Category: geography

The PSU Geography Department sent me a letter of pre-approval today; saying that if the school’s admissions accepted me, they too would accept me. Pending the school’s decision, I can get smart.

I’m pretty excited, and look forward to fall term.

I mailed in my application to PSU and sent requests for letters of recommendation today. I developed a fear of impinging upon other’s time, so its always hard to ask for things like letters of recommendation. I was told that’s part of the territory, so hopefully the professors aren’t too troubled.

Now I’ve got to get my second application to the department. This one includes a resume and a personal statement. I was having problems with the personal statement, so I started writing a funny one to warm up. I’m almost tempted to use it because it is interesting, and shows good cause for going to graduate school. I’ll post it after I’ve edited it for crass language.

During one of the snow days last week, riddled with cabin fever, Michelle started reorganizing the office. It was quite a task, and many items were added to the “get rid of” pile. To show my support for the cause, I let Barley play with a very out of date globe. He destroyed it. It was funny.

Yesterday I drove Scott’s car home from Tacoma (long story). It was a lot of fun driving a stick again, but I only drove a total of 3 miles off the interstate. Once on I-5, I pretty much kept a cruising speed of 70mph. Didn’t need to shift much.

Driving back, I noticed half the cars going south had Oregon plates. They also had UofO stickers everywhere. It seems Oregon lost to Washington the night before. So maybe these folks weren’t in a great mood.

Shortly before I got back to Portland I passed a minivan with a bumper sticker that started “Social Studies…” but I couldn’t read the fine print below. So I made up some fine print items.

Social Studies:

• “Because understanding other cultures is cheaper than bombing them”
• “Its good to know other places to stick your head other than up your own ass”
• “Africa isn’t a country”
• “There’s a reason Wal-mart sells that stuff so cheap”
• “No – its not the class where you take naps”
• “Some day you’ll wish you’d paid attention when you’re forced to live like nomads because your city has been leveled (See first sticker)”

Please feel free to add more. I know I will.

Early geographers spent a good deal of their time traveling and writing about their experiences. One prolific explorer and author, Idrisi, chronicled his 75,000 miles of travels. Imagine how helpful blogging would have been for him. A nice content management system, a laptop, and a satellite modem would have been a good way to report from the field. Some of his descriptions were the first to reach the the new world, including detailed depictions of cities like Mogadishu.

During lunch yesterday I picked up a copy of Architectural Record, which had a piece about Megaburbs. Not a new concept, but the point is we’ve outgrown the term suburb. Suburbs were outer communities that required a central city for survival. Today’s suburbs have all the same utilities, centers, governments, and problems of their original cities, so they have no need for central cities. They have become Megaburbs.

Sadly most have developed without any overall plan of organization, or at least a coherent one. Just ask yourself – Am I in Beaverton? Am I in Tigard? Is this Sherwood? How will I know?

The author readily admits that its an unwieldy word which isn’t meant for common use. What to call them than? Leeches that have recently discovered autonomy? Cities? Single-story max? Drive-ins? Teenagers? Mall-towns? Next 3 exits? C’mon, you’ve probably got some.