Lili asked me on the evening on which my vacation began if I was planning on reading any books during the vacation. Up to that point I had been making a mental list of tv shows and movies I wanted to watch, but her question reminded me that the university library here at BTU Cottbus is amazing. So, the next day I spent some time in the candy factory of knowledge picking out a stack of interesting books. There were tons more books which intrigued me, but the library has labeled the best books as being restricted to in-library use. While it is nice to keep these best books available for all to use, it greatly reduces the likelihood that I will ever read them because I like to read books at home in bed or on the couch, not in the cold, uncomfortable library. Oh well, my bounty is still contains some great books.
I am kind of picky when it comes to choosing my reading material because I know that I am going to invest a lot of brain power and time to reading, so it better be worth it. Let's analyze my current selection.
Starting on the right end we have books to acquaint me with the Spanish language. I have no intention of actually learning the language in the sense of building sensible phrases and such, but I want to feel comfortable reading signs, listening to conversations around me, and communicating with a word or two.
Next we have a couple of books written by people with particular passions. "Stolen Harvest" is a book written by an Indian activist about the modern global food system. It's an incredibly depressing book, but I'm more than half-way done, so soon I will only have the lingering sadness. The next book is "Exploring the Tomato". This book is basically a history of the tomato from it's wild roots to its modern genetically controlled status. I plan on bringing this book with me to Spain as my entertaining, light reading! I get enough crime and comedy through the tv shows I watch. Educational tv shows are interesting but I struggle to stay tuned. So, I turn to books for educational fun. I can read as fast or slow as I want and they contain way more information than educational tv shows.
The next section of my books are about good soil quality. One of the books deals with soil pollution while the other deals particularly with the role of organic matter in soil. I find both of these topics intriguing. Soil looks so simple to the naked eye, but it fascinates me how complex it in fact is.
The final book section contains books covering anthropogenic soils. In all the introductory education on soils, we think about soils out in fields, but so much of the earth is covered by urbanization, so I am really excited to crack open the "Urban Soils" book. On a related theme we have the final book, "Brownfields", which discusses how to remediate soils which have been majorly polluted and destroyed by human activities.
When picking out books I pretty much follow my instinctive desire. After having assembled my instinctive collection of books, I pondered what this particular combination says about me. I came up with the following ideas.
I like food. I like how it tastes, how it smells, and the energy it gives me to move and think. Food grows in soil. Soils need to be of decent quality in order to grow decent foods so that they can create healthy humans. Sure, everyone is going to die someday due to either a disease, accident, or homicide, but I don't think that we should mask millions of homicides as diseases. Humans are intelligent creatures, but often we don't fully use our brain capacities. We all play roles in this system, whether we directly realize it or not. I don't want to be a part of the higher levels of this food system. I want to do my part at one of the most basic levels: soil. Perhaps my work as an individual won't have much affect, but I will feel wholesome getting my hands literally dirty.
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