signature dish

does it strike anyone else as off that when oprah's personal chef is the guest on top chef the product placed in the quick fire challenge is uncle ben's rice. is it me? why not have some aunt jemima's syrup on the top?

i have had a couple of more encouraging exchanges on campus this week including a town hall meeting on environmental sustainability. there are some pretty surprisingly smart undergraduate women taking the lead on pressing the university to take action these issues.

i was v v v impressed with their talk. they created and analyzed a survey of 1795 respondents.. they did some really really good work. and i feel very encouraged about the potential for this because our president seems to be into this. (even his wife came to the meeting. they do travel as a set to big events.)

there's a woman who is collecting data on the possible wind farm on an old nike missile site. prairie grasses! (although i think that my suggestion: xeriscape the president's house won't fly). we sat in the room as people debated multimodal transfers and transportation shares and bike spines and the bus system. i was so jazzed. it is of course telling that the main players on the committee are planners, geographers, architects, and facilities people. my people.

i had an idea while sitting there for another event/project for the storytelling class. i intend to so totally rip off nick's idea about using the bus as a theater. (he did that fab project with puppets on the ann arbor buses.) i am thinking let's aim for a 30 minute show. if i can make this work here, i can do anything.


and btw. if i can get the 201 crew to produce their zine this week, i can do anything.