Ad Verticem!

So wow these blog posts lost all hope of structure when I arrived in Gent. I'm notoriously bad at logging memories via pictures or journals (this blog) when I'm faced with such glory in wandering the earth. Gent is such glory.
Not much has happened stateside since my return other than the summer Differential Equations course and various familial musings. But as is typical when I return from lovely experiences in semi-utopias (AGS, Iceland, etc...) I am welcomed to the U.S. not with open arms but with the "jumper cables of culture" charged and ready to deliver their horrible shocks. The difference in culture between Europe and Arkansas tears me to pieces.
In my first blog I posed the question if the European public and policy makers are more empathetic/better people than Americans. And yeah they totally are - - - at a glance. But I think the true difference is just how care is allocated. We in America place so much care on things that reeeeallly don't matter. We put our care on so many of those arbitrary societal stigmas that do nothing to protect humans and only seem to hinder personal freedoms. It seems like, compared to the rest of the world, we are still those squabbly little Puritans. Meanwhile, Europeans are allocating their care to SUPER IMPORTANT STUFF LIKE CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN RIGHTS. Our culture facilitates the idea that the only concern the people should have is individual; that we have to "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps" (dumb phrase) and that as long as we, the individuals, are okay the society is okay and the world is okay. Europeans' care is allocated in a manner which allows the individuals to think primarily about the society/planet first! Maybe they are just older more compact and less naive, but that should be no excuse for Americans not seeking similar progress.
Anyways, the culture shock for me has worn off and my sights are once again aligned towards all those idealistic goals of grabbing America by its haunches and dragging it into a progressive future.
Oops, there I go a ramblin' again.
Here is the last photo I took in Gent (sorry I added an accidental extra "L" to Vaarwel my phone doesn't spell check for dutch) :

And here is another photo from the resilient Brussels Airport of Dr. Rom looking stoically onto the tarmac:

Finally, I should probably explain my last couple of post titles. "Ad fundum" is a Flemish term that is used when finishing a glass of something, often fermented fluids. It is actually Latin though and literally translates to: "To the bottom." So my last post in Gent was a last hurrah, an ad fundum per se. While this title, "Ad Verticem!" inveresely means: "to the top!" And the top is exactly the spot where I plan to take the knowledge and experience of this academic endeavor. 

So,

Americans, Europeans, Earthlings --- the countdown to launch has begun. Soon we will liftoff to that idealistic world with a bio-based economy and equality for all!

Ad verticem, folks!

Ad Fundum: Canals Through the Heart

This blog post comes a day late, but just in time. Yesterday we roosted at the apex of academia, friendship, and adventure. So we definitely had no time to write in the blog.
The beautiful Wednesday began on a bicycle.
Everyone in Gent rides bikes. It is just inefficient to even own a car here as the entire town is so compact. This coupled with the fact that bike lanes that are sometimes more lavish than the roads themselves makes any other mode of transportation seem rather silly. This is an extremely sustainable behavior, but you can't blame Americans for not having the same culture. The one misconception I had about Europe is the size. Arkansas is about 4.6 times the size of Belgium and we are still only the 29th largest state by land area. But Belgium has about four times the population. LOOK AT THIS MAP, YO:

This makes it to where everything is compact enough that biking is the preferred mode of transport. So, the only fault Arkansas has is the lack of intracity bicycle infrastructure.
Anyway, yeah, Wednesday. We rode to the University and had some super lectures about Soil & Water Management, Food Safety of Fresh Produce, and Sustainable Food Packaging. The food packaging one I had assumed would be extremely boring. But it was actually exceptionally clever. Before the lecture began I noted "Packaging is inherently waste." But as the lecture went on it was shown that, through factors such as extended shelf life and manipulative packaging sizes, smart packaging can actually increase sustainability. So the notes for the lecture ended with "Consumers are inherently stupid."
After the lectures we toured the Cacao Lab and tasted chocolate in all its preliminary forms. The whole process of making chocolate, from bean to bar, is surprisingly intricate. Here is a photo of Kayvan and I wearing beard nets:

We then went to Delirium Brewery:

where we saw the production and packaging process on its massive industrial scale followed by an immersive organoleptic sensory assay, which was thusly followed by two racks of ribs, which was thusly followed by a grandiose adventure around town with some beautiful folks from Singapore.
Clearly, Wednesdays in Gent are amazing.
A paramount discovery of mine in the last few days came from a comparison of culture and economy with a little help from Dr. Curt. Everyone here talks about and is pursuing a completely "bio-based economy." That phrase is nonexistent in the U.S. where we only ever talk about our pesky little "petroleum-based economy." This is a shift I would dearly hope to bring back home. We currently have the technology and resources to make the shift. So the only thing stopping us is the self fulfilling prophecy that we can't make the shift. In Europe, when a new industry is forming, the government usually subsidizes in order to catalyze investment. In America, that necessary funding for growth will not arrive until private investors believe it is more economical in its infancy. We are brutalized by the wealthy elite that own the oil industry.
The thing about fossil fuels are: Not everyone can participate. Not everyone can bore into the earth to extract wealth.
But a bio-based economy allows participation by the entire populous. When everyone can contribute, more of the wealth is shared and the income inequality gap evaporates. So, as a socialist living in a capitalist world, I truly believe that the pursuance of a bio-based economy is the first step towards a better world.
Also, everything we know and love was made by either yeast or enzymes. Most of which are GMO! I have no idea why only thought yeast was used to make bread and beer. But that stuff is in EVERYTHING.
Okay I will not waste one more second in Belgium writing this blog. Gotta go gallivant with the fellow students. Toodles y'all. See you in America. Hope you're ready for our new bioindustrial revolution!

I Ate a Bunny in a College Cafeteria

The title is pretty much self explanatory. It tasted amazing but sadly I doubt that Brough dining hall will start serving those cute little fluffballs any time soon.

Anyways, in addition to all the bunny munchin' I have actually been learning an immense amount about the variances in cultures and the nifty science on our academic horizon.
The lectures since the last of these assignment blog posts have titles ranging from "Aquaculture: The Blue Biotechnology of the Future" to "Microbially Produced Biosurfactants: General Introduction & Sophorolipid Case Study."
In the aquaculture lecture we learned the ancient history of aquaculture along with the modern science of it and the massive current levels of production. Contrary to agriculture is the exponentially growing use of this type of food production. And as always scaling up (especially rapidly) causes serious issues on the sustainability front. Fish are by far the most sustainable and healthy meat source but only when the production of the food doesn't involve destroying marine ecosystems and oceanic fish supplies. So I'm a big fan of aquaculture, but only if it can go through sustainable intensification when trying to oust the, often harmful, fishing industry. Here is a neat photo of a Norwegian salmon farm that we studied.

The Friday lecture titled "The Belgian Beer Story" was also extremely interesting. Sitting at the ground zero of the history of beer production and not studying it would be a true travesty. Roland Verhe, a leader in the Flemish bioengineering field, ex brewery scientist, and native son of Gent gave the lecture and delved all the way back to the first usage of beer and through all of the intense intricacies that can be found in a country with hundreds of individual and highly regarded different breweries. The process of fermentation is so open to changes in variables such as water source and yeast culture that one can find immense differences in each brewery's structure. The engaging lecture topic was well paired with the plethora of knowledge of Dr. Verhe making it one of the best of the program to date. Here is a nifty painting of some monks relying on their brewing technology to avoid the awful water quality of the Middle Ages:

The planned weekend excursion to Paris was altered due to those pesky religious extremists. Instead, we journeyed to the northern coast of Belgium along the north sea to a little town called Oostende. It was a neat venture filled with a euphoric evening of fine meals and beach soccer with some friendly Belgian youngsters and some casually stoic staring off at the vastness of the sea.
The next day we went to Brugge for the day where we floated the canal and wandered the maze of cobblestone streets and alleyways. In the giant cathedral thingy there I saw a Pieta sculpture made by Michelangelo, which was one of those moments of pure frisson and dumbfoundery at the beauty of his work. Not much else to say and I am really, really sleepy so here is a photo of me pointing at the town Belfry that I climbed today:

and here is an exceptionally pretty photo of some super radical Flemish Swans:

One last thing: The US need a high speed rail network. The convenience and cost effectiveness of these Eurozone rail systems is astounding. If you ever need a nice example of the glories of socialistic policies, look no further than the European high speed rail network. Then change your political ideology so that I can go see my brothers and friends around the country as high speeds for low costs. Thanks.
Nighty night folks!

Pokey Buildings: A Ballad of Gent

...and the peace didn't last. On Monday night I received word that a dear friend of mine had fallen at Hawksbill Crag. Since I'm still in some kind of subconscious denial I'm not gonna say much besides that I love and miss her so much. She is one of the most important people I've ever come across. And I don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day. 

And the only thing keeping me together right now is the beautiful city of Gent and the beautiful people on this study abroad trip with me. 

Quick question: why do people never talk about Gent? Why on Earth haven't I always been told that this is one of the coolest cities in the galaxy? Because it certainly is. The Northern Renaissance style coupled with all of the overly intricate Gothic architecture just has its way with me. I joke in the title that all of the buildings are very pokey, and it is totally true. These structures, through some pseudo-divine inspiration were built mostly in the 1400-1600s and are still towering over the cobblestone. I'm truly dumbfounded as to how these things were built in just around 100 years without any modern construction equipment or mathematical computation instruments. I'm looking at them right now from the hostel window and am truly amazed. 

On Tuesday we went to a small, family-owned vineyard and studied a bit of the tiny Belgian wine industry. It is hard to grow grapes this far north so it was very interesting to see the methods of production. After the wine stuff, we went to Ypres to study The Great War at the Western front line. WW1, as Dan Carlin calls it, was a "blueprint for the apocalypse." The level of destruction and amount of lives lost is truly astounding. Though I still have full idealistic faith in humanity, this excursion definitely rattled it. Standing at a site where 60,000 people died from chlorine gas over the course of four hours is something that will rattle you to your very core. Also, finally getting a good visual on the trenches from the war was extremely interesting. I, in my last post called Finals hellish, I clearly didn't fight in WW1. 

I'm in a hurry now to head to a "Jazzy" place with a native Belgian and some of the study abroad folks so need to wrap this up. 

So, lastly, education: We have had several lectures regarding food chain sustainability in the Eurozone and today we visited VIB (Flemish institute of biotechnology). My favorite lecture thus far was the GMO lecture today. Our lecturer was a world expert in the field of GM crops. She gave a definitive explanation on how they work and why they definitely shouldn't be blindly feared. GM crops are some of the humanity's most powerful and clever inventions and the only reports that paint them in a negative light are based purely on pseudoscience. 

Okay, I'm sure the next blog post will be more in depth on BioEngineering side of this endeavor and how I am now considering graduate school in Gent. But jazz is calling. As is ever so on the road. 

Hitting the Ground Running

Hi folks! Firstly, welcome to my study abroad blog. I've never done a blog or journal of any kind before so this will be a neat experience. I'm currently sitting in my home in rural Arkansas in the southern foothills of the Ozark Mountain Plateau. Our farm is completely covered in yellow buttercup flowers and the air outside is so crisp and refreshing! It is such a nice transition to come from the hellish conditions of finals week to this little Arkansan paradise.
This peace, however, will be very short-lived. Today's to-do list still includes, unpacking, laundry, re-packing, great uncle's birthday party, and the annual "school's out" pick-up basketball game my high school buds always play; all of this while anxiously awaiting my Cal III final grade.

But alas! Adventure awaits! Tomorrow as the sun rises over the Boston Mountains I'll be embarking on this grand academic endeavor. Funny thing about this trip: I didn't even really plan on it, I was planning on going to Grenada to do the Hemingway thing for the summer, but then realized that I should be doing something proactive towards my field of study. So, I talked to the study abroad office about this trip, hoping that they could maybe make my summer less boring. And one morning this spring I woke up to an e-mail that basically said, "you have one day to decide, apply, and commit." This was convenient as I often find that split-decisions are easier for me than those pesky long-term ones. So here I am, on a nearly accidental voyage to a foreign land to further my study of the planet.
This study abroad, it turns out, is perfect. I can't really remember a time in my life when I didn't know about and understand the looming perils of climate change. It is my goal to mitigate this issue and the culture that facilitates it.
It is well known that America is far behind Europe in sustainable energy and food production. So it will be great to study the groundbreaking science that is being pursued in the Eurozone. Sure, this stuff will directly affect my field of study, but there are still some questions in comparing the U.S. to Europe that really irk me. Like, why, as the richest country on earth, are we not pursuing these same goals regarding renewable energy and consumption? Is it just ingrained in our culture to be ignorant of these things? Or is it our blind, complacent love of capitalism that prevents any progress? I have only ever been to one other nation, Iceland, and the comparison in governmental policy between the U.S. and that perfect socialized island utopia sickened me. It just seems that European policy makers and people in general exhibit a level of care for the planet and for humanity's existence that is well above ours. So, while the scientific side of this trip are sure to be astounding, I reckon that my true focus will gravitate towards international policy comparison.
Curiosity is a force that is most compelling to me. And so I will be adding closing segments to these blog posts that deal with the random curiosities I'm faced with while abroad and hopefully some answers or insight I will have acquired into them. My current curiosities are regarding cuisine: I really want to nom on some Fries and Mayo. Hopefully I will be able to tell about this culinary phenomenon in my next blog post!
Okay, I still need to pack so vaarwell for now!