Traveling Insights: An Inside Perspective

After getting lost a few times using the tram my first couple days in Melbourne, I had the pleasure of accompanying Brad on his runs for OzHarvest , an organization that works to reduce food waste by redistributing food that would otherwise be thrown away to various charities across Melbourne.  I wish I could provide you with a map of everywhere we went to pick up and drop of food, because we racked up quite a few miles between 8 and 4:30. One of the most important parts of a food system that is often forgotten is the end of product's lifecycle.  In this case, it might be food items taken to patients in a hospital but which aren't consumed and left unopened, too-ripe mangoes in the produce section of Coles or Woolworths (known as the two biggest grocers in Australia), day-old pastries from a bakery, or browning bananas from Aldi.  Having read many times about food waste in America (check out this article from Food Tank for some good insight into how much we actually

Rather than bore you with a play-by-play of my trip, I've decided to dedicate a theme to each post while in Australia to give you a sense of the culture and how it compares to some of the research that I've been doing through the University of Kansas over the past couple of semesters.  Knowing how I got here requires a bit of background. I was accepted into the McNair Scholars program last spring, which is a pipeline program for minority, first-gen, low-income students to earn doctoral degrees.  I'll admit that I applied to the program on a whim, not really knowing what I would do after graduation, but thinking that at least having the option to go to graduate school (or, to be quite honest, to understand what a graduate degree is) would be beneficial, even if I didn't follow through.  I went into it having tentative plans to spend the year after graduation in Ireland (more on that later). McNair allowed me to go to Minnesota.  It also showed me how the graduate sc

I suppose that before I get too far into writing about my first week in Australia, I should catch my readers up on the last five months or so.  In my last post I said that I would be writing about my insights from my trip to Arizona.  I ended up arriving back home only a day or two before my fall classes started at KU, and I just didn't make it a priority.  I will admit, I thought a lot about my time in Arizona throughout the semester, especially in conjunction with my environmental law course, where we looked at expansion over time into the western U.S. and the impacts that large water projects had on the desert's habitability and the ways that the location of national parks influenced who lobbied on behalf of public lands protection. First and foremost, spending time in Prescott was a much needed reprieve from the hustle and bustle of my trip to Minnesota.  I didn't realize how much I was doing until I took a moment to relax and realized that I was overwhelming my sche

Hi there, Looking back at my last post on this blog, I realize that I had two drafts going to talk about my last day on my trip to Italy.  When I think back on that time, almost a year ago now, I am stunned at how much I have grown intellectually since then.  So let me catch you up in a few paragraphs, and then I'll get into the real meat of this post--my visit to the University of Minnesota last week to explore their Masters in Urban and Regional Planning Program. Rewind to last September...The thing that comes to mind is a steep learning curve about myself and my preferences for the kind of life I want to lead.  Not at all what I expected from my attendance at an international conference about Slow Food.  Excited upon my return, I emailed someone about starting a Slow Food Chapter in Lawrence, and missed the date of a webinar which would have introduced me to the process of getting one going. Fast-forward to December.  I've turned in my applications for the Udall Schol