Tag Archives: technology

3101, 2019

Organics for the Care for our Common Home

debs/ January 31, 2019

This semester I have the opportunity to formalize some of my past year’s gardening experience by taking the Organic Master Gardener online course through Gaia College. This weekend I had the privilege of attending Guelph Organic Conference. Both activities were mutually informative and are giving me a lot to think about (so much so that I have to write about it!) and I am so grateful that my employers would sponsor my personal and professional development in these ways.

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3008, 2018

Field Notes from this Season of Vegetable Growing

debs/ August 30, 2018

In the days following our high school graduation, my friends and I sat in a circle on a patch of lawn beside the school’s science wing where so many memories were made, feeling the weight of going our separate ways and savouring the last moments of normalcy. One of us suggested that we go around the circle brainstorming/imagining each others’ futures–where would so-and-so be in 10 years time?  For some, we could unanimously envision specific accomplishments and lifestyles. Other futures provoked theory and debate, or teasing and banter.

My future? It drew blanks.

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0905, 2018

Notes from this Semester of Human Becoming

debs/ May 9, 2018

Before it happened, I simultaneously (a) fantasized about and (b) dreaded finding out what kind of adult I would become.

(a) I fantasized because, observing the adult world had been a marathon of “I would never do/care/like that when I become and adult!” and now I FINALLY get to make my own choices and be the adult I have always told myself I would become.

(b) I dreaded it because, in amassing a list of mantras, faux-pas, instructions on how (not) to be an adult (dedicated to adult debbie, courtesy of childhood debbie), I imposed on myself the herculean burden of becoming the adult that my childhood self would have looked up to.

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0512, 2017

Making shadow work work for me

debs/ December 5, 2017

“Shadow work is all the unpaid for labour done in a wage-based economy.”
Shadow work includes: commuting to work, doing the laundry, figuring out how to use self-checkout at the grocery store…

All this unaccounted for labour adds mental strain, called decision fatigue, to our already very exhaustive mental energy. Life hacks that limit shadow work are often circulated. For example, certain “successful people” wear the same thing every day to reduce the shadow work required to decide what to wear every morning.

While life hacks help you minimize shadow work, what if you can make shadow work work for you? What if there is a way to profit from it?

All this is basically a segue for me to show you some interesting money-earning and money-saving apps.

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2310, 2017

Agrotechnooptimism

debs/ October 23, 2017

The techno-optimism in agrotechnology makes me a little queezy.

At first, the image of the vertical gardens of produce grown in abandoned urban spaces seems like such an attractive idea. One can only imagine how I fawned when my eager mind saw a possible union between community-based agriculture, environmental conscientiousness, and engineering.

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