Disability, History, Wilderness, Natural Parks, and Urban Spaces (Part 3)

This post is a follow-up to a post [LINK] explaining my mindset toward the notion of "wilderness" and appreciation of natural scenery versus urban scenery in the US. (That in turn was a follow-up to a post [LINK] about an essay by the environmental history professor William Cronon regarding the delusional or dishonest way that many Americans & Europeans have come to see notions of "wilderness" since the 19th century.) This post, which was not part of my original plan for this series of posts, was motivated by a recent vacation that I took with my family to eastern Washington & northern Idaho (which together form part of the inland Northwest, along with eastern Oregon & southern Idaho). In particular, my family & I, with me sitting in my manual wheelchair being pushed by them, took hikes on trails, usually built on former freight railroad tracks, that were paved with asphalt which was as smooth as advertised (smoother than many roads and much smoother than many asphalt walkpaths, including in some other state parks that we visited in that region).

There were specific instances when hiking on those trails where I felt like I was being hypocritical or unduly entitled, possibly at least superficially in contrast to my views & beliefs that I have articulated in the linked posts preceding this post in the series. This post is an exploration of those sentiments of hypocrisy & entitlement. Follow the jump to read more.

Reflection: My Graduate Experiences at Princeton University

Please note: there will be mentions of the current global public health crisis in this post. I have no background in medicine, public health, or closely-related fields. Please consult public health agencies and other governmental agencies for guidance regarding responses to this crisis, and please consult actual professionals as appropriate for individual problems in this context.

This post is the third in a series of three posts about the end of my time as a PhD student in Princeton University (in this post henceforth referred to simply as "the university" when there is no ambiguity). As a write this, I have successfully defended my PhD thesis! Furthermore, I will officially be graduating this coming weekend. This post follows the first, which was meant as a reflection of the events of this public health crisis that led to my premature physical departure from the university campus combined with a paean to the friends I made over the course of 6 years in the PhD program, and the second, which explained the experiences & thought processes that led to my decision to change careers from research in physics to transportation policy. This post is a broader reflection of my time and experiences at the university, with all of its ups and downs, and a message of gratitude toward the people in the university and elsewhere who meant so much to me during my time in the program; a lot of it is taken from the acknowledgments in my thesis, though for privacy reasons, I won't be giving explicit names. Additionally, there will undoubtedly be many comparisons over the course of this post to my undergraduate experiences at MIT, for which I wrote a post around the time of graduation 6 years ago. Follow the jump to see more.

Familiarity Breeds Fondness, not Contempt

The thought about the content of this post occurred to me yesterday when surfing the web as normal. (Interestingly enough, I forgot about it until this afternoon.) It started with Mozilla Firefox crashing. I feel like although with computer-related things I'm a bit more flexible and willing to change (compared to average users) when better software alternatives come around, with some things I just stick too much to what I know, often to my own detriment. Follow the jump to find out exactly what I mean.

Happy Thanksgiving

I will be spending time with family and friends with no homework! Woot!
Have a wonderful, fun, food-filled Thanksgiving!