Of Petunias, Facebook and the life of a Citizen
It's a new month already and Spring is a mere 3 months away! It's becoming that wickedly busy time we get here when the sun comes back (we are well over 10 hours of daylight now) and all of a sudden there is almost a manic quality to life. For instance: this weekend will make the third weekend in a row that I have been to a concert, and there's more to come.
For me all of this means it is time to start making serious plans about my garden. It's now to the point where I'm even going to be taking a Cooperative Extension course to become something called a "Master Gardener". Actually, aside from probably learning just how much I don't know, the part that I'm looking forward to the most is the volunteer commitment. For someone like myself who is doing this on the cheap, I have to do 40 hours of volunteer gardening - which apparently includes a mandatory stint booth-sitting at the Tanana Valley Fair this August.
But other than the Fair gig, we are given a ton of options as to where we want to work. I signed up for the riverfront park, the botanical garden at the library, and at that great tourist boondoggle Alaskaland/Pioneer Park. I like this whole idea: learn something, give something back to the community.
Like too many of us I bitch, whine and moan, with relish and glee about the ills of the world, and especially this town. But then my inner voice - which is actually my parents' outer voices - tell me to stop talking and actually do something. Thus the involvement in the structural side of politics, thus the volunteer stuff, thus a lot of the social things that I enjoy.
'Cause my deep, dark, dirty little secret here that I find this stuff fun. I enjoy the get-togethers, brain-storming sessions, getting out there and dealing with the public. It is fun. It's maybe the one of the best parts of Fairbanks life. You get to meet people, learn things, bust the rust off of your social skills, and do good work in the process.
I just joined Facebook last night, an act that is almost completely unlike me. But I've been nattering on for some time about using the new social networking tools out there to better organize for my political party. So putting my own words into action, I signed up so I could be part of my party's group. And lo, and behold, the vast majority of people who I'm "friends" with are actually people I've met and worked with on any number of projects over the years.
There's some friend "friends" on there, and eventually I expect to find some of my relatives - though, curiously, those that I thought would have jumped on this are adamant anti-social networking types - but right now the most of people on my small list are people I've met out there working for some cause or the other. So, later this summer as I find myself putting in the bazillionth purple petunia in some public flower bed, I may be pretending that I'm doing it because as a citizen of this here republic - this is the sort of thing you are supposed to do.
But actually, I just kinda like planting petunias.
For me all of this means it is time to start making serious plans about my garden. It's now to the point where I'm even going to be taking a Cooperative Extension course to become something called a "Master Gardener". Actually, aside from probably learning just how much I don't know, the part that I'm looking forward to the most is the volunteer commitment. For someone like myself who is doing this on the cheap, I have to do 40 hours of volunteer gardening - which apparently includes a mandatory stint booth-sitting at the Tanana Valley Fair this August.
But other than the Fair gig, we are given a ton of options as to where we want to work. I signed up for the riverfront park, the botanical garden at the library, and at that great tourist boondoggle Alaskaland/Pioneer Park. I like this whole idea: learn something, give something back to the community.
Like too many of us I bitch, whine and moan, with relish and glee about the ills of the world, and especially this town. But then my inner voice - which is actually my parents' outer voices - tell me to stop talking and actually do something. Thus the involvement in the structural side of politics, thus the volunteer stuff, thus a lot of the social things that I enjoy.
'Cause my deep, dark, dirty little secret here that I find this stuff fun. I enjoy the get-togethers, brain-storming sessions, getting out there and dealing with the public. It is fun. It's maybe the one of the best parts of Fairbanks life. You get to meet people, learn things, bust the rust off of your social skills, and do good work in the process.
I just joined Facebook last night, an act that is almost completely unlike me. But I've been nattering on for some time about using the new social networking tools out there to better organize for my political party. So putting my own words into action, I signed up so I could be part of my party's group. And lo, and behold, the vast majority of people who I'm "friends" with are actually people I've met and worked with on any number of projects over the years.
There's some friend "friends" on there, and eventually I expect to find some of my relatives - though, curiously, those that I thought would have jumped on this are adamant anti-social networking types - but right now the most of people on my small list are people I've met out there working for some cause or the other. So, later this summer as I find myself putting in the bazillionth purple petunia in some public flower bed, I may be pretending that I'm doing it because as a citizen of this here republic - this is the sort of thing you are supposed to do.
But actually, I just kinda like planting petunias.
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