Two weekends ago, I explored the
road running along Moginie Village, a highway that inhabits sheep and dairy
farms. I set off after reading and writing for what seemed like hours to me in
my room.
This Saturday morning was quiet in our flat, the loneliness of it manifested in the hollow echo of the hallway, made known to me as I walked the short, carpeted distance to the exit door.
The sun was shining blindingly as I stepped out onto the miniscule foyer that greets entrants paying a visit, a fact I hadn’t understood from the darkness of my bedroom. Cushioned at the far side of the flat, my room is hidden from view by the bushes that protect me from being seen by people crossing the courtyard, and thus doesn’t see direct sunlight. From the vantage point of my room, my senses were deceived, as I discovered.
Walking briskly, taking care to step away from the cars racing down the highway, I pursued the distance with a vengeance, like a woman with a mission to learn what was on the other side. I approached a sign orienting my location in Palmerston North to surrounding towns: Masterton, 28 kilometers; Levin 18 kilometers. Was I going in either direction?
After walking for what seemed like hours, I finally descended upon another valley, which dipped up and over another hump. A sign attached to a wooden fence read Silver Fern Farm. Unknown to me of the distance I had fastwalked, I asked a little girl living in the house on the farm how to get into town. She said, “you have to keep walking that way,” in her soft New Zealand accent. I followed the direction of her finger and began to see familiar sights, ane eventually a roadsign directing me back to Massey University.
This December was busy, filled with activity, one in particular of great importance to me (the Agrifood Network Conference), where I learned that early scholars can start networking and showcasing their research that was, like me, beginning to materialize in the early stages. I learned that conferences are a good place to do that and a good place to network with more senior scholars. I hope to present my findings at the XXI Agrifood Network conference. The venue of that one will be decided at the one next year, which will be in Melbourne, Australia.
The conference was new to me, but it exposed me to the food network research goings on in Oceania and Southeast Asia. Massey University, being a land grant, agricultural research university, is right in the thick of it. Massey U has some of the highest funded food research projects in the country, I discovered. The topics on provenance and Bourdieu’s habitus engendered some fresh perspectives for me, revelations that are always good for researchers – like a fresh breeze after a moment of stale, dinner wind. The food security scholarship, which I have been re-reading . . . and re-reading, and re-reading . . . was starting to feel like the latter to me after polishing up my book manuscript over the last three years. Needless to say, my literature review is proceeding and progressing much better than I thought. I spent the last week doing more re-writes, becoming almost obsessive over “getting it right” that I couldn’t move to the section on planning, which is important to establishing the planning perspective in my intended research.
I finally got the Christmas care package from my folks in Massachusetts this afternoon. Tropical nuts are sold by the grams here and are too expensive for my student budget, so seeing these nuts in my care box was very exciting. The dried fruit are an added plus.
I read Yahoo and CNN to stay on top of news in America. My heart broke, along with everyone else’s, after learning about the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. Those beloved children. New Zealand also experienced a gun massacre in Ala Moana beach, which changed gun ownership laws around the country. There has not been another gun massacre since the legislative change. Something to think about for American policymakers and voters.
This Saturday morning was quiet in our flat, the loneliness of it manifested in the hollow echo of the hallway, made known to me as I walked the short, carpeted distance to the exit door.
The sun was shining blindingly as I stepped out onto the miniscule foyer that greets entrants paying a visit, a fact I hadn’t understood from the darkness of my bedroom. Cushioned at the far side of the flat, my room is hidden from view by the bushes that protect me from being seen by people crossing the courtyard, and thus doesn’t see direct sunlight. From the vantage point of my room, my senses were deceived, as I discovered.
Walking briskly, taking care to step away from the cars racing down the highway, I pursued the distance with a vengeance, like a woman with a mission to learn what was on the other side. I approached a sign orienting my location in Palmerston North to surrounding towns: Masterton, 28 kilometers; Levin 18 kilometers. Was I going in either direction?
After walking for what seemed like hours, I finally descended upon another valley, which dipped up and over another hump. A sign attached to a wooden fence read Silver Fern Farm. Unknown to me of the distance I had fastwalked, I asked a little girl living in the house on the farm how to get into town. She said, “you have to keep walking that way,” in her soft New Zealand accent. I followed the direction of her finger and began to see familiar sights, ane eventually a roadsign directing me back to Massey University.
This December was busy, filled with activity, one in particular of great importance to me (the Agrifood Network Conference), where I learned that early scholars can start networking and showcasing their research that was, like me, beginning to materialize in the early stages. I learned that conferences are a good place to do that and a good place to network with more senior scholars. I hope to present my findings at the XXI Agrifood Network conference. The venue of that one will be decided at the one next year, which will be in Melbourne, Australia.
The conference was new to me, but it exposed me to the food network research goings on in Oceania and Southeast Asia. Massey University, being a land grant, agricultural research university, is right in the thick of it. Massey U has some of the highest funded food research projects in the country, I discovered. The topics on provenance and Bourdieu’s habitus engendered some fresh perspectives for me, revelations that are always good for researchers – like a fresh breeze after a moment of stale, dinner wind. The food security scholarship, which I have been re-reading . . . and re-reading, and re-reading . . . was starting to feel like the latter to me after polishing up my book manuscript over the last three years. Needless to say, my literature review is proceeding and progressing much better than I thought. I spent the last week doing more re-writes, becoming almost obsessive over “getting it right” that I couldn’t move to the section on planning, which is important to establishing the planning perspective in my intended research.
I finally got the Christmas care package from my folks in Massachusetts this afternoon. Tropical nuts are sold by the grams here and are too expensive for my student budget, so seeing these nuts in my care box was very exciting. The dried fruit are an added plus.
I read Yahoo and CNN to stay on top of news in America. My heart broke, along with everyone else’s, after learning about the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. Those beloved children. New Zealand also experienced a gun massacre in Ala Moana beach, which changed gun ownership laws around the country. There has not been another gun massacre since the legislative change. Something to think about for American policymakers and voters.
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