is their recycling program. No, seriously.
It IS quite impressive. Camden recycles pretty much everything. They even recycle food waste - so we get the good feeling of composting, but without any work!
Anyway, he's wild about it. Recycling. William's a fan. Now you know.
Monday, September 20, 2010
1: Where we live
We live in Camden Town, in London's Northwest area code, but generally considered part of Central London. Fortunately, where we live is actually a few blocks south of the Camden Town you mostly see in pictures - the Camden of the bustling markets, canal locks and willow trees, punk attire and raucous nightlife. Not that it would be a bad thing to live in the heart of that madness, but we're a bit closer to the center of London and while we can walk to Camden Town proper, we get to enjoy somewhere slightly quieter.
Not that where we live is a peaceful little suburban flat or anything... we have a pub across the street and a live-music venue a few doors down (which provides great entertainment even from the sidewalk - one night it will be a glaring delegation of sulky punks, another night too-cool-for-school scene kids, and then some unassuming indie fans. We never know what sorts of looks we'll get from the sidewalk!). A bit farther away, there's another music venue - where JANELLE MONAE played shortly before we arrived, my goodness! if only we'd had better timing!
Besides the access to music, our location is pretty great - it was the clincher when we were deciding between flats. The library is literally right next door to our row of flats, and the tube stop only seconds away. Better yet, we're just off of the Camden High Street - High Road is British-talk for Main Street, I hear - and can walk to a wonderful, wonderful range of stores. Food, of course - two big grocery stores, a Thai market, several street greengrocers, a few discount shops - but also tools, lighting and electronics (which it doesn't SEEM like we'd need, but British light bulbs threw us for a loop), about six thrift shops, pharmacies, hair salons, a gazillion pubs, cafes and restaurants, and even more music venues. It's a cute little street, with a big random statue in the middle of it and all.
Not that where we live is a peaceful little suburban flat or anything... we have a pub across the street and a live-music venue a few doors down (which provides great entertainment even from the sidewalk - one night it will be a glaring delegation of sulky punks, another night too-cool-for-school scene kids, and then some unassuming indie fans. We never know what sorts of looks we'll get from the sidewalk!). A bit farther away, there's another music venue - where JANELLE MONAE played shortly before we arrived, my goodness! if only we'd had better timing!
Besides the access to music, our location is pretty great - it was the clincher when we were deciding between flats. The library is literally right next door to our row of flats, and the tube stop only seconds away. Better yet, we're just off of the Camden High Street - High Road is British-talk for Main Street, I hear - and can walk to a wonderful, wonderful range of stores. Food, of course - two big grocery stores, a Thai market, several street greengrocers, a few discount shops - but also tools, lighting and electronics (which it doesn't SEEM like we'd need, but British light bulbs threw us for a loop), about six thrift shops, pharmacies, hair salons, a gazillion pubs, cafes and restaurants, and even more music venues. It's a cute little street, with a big random statue in the middle of it and all.
London Blogging, to the faraway towns
Well, I certainly have been terribly remiss in posting... we've been here for almost two weeks, and nothing!
So let me start:
We're in London!
In the next stage of my 2010 adventures, my boyfriend William and I are spending the fall semester in London with the University of London's study abroad program, taking classes at the London Met as well as courses with other American students. We just finished our first class (theatre, as they spell it here) today. We'll have an easy first few weeks, as our Met courses (the ones we'll take with British students instead of with each other) don't start until October, so we'll be doing a lot more exploring of the city over the next few weeks.
Now, I COULD try to cover all of the last week and a half in one epic-length blog post, but really, who wants that? So instead, I'll go for the shotgun approach, and try to fling out a bunch of short posts. I am bad at writing things that are short, and sometimes (read: every month but november) I am bad at sitting down to write anything at all, but I shall give it the old college try.
True story: I used to think that "the old college try" meant a cursory, half-hearted attempt. This is the opposite of what it actually means. Does this reveal something about my own associations with the word "college?" Or is it just easy to confuse words and phrases for their opposite if you are too stubborn to get a dictionary and try to use context clues?
But already I've digressed. Let me start again.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Abortion and sin
Wow, a nice, non-controversial title, huh?
So I'm working my way through the interviews (and dang did I take a lot of interviews!) annotating them and transcribing bits I want to quote, and I just got to a really interesting conversation I had almost forgotten about. My interviewing techniques completely broke down - yes, I am asking yes and no questions here, and yes, that's awful. what can I say. Actually, I was not only asking poor interview questions, I was also asking really insensitive ones - I had several times been told not to ask about abortion at all, because the taboo on talking about it was too strong, and when I asked about it in the past I had, indeed, had a few people just shut down on me. So it was wise advice I received, but I think I was also wise to disregard it sometimes.
Anyway, I am not presenting this as an example of camila being an awesome interviewer. But I thought despite my incompetence, the result was interesting With hemming, hawing, and some translating from tagalog cut out, it looks like this:
Me: What kinds of questions do you get the most?
Gladys (teenaged RH activist/youth educator/general badass): Mostly girls asking about missed periods and pregnancy.
Me: What information do you have for them?
Gladys: We can give them counseling [talks a bit about early-pregnancy counseling]
Me, diving headfirst into cultural insensitivity: Do they ever ask about abortions?
Gladys: Sometimes we get girls who inquire about abortions, but then they decide to continue the pregnancy.
Me, surprised that she answered calmly, and that they talked about it at all: We talked earlier about the taboo on talking about sex - are the youths who are open to talking about contraceptive use generally open to talking about abortion, too?
Gladys: Yes.
Me (continuing to be surprised): Are they open to the idea of actually having abortions?
A pause.
Gladys: When the contraception fails, they are open to do abortions.
A pause.
Gladys: There are young pregnant women who are open to having abortions when they get pregnant, but as long as their parents don't know they are pregnant. But that's only 10%. For the young pregnant women whose parents know about her pregnancy, she'll still continue the pregnancy.
Me: Are the parents opposed to abortion?
Gladys, looking at me like I'm a complete idiot: Yes, of course. They believe that abortion is a sin. And that it may cause harm to the child-bearer.
Me: And the young people don't believe this?
Gladys: They have the same beliefs. They both think that abortion is a sin. It's still quite a sin to them.Me: Can - can you explain a little more? They agree that abortion is a sin, and have the abortions anyway?
Gladys: Sort of. They agree with their parents on abortion, that abortion is a sin
Me: But...
Gladys: If the knowledge about pregnancy - if only the boyfriend and the girl knows about the pregnancy, then they push for an abortion. They may go for an abortion. The barrier is - I mean, the thing that stops them from getting an abortion - is the parent's knowledge.
Me: so in the percentage where the parents don't know, and they do have an abortion, do they still believe it's a sin? Or is it - I mean, is it only a sin if their parents know?
Gladys: They think it is still a sin, but that they lack a choice. They still consider it as a sin, but they still prefer an abortion. And if the parents know about the pregnancy and about the abortion, well... if the parents will know that she had an abortion, she's dead.
So - the way I parsed this conversation - everybody agrees that abortion is a sin, but it's not actually moral objections to abortion that cause teenagers with unwanted pregnancies to continue their pregnancies. It's not even the high risks involved in cheap, illegal abortions. It's their parents' moral objections - or more specifically, the punishment (and "she's dead" might sound like an exaggeration, but by this point in my trip, I made no such assumptions) that their parents would enact if they knew about the sin.
Either way, Gladys describes teens who feel like they have no choice. If the parents don't know, then they have to abort; and if their parents do know, then they have to continue (and get married, in many communities).
And look back at the start of the conversation - these young people, if they are lucky enough to have an RH advocacy group active in their area, only seek information AFTER they think they might be pregnant.
Sin? The idea of sin's not preventing abortions, or causing them. It's knowledge that's determining these kids' actions - their own knowledge about contraception, and their parents' knowledge about their actions.
Then again, the original sin was the pursuit of knowledge, so maybe I'm reading it all backwards...
So I'm working my way through the interviews (and dang did I take a lot of interviews!) annotating them and transcribing bits I want to quote, and I just got to a really interesting conversation I had almost forgotten about. My interviewing techniques completely broke down - yes, I am asking yes and no questions here, and yes, that's awful. what can I say. Actually, I was not only asking poor interview questions, I was also asking really insensitive ones - I had several times been told not to ask about abortion at all, because the taboo on talking about it was too strong, and when I asked about it in the past I had, indeed, had a few people just shut down on me. So it was wise advice I received, but I think I was also wise to disregard it sometimes.
Anyway, I am not presenting this as an example of camila being an awesome interviewer. But I thought despite my incompetence, the result was interesting With hemming, hawing, and some translating from tagalog cut out, it looks like this:
Me: What kinds of questions do you get the most?
Gladys (teenaged RH activist/youth educator/general badass): Mostly girls asking about missed periods and pregnancy.
Me: What information do you have for them?
Gladys: We can give them counseling [talks a bit about early-pregnancy counseling]
Me, diving headfirst into cultural insensitivity: Do they ever ask about abortions?
Gladys: Sometimes we get girls who inquire about abortions, but then they decide to continue the pregnancy.
Me, surprised that she answered calmly, and that they talked about it at all: We talked earlier about the taboo on talking about sex - are the youths who are open to talking about contraceptive use generally open to talking about abortion, too?
Gladys: Yes.
Me (continuing to be surprised): Are they open to the idea of actually having abortions?
A pause.
Gladys: When the contraception fails, they are open to do abortions.
A pause.
Gladys: There are young pregnant women who are open to having abortions when they get pregnant, but as long as their parents don't know they are pregnant. But that's only 10%. For the young pregnant women whose parents know about her pregnancy, she'll still continue the pregnancy.
Me: Are the parents opposed to abortion?
Gladys, looking at me like I'm a complete idiot: Yes, of course. They believe that abortion is a sin. And that it may cause harm to the child-bearer.
Me: And the young people don't believe this?
Gladys: They have the same beliefs. They both think that abortion is a sin. It's still quite a sin to them.Me: Can - can you explain a little more? They agree that abortion is a sin, and have the abortions anyway?
Gladys: Sort of. They agree with their parents on abortion, that abortion is a sin
Me: But...
Gladys: If the knowledge about pregnancy - if only the boyfriend and the girl knows about the pregnancy, then they push for an abortion. They may go for an abortion. The barrier is - I mean, the thing that stops them from getting an abortion - is the parent's knowledge.
Me: so in the percentage where the parents don't know, and they do have an abortion, do they still believe it's a sin? Or is it - I mean, is it only a sin if their parents know?
Gladys: They think it is still a sin, but that they lack a choice. They still consider it as a sin, but they still prefer an abortion. And if the parents know about the pregnancy and about the abortion, well... if the parents will know that she had an abortion, she's dead.
So - the way I parsed this conversation - everybody agrees that abortion is a sin, but it's not actually moral objections to abortion that cause teenagers with unwanted pregnancies to continue their pregnancies. It's not even the high risks involved in cheap, illegal abortions. It's their parents' moral objections - or more specifically, the punishment (and "she's dead" might sound like an exaggeration, but by this point in my trip, I made no such assumptions) that their parents would enact if they knew about the sin.
Either way, Gladys describes teens who feel like they have no choice. If the parents don't know, then they have to abort; and if their parents do know, then they have to continue (and get married, in many communities).
And look back at the start of the conversation - these young people, if they are lucky enough to have an RH advocacy group active in their area, only seek information AFTER they think they might be pregnant.
Sin? The idea of sin's not preventing abortions, or causing them. It's knowledge that's determining these kids' actions - their own knowledge about contraception, and their parents' knowledge about their actions.
Then again, the original sin was the pursuit of knowledge, so maybe I'm reading it all backwards...
Saturday, August 7, 2010
transcription
thanks, Julie, for your tip!
she had great advice that enabled me to make a poor life decision. for instance, by combining F4 and NaturallySpeaking, I have developed a system that allows me to make pretty accurate transcriptions - with time stamps! - using a headset and 2 keys on the keyboard. pretty quickly - faster than realtime, actually, as long as I am taking cliff-notes for most of it and only fully transcribing the bits i want to quote.
this, in turn, allows me to transcribe while lying down with my eyes closed on a comfy couch.
which, in turn, uh... well... i'm sure you can fill in the blanks...
she had great advice that enabled me to make a poor life decision. for instance, by combining F4 and NaturallySpeaking, I have developed a system that allows me to make pretty accurate transcriptions - with time stamps! - using a headset and 2 keys on the keyboard. pretty quickly - faster than realtime, actually, as long as I am taking cliff-notes for most of it and only fully transcribing the bits i want to quote.
this, in turn, allows me to transcribe while lying down with my eyes closed on a comfy couch.
which, in turn, uh... well... i'm sure you can fill in the blanks...
WHY DID I ASK SO MANY QUESTIONS
WHY
I could have said, "so, why did you become an activist? can you explain a little more? great, thanks!" and had 60 15-minute interviews... instead I have HOURS and HOURS and HOURS to go through! somewhere north of sixty hours of audio! I'm only transcribing a fraction, and even so I want to rip my hair out!
WHY DID I PUT THIS OFF UNTIL NOW
WHY
WHY
I could have said, "so, why did you become an activist? can you explain a little more? great, thanks!" and had 60 15-minute interviews... instead I have HOURS and HOURS and HOURS to go through! somewhere north of sixty hours of audio! I'm only transcribing a fraction, and even so I want to rip my hair out!
WHY DID I PUT THIS OFF UNTIL NOW
WHY
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