Magic pen!

I kid you not, I wrote a note a few days ago, "Wouldn't it be awesome if they made a pen that remembered everything you write?"

Well...here it is!

An interesting look at "The Eleventh Hour"

From Grist:

"So what, you may be thinking. It's a good cause, and DiCaprio seems like a good guy. If people wanted to volunteer to help him out, what's the harm? Besides, those Hollywood types can afford to skip a paycheck or two.

That may be true. But as I see it, it's impossible to discuss -- and attack -- climate change without addressing issues of social class and economy. Encouraging conscious consumerism without addressing the underlying class and labor issues is irresponsible -- no matter how green the product, how progressive the process."

Alice, you so have my blogging habits pegged!

Anyway...today I went hiking at Wachusett Mountain in central Massachusetts. It was a beautiful drive, a beautiful hike, and an all around beautiful day. A herd of wild gobbling turkeys crossed my path (or, I think technically I crossed theirs). The trail was, in proper New England fashion, rocky and deciduous, which meant a lot of hiking and a little trail running.



Why is going hiking so much better than looking for a job?

Some light summer reading

Last Tuesday night I started reading Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. Less than 24 hours later, I had finished that book, as well as Calvin Trillin’s About Alice. This isn’t the most impressive feat of marathon reading I’ve done (reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory between sunup and sundown when I was six still tops the list), but it certainly was one of the most emotional.



I’m a firm believer that, before I start analyzing a book’s prose style or thematic elements, the first litmus test for a book should momentum: how hard is it for me to stop reading a book once I’ve started? Is the book, in metaphysical terms, a train, a speeding bullet, a stampeding elephant? Or it is a feather, a drop of rain, a gnat? Both Didion’s and Trillin’s books possess a great deal of momentum, a refreshing break to the momentum-less Your Paradise through whose pages I’ve been recently slogging (albeit happily). Some books carry the reader along through with suspense plot, others with humor, and others with stimulating knowledge. About Alice and The Year of Magical Thinking carry the reader along with immense emotional weight and acceleration.

Both books are by writers navigating life the wake of the death of their long-time spouses, both also writers. Both books are short, sweet dirges that delineate a portrait if a long-standing, deeply loving marriage The similarities end there. Trillin’s book is, as the title deftly and succinctly claims, about his wife Alice. Didion’s book, on the other hand, is about herself. It is a memoir of her grief interspersed with a description of the death of her husband, John Dunne, and the illness of her daughter, Quintanna. (Note that on the cover of the book, the letters “J”, “O”, “H”, and “N”, have been highlighted from the title and byline, although I have a feeling this was not Didion’s decision but her publisher’s.)

Didion is documenting a loss of control, something she calls a pathologic grief that manifests itself in irrational thinking as she keeps waiting, preparing, for her husband to come back. The book, although maintaining a flustered, flushed, bewildered tone, is full of schedule, repetition, and routine. Didion is obsessed with dates and times. After reading the book, the reader has the date and time of Dunne’s death memorized, and, if desired, could draw up a detailed timeline of Didion and Dunne’s life together. It is a marvelously constructed, well-crafted and well-researched piece. The book is amazingly controlled, although it claims not to be. And this works because Didion’s calmness is part of her pathologic grief, and so the pathology itself is her need to put everything in order, her need to research and write.

Phrases repeat themselves in ever-evolving iterations throughout the book, like the chorus of a song that is modified slightly after each verse. The effect is hypnotic and mesmerizing, and makes the book read more like a lyric work of prose poetry than an extended essay.

What appealed to me most about Didion’s book was, oddly enough, not her experiences of grief, but the glimpses of the writer’s process and writer’s life that spread into every corner of the book. She is struggling with her grief via a “writer’s dilemma” and has a desire to understand and control the situation by writing everything down. This process is, however, futile, as we see her search for meaning in her scattered notes on the back of grocery lists and receipts. Didion reflects, “Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought?” (As I copied down the quote, I accidentally almost wrote “dying” instead of “writing”, which is either telling or just a coincedence.)

As she’s running from her memories she trips and stumbles into my own. I challenge any reader to get through the book without experiencing the same phenomenon: for me it occurred when Didion was covering the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. And throughout the book, as Didion was flying back and forth from New York to Los Angeles (she and her husband lives in the Sunshine State for many years, and her daughter was hospitalized on both coasts), I was taking notes with a cheesy puzzle pen I bought at LAX that says “CALIFORNIA IS A-MAZE-ING.”

Towards the end of the book, Didion reflects, “I realize as I write this that I do not want to finish this account.” (229) Reading those lines, I realize that I desperately want her to finish, and want to finish reading. As I was reading, I was constantly waiting, although I couldn’t tell whether I was waiting for Didion or her daughter to recover? Quintana died several months after Didion finished her manuscript.

While Didion’s book provokes analysis, Trillin’s book provokes silent reflection and reverance. About Alice is not an account of mourning; it is a eulogy for a loved woman. Trillin has packed his grief away to calmly, delicately, and respectfully create a swan song for his wife. Trillin’s pain is obliquely visible through the details of what has been remembered and what has been forgotten about his wife. It is interesting to hear how many of Trillin’s favorite memories of Alice are, according to her, fabricated or incorrect. This doesn’t trouble Trillin, or the reader, and only adds to the poignancy of his descriptions.

Which book do I recommend? Read both.

(Also: Were the publishers seriously going for something here with the covers? Notice how their covers employ almost identical color schemes and styles. Is that the convention for a book about a deceased spouse?)

For all your carbon offset needs

Check out the Cool Driver Campaign from Vermont's Native Energy.

Psychosocial Moratorium: A Place for Friends

This weekend, thanks to my responsible, directed, med-student friend Jane, I found out that there's a clinical term for the aimless aversion to responsibility I (and many of the people I know) are feeling right now. It's called psychosocial moratorium, and it means delaying the onset of "real" adult responsibilities by traveling the world, hanging out at home, living in the woods, etc.

So, the next time someone asks you, "Have you gotten a job yet?" or "What do you want to do with your life?" just reply, "Well, right now I'm spending 1-3 years in my psychosocial moratorium, but I'll let you know as soon as soon as I'm done."

Take it off!

My favorite news story of the day:


Vladimir Putin takes off his shirt while fishing and the entire country of Russia gets hot and bothered.

Because I know not everyone religiously clicks on the links in the sidebar

Two of my favorite links thus far today:

Educational, hip (ok, depends on your definition of hip) and environmentally friendly shower curtains and towels! (via Plenty)

Can publishing be green? (via Bookslut)

Also, if anyone has my driver's license, please, I want it back!

I've turned into a homeless person...

Today I spent about 8 hours at the Boston Public Library (Central Branch, if anyone wants to try to stalk me). I'm supposed to be applying for jobs and studying for the GRE, but I haven't done either of those today. Instead, I finished Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" (yes, I know that technically it should be on my "current reads" list anymore, but I'm living it there for thematic reasons that will become evident in about 5 seconds) and started in on Calvin Trillin's "About Alice." Yes, they are both books about writers mourning their bereaved writer spouses. They are, however, completely different from each other, and I'll go into that in more detail soon (I'm only halfway through the shorter "About Alice").

Today I also found some books on hikes in Massachusetts (would you believe that at the BPL there are more books on hiking in Oregon than there are on hiking in New England? Ok, maybe all the New England ones are checked out because it's summer...). Tomorrow I'll be a homeless person in the woods, instead.

At least I haven't yet been woken from a nap by library security (there's a strict "no sleeping" policy at the BPL).

Today I saw a woman with a the license plate:

36 D

There's only one thing I can think of that it refers to, but I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, right.

Now's that's a good use for s***

Ok, we all know about my fascination with waste treatment (or rather...what happens after the waste is treated). A nuclear power plant in Maryland has honed in on a novel solution: use treated sewage as an industrial coolant.

Now that's not nearly as efficient as pumping the water back into the drinking supply via reservoirs, a la Singapore, but it's a start.

Did I mention I went fishing at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant last week? (Ok, so I walked around on the rocks while Paul and his friend fished, but I did attempt a few casts myself.) Pilgrim uses sea water for cooling, and if you drop a line in the out-take stream the warm water will carry it out to schools of hungry blue fish.

Binoculars or Blinders?

Here's an interesting article about the narrowness of MFA writing programs and a plea for contemporary writers in general to step outside their comfort zones and start taking some chances. Even if you aren't a writer, it's sound advice.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Another dream job!

America's Test Kitchen is hiring an editorial assistant! Zoinks!

!!!!!!

Maybe this is what I should be doing:

There's an entire ASSOCIATION for the "Study of Literature and Environment."

No joke...I was totally just thinking, "Hmmm...how am I going to market eco-lit as a viable concentration in my personal statemeny?"

Alive and stateside

The most unexpectedly poignant moment of the week:

"I just hope you find what you like to do. I don't think I ever did."

--My grandfather's parting words after our dinner at Claim Jumper, the Outback Steakhouse of the new millennium. (In case you were wondering, a claim jumper is someone who, during the California gold rush, beamed '49ers over the head with shovels and stole their pay dirt.)

And in the spirit of self-humiliation, here's a piece of circa tenth grade writing I found while unsuccessfully attempting to purge my room. It was for a fiction class, and I was supposed to write a character description/personification of an emotion. So...enjoy (or not). Ha!

Passion
She is running through the woods. Wild, unique, daring. Staring blood red sunsets in the eye. She laughs without warning and cries on your shoulder. “That is dangerous,” they say. “Impossible,” say others.
She hears their warnings but tries anyway.
Challenging, believing, living: She lies on her back at night underneath the starry sky, listening to the stories the universe has to tell. She makes it up herself as she goes along.
Two days are never the same. Yesterday she fell in love.
Today her heart was broken.
The thundering currents flow through her veins. Her picturesque love of life is contagious. Running with the wolves, sitting calmly beneath her favorite tree, watching the moon rise. She gambles with her feelings, and she usually catches herself when she falls.
Unless she doesn’t: She keeps falling…
falling…
falling…
The sky holds her up.


Coming up next, perhaps some of the sesquipedalian gems my ex-boss wrote and put in my mailbox?

It's my last night in Korea...

...and I have no sheets at the moment. Luckily the pink flowery comforter that greeted me when I first arrived is still here...some things never let you down.

See you on the other side of the Pacific.

The Awesomest Thing I've Seen in a Long Time

"Helping Hands: Monkey Helpers for the Disabled is a national nonprofit serving quadriplegic and other people with severe spinal cord injuries or mobility-impairments by providing highly trained monkeys to assist with daily activities. As live-in companions, our monkey helpers provide 20-30 years of service, bringing the gifts of independence, companionship, dignity and hope to the people they help."

4 days left and I am already 70% packed

Things I Will Not Miss When I Leave
- The smell of slaughterhouses in the morning

Things I Will Miss When I Leave
- Being able to go to a tiny kiosk down the road and get my shoes repaired while having an awkward converesation in broken Korean

Things I Have Not Decided Whether or Not I Will Miss When I Leave
- The oversized scary-awesome arthropods that inhabit my stairwell (good thing my roommate is so good at sweeping them down to the fourth floor)

Career Possibility 2: Travel Writer

I’m sick (Korea decided to give me a cold as a going away present…), my apartment smells like baby vomit, a gang of small red bumps is inhabiting the skin under my watch, and I visited the DMZ this weekend and desperately want to write about it, BUT…

First, I am going to continue my series on “potential jobs for Jordan” (because, let’s face it, I hate the word “career”—it is just too darn scary).

Travel writer most definitely falls under the categories of “unrealistic” and “missed the boat on that one”, but I am going to write about it anyway. From what I’ve been able to gather from various articles on job prospects in travel writing (NY Times , tips from an experienced travel writer, escape artist, salary.com, and plenty more where those came from), the job is less glamorous than it sounds, relatively low-paying, stressful, difficult, and very very awesome. The publishers of travel books have a very difficult job because they are constantly struggling to keep up with ever-changing travel information. That’s good news for writers, because they are always in demand. Some people say it is more important to be a writer than a traveler, others say the inverse, so I am going to go ahead and say: you need to love both traveling AND writing….that sounds more than obvious, right?

Ok, here is what I should have done (and I know some people told me to do this, I was a doof). As soon as I found out that my Moon Handbook: South Korea was utterly lacking when it comes to Gwangju (virtually no information on hotels, restaurants, nightlife, culture, anything), I should have written up a few sample listings, sent them in, and said “Hey, your guide could use updating in several other areas as well. I am available for other assignments”. Seriously. As the reviewers on amazon.com say, the book is overflowing with general cultural information (I think the author must be a Buddhist—it seems like all he did was visit hole-in-the-wall temples) but conspicuously void of practical information. It describes Gwangju as a “former backwater”, which is true, but now it is Korea’s fourth largest city. A little more—and I’m just asking for a little; I wouldn’t spend more than two days in Gwangju if I weren’t living here—than the obligatory “here’s the address of the Gwangju National Museum and May 18th Memorial” might be appropriate.

*Note: After re-reading my first draft of this post, I realize that I didn't fully capture my abhorrence for the Moon Handbook. I wish I had my copy in front of my so I could quote some of it's horrible-ness, but several months ago, in a moment of disgust, I fed it to some pigs. The book is clunky, unhelpful, repetitive, and irrelevant. Yes, it is exhaustive, covering tiny villages in more detail than it covers Gwangju, but if you are a foreigner heading out into the sticks it is going to be a comedy of errors no matter how many times you have read your Moon Handbook.*

Most travel book publishers are open to pitches and suggestions, so it’s worth a shot. The most “open” when it comes to unsolicited writing are probably:

Frommers
Lonely Planet
Rough Guides

Hmmm, Let’s Go only employs full-time Harvard students. New plan for becoming a travel writer: get into Harvard for grad school and spend my summers traveling and writing for Let’s Go. Just a few road-blocks in that plan, but shouldn’t be a problem…kidding!

Things I Will Not Miss When I Leave
- Getting nearly poked in the eye when a Korean stranger reaches out and tries to touch my eyebrow ring

Things I Will Miss When I Leave
- The luxury of direct inter-city busses and theme-park-esque rest stops

Things I Have Not Decided Whether or Not I Will Miss When I Leave
- Taxi and bus drivers who think they are on a NASCAR racing circuit
Pro: Every time I want to go somewhere it is like riding a roller coaster
Con: Every time I want to go somewhere it is like riding a roller coaster

Things I Will Not Miss When I Leave
- Crowded subway cars that smell like kimchee

Things I Will Miss When I Leave
- Going to an Outback Steakhouse and having a server named "Pooh" or "Boobie"

Things I Have Not Decided Whether or Not I Will Miss When I Leave
- Buying what looks like a package of 4 sticks of butter at the grocery store, only to find that it is actually one GIANT stick of butter 4 times as big as a normal stick

8 Days and Counting...

I have just over a week left before I leave Korea forever. To celebrate the event, I am starting a new daily feature.

Things I Will Not Miss When I Leave
- The sauna-like summer weather,

which makes me feel like each morning I am going for a swim (in a jacuzzi) instead of a run. I don't call it working out anymore, I just call it sweating. "I'm going out for a sweat, I'll be back in an hour!" Except...once I get back, I don't stop sweating for the rest of the day.

Things I Will Miss When I Leave
-Pat Bing Su

Things I Have Not Decided Whether or Not I Will Miss When I Leave
-The look on Korean taxi drivers' faces when I surprise them while I am running on a narrow road through a rice field and they have pulled into a ditch to urinate

Career Possibility 1: Environmental Consultant

I don’t exactly know what at environmental consultant is. Or at least, I didn’t know four days ago. I just knew it contained a word I liked, “environmental”, and a word I didn’t like, “consultant”. Similar combinations, such as “nasal” and “spray” or “poached” and “egg” have had mixed to positive results, so why not give it a shot?

According to the UK website Prospects, an environmental consultant:

“works on client contracts in areas such as water pollution, air and land contamination, environmental impact assessment, environmental audit, waste management, environmental policy, ecological/land management, noise and vibration measurement and environmental management. The sector continues to expand in response to a mix of regulation, corporate risk and reputation management. Consultants operate in a very commercial environment and senior staff may be required to help attract future clients for the business.”

So basically…an environmental consultant could do anything and everything. From other sources, I have gathered that some environmental consultants sort through masses upon masses of data, others get their boots wet tromping around in toxic spills, and others advise schools on how they can install more efficient heating systems. It all depends on where you end up, and your firm’s specialties.

Some environmental consulting firms are huge. And by huge I mean offices in 20 different countries and all 50 states. The Environmental Careers Organization has a great “Career Tips” section, and tip number 1 is, you guess at, all about careers in environmental consulting. They have a list of the "top" 65 environmental consulting firms in the United States. (Although it is unclear whether "top" means “biggest” or “best” or “highest hit on Google”.)

Of those 65, the following firms (with headquarters from Long Beach, CA to the Netherlands) have offices in the greater Boston area (yeah, I am still doing this for me, remember!). The list goes roughly from big enough to dwarf the Titanic to a sizable two-engine motor boat. Unless noted, offices are in Boston proper.

CH2M Hill Companies
IT Group
Earth Tech
Parsons Corporation
Black and Veatch
Montgomery Watson
Camp Dresser and McKee (CDM, headquartered in Cambridge)
Jacobs Engineering Group
Battelle
Tetra Tech
The ERM Group
Weston Solutions
AECOM Technology Corp.
ENSR International (headquartered in Westford, MA)
Malcolm Pirnie
HDR
Arcadis
ATC Associates
TRC Environmental
ThermoRetec Consulting (now merged with ENSR, in Concord, MA)
Conestoga-Rovers
SECOR International (Chestnut Hill, MA)
Michael Baker Corporation
Hazen and Sawyer
EA Engrg., Sci., and Tech (Southborough, MA)
LFR Levine Fricke (Braintree, MA and Lawrence, MA)
Bureau Veritas
GeoSyntec Consultants (Acton, MA)
DLZ Corporation (Waltham, MA)
Parsons Brinckerhoff (headquartered in Weston, MA)
Haley and Aldrich

After looking at all those websites, and dozens of pictures of men and women in hard hats and goggles scrutinizing plans, highways in “fast motion” with the lights all blurry, close-ups of handshakes, people sitting under bridges as the sun is setting (and yes, the sun is always setting…), aerial photographs of construction sites, clear lakes with reflections of cloud-filled blue skies, test tubes filled with jello colors, and hands holding soil that is sprouting seedlings, I think I have a better idea of what goes on at an environmental consulting firm. (Side note: only one website had annoying “intense” background music.)

Now, the next step is to see exactly what each firm specializes in (waste water management? air pollution? energy auditing?) and send out unsolicited (ah! so scary!) cover letters and resumes accordingly. This is obviously just the beginning…

P.S. An environmental consultant is not quite the same thing as an environmental engineer, which I may or may not cover some time in the near future.

Do What You Love

Another quick nod to Kaya for giving me that blogging book. Oh wait, she didn't give it to me. I checked it out of the library and it is how many days late? I'll toss that one into the pile of "things I will worry about when I get back to the US." (I can just feel my dad's skin crawling as he thinks Noooo! Stop procrastinating! Can't you renew it online?)

"Idea number 87: Do what you love.

...I asked myself, 'What do I do when I want to relax?' I like to poke around at online stores.

I decided to start a shopping blog called Mighty Goods, and people immediately responded. It's won awards from all kinds of magazines, the ads on the site do well, and I've even had offers to write about shopping for others."

--Margaret Mason, No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog

What do I do in my free time? Well, usually I just eat, but I have also been known to read, run, and step food outside on occasion. However, that is not what I'm getting at. For the past, oh, FIVE MONTHS or so I have been spending most of my free time, like Mason, poking around online. My haunts haven't been online stores (though I wish...would have probably made for a much more exciting five months), but job websites. That's right. I am addicted to monster, craigslist, idealist, and many others.

And yet...

I still have not secured a job for when I get back to the US!

Yes yes, I have identified the problem (or rather, others have identified it for me), and it is that I don't really have a focus. One day I want to be a science writer, the next a teacher, the next a geologist, the next a circus performer, and so I am having trouble just buckling down and finding opportunities.

BUT, I realized that I have been amassing a ton of information about various career paths, so I might as well share it with the world.

Or I'll probably just get lazy and watch episodes of The Office for the third time...

All right, FBI, where are all those job offers?

Ok, this made me laugh. Here are the "off the beaten path" ideas from an online career test I took. (Can you tell that I am having trouble with this whole finding a job thing?)

Book Reviewer
Travel Guide Writer
Cartoonist
Magazine Freelance Writer
Wilderness Adventure Guide
Rancher
Forest Firefighter
Beach Lifeguard
Motivational Speaker
Masters of Ceremony
Set Designer for Amusement Park
Las Vegas Performer
Handwriting Analyst
FBI Language Specialist
Video Game Tester
Environmental Hazards Tester


My favorite one is Las Vegas performer. Sin City, here I come!