India, a land of opportunities…

The World – India Calling – NYTimes.com
My love for the country of my birth has never flickered. But these new times piqued interest in my ancestral land. Many of us, the stepchildren of India, felt its change of spirit, felt the gravitational force of condensed hope. And we came.
Great article about the seeming reversal of [...]

Read Full Post »

Getting settled, with tidbits

Wow it feels like forever since I last blogged. Actually my unplanned break started when I moved to my new place, where I’ve spent the last two weeks getting settled, gobbling up books, keeping tabs on the Olympics, exploring my new community, reflecting, and in general transitioning into my Servant Partners program. I’m probably gonna [...]

Read Full Post »

More on Team Darfur

ESPN – Cheek wants to meet with Chinese officials after having visa revoked – Olympics
So speedskater Joey Cheek, a co-founder of Team Darfur (a collection of athletes who promote Darfur awareness and seek to end the crisis there), just got his visa to go to China revoked. He was supposed to travel to Beijing tomorrow [...]

Read Full Post »

Chinese Food

Chinese food is pretty much my favorite kind of food. I don’t think it was always that way, but traveling to China twice in the past 15 months or so has definitely affected my taste. And the breadth and depth of the cuisine is really something. Go read about it (Chinese Cuisine) on Wiki… Incidentally, [...]

Read Full Post »

Three Cups of Tea

So I devoured Three Cups of Tea in my downtime at home last week (it was sitting around for awhile, my bro got it for me for Christmas or thereabouts). The book is about one man’s (Greg Mortenson) mission to build schools, especially for girls, in the mountainous regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Definitely a [...]

Read Full Post »

The Olympics Are Coming

In spite of some of the ominous clouds hanging over the Olympics (not just the rain clouds!), I find myself getting somewhat excited for the Olympics. I mean, it’s a time when the world can come together and enjoy sport, right? That said, I intentionally avoided buying any Olympics-related merchandise in China as I was [...]

Read Full Post »

Cell phones

A man with an interesting job… Super-interesting article from NY Times Magazine about cell phones, the developing world, connectedness, place, and possibility.
The guy who is profiled for the overarching narrative of the article, Jan Chipcase (should also be noted he has an interesting and very visual blog), works for Nokia traveling the globe and finding [...]

Read Full Post »

Globalization is all around

It’s kinda funny how, after becoming a Global Studies student, I’ve started to notice globalization as a phenomenon a lot more. It’s like I suddenly developed a Globalization-o-meter which notices and documents when people refer to globalization or when I notice random elements of cultural mixing or that sort of thing.
Among other things, I really [...]

Read Full Post »

City of Blinding Lights

So recently my classes have really been challenging the way I think about things. Perhaps I’ve even developed a shade of Marxist criticalism in my academic analysis.
One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot is the way that wealth is distributed and the economy is organized within our era of transnational capital. It [...]

Read Full Post »

Interesting Read

Stumbled on a pretty interesting read from Salon.com.
Brand marketing the presidential candidates.
About the brands the Presidential Candidates have created and how they play out on the world stage.

Read Full Post »