“Home is where the heart is,” so said Pliny the Elder. Home need not consist of a physical place, a city or location one can visit or the material structure in which a person grew up or currently inhabits. Rather, home comes to exist more as an emotion, a feeling of belonging and comfort, of safety and welcome, a space–be it physical or mental–one can claim as one’s own. However, when asked to describe home and what it means to me I find myself grappling to identify one single physical location, thinking of the houses in which I have lived (four in total, though only three of which I honestly remember), my dorm rooms this and last semester, the three states and four cities I have inhabited. In each of those places I can clearly picture my house (or the dorm building), my room, the environment just outside, the people and rooms and structures nearby, and I almost feel compelled to identify one as unequivocally home. The problem is, when I really consider home, which in itself is quite a charged word loaded with myriad connotations, nothing stands out as my one true home. I can talk ad naseaum about the different places in which I lived at one point or another, and I can turn right around and launch into a discussion about how home need not be a place but can instead take the form of people or feelings or smells or air temperatures or the taste of the tap water.

i just wanted to let everyone know that my web event that was due today is a private post, so you'll have to be logged in to see it.

and since it was a private post, it didn't let me post pictures in it so here are two maps I referred to:

Shamial Ahmad

ENG 216: Re-Creating Our World

January 25th, 2014

Home and Belonging

            ‘”Where are you from?””  This question no matter how often it may be asked of me always throws me off a little bit. Where am I, Shamial as a person from? Well, that could be a lot of places. I could be from the city that never sleeps, the concrete jungle that replaced my parents native land of Pakistan when they migrated to the United States. I could say I’m from New York City since that was where I was born. OR perhaps I could even say I’m from down south. Andalusia, Alabama, my home for 5 years; population 9,000.  My most distinct memory of Alabama was the pond in our backyard that I would throw things in my when parents weren’t looking. There was just something appealing to 5 year old Shamial seeing rocks, sticks, and one time my Juicy Juice juice box, be at the  top of the pond and then sink to the bottom.  And the most wonderful swing I had hanging for a large tree in our front yard.  I also vividly remember that tree having fallen on top of our garage when Hurricane Opal came through. We moved a little after that.

Many of my friends envision bright futures for themselves living in cities like DC or Boston, or Madrid or London, working for non-profits or law firms or architecture companies during the day, and exploring the sleek streets by night. A good existence to be sure. 

But when I shut my eyes and imagine where I’d like to be, I conjure up images of a yurt placed softly on harsh fields of tundra and dark basalt, a delicate scent of ocean intermingling with the perfume of anticipation as rock and soil emanate that one smell only found right before it rains. The sky is lightly grey and overcast, but not without light or warmth. My fingers feel slightly cold while my cheeks are warm with mild windburn, lungs invigorated as they sip fresh cool atmosphere. My booted feet move with the excitement of places unknown, almost dancing as they tread rhythmically across the land. Exploration calls, and my smile widens. Now if only the leafy greens, avocado tree, and fresh strawberries I also imagine planting in that cool damp earth could flourish as much as my hopeful dreams… Potatoes it is.

Home and Belonging

I am from stacks of books

From hiking boots and oversized raincoats

I am from the high desert,

the scent of fresh air and dog and cat hair.

I am from the mountains and rivers,

the juniper trees

whose limbs I remember as if they were my own.

I am from PBS and NPR,

from Vietnamese music videos

from 52 cousins, laughter, and loud Irish Catholic family reunions.

I am from public libraries, hikes and bike rides.

I am from “Orygun not Ore-gone”

and the wisdom I have admired in my older brother

I am from Monopoly and “Jungle School”

from Oregon and Ireland

from my grandfather’s photos

and the diary entries stored under my bed.

Re-Creating our World

Quid Pro Quo

Growing up I was always confused, not just about the common mommy where did I come from, but also why did my family seem different from everyone else’s. They talked about family game nights and I really couldn’t wrap my mind around what it meant to hold a strong family bond. I’d watch TV and the concept of home being a safe space seemed bizarre.

Home, for many is known to be a place of comfort, a safe space, but for me it’s never been a place I wanted to be. Ever since I can remember, I’d be absorbed with school or any extra curricular activities just to avoid being home. I wasn’t involved in my community because I wanted to be a model citizen or a well rounded over achiever student, I just wanted out. Home has never really been a place I’d like to stay for the day, it’s just somewhere I can sleep. It hasn’t been a place of comfort and I’m always trying to get out, hence the out of state college decision.

I’d walk around bitter and to be honest, I was envious of my friends and or anyone for that matter that at the end of the night could go home as their sanctuary. Ultimately my drive and incentives to avoid spending any time at home drove me to The Chinquapin School. When time came to leave Elementary School, rather than automatically following after a lot of my peers to the nearest neighborhood Middle School, I looked for better options, anything that would swallow me away from my house.

In a world of crowdsourcing and community-based expertise, it's easy to access reviews on everything from products, to services, to restaurants. As the Chronicle of Higher Education describes it, potential users looking to evaluate education technology now have a site of their own: Software PhD, a newly-created website designed to allow vendors and educators to share, discuss, and frankly opine about educational technology. For new users looking to find and buy products, Software PhD has a rating section where you can compare both company and product ratings to make better-informed purchasing decisions. The ratings are broken up into a (presumably expanding, given the site's relative youth) system of categories, including Catalog & Curriculum Management, Scheduling, and Retention & Advising, among others. While anyone can browse reviews, it takes a registered account to write reviews and to use the forum section. By requiring registration, creator Mark Baker hoped to inspire some transparency: while users are not required to provide their names, they are required to identify their institutions. As a result, all reviewers are "trusted reviewers" in some way. The site boasts less than 400 active users so far, but as it grows so too will its power to provide a comprehensive buying guide.

Feb. 8 @ Haverford. See details on the attached poster....

ECON 136:  Week 2 Tasks

Monday (postponed from January 24):   Community Profiles:  Counting what we can Measure

Preparing for class:

Take a few minutes to brainstorm a list of the sort of facts you would want to know about a community you might be visiting or where a friend lives.  The rest of your preparation will consist of looking at what others think is important to note about communities.   Note on the sheet with your list those items you did not include and items and items others failed to include.

Read this profile of Camden’s Water Front South neighborhood http://www.heartofcamden.org/publish/community_about.html

which our Eco-Literacy 360 group visited on Monday.

Read the attached profile of West Nottingham Township, where David Ross lives

Go to http://factfinder2.census.gov, enter West Nottingham township, Chester County, Pennsylvania in the search box and note the sort of community data collected by the US Census Bureau.

After Class:

Start thinking about the Profiling Your Community Assignment (attached) due February 3.