Author Archives: okradoke

May 1, 2012
1:06 am
by: okradoke

What’s the deal with work-life balance?

I often find it strange the obsession with work-life balance. Here we have a verb, to work, and a noun, life. Is it not odd that we have compartmentalized our lives into two categories? 1. either working (in an office, driving, lifting 50 pounds, using a scalpel) OR 2. “living” (eating, sleeping, watching TV, going for a walk, traveling, […] Continue reading →

April 15, 2012
12:38 am
by: okradoke

Rethinking web connections

Jon Udell was in Blacksburg this week. An expert of the interwebs (a term probably balked at by Udell), he is somewhat of an anomaly among the masses of web users. It is one thing to use the internet (the majority); it is entirely another thing to be a web-thinker (Udell). Or, so I learned during […] Continue reading →

April 9, 2012
1:17 am
by: okradoke

the noise and the silence

I knew I needed to blog, and with it being such a nice night, took the dog on a walk for inspiration. We headed towards the Huckleberry Trail as the sun was setting over Lane Stadium. As we approached the bridge that crosses over Southgate Drive, and without a moment’s haste, my dog immediately tugged […] Continue reading →

March 29, 2012
7:16 pm
by: okradoke

Agency and Our Priorities

I just went for an hour swim. It was not like I needed it, as we like to say about time away from the office, but just part of my normal routine. As graduate students, like most of you know, we are “busy.” Reading, writing, meetings, lab time, undergraduates…when do we have time for exercise, […] Continue reading →

March 13, 2012
3:32 am
by: okradoke

Vulnerability

Recently, I was a part of a “raw” conversation, as my fellow raconteur so acknowledged it, about human connection. Curious about our own abilities to connect or feel loved by one another and with others, we ultimately began to address our own vulnerabilities; presumably because one cannot connect with another if he/she does not love […] Continue reading →

February 29, 2012
2:55 am
by: okradoke

The “Academic” Cyclist is a “Non-”

Sir Ken Robinson, well-known author/educator, says that the chaos that is modern education stems from earlier times of industrialization. Essentially, we are factory processing children into boxes based on age and then continuing the process by declaring one an academic and another a “non-academic.” Obviously this is due, not to capacity, but to economics. A […] Continue reading →

February 8, 2012
12:02 am
by: okradoke

The Importance of Metaphor

This PowerPoint slide, made by Virginia Tech instructor Bruce Hull, was presented to me and 50 other students in 2009 during a course called Nature and American Values. I was an undergraduate then, going on my fourth year of college with still one more to go; once again discovering that my major was probably not […] Continue reading →