Road Trip: Twin Cities to Ontario

Posted on May 12, 2013 by

During Spring Break 2013, my girlfriend and I went on a pretty fun and random trip up to Northwestern Ontario in Canada. This is the story, with lots of photos and a video.

On The Road Again

The drive from St. Paul, Minnesota to Thunder Bay, Ontario is absolutely beautiful. While it’s not the shortest trip (340 miles, 7 hours with breaks), it is certainly worth it. This is one of those trips where it would be a loss to fly because of what you would miss along the way (though you can fly, Thunder Bay has an airport). The old cliché is very true…traveling is as much about the journey as it is about the destination. This was such a refreshing journey. For reference, here’s the route we took, via Google Maps.

the trip map

St. Paul, MN to Thunder Bay, ON.

MN forest

Pine Tree Forest.

For most people the fun would not start until you get to Duluth, Minnesota 150 miles into the trip (see below), but for us it started right away. You see, I have been driving a lot through Missouri and Iowa and Moana spent four years in Indiana, so we both have gotten used to seeing farms, farms, and more farms…with some trees here and there. However, this drive takes you through some amazing upper Midwest forests and eventually into the Laurentian Mixed Forest Province, which is filled with seemingly endless pine trees and is just so damn different from anything either one of us have seen in the southern states. It’s this difference that made it beautiful. Of course, there are pine trees in the south too, but there are so many of them up there, it’s awesome. After driving through these pine forests for about two and a half hours north on Interstate 35, you arrive to Duluth. 

Duluth, MN 

Duluth is the last major city you will see in the Untied States on this drive, and is one of those hidden treasure cities I never knew existed. Duluth does not get a lot of national attention (when I lived in Kentucky I heard of it a total of zero times), but it is truly a treasure. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, it’s located on the shores of Lake Superior and on the northern border of Minnesota and Wisconsin. The first impression of this city is that it is a blue-collar, workers’ town. You see a lot of industrial elements, such as factories and trains carrying only coal. However, as you drive into the center, Lake Superior appears in front of you and, after driving for hours with only forest in sight, it looks like a vast ocean. Downtown Duluth is nestled along a few hills which wind down to the shores of the lake. The first time we were in Duluth, we arrived at night and Moana said all the lights of the hills going towards the darkness of the water reminded her of Izmir, Turkey. While the city is definitely industrial in nature, it’s so much more than that.

Duluth, looking up at hills.

Duluth, looking up at hills.

Once you get down to the water, there is a nice, albeit touristy, area with numerous restaurants, bars, and shops designed to make the visit to the lake even more fun. All of that is hardly necessary, however, because the beauty of the lake defines Duluth and causes you to stop in your steps and just take it all in. This city is not too big and not too small, it’s perfect in many ways–and I recommend that you visit it. After our break in Duluth, we started the most epic part of our journey towards Canada.

Minnesota/Ontario Highway 61

Highway 61. Image from: http://www.gunflint-trail.com/

Highway 61. Image from: http://www.gunflint-trail.com/

Think of those car commercials you see on TV where the cars drive on beautiful winding roads that seem to be on cliffs along even more beautiful water. That’s pretty much Minnesota Highway 61, which turns into Ontario Highway 61 after you cross the border. If you look up at the route map, you’ll notice that more than a hundred miles of our trip was right on the north shore of Lake Superior. The fascinating beauty of this drive cannot be understated. It’s no wonder that it’s designated as a scenic highway, that there is a movie named after it, and that the one and only Bob Dylan, a native of Duluth, named one of his albums after it. Since this is not an interstate highway, you can easily stop wherever and enjoy the view.

View from Highway 61.

View from Highway 61.

moana lake

igor lake

After driving on this beautiful road for a few hours, you will cross into Canada and will eventually end up in the first big city, Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Thunder Bay

Thunder Bay is also located on Lake Superior and is also very industrial, it is used as a major trading port due to its location on the lake. The city is very similar to size to Duluth…about 100,000 in population. Moana and I both had an itch to leave the country and this is why we chose to go to Thunder Bay. This trip was in March, and as you probably can tell from the photos, this part of the world in March is still very much in winter. It was very cold, so cold that the lake was frozen and there was a decent winter storm while we were there (3-5 inches in a few hours). The city was very nice, though it quickly became obvious to us that for tourists, it’s more of a late spring/summer destination. The cold was pretty unbearable…we spent most our time inside and even ended up seeking out the local greenhouse to see some green for a change. It was still worth it. Things in this part of Canada are the same in many ways, yet different in many other ways.

For example, even compared to Minnesota, the efficiency and speed with which they cleared the roads after the snow was amazing. Also, they LOVE doughnuts. There were doughnut shops everywhere. Thirdly, the people there were incredibly nice and helpful. During the snowstorm, we got lost and ended up going into a Tim Hortons to ask for directions back to our hostel, and the barista lady drew a map for us on a napkin. We still didn’t find our way back for a while, but that’s besides the point :) . We also went to a movie while there, and the interior of the cinema looked more like the inside of a fast food restaurant than it did like the cinemas I’m used to in the states, which usually have darker and less vibrant interiors.

We made it to Canada!

We made it to Canada!

Frozen Lake Superior from Thunder Bay

Frozen Lake Superior from Thunder Bay.

Thunder Bay Cinema...Colorful Interior

Thunder Bay cinema…colorful interior.

Thunder Bay Greenhouse--hiding from the cold.

Thunder Bay Greenhouse–hiding from the cold.

Despite the bitter cold, going to Thunder Bay was still worth it. One of the best parts about our trip was where we stayed, the Thunder Bay International Hostel. This is the homiest hostel I have ever stayed in. The older gentleman who runs it (we never got his name) traveled the world with his wife (she passed away) and they always stayed in hostles  so he decided to open up a hostel in his native city as well. The most amazing thing about him is that he is still traveling…when we first arrived he showed us photos of his recent trip to Colombia. Also, he writes detailed reports of all his travels, prints them out, and places them in each of the hostel rooms for visitors to read. This man was truly and inspiration, and if you go to Thunder Bay, stay in his hostel! Just look at how homey it is. Just one note…if you are allergic to cats call him before to make sure you will be okay, when we stayed there two cats were also guests.

Thunder Bay International Hostel

Thunder Bay International Hostel.

Thunder Bay International Hostel

Thunder Bay International Hostel.

Thunder Bay International Hostel

Thunder Bay International Hostel.

The Hostel owner writes about all his travels, and shares it with the guests.

The Hostel owner writes about all his travels, and shares it with the guests.

People from all over the world have visited the hostel.

People from all over the world have visited the hostel and left their mark by designing these boards.

This was an amazing Spring Break trip, and I hope this entry has inspired you to put it on your list. I recommend flying up to Minneapolis, renting a car, and going on this adventure (don’t forget your passport). All you need is three days. However, if you don’t want your car looking like my car did, and if you don’t want to be freezing the whole time, don’t go anytime between September-April. If you go during the warmer months, you can really appreciate the beauty of all the nature you will see.

Toyota Corolla vs. Winter Trip to Canada

Toyota Corolla vs. Winter Trip to Canada.

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Intracultural, Intercultural, Cross-Cultural, and International Communication: What’s the Difference?

Posted on March 12, 2013 by

Today I want to answer a question I’ve had myself, and one I believe other communication, sociology, anthropology, political science, international relations, and students of other related disciplines might have.

What is the difference between intracultural, intercultural, cross-cultural, and international communication?

They may all seem to be talking about the same thing, but when scheduling your classes, you might see one intercultural class, one cross-cultural class, and another international communication class. If you are already in a related class, you might be reading studies or chapters that use all of these terms.

From a communication perspective, these terms DO NOT represent the same thing. While they all might be underneath a similar roof, they describe entirely different rooms. The differences in the meanings have to do with the perspective researchers take when studying a certain phenomenon, and the type of research they decide to do. Also, the differences have to do with what factors are influencing the communication. Knowing the differences between these terms will help you in future class projects or in conversations with nerdy people such as this author (I’m blogging about definitions, can’t hide the nerdiness if I wanted to). At the very least, knowing these differences might help you at the local bar trivia night one day!

To answer this question, I turn to the textbook Intercultural Competence by Myron Lustig and Jolene Koester. They clearly define each term in Chapter Two of their text.

  • Intracultural Communication 

For this term, note the ‘intra’ as compared to the ‘inter’ I will discuss below. Intracultural communication describes communication between at least two people who are from the same culture or have culturally similar backgrounds. So, a conversation between two American citizens who both grew up on the farms of Georgia would be intracultural because they will essentially have the same background and cultural orientations.

  • Intercultural Communication 

Intercultural communication describes communication between at least two people who are different in significant ways culturally. For instance, a conversation between a man who grew up in Nepal and a woman who grew up in Micronesia would probably be an intercultural conversation because we could study how the different cultural backgrounds of the two people affect their communication strategies towards each other.

  • Cross-Cultural

Cross-Cultural communication IS NOT the same thing as intercultural communication. While intercultural communication deals with the interaction between at least two people, cross-cultural communication describes the comparison of communication styles across cultures. For instance, a paper about what happens when a Moroccan man speaks with a Hawaiian woman would be intercultural, but a paper comparing the communication patterns of people from Morocco with the communication patterns of people from Hawaii would be cross-cultural.

  • International Communication

This one is similar to intercultural communication because it also describes communication between at least two people who are from different cultures. However, topics concerning international communication don’t really look at how cultural differences affect specific interactions between two people because they are often focused on a larger picture. For instance, international communication might describe how government offices from the U.S. communicate with government offices from Turkey. Furthermore, they may describe communication between individuals who live in different cultures, but have similar experiences (e.g., email communication between friends who both studied together in the U.S. as exchange students but then went back to their own respective countries).

As with all things in the humanities, oftentimes concepts overlap with each other and change over time. For instance, one paper you write might easily talk about both intracultural and intercultural communication, or you may start a paper from the intercultural perspective and move up to a more general cross-cultural perspective. Also, as people change, the communication between them changes. Take the example of an intercultural friendship…it’s intercultural in the beginning because the two people might be from different cultures. However, if that friendship lasts for many years, they will learn enough about each others cultures to completely change the dynamic of the communication in their relationship and make it an interpersonal one instead.

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Stop Complaining, Grad Students

Posted on January 21, 2013 by

This week begins my 14th semester of college, and with it, a (hopeful) resurgence of somewhat regular blog posts (shot out to the person who inspired me to write this today). I haven’t posted anything on here since October, which was a mere two months into the first semester of my program at T(t)he University of Kansas (still not sure if KU officially capitalizes the ‘t’ or not). To be honest, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. [Read till the end for my disclaimer].

Yes, I was busy often and worked many hours a week and yes, there were days during which I hated having endless amounts of homework and grading to do, but it all got done and it all got done fairly smoothly (I think the fact that I already have my MA helped to avoid the grad school culture shock, but that’s besides the point). The reason I have not blogged is not my graduate school work. It seemed that everybody last semester in my life was willing to excuse any laziness I was having due to ‘the PhD…”. Again, don’t get me wrong, it IS a lot of work…but I think too often us graduate students feel entitled and expect people to pity us for having homework and for having to grade papers. Many of us feel special somehow, like we are working way more than our peers who decided not to pursue graduate school. The reason I didn’t blog is not because of my PhD, not because of any actual time constraints but simply because I was lazy and didn’t HAVE to blog like I did when this website was a school project back in the day.

As a communication scholar (can I call myself that yet?), I know that how we talk about something will eventually influence how we think about it. Thus, if we are always complaining about all of the work we have to do as graduate students, we will eventually believe we have the biggest workload in the world. We need to realize that we are lucky, incredibly lucky, and that the work we do is not more stressful than the work others do.

My father, for instance, has worked at the same company for the last fifteen years. His primary job has been to ensure that huge pieces of sheet metal and pipes are loaded into semi-trucks for transport. They have to work outside in the elements (imagine the heat in the back of a semi-truck in the middle of the summer) and he has never gotten five weeks off (what I just had from my KU teaching job over winter break, after only working there four months). While I was a sophomore in high school, my job was to clean dishes at a restaurant that, at it’s busiest, had over a hundred guests. Imagine standing behind steaming water for at least eight hours everyday and having an endless stream of dishes thrown your way by servers…my hands have never been that wrinkly (because of all the water) in my life.

I’m not saying my dad’s job, or my former job, are harder than the gig I have today (aside from the obvious conclusion that they are both physically harder) or that my job today is harder than the jobs above…I’m just saying that as graduate students, especially the ones who have not really worked on anything for a few years besides school, we need to realize that our stress or our hard work is not special or unique, it’s just different. Of course, our job is not the best at times. But everyone experiences that. If jobs were always fun, there would be no reason for them to pay us to do them. Thus, I think the Twitter hashtag “#gradschoolproblems” could easily be applied to any profession/job out there. Why are grad school problems special? They’re not. This is one of the reasons that I have committed to doing stuff OTHER than my grad school work, whether it’s volunteering, working part-time jobs for a few hours a week, or working at summer camps in Turkey.

Don’t get me wrong, I think most graduate students realize this. But there are a few who seem to feel differently, who seem to feel that what they are doing is somehow harder than what others do, who seem to feel entitled and ‘special’. I would like to think I am not part of this group, but I admit that I’ve probably felt like it now and then, especially when things get inevitably horrible towards the end of every semester and when I feel like my workload is so much harder than anyone else’s.

This semester and for the rest of this academic career, however, I will make a conscious effort to remember that my job is not any harder than any other job and that I should not in any way feel like I work harder than those who decided not to do graduate school…it’s just a different type of work. It happens to be a type of work that I love very much, and I do hope that everybody can find something they love to do (even on the days when they hate it), but just because I am a ‘graduate student’ does not make me any more special or more hardworking than anyone else. This job works for me, while other jobs work for others. Of course, I’ll still complain. We all complain because we are human animals. But I won’t think that my complaints are any more warranted than anyone else’s complaints. And, seriously, graduate students complain about having to grade others’ work, and about having to READ and WRITE and (in the physical sciences) having to DO EXPERIMENTS and LEARN FORMULAS….all of these are privileges…our jobs when compared to other jobs are really not that bad.

Having said that, and this is the disclaimer I mentioned above, I know that my work will get harder than it was this past semester. The other day my office mate told me that every semester in graduate school has gotten harder for him and that the first one is the easiest. I am not blind to the reality of the workload that is approaching me, but I do believe that how I think about the work, how I frame it in my mind, will have a significant effect on how productive I am.

Homework used to be a chore. Today, along with teaching, it’s a job. And as long as I remember that, and as long as I don’t feel like my job is ‘better’ or ‘harder’ than other jobs, I think Spring 2013, no matter how many pages I have to read or write or grade, will be another smooth one. I will do my work this spring, just like all the dishwashers and semi-truck loaders of the world will do their work.

And now, for some humor (not complaints), I finish with this awesome video, thanks to The Simpsons.

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Obama and Romney: On Policy

Posted on October 21, 2012 by

While many love the Presidential debates that have been going on lately, very little specific and actual comparisons of candidates’ positions on actual government policy have been made clear during them–these debates are more about performance than substance.

Paul Loeb, from the Campus Election Engagement Project (CEEP), shared some information on Friday with scholars of communication through our Communication, Research, and Theory (CRTNET) network. The folks from CEEP have developed an extremely simple voter’s guide highlighting the differences between President Obama’s and Governor Romney’s standpoints on several key policy issues. In his message, he (see below) encouraged us all to share this policy guide:

….So we’ve created this Presidential voter guide, adapting the resources of www.votesmart.org. So please forward, post, or otherwise distribute this guide as widely as you can.

So, without further ado, I present some information that might help you make the decision for who you will vote for. Of course, it’s oversimplified and a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ should not be all the information you need to decide your vote, but it might inspire you to do further research.

                    Campus Election Engagement Project: The Candidates on the Issues

I. BUDGET, SPENDING, AND TAXES:

Is balancing the budget an administrative priority?
Obama: Yes, but not a high priority.
Romney: Yes, a very high priority.
In order to balance the budget, do you support reducing defense spending?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No.
In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket?
Obama: Yes-raise taxes on income above $250,000 by allowing Bush tax cuts on that bracket to expire.
Romney: No-keep all Bush-era tax cuts.
In order to balance the budget, do you support reducing Medicaid spending?
Obama: No.
Romney: Yes.
In order to balance the budget, do you support reducing Medicare spending?
Obama: No.
Romney: Yes.

II. CAMPAIGN FINANCE:

Do you support the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions?
Obama: No.
Romney: Yes.
Do you support the DISCLOSE Act, which would require key funders of political ads to put their names on those ads?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No clear position, but most fellow Republicans oppose the bill.

III. ECONOMY: 

Do you support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No.
Do you support providing tax incentives to businesses for the purpose of job creation?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: Yes.
Do you support spending on infrastructure projects for the purposes of job creation?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: Yes, but less so than the President.
Do you support the Dodd-Frank financial regulation act, which established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No.

IV. EDUCATION: 

Do you support increased federal aid to college students to help with the cost of their education?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No.
Do you support requiring states to implement education reforms in order to be eligible for competitive federal grants?
Obama: Yes-states need firm standards.
Romney: No-cut back federal involvement in education.

V. ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY: 

Do you believe human activity is a major driving force in climate change?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: Position unclear-but the consensus in his party says no.
Do you support the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No.
Do you favor government support for alternative energy?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No.
Do you generally support reducing restrictions on offshore energy production?
Obama: No.
Romney: Yes.

VI. FOREIGN POLICY: 

Do you support the United States’ combat operations in Afghanistan?
Obama: Yes, with a timetable to withdraw combat troops by the end of 2014.
Romney: Yes, aiming to withdraw by the end of 2014 but with no deadline.
Do you support targeting suspected terrorists outside of official theaters of conflict?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: Yes.

VII. GUNS: 

Do you generally support restrictions on the sale and possession of guns?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No.

VIII. HEALTH CARE: 

Do you support the 2010 Affordable Care Act?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No.
Should individuals be required to purchase health insurance, with assistance from government subsidies for small businesses and low-income individuals, as mandated in the 2010 Affordable Care Act?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No.
Should insurance companies be required to cover patients with pre-existing conditions, as mandated in the 2010 Affordable Care Act?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No.

IX. IMMIGRATION:

Do you support requiring illegal immigrants to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship?
Obama: No.
Romney: Yes.
Do you support the DREAM Act, which would allow children of illegal immigrants to stay in this country if they’ve graduated high school, have a clean legal record, and attend college or serve in the military?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No

X. SOCIAL ISSUES:

Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation?
Obama: Pro-choice.
Romney: Pro-life.
Do you support same-sex marriage?
Obama: Yes.
Romney: No-also no to civil unions.

XI. SOCIAL SECURITY: 

Do you support allowing individuals to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts?
Obama: No-this option seems too vulnerable to market volatility.
Romney: Yes-this would let retirees benefit more from strong markets.

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An iPhone 20 World (Part II)

Posted on September 25, 2012 by

About one year ago in this post I shared a video from speciality glass and ceramics company Corning, in which the company showed the potential of touch-screen and glass-based digital technology.

I absolutely love good technology. I don’t understand how it works but I love what it does for humanity through its functionality and I appreciate its aesthetics (thus why I study Communication instead of Computer Science or Engineering). Being a devoted quasi-trekkie (I would never claim full trekkie status, out of respect for actual trekkies), I also love to think about how technology will continue to improve as humanity progresses towards the 22nd Century.

In the future, tablets will be as common place as cell phones today. http://www.corning.com

The video I showed last year was entitled ‘A Day Made of Glass’; a beautiful and potentially realistic depiction of how industrialized nations might incorporate glass-based digital technology in the next few decades. If you check out the post from last year, you’ll see I discussed modern-day examples of some of this technology that’s already on the market, potential research questions related to this growth in technology, how all of our media would converge as a result of it, and the implications of these advances for the global digital divide (not all countries have the technology we have in the industrialized world).

The purpose of this post is not to restate all of that information, but to show you a second video, appropriately entitled ‘A Day Made of Glass 2′, in which Corning again showcases some additional examples of how glass-based touch-screen technology could change our lives in the future. I am particularly intrigued by the healthcare examples in this second video—health communication could be vastly improved and lives could be saved. Of course, I am also intrigued by the educational examples.  If you question the realism of the video, Corning actually made a longer version of this second video in which some of the specific technical specifications are named and discussed, and they also have a Frequently Asked Questions site related to the content of the video.

And now, without further ado, I give you the ‘World of the iPhone 20′, part II.

Live long, and prosper.

Posted in communication and technology, computer-mediated communication, health communication, internet | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment