Marginalized Populations

I've survived the first week of the Fall semester, even with a sprained knee which immobilized me for a day or two (painful enough to send me to the doctor- which I hardly ever do!). I'm still hobbling around with a knee brace- but this too shall pass.

Being confined did give me a chance to develop a lecture on homelessness in San Francisco. I hadn't intended to take photos of the homeless, and felt weird about doing it, but then again, the sociologist in me decided that this was an opportunity to bring first hand observations of the homeless as I observed it in San Francisco during my recent trip to attend the ASA conference there. Homeless people sleeping on the street or sorting through garbage were everywhere- shockingly so just because it was almost inescapable!

Most important to me was to establish guidelines for taking photos so that I would not be revealing anyone's identifiable features or compromising their humanity by being disrespectful. All photos below were taken discretely, as I didn't even want other people on the street knowing that I was taking photos of homeless people.

 Shown above is a man picking through the garbage at Union Square- it's in the center of downtown SF surrounded by outdoor restaurants... and below is a man in the Haight-Ashbury district using a wheel chair to travel with his belongings. He used his feet to move himself along.

The city of San Francisco spends millions on getting the homeless off the streets and into some alternative lifestyles like halfway houses and rehab programs, but the city also admits that there are 3-4 thousand of what are called "hard-core" homeless who live on the streets.

People walk by as if this is not out of the ordinary. These people sleeping on the street seem to cover themselves with an assortment of dark colored coverings as though to make themselves invisible. And after one gets over the shock of seeing people thus, they do become invisible because you simply get used to seeing people sleeping on the street. 

I could have taken many more photos of people begging, panhandling, and sleeping on the street but I didn't. It just seemed too self-serving to continue taking these photos, so after a few I stopped, and like every other passerby, I tried not to look. It's just too hard. 

Checking Out

Ok- I knew this day would come-- has anybody else had this feeling? You know, that feeling of now you're floating around on your own with no place to call home? No anchor to help you feel secure?

It's that time between checking out of your hotel room and the hours and hours before your flight departs. What do you do in the meantime? Where do you hangout?

For me, I guess it means taking up residence in the hotel lobby....finding a seat to call my own and settling in with some reading. Hmmmm...there's a lot more to this concept called home... amazing how a few hours of displacement can be so unsettling for me!

Conference Routine

 My favorite annual conference by far is attending ASA. It's always held in an interesting place where there is so much to see and do, but it's also so stimulating to attend sessions and learn what other sociologists are researching...

Each year the conference has a theme, but that theme is not the only topic of discussion. For example, this afternoon I attended a marvelous session on Collective Memory in which Aaron Cicourel presented a paper on the cognitive domain of memory making.

He discussed how medical interviews are paraphrased by doctors in doctors' notes and this becomes part of the archival record. However, the archival record only tells a small part of the story-- so in essence, doctors' notes are an example of sharpening and levelling-- a trick used by the advertising industry to market a product. Interesting stuff... maybe nerdy to others, but fascinating to me!!!

Wine Growing Sustainability Tour

One of the perks offered by ASA is a specialized pre-conference tour emphasizing some topics relevant to sociology. And so it was that I spent yesterday traipsing through 3 vineyards in Sonoma County-- each known for using biodynamic agricultural farming practices. What is biodynamic wine farming, you ask? It's farming without using pesticides or herbicides or fertilizer. In other words, it's organic and sustainable. The vineyard owners use nothing that can change the soil or otherwise change the ecosystem it farms on.

Our first tour and tasting was at Benziger Winery where I fell in love with sustainable wine farming and immediately ordered 6 bottles to be shipped home! It was fun to taste the grapes right from the vine and note things like the color of the grape and the texture of its skin...

That's why we could pick grapes straight from the vine and taste them!

Next it was a stop at Hamel Wineries- a relatively new endeavor and a small winery. I fell in love with their Rose which had a Grenache grape (it's so fun to name drop with a little bit of knowledge !) and a beautiful color! Had several bottles of it shipped home also.

Last, we stopped at GunlachBundschau and after I tasted two of their whites, even while sloshing and spitting all day-- I was done tasting wines! Hard to believe but true!

Most of these wineries are about 30-40 acres, and as we were told on the tour, it takes a large fortune to make a small fortune in this business. Most of these wineries are family owned, and don't make much money but do this truly for the love of it. It also helps to keep the land in the family. 

"Doctoring" Away This Summer- Light At the End of the Tunnel?

The challenge of working toward earning a doctorate is that it never seems to end!

Sometimes life gets in the way and it's easy to get derailed. Going down rabbit holes... not the best approach but I have learned more than I have room for in my brain! Sometimes I feel like my harddrive-brain is full. However, my day in Ashburn yesterday was very productive as my Chair and I reviewed my writing in detail. The revisions will be made soon and then on to the next chapter!...

Perhaps I'm beginning to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunell after all... :)