Odin Waves to You From the Middle of March

Hello!

I cannot believe it’s already halfway through March. Did you survive the switch through Daylight Savings Time okay?

I’ve been hard at work this week on MLIS projects. We’re entering a phase where group projects are being realized, and that’s always an interesting experience. I’m lucky to have two good groups to work with, though all of us are a little overwhelmed between life, individual projects, and (for some of my peers) full time 9-5s. For my own part, dealing with health issues has been the real niggler.

Right now, one of my main focuses is on Information System Retrieval and Design, a course about building databases. Databases are repositories of information designed with retrieval in mind. It turns out that creating databases that offer ease of access and retrieval is actually an incredibly complex task!

Going into the next few weeks, I’m going to be trying to tackle a lot of extra work, which will make things… interesting. Wish me luck!

As for the health issues, what I’ve been struggling with the last two months is sciatica. Two weeks ago, however, my doctor cleared me to go back to exercising, so I’ve been having a good time returning to weighted workouts. Strength training, as I’ve mentioned before, is the most important form of exercise for anyone hoping to reach some level of fitness. Even just to weeks in, I can feel the change, and I’m looking forward to seeing these gains continue.

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This week, I’ve got a number of articles for you, focusing on topics like leadership, Communication, and Intersectionality. I hope you enjoy reading those! Remember, visiting and reading all the way to the end supports me on Medium a lot! Likewise, if you press the Clap button 50 times, it can help my articles rank better! I greatly appreciate your support.

Articles

I have an interesting selection of writing for you this week! Remember, clicking on any of these links bypasses Medium’s paywall, so you can read these articles for free. :)

I’m light on the techie and pop-culture articles this week, but I love being able to share some of my lighter academic work with you. Writing essays like these are pretty fun because I can still keep my voice free, while also drawing upon strong sources.

• What are the 7 Deadly Sins of Speech? The pitfalls of bad communication contain the seeds of their own destruction.
• Anarchist Archives Understanding the differences between anarchist collections and mainstream collections.
• Common Communication Pitfalls and How You Can Avoid Them The science of dialogue: how David Bohm and Stever Robbins’ Approaches lead to effective communication
• Intersectionality and Authority As leaders, we can take the concept of intersectionality and apply it directly to every exchange.

Are there topics you would like me to write about? Let me know in the comments, and maybe I’ll include those topics in future articles!

From the world

“Iowa legislators are considering a bill that would allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work certain jobs in meatpacking plants and shield businesses from civil liability if a child laborer is sickened, injured or killed on the job.” (Read all about it on MSNBC).

Covid-19 continues to be a serious worldwide health concern, despite rollbacks to government efforts to protect people from illness and death. Vaccines appear to lose effectiveness at an undesirable rate, according to this preprint study.

Worse, California and several other states are relaxing masking rules for… wait for it… medical facilities. Which is about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of. But, don’t take my word for it. This is a collection of articles about this issue, as well as about how the spread of this disease continues to cause irreparable harm to lives across the world.

Bringing Joy

I’ve been trying to strive for uplifting material in all my newsletters, but it made me happy to include a dedicated spot for this last week. I plan to continue this trend, even if with only one or two items. Doing so feels like a nice way to wrap things up for my readers.

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Ode to Joy: Muppet style

While my guitar gently weeps

This is a video that a friend online shared, and it has got to be one of the absolute best pieces of guitar playing I’ve heard. Simply gorgeous.

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Alright, that’s it for this week!

Take it easy, dear readers. And, if you can’t go easy, just go as easy as you can.

~Odin Halvorson