back in a white-out snow storm at 35 miles an hour.)

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when it came time to die, discover that I had not lived." 

                                                -Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Chickens, Eggs, Dirt, and Joel Salatin

Last Friday I had the pleasure of seeing Joel Salatin, a self-described "Christian- libertarian- environmentalist-capitalist- lunatic farmer" speak at Carelton College on his vision of the future.  Salatin, the "grass farmer" of Polyface Inc.  who was featured in Michael Pollan's book the Omnivore's Dilemma, as well as the documentaries Food Inc and Fresh, left his audience if not with an earnest desire to get their hands dirty- with hope for the future of food. (Something that can seem particularly hard to come by these days.)

Let me preface my recounting and take on his lecture by saying this:  I have never grown anything in my life.  (Unless you count those little flower seeds that I planted in a miniature pot in second grade for my mama on mothers day)  The closest I've come to growing food was whimsically deciding that I was going to help my friend plant garlic one afternoon. My involvement in this largely consisted of watching him rake the bed and dig little holes while I held the garlic cloves we were to plant.  I say this because while I have for years been interested in food, eating good food, and America's food culture of today, this interest has never quite made the leap from reading the likes of Pollan and Schlosser to actually getting my hands dirty and partaking in a more visceral aspect of life. While I love to eat well, I often balk at the prices in my local co-op.  I often still buy organic, but admittedly it's not without a tinge of resent. I don't take pleasure in spending $5 on a carton of eggs, and I certainly don't enjoy the idea that by buying these $5 eggs, I am a unwittingly part of an elitist movement, but I do enjoy how much brighter the yolks are, and harder the shells are, and I take immense pleasure in their taste- simply put, it's better.  Much much better. My aim in writing this preface is not to glorify $5 co-op eggs, but rather it's to say that I am not an environmentalist lunatic farmer. Not even an environmentalist lunatic gardner.  I don't know much of anything about growing food, and I don't want to write about Salatin's lecture as though I do.  Am I interested in eating whole, healthy foods?  Yes.  Am I interested in paying to eat whole, healthy, foods?  Not so much.  Do I still love eating an Almond Joy (hydrogenated oil and all)?  Absolutely.  Am I interested in getting my hands dirty in order to eat whole healthy foods?  Maybe.

Salatin opened his lecture, "Folk's this ain't Normal", highlighting the abnormal times that we live in, referring to our food culture as that of a guinea pig culture, largely due to the enormous lack of participation in farming and growing food. According to Salatin, there are twice as many people incarcerated in our country as there are growing our food.  Stop.  Think about that for a moment.  What does that say about us and about what we value?  As humans, we have come to think of ourselves as being above the environment.  We don't want to think of ourselves as interconnected and dependent upon the natural world- we aren't animals after all, we're humans.  And as humans, we have in many ways tried to eliminate our deep-seated, instinctual behaviors that might remind us that homo sapien sapiens evolved with the rest of the natural world and are in fact animals.

Without a doubt, there is a vision of the future that entails breakfast in a pill, lunch in a pill, and (surprise surprise) dinner in a pill as well.  A future so technologically  advanced, that the need for farmers is non-existent.  Salatin referred to it as "push button farming" the concept being that the work of farmers won't be to go out and work in the fields, but rather that they sit behind control panels pushing buttons, twisting dials, and pulling down levers until- viola! food!  Needless to say, Salatin doesn't share this vision, and doesn't put much stock in it either.  The reality is the petroleum based mechanization of farming can not last.  Ultimately, more people must get involved in food and farming- must get away from the disconnect- and get dirty.

Salatin outlined a number of points as being crucial to a "normal" future, several of which I am going to recap as I found them particularly interesting- largely because they are incredibly basic, in some ways common sense, and yet they are missing from our present food culture.  The first being that we are made up of bacteria- we are part of the interconnected world, and as such we have to get involved in it.  A more normal future means more people growing their own food and food for their neighbors, and recognizing the importance of the community that exists in the soil- the invisible organisms that make up the foundation upon which are civilization is dependent.  It also means we need greater freedom of food choice.  The FDA has largely annihilated this, and apparently done so in our own interest no less. (As Salatin said, "F-da US-da"...I was impressed.  I thought it was pretty clever.)  On what level does it make sense that if an elementary school classroom learning about food and gardening plants and grows carrots, when the children pick those carrots, if they bring them inside to wash and eat for a snack- are breaking the law? Washing the carrots is considered food processing, for which you need a license.  The number of laws regulating food commerce is equally restrictive in preventing people from being able to grow and distribute food, resulting in city food deserts.  We have shelves upon shelves of "reconfigured corn and soybean posing as choice" but this is not food choice.

Another point of Salatin's lecture that I found interesting, and I had read it before, but it's easy to ignore in the face of those $5 eggs, is that American's must spend a greater percentage of their income on food.  The percentage of income that we spend on food is one of the lowest in the world.  (Income as measured in the form of money, time, and resources) The average American spends 9% of their income on food, and 18% on healthcare.  35 years ago, the average American spent 18% of their income on food and 9% on healthcare.  Think there might be a correlation between the two? In short, we cannot have a better food system without it becoming more valued.  We value our manicured lawns more than the food that we put into our bodies.  According to Salatin, there are 71 million acres of lawn and horse pasture in the US.  This is enough green space to feed the entire country without a single farm or ranch.  The money that's needed to change our food culture is already in the system, we just need to reexamine the way it's spent and redistribute it.

The last point that I want to bring up from Salatin's lecture is Carbon cycling- it happens on site in nature, everything is eating and being eaten. The direction that he went with this was I thought, a bit unexpected, and depending on your diet perhaps a bit offensive, but overall I found it incredibly interesting.  Salatin essentially railed against vegetarian and veganism, saying that "the notion that we can live without death strikes at the root of what it is to be alive." When we think that we can live without death, we reduce the sacrifice that is made to sustain life.  I find this an insightful, albeit an unusual, take on vegetarian and vegan diets.

Salatin discussed a number of other points in regard to a more normal future, including a food system based on perennials rather than annuals, diversified farms rather then the monoculture that dominates todays farms, water and hydraulic management, and seasonality.  His lecture was equal parts informative and entertaining (He loves CSA's in part because he loves anything that reminds him of the Confederate States of America) and at all times riveting.

After walking out, my sister and I decided that chickens were a necessity (she's already named them Lulu, Alice, Henrietta, and Philimena) and my family has been researching and discussing the best place in our yard for the coop.  Is it growing my own food and gardening?  No, but it's a start.  And hey, now I won't have to pay $5 for tasty eggs. 

If you're interested in learning more about Joel Salatin, click here.