Getting Excited about Biking!

When I was 8 years old, I got a brand new bike, which I promptly named Old Paint, after the horse in the song we were singing for our 2nd grade rodeo. This was definitely an unusual occurence, since, as the youngest of 3, I mostly got hand-me-downs. When I finally outgrew Old Paint, and I had to resign myself to riding my sister's 20-some-year-old bike well into my teen years.

Now that I'm an adult and living only 2 miles from work but 2,000 miles from my hometown, I decided that I wanted to buy myself a bike for my commute to work. (This was in part inspired by my older brother, who has been a avid cyclist for many years. He was certainly proud to hear that his little sister was following in his footsteps!) After searching for several months, I found the bike for me! (Check out the picture at the end of this post!) I've been riding to work for almost a month now, and I absolutely LOVE it.

The first leg of my commute is this gorgeous trail,
which goes under the bridge I'm taking the picture from.

Although you never forget how to ride a bike, you can sure get rusty at it! It took me a good 2 weeks to refine my riding techniques. (I frequently still repeat to myself, "Light hands, heavy feet!") I also had to build up the muscles in my legs and increase my stamina so I didn't have to stop for breaks. I love to feel the wind in my face as coast down hills and the strength building in my legs as a pump back up the other side. I'm fortunate that my commute allows me to ride along a beautiful bike trail that runs beside a creek. Every morning, I see ducks splashing in the water and birds flitting about in the trees. In the evening, I see other cyclists commuting home the same as I am, calling salutations to each other as we bike along the trail. I'm learning the ways of the cyclist, and I'm loving the new culture I've become a part of.


Even though biking can be hard and tiring work, the physical and psychological benefits make it totally worth it. I come to work refreshed and revitalized from the exercise and the time spent in nature. And I really miss biking on days when I have to go without! As I settle in to my new routine and new commute, I'm getting really excited about biking! Now I just need a cute basket for my bike... ;)

This is Murray, my new bike! Ain't she a beaut?

Getting Excited about the World!

It may seem obvious to say that the world is a big place, but the past few days, I've encounted some great works of art that have opened my eyes to just how big the world really is.



Movie poster from "Life in a Day" (2011)

The first thing I encountered was a documentary called "Life in a Day." It's a really incredible film that I highly recommend. It was a project put together by National Geographic of life on Earth on the day of July 24, 2010. The many thousands of hours of footage were submitted by thousands of YouTube users from countries all over the world. It was an eye-opening movie, both beautiful and frightening. National Geographic does not pull its punches and simply tells things as they are, which can lead to some graphic imagery. (Viewer discretion is advised- I had to look away at a few points myself.)

However, even the scariest moments in the film were balanced out by the warm-hearted, emotional, and fascinating looks at humanity as a whole. From Asia to Africa, the Americas to Europe, all cultures around the world may look different from the outside, but the emotions inside us all are the same. I saw families of every kind showing their love to each other--and wept openly at how beautiful love is. I saw faces old and young talk about their greatest fears. I saw ways of life I didn't know existed, and I saw majestic, sweeping landscapes that took my breath away. Most of all, I saw how big the world is, and how very little I know about it. I wandered the house in a daze the rest of the afternoon, reeling from the powerful film I had witnessed.


"Click and Drag" (XKCD: 09/19/12)

The next day, I was checking the latest update on one of my favorite webcomics, XKCD. It's a wonderful comic, sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes silly, often very poignant. The newest comic, though, was something else. Creator Randall Munroe has really outdone himself with this one. I think my husband put it best when he said, "This guy's a genius...to take a comic and play with the format to such a degree to inspire such imagination. Seriously, it's like halfway between a comic and a game. It's brilliant."

The comic starts out with a simple 3 panels, but it's in the 4th panel that the comic takes on a life of its own. The user can, as the name suggests, click and drag the comic around to discover a whole other world hidden beyond the edges of the panel. The world goes on and on and on as you drag further and further, discovering little secrets and inside jokes for readers of the comic. Clicking and dragging is a difficult way to navigate something so huge, but I think that's part of the analogy to our own world. Our world is vast, and exploring it all is something that humanity is still working at. It can be a difficult and painful process, but the reward of discovery makes it all worthwhile.

I guess that's what excites me after thinking about these two works of art. There is so much left to be explored in the world, especially since I understand such a small part of it. After clicking my way through XKCD's world, I felt the joy and excitement of discovery all over again. I thought back on "Life in a Day" and thought about all the cultures I saw that I knew nothing about. I was allowed to peek into each person's life for just that one day, for just those few minutes, and I was left with so many questions, so many things to be discovered. Who are you? What's your story? What can you teach me, and what can I teach you?

The world is so big that I can't help but get excited about discovering as much as I can about it!


Getting Excited about Newts!

I recently saw a picture on Facebook that stirred up some old excitement in me. It was of the fishies I had in high school, living in their new aquarium with their new owner (a friend of a friend). I was pleasantly surprised to see how well they were doing (one of them is already 6 years old!), and it reminded me of how much I loved having fish.

Aww, he's smiling!

I do want to get a big aquarium someday when I have my husband and I have our own house, but in the meantime, I've been getting excited about an old dream of mine- to own a fire-belly newt.

Newts are really interesting creatures. They're amphibians, meaning that they're mostly aquatic, but they still need some space to come up on land. They're awfully cute, and I'm drawn to the fire-bellies in particular because I just love that bright pop of color on their tummies. The newts that I've interacted with have been friendly and have even let you hold them in your hands. How sweet!

So, I started doing some research on owning a newt. An interesting fact that I found is that newts have very thin and semi-permeable skin. This means that they are more susceptible to changes in their environment, which is a big difference from when I owned fish. I mean, yeah, I came to understand the nitrogen cycle and how it affected my fish, but it sounds like newts are even more sensitive to things like that. I hope I can care for a newt properly!

I love the sloping gravel rising up to meet the surface of the water- so cool!

Lastly, in my searching, I came across various tank setups for allowing newts access to both land and water. They look soooo cool, and it has fueled my excitement even more! If I got even just a 5 gallon tank, I could make a home for my cute lil' fire-belly newt. Hopefully I can realize this dream sooner than the big aquarium- if I save up my money, maybe even in just a few short months! I'm getting excited all over again!!

Getting Excited about Blogging!

Picture of me by my friend Dany

Welcome to my blog, friends! I'm Kaden, at your humble service! I got the idea for my blog at work, where I end up doing a lot of thinking. (Being a research assistant will do that!)

I was realizing that I get excited really easily about stuff. Every week, it seems like I have something new to be excited about. Sometimes it's just old interests being rekindled, such as picking up an old video game that I haven't played in a long time, but sometimes it's new interests altogether, such as starting to ride my bike to work. In any case, I thought about how seemingly random my interests are week to week- the things I'm excited about. So I figured that blogging would be a good way to express my excitement and share it with others!

So, I'm going to try to blog at least once a week about whatever I'm interested in at the time. However! I won't just rant about being excited- I'll tell you WHY I'm excited! I'll give some background of the topic, or why it's meaningful to me, or whatever else I can think of. So, even if some topics come up more than once, I'll put a new spin on them or talk about some new aspect that I hadn't touched on before.

With that, I'm off to write my first real post of "Getting Excited!" I hope you enjoy this blog, and I hope that my random excitements are also things that interest a diverse group of people. And, hey, if you're not interested in the topic of the week, feel free to check back the next week- you never know what might excite me next!

I'm getting excited!! :D