Episode One – The Bus
Posted by Red | Filed under Challenge, Everyday
Ride a city bus through its entire route. (I recommend the #2, 5, 6, 17, 18, 21, 53) Photograph some of the interesting sights – whether inside the bus or outside. Describe the two most interesting things you saw – people, clothing, buildings, art, events, etc. Post at least 4 supporting photographs for this episode.
Now, I ride the bus all the time. It’s my primary mode of transportation – easy, convenient – I am the first to tell others to “take the bus – it’s easy!”.
So choosing which route to take was difficult. Do I do something I’ve done before? Something totally new? How much time to I really have for this anyway? And then thought – I could do it all and just finally ride my commuter route the entire length – the #113.
The 113 – LTD Stop – Grand Ave S – Lyndale Ave S – UofM route is my everyday bus. Yet I’d not thought about it at all other than “gotta catch the 7:20a bus and go to work”. This exercise changed it a bit.
Undergraduate students, graduate students, post-docs, staff, administrators, professors, and researchers ride this route. Sometimes the bus is silent, other times deep conversations occur about the current research topics.
We travel through the U of M East Bank Campus, West Bank Campus and onto the highway. Traffic is stopped around the bus, surrounded by rusting guard rails, construction, and blue skies.
The bus is a double with cushier seats than the regular local routes. Folks get comfy for the ride – which lasts me about 12 minutes normally.
Folks carry everything on the bus – the normal stuff like newspapers, textbooks, and bags. But then other everyday things like this young woman carrying a sack of fresh green onions home from the summer UMN Farmer’s Market.
What surprised me the most was really looking at how people passed the time on this bus they rode every day – newspapers were far more prevalent than I expected. While I keep to my NPR podcasts most of the time, others rifle through national papers searching for news and research that interests them. Magazines are second – copies of The New Yorker are found in the aisle at times. And they say print media is dead… well it might be in other places, just not on the 113.
20 Episodes of Life
Posted by Red | Filed under Challenge, Everyday
Life around these parts has become mundane and predictable. We don’t challenge ourselves to think about perspectives other than our own, try new things that feel uncomfortable or even travel down the path less traveled. So with that, several folks around here came up with an idea to motivate us all to just go out and do something different… Episodes of Life.
An adventure in exploring your surroundings, beliefs, and self in a summer in Minneapolis.
These episodes are created to allow the participants to explore their surroundings in a safe manner with a period of reflection. Participants run the risk of finding things they enjoy, learning new skills, and potentially finding gainful employment.
Each episode will be sent via email to participants with a description, photography cues, and a few questions to answer in writing. Episodes will have deadlines to them when they will be expected to be completed and reported on.
Episode reports are to be posted to your Facebook profile by the deadline and shared with other participants in the adventure as well as other family and friends you deem appropriate. They can also be posted in other online spaces such as a personal website if you wish to have them in multiple locations.
If all 20 episodes are completed within their deadlines, participants will receive not only the sense of accomplishment for getting out there and “doing something”, but also a yet-to-be-determined prize (soliciting sponsors now).
Preview Episode was Roller Skating at the Roller Garden. Remember this adventure as we move along through the series.
So – are you interested in trying out something new? Something exciting? Drop me a line and we’ll add you to the list of participants. You know that you want to travel down that road – you know, the one Frost wrote about.
