Reminder to self. Because everyone needs a reminder from time to time. (via)
And with that, I’m heading out to enjoy the weekend. Enjoy the sunshine and warm weather!
Squandrous
Hullo. I'm Sameer Vasta and this is a brain dump, of sorts. Basically, a holding place for anything that piques my interest and makes me want to share.
You can subscribe via RSS. You can also check out the archives. Or, you can just talk to me. I like hearing from you.
You can subscribe via RSS. You can also check out the archives. Or, you can just talk to me. I like hearing from you.
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
Anne Bradstreet (via)
Sometimes, I get the urge to put on pajamas, turn on some cheesy pop music, and dance with my plush toys until I’m exhausted and then crawl into bed under my amazingly warm and comfortable wool blanket and fall into a deep sleep with a smile on my face.
Right now is one of those times.
The belly is an ungrateful wretch, it never remembers past favors, it always wants more tomorrow.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (via)
I leave Washington DC to move back to Toronto in exactly ten days. (Yes, there’s a pink post-it countdown on my wall.)
While I’m glad to return back to Toronto, to go back home and be with people I love, I’m not completely glad to be leaving DC. Washington DC is a beautiful city, with lots of culture and character — and I’ve made so many good friends here. I’m excited to move back home, but I will miss my DC friends and colleagues dearly. I hope they come visit me up north.
With that said, let the countdown begin:
10 more days!
(If you like the DC poster above, all the travel posters by The Heads of State are absolutely stunning. Too bad they don’t make one for Toronto.)
It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.
Vita Sackville-West (via)
[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]
On our way back from Chicago in early January, Maria decided to play with the Brushes app on my iPhone. One of the drawings she made was the view from outside the airplane window. The drawing was so well done, you’d have no idea it was her first time using the app.
Here’s the final image:
I was just going back over some of the drawings I have stored in Brushes, and found that first drawing that she made. The video at the top of this post is a look at how she drew it, stroke by stroke (sped up) — and it reminds me of her sitting there on the plane next to me, moving her finger intently across the screen.
A small but lovely memory that always makes me smile.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Monday night, I was invited to take part in the tenth anniversary show of 20x2 in Austin. For those of you that don’t know, 20x2 is an event where 20 people have two minutes to answer a question. This year, the question was “Who Loves Ya, Baby?”
Some people read stories, some people played music, some people showed videos, and some people brought the funny. Me? I decided to go back to my roots and perform some poetry on stage. It had been a while since I last performed, so I was a bit shaky, a bit nervous, but all in all, it went really well.
The audio clip here is a practice run of the piece, Fanfare, that I performed on Monday night. The actual video or audio from the performance isn’t available just yet, but I’ll let you know when it is. If you’re looking for the text of the poem, I shared it on I Tell Stories on Monday, so you can check it out there.
Something you must know:
With every day that passes,
I will love you more.
With every day that passes,
I will love you more.
What if all 300,000,000 Americans lived in one place, packed as densely as Brooklyn?
Wow, this is quite shocking — though I’m not sure that Brooklyn has the ideal population density.
I’d like to see this plotted for Canada. We’d all probably be able to fit in a small town at that density.
(via)
I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have
been changed several times since then.
Awesome. (via)
Maybe I’ve changed.
I’m a little scared of revolving doors. Insects? They creep me out. I may not be totally comfortable with extreme heights. You know what I’ve never had a problem with?
People.
All my life, I’ve thrived on people. I’ve been at ease in large crowds. I made friends easily. Public speaking was my favorite activity apart from eating and sleeping. I would often go to parties where I didn’t know anyone (just the host, of course) to meet new people and extend my network.
Large conferences? I thrived on large conferences. I would slip in and out of social groups, have intense discussions with strangers, and generally feel at ease with a mass of unknown people around me.
People, especially large groups of people, invigorated me.
Maybe I’ve changed.
I’m at SXSW right now and while I’ve been okay in the large crowd, I’ve constantly been looking for space, for time to escape. Right now, I’m back at my hotel room catching up on my Google Reader unread items and enjoying some alone time — this has been the best hour I’ve spent since arriving in Austin.
It’s not that I’m not having fun, or that I’m not meeting (or reconnecting with) some wonderful friends, or that I’m not learning from the stories and experiences of the people around me. It’s just that recently I’ve been recognizing an acute need to spend time on my own, to separate myself from the hubbub and chaos of the world that surrounds me — not just at SXSW or at other conferences, but in everyday life.
Maybe I’m turning into an introvert. Maybe I’m getting old. Maybe I just like myself a little more these days and see value in spending time with me.
I still love public speaking, meeting new people, and hanging out with groups of friends. I’ve just realized that I really love crawling under the covers and reading a good magazine on my own, or even spending time with a loved one, in relative silence doing our own thing, each of us alone but together at the same time.
Maybe I’ve changed. And I’m okay with that.
Higher education has fascinated me for years, mainly because I think the whole institutional machine behind university education is broken and needs drastic change, soon. Apparently I’m not the only one.
This presentation by Peg Faimon and Glenn Platt at SXSW Interactive this year was excellent. They didn’t say anything too ground-breaking, but they did frame the issue in a way that is accessible and easy to understand. If you’ve been wondering about the ups and downs of university education as it stands now, this presentation is a good primer.
Oh, and this isn’t only relevant to universities. Many of the issues they talk about can apply to heavy academic organizations as well: think tanks, research institutions, and knowledge-based not-for-profits (like my current employer).
