Head case

 Lately, the title of this blog has been a bit of a tease. I know you click in anticipation of witty comments about flat tires and roadkill, investigative reporting on the latest gears and scandalous sitings of men in white bike shorts. At last, I will quench your thirst for cyclecommentary with an insight into the hottest trend in Australian helmet decorating, zipties.

That's right! Zipties, those snappy strips of plastic, the ones that are seem like they are going to be really useful when you buy the pack of 100. Then you use one once and the rest haunt you by finding their way into the bottom of every bag and drawer you own. Australian cyclists on the other hand, have found a way to put them to good (?) use.
I couldn’t manage to get a photo so here is an artistic rendering.

A wide range of Australian cyclists sport these ornamental helmets; young, old, men, women, racing bikes, mountain bikes and commuters. They attach them with the spare trimable bit sticking up like a spike (see sketch above). Some helmets have as few as five while others have at least twenty-five. Zipties may be a variety of colors. I saw black, grey, blue, and white.

In my 10 days of keen observation, I have concluded that these plastic antennae are attached for decorative purposes only. This conclusion is scientifically supported by the failure of other hypotheses. Here is a list of my other hypotheses and reasons why they failed:

1) lightning rods   -   zipties are made of plastic
2) radio    -    again, plastic lacks receptive properties
3) signal of gang affiliation  -   wide range of demographics sporting zipties -  zipties are not very intimidating
4) halloween -  not a popular holiday in Australia -  would be crap costume
5) deter birds from building nests- there is an abundance of superior nest
building sites  - birds generally like stationary nests.
6) helmet anti-theft device- how would a flexible strip of plastic deter greedy helmet burglars?

The only question that remains is, will this aussie fad catch on in other places? The answer is, probably. When it does, just remember that you heard about it here first, on the hippest blog that is almost about cycling.

The rest of the world

I am doing some work with one of my professors. We are looking at incorporating intercultural understanding into foreign language learning. As a result, I have been thinking about the cultural assumptions that I had of the rest of the world when I was growing up. When I was very young my parents had Greek friends. I was jealous of their frilly toilet seat covers and it made me feet special to know them and the fancy names for the casseroles they made. For me, culture was delicious food. But, things got more complicated in grade school. There was one hispanic girl in our class. She was nice and also a Jehova’s witness. This distinction between ethnicity and religion was lost on the 9 year old me. I thought all hispanics had to leave the classroom whenever someone brought cupcakes for their birthday. I middle school I quickly realized this was not the case.

However, I think my first real insight into foreign culture was the winter olympics in Albertville, France. It was 1992 and my parents had just ended our family's tv abstinence program and I stayed up late and watched the opening ceremonies on a 12 inch screen in the corner of our living room. I was in awe of the bizarre costumes, bungy acrobats and dichordant melodies. Anyone who dared be that unconventional would be ridiculed out of my midsized American city. Shortly thereafter I started wearing birkenstocks, because European equalled cool, and it was all downhill from there. Four years later, to the dismay of my teachers who warned that I was throwing away my future, I went to Spain as an exchange student. Over the past 14 years I have only managed to live in the US for whopping 3.5 years. I have often talked of moving back, and am ever curious about how that might go.

Writing up a storm

Academic writing is a calculated yet magical process. Yesterday one of my classmates asked me about my writing process and I couldn’t really articulate it. I do all the typical things; make notes, outline. Then I cut and paste the notes into the outline and try to shape paragraphs. And somewhere along the line a synthesis occurs. Ideas start to bloom and arguments wind through the string of references, ‘howevers’ and ‘moreovers’.

Lately, after the crafty cohesion of ideas occur, I like to deconstruct the whole thing into a word cloud. Its punishment really to see the carefully constructed style evaporate as the most frequent words are stacked against each other in the color scheme of my choice. I always wonder if someone could just guess what I was after just by looking at the word cloud? Can you? Here is the latest one.

Time to think

Brain space is in demand these days as the trimester comes to a close this month. I've been thinking about posting something, but haven't been able to think of what. The only news here is that winter has come and my feet are cold. Oh the laundry is done. I've got to hang it up before I run off to the library.

Restin'

Trimester 1 is half over and I have just finished another assignment. I'm often surprised at how much I actually get done considering the park nearby is a perfect procrastination destination. This sign (on a bench at the park) in particular inspires slack writing. I think the relaxed nature of the prose is perfectly appropriate for a park bench. I think McLuhan would approve too. I also think that if he read some of my assignments, he would recommend I take a walk in the park.

New Zealand is for the Birds

New Zealand is for the birds. It's true. I'm not talking about the crap weather or how the man who renewed my visa wore an 'I heart beer' t-shirt. I'm not talking about how no one wears shoes or the way everyone gives each other their bank account numbers. I'm talking about actual birds.

I've never really paid too much attention to birds. Years ago, Val and I made a list of dealbreakers (things we wouldn't tolerate in potential partners). Birdwatching was somewhere in the top ten. I vaguely remember the reasoning was that someone who would sit around waiting for a bird to fly by was not the kind of proactive go-getter we were looking for.

Birdwatching in New Zealand is different. There is no waiting. They are everywhere. Once upon a time they ran the place. Our new apartment is near a big park and a wildlife sanctuary. As a result, there are lots of really cool birds around.

This is a tui call.

The Girl with the Bicycle

It's a Sunday morning in Wellington, a girl wipes the morning dew off her bike seat. She rides through a tunnel and down a hill into town. The girl has a blue backpack and stops at the market to fill it with the last of the summer's peaches, a cucumber and a carrot. The girl knows that putting off the uphill ride home by stopping for a coffee won't make the trek any easier but she ducks into a cafe anyway. The man at the hissing coffee machine empties the old grinds with a thunk and clinks the cups as the girl sits down. The man with striped sweater at the next table gets up to leave. He leaves his newspaper on the round wooden seat. The girl with the bicycle and the backpack full of peaches picks it up and reads while she drinks her coffee. A page from the arts section is mixed in with the world news. The girl notices the bestseller lists. Three of the top five have very similar titles. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest, and The Girl who something else that she girl with the coffee has never heard of. Couldn't they think of a better title? she wonders.