History, Time, and Creating a Future.

To put it short I have a long list of hobbies. They range from reading to video games to hiking. I think this all comes down to my biggest hobby; Exploring. I would rather spend my money going somewhere new and feeling what others have felt, to hear what they heard and to see what they saw. If professional world traveller was a position I would take it, but realistically it isn't and I don't have the money to sustain travelling forever. To make up for it I found different mediums to explore through and history is the biggest. I pick up a different book anand it allows me to jumbp into a different world and explore different ideas.

I see history as the study of time. Sure it might be different locations in time, but lets be real, what is better than reading the accounts that happened and were amazing. History is wierd though  because people generally see it as only the past, but it isn', all time iss going to be history, so we should see the world as we want it and send it in that direction the best that we can. Time is completely interactive. I think that is why, I am a part of the LAKES project; I need to do something to change the historical future.

All of my research up to this point has been in some way about changing the future and people relationship to the world and others in its future. My previous research was an exploratory study on how university students recognize structures of violence. The idea was that I would eventually find out about students understandings and find a way to educate them. The research needs to be continued even at this point because it doesn't have the implementation that I want for it to be impactful to the future.

Overall, I would say that my hobbies impact the way that I research, because I always want to see a different future by the time I am done with the research, I am doing. My hobbies are about exploring and history is how I often access exploration. It takes me to worlds of truth and time that I can research to work towards a different future.

Farmers: What do they Need?

Meta-cognition was the topic for discussion in the week two blog posts, but I totally zoned out writing up a post, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about the topic through my day to day experiences in the LAKES program.

My research project for this summer is to survey farmers and make a social network graph based off of the information that we get back from the survey, but to be honest, I have no clue what that entails at this point. Right now I am learning that farmers are very busy people and aren’t always around to take a survey. Sometimes they are willing, but they are too tired from another hard day’s work and only a little to take from it. I think that we are going to learn from the farmers that they need help to implement a lot of the best management practices that we are surveying them on, so I hope we are all up to the task, because this isn’t there job alone. If these people are putting vegetables on our tables, gas in our cars, and meat and dairy in our bellies, the least we can do is help them implement these best management practices. What I want to learn more about this summer is what help these farmers want or need to implement these practices efficiently and effectively. The way that I see it currently, is that we are asking these farmers to provide for us then we tell them how they should do it. My biggest hope is to capture this in my research to get farmers and willing volunteers on board to help them.

I plan to do this first by creating a social network graph for the farmers with the data that I receive back from the surveys. First of all, we need to know what the farmer needs to implement these practices. I think we will gather from our incentives section and landowner assistance sections of the surveys what they need and who they need it from. Then I can ask for some interdisciplinary help and see if other surveys captured public’s willingness to help the farmers in the way they need it to fix OUR watershed.

An Old Impression, Reinvented

My first impression of Menomonie, Wisconsin,  is an old impression. I first arrived here in the Fall of 2012, as a freshman in the Applied Mathematics and Computer Science Major. I was ready to do my work and leave with a degree and a job, but then things changed. I noticed education isn't just about taking a few classes and expanding my job skill, and instead it is about interacting with your environment to gain life and worldly skills. I soon switched major's for Applied Social Science with a focus in History and Politics and picked up a minor in Applied Peace Studies. My story of impressions really starts here at this point because I actually started to see what Menomonie really has to offer. There are plenty of outdoor activities that I could do at various parks inside and outside of town. I noticed the happy townies doing their crazy little festivals, music, and farmer's markets and began to notice how tight knit this town was. But after I saw it, I kind of just forgot about all of the wonderful experiences Menomonie has to offer. With the arrival of all of the 9 other REU Students, I noticed the Menomonie that I had forgotten about the last year.