from Vancouver, BC
The past few months have been a rollercoaster. What is often referred to as “reverse culture shock” has been the major influence on my state of mind. Of course, such things are always far more complex than such a term can capture, but that’s the best I can do without delving into the assuredly alarming inner workings of my mind. The West Coast sun helped soothe both body and soul, but surely couldn’t lend order to my thoughts.
After drifting for several weeks, I joined a research project at UBC’s business school. I was involved in a preliminary project examining the feasibility of a new Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. The field, unfamiliar to most and not well defined, involves applying entrepreneurial spirit and skills to projects that favour social outcomes at least as much as finanical outcomes. Such projects can be for-profit or non-profit, but share some sort of positive social vision. It provided me the opportunity to learn more about a field with which I had had passing contact while travelling, and which sparked my interest as a new and potentially edgy development paradigm.
September heralded a return to coursework and an altogether new research focus. I try to imagine that I am developing a unique and integrated skill set, although it sometimes seems that I am simply wandering from field to field. My new research will involve the production-side impacts of biodiesel crops in India, in an attempt to avoid the surge of funding and lack of thorough research that have characterized the American bioethanol industry. The real costs and benefits - environmental, social, and economic - must be rigorously identified before rampant enthusiasm takes over (although we may be a bit late in this regard).
And so life goes, ever forward; a definite beginning, a definite end, but meanwhile, everything is muddled and uncertain.