Here goes, a quick pre-cap of my summer in Ecuador. It’d be foolish to say that what I’m writing actually reflects what is going to happen: I have no doubt that research questions will change, contacts will fall through, and plans will go awry. If anything, I think this will serve as a monument to… Continue reading The Project, Part I: Theory
For all intents and purposes, I finished my term on Thursday—the day before my final exam—when I gave up on studying, unable to convince myself anymore that learning to do ANOVA statistical tests by hand or to ramble about epistemological approaches to ethnography had anything to do with, well, anything. Paul Willis, a Professor at… Continue reading Adventures Under the Midnight(ish) Sun
At the start of June, the New York Times published a piece by Jake Halpern called “The Freegan Establishment” on a group of radicals near-and-dear to my heart. While some might be less-than-enthusiastic about being the person that comes to mind when the issue of eating trash comes up, I was quite flatterd to have… Continue reading Not (Quite) Buying It
As far as I can tell, about three weeks before exams, most Oxford students cease to be human beings. No, really: having an exam within the next month is a universally accepted excuse for abandoning all commitments and getting out of anything, ranging from rowing practice to doing the dishes. Somehow, though, I seem to… Continue reading So, this is learning
This is, most definitely, not the blog post I was hoping to write on this topic. A few weeks ago, the Worcester College MCR—the graduate student government—debated a “Meatless Mondays” resolution, which would urge our dining hall to go vegetarian for one day a week. Initially, the people who drafted our motion couched it in… Continue reading Vegetarian Mumbo Jumbo
Back for one weekend only, by popular demand: Feeling a tad aged on my birthday, and consumed with fear of becoming a bit too predictable (or maybe it was just how temptingly long I had let my hair grow out?), I decided to re-shave a mohawk last weekend. It was a lovely 48 hours of… Continue reading Blast from the Past
Here’s an exciting life update: I broke my wrist. I’m not going to go into how it happened, except to state that it did not involve alcohol and that my cover story is that it involved a fight with zombie ninja pirates. Not a huge deal, but definitely a frustrating and unneeded at a stressful… Continue reading Broken Bones and Open Borders
It seems almost ridiculous that I’ve lived in England for eight months now and haven’t yet blogged about the one thing more British than bangers and mash: alcohol. Having just barely survived “my” birthday garden party and finally recovered from last week’s Boat Club Dinner, I suppose now is as good a time as any… Continue reading A Brief Sociology of Social Lubrication
Somewhat against my better judgment, I turned twenty-three yesterday. Anyone who reads this regularly knows that I’ve been going through a bit of existential angst about where my life is heading lately. Yesterday was a nice switch, a chance to take a step back and think about where, in the last year, I’ve been. As… Continue reading Twenty Three
Elena Kagan is officially better than me at everything. First off, there’s the fact that she’s a soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice. There was a time in my life where I thought I was destined for something like that—I said in my 9th grade yearbook that I wanted to go to Princeton and become a U.S.… Continue reading Elena, Grandpa, and I
Alex V. Barnard - Sociology 