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So as I take the last courses for my Master's I've come to terms with something that's really important to my academic future: When it comes to doctoral work, I'm just not interested in doing another huge chunk of coursework. I'd really rather do some research. That's a big deal, because it means that all the American programs I've considered are off the table, as would be the program at Leicester. In fact, the only one left that I was considering that's conducive to that is working with Johannes at Cape Peninsula University of Technology. But maybe it's good that I've come full circle on this -- I like Johannes a lot, we have compatible interests, he's interested in working with me, and it's the least expensive option by an order of magnitude. What reason to keep looking could there be?

It's unfortunate that that trip to Cape Town I mentioned last year ended up getting scrubbed, meaning I didn't get the chance to visit CPUT. Still, I've never even been to the school where I finished my BS and can count on one hand the number of times I've been to GW, so that's not really that big a deal. It would still be nice to check it out, though, if I get the chance, especially since Johannes seemed so hospitable when I thought I was going to be in town. Maybe later....

Adella and I were recently discussing what currency we'd use for our savings once we hopefully soon can start to accumulate a little. We talked about the practicalities of having a savings account denominated in euros, pounds, or gold (all of which it turns out are essentially impossible with U.S. banks). So right as we were doing that, my Mom forwards me an article from her broker out of the blue arguing against the continued rise of the price of gold.

It reminded me how, because of my prior involvement in online gold-based payment systems, there were a few years there where I would occasionally be asked whether I thought gold was a smart thing to buy. Why they asked me and not some with actual money, I can't say. But I remember always making the same two points:

1. No matter how clever their analyses may seem, no one really knows what the price of gold is going to do.
2. Anyone who tries to convince you that they really know what the price gold is going to do is at best mistaken and at worst trying to deceive you into buying something.

The author's point about gold ETFs is a good one, but it's not like mutual funds that track gold haven't existed before that, or just stocks like Freeport MacMoRan.

Moreover, if I had to guess, I'd say that the combination of a growing middle class in India, China, Malaysia, and elsewhere, where there's a strong cultural inclination toward gold as a store of value, combined with the inflation I expect we'll be seeing here in the U.S. for some time to come, means that $1,000 will not be some sort of magic ceiling for gold.

But then, that's just my guess. See point number one.

Meet Jorge Cham. He's the creator of "Piled Higher and Deeper", a comic strip about life in graduate school. He's also a cartoonist who's found some success publishing his work through a web site rather than the traditional format of a daily newspaper. One might think that this would lead him to be more receptive to the idea that using the Internet as a vehicle for education is a sign of increased flexibility rather than decreased rigor.

Unfortunately, if one of his recent cartoons is any indication, this is not so. Given the gratuitous use of the word "online" and that the name of the school mentioned is a mix of "Walden" and "Capella", it seems the strip shows more how Dr. Cham feels about online education than about degree mills. Moreover, Walden and Capella are also a conspicuous pair in that they're both prominent proprietary institutions. So it seems his naysaying would also be broad enough also to include on-campus programs at other such institutions, such as the University of Phoenix.

One often sees truly insightful commentary from the best cartoonists. In this case, however, it seems that as with too many others in higher education, Dr. Cham does not understand the difference between academic rigor and mere inflexibility. For an online cartoonist to instead deliver a tired kneejerk salute to "That's the way we've always done it" is a real disappointment.

So because of my concern about using too much leave, and because GW was concerned that the course I was going to take might be too similar to another I've already taken, I found an alternative, a nice course called "Cross-cultural/International Curricula" that, while occurring in a classroom rather than online, is still also an extremely good match for my interests. I sent the syllabus to my faculty advisor at GW, Ryan Watkins, and his response in part was:

Given the situation this sounds like a fine choice to me... it does have a nice match with your long-term interests. My only disappointment with the syllabus is that it will be a campus-based course. Can you really learn in that archaic format? Do they have to check your ID to make sure that it is really you coming to class? Can people really learn with out continuous access to the Web? Hahahahaaaa

It's certainly nice to see butt-in-seat learning get some of the same undeserved criticism that distance learning gets for a change! Of course, at the same time, I'm also glad Ryan approved the course, you know, despite his reservations.

Four or five months ago, Adella and I stopped eating not just meat, but also almost all animal products, such as eggs and dairy. We also started cycling out everything we had that was made from leather, wool, and other animal-based materials. Vegan, for those who know what is. I'd say Ital, but since even vegan food here in the States that doesn't have all sorts of fake crap in it is more expensive, I can't call it that.

Since then we've lost some weight and generally feel a little healthier, but our real reason was that we were aware of and just couldn't keep not considering the truly wretched lives and hideous deaths suffered by animals used for meat, eggs, dairy, wool, and other products. Since we don't need that to live, we decided that in the interest of compassion that we would do without them.

Adapting our diet hasn't actually been all that difficult. What's been more interesting has been the responses from other people. I didn't make it a point to bring it up with other people, not being much of a proselytizer, but eat with or near other people and eventually it comes up. What we've noticed is that people are sometimes simply indifferent, but surprisingly often are hostile, making sarcastic comments, or asking in an annoyed tone whether we're "still doing that". It may seem strange, but I've received more negativity explaining to people that I'm vegan than I ever have telling mentioning that I'm an anarchist.

So anyway, yesterday was the American holiday of Thanksgiving, which commemorates the "first Thanksgiving" in Massachusetts where the Pilgrims (English settlers) and Wampanoag tribe had a big festival together. The modern observance of it is centered on thanking God, having a huge meal at which eating turkey is the centerpiece, and remembering importance of the Pilgrims in American history. So all this got me thinking exactly which aspects of this holiday really still apply to me at this point.

Let's start with God. While what I think on that probably deserves its own post, the executive summary is that I don't believe in one. That doesn't mean that I'm an atheist, since my problem is that I don't have enough information to draw a conclusion, but I'm pretty skeptical. It also doesn't mean that I think people who believe in a god or gods are all fools. I just think that history suggests that organized religion ends up being more about the organization than the religion. Anyway, with a holiday like Thanksgiving, it raises the question of thanks to whom.

Then there are the Pilgrims. European colonization of the Americas didn't exactly consist of a long list of virtuous acts, and I have to wonder how things might have gone had the Wampanoag and other tribes recognized the threat and resisted contact with this bringers of war, alcohol, pestilence, and death. And maybe it's from listening to Jay Winter Nightwolf on the radio, or maybe it's from the history reading I've been doing since recently taking on a course design/teaching gig at LCO Ojibwe Community College, but a legacy that would make the Nazis blush just doesn't seem like something to commemorate.

And turkey's obviously out, of course. So what's left? Well, this year it was unseasonably warm for this late in the year (Native American Summer, if you will), and we went with Mom, my sister Abi and her family into town to drop by the Smithsonian, let Noah and his little cousin run around on the Mall, see a few of the strange monstrosities in the sculpture garden, and ultimately return to Mom's house for dinner. And while Mom thinks our vegan lifestyle is weird, she's supportive in not adding dairy or egg ingredients to things other than turkey so that we can still eat them. She even tried the tofurkey that we brought. It wasn't all blissful, since this year it was my ex's turn to have the three older kids, but it was pretty good.

So they're what's left when God, history, and turkey are taken out of the equation. Family is still there, and in the end, that's all that really mattered anyway.

A number of interesting opportunities to travel have been coming my way, so I've been figuring out how I'm going to sort out how much annual leave I have with how much traveling I want to do. Get this:

Now, when I went to Croatia, I didn't have to use leave, but that was sort of nice of my supervisor here. I don't expect that items 4 and 5 are both going to be leave-free trips this time around.

It also occurs to me that even if can sort out all these things, I only get two weeks of leave a year, so if I do the NMSU program then barring a change of diurnal activity I will use annual leave for nothing else until 2011.

I don't want to give up on a doctoral program but I also don't want to give up on the work I'm doing through WikiEducator or iCommons. A friend of mine has a colorful way of describing situations like this: "I'm holding a red stick in this hand, and a blue stick in this hand. I'm going to hit you with one of these sticks, but, hey, you get to pick which one."

So I'm trying to decide with which stick I want to be hit, basically. I've only used one day of leave since I got here, and I get just ten days per year (Oh, to be French!) so if I take a normal course rather than that week-long one and take NMSU off the list of consideration in favor of zero-residence (or local) doctoral programs, then between this year and next year I have nineteen days of leave to sort out all the other trips. That I think I could do. Still, sheesh!