A Matter of Milliseconds

Wired editor Chris Anderson, in his book 'Free: The Future of a Radical Price,' writes about an idea called 'The Penny Gap.' In most cases, the jump in cost from free to a penny "can stop the vast majority of consumers in their tracks." This isn't because we are so concerned with our pennies going unsaved and unearned, but because the mere act of seeing a cost, however insignificant, causes us to weigh the benefits of the offer in a way we would never do when free. Rather than deal with that extra thinking, we typically ignore the penny offer. Officially, this brain-tax is named 'mental transaction costs.'

We have 'mental transaction costs' in things other than price. Frequently we find them in micropayments of time, things that require so little effort that we don't bother to break our inertia, thus ignore it and lose out on the reward. A simple example is keeping your room clean; rather than gain the benefit of a clean room by taking the extra 5 seconds to hang up a shirt, we avoid the brainwork. But whereas the benefit we ignore with penny offers is usually small (how significant can a benefit that costs a penny truly be?), the benefit we ignore with micropayments of time is usually large. Why? Because invested time accumulates, and greater time invested leads to greater commitment.

Lets switch to a more personal example. I use a digital djay program, a simple setup of turntables and mixer, but a lot of great functions and flexibility. In the middle of the interface is a little record button that will record your set. I've always ignored this button thinking 'I'm just practicing, I'll record something polished'. Unsurprisingly, I never recorded. But, when I decided to take the extra millisecond to always press record at the beginning of each set, I began to enjoy my hobby much more. I amassed a library of recordings which I frequently listen to. But more importantly, I've become more involved in my hobby-I can review what worked, what didn't, and learn from that. Small action, big reward.

Here's another example, this time with a slightly higher investment cost. When I started practicing yoga at home I had a low awareness of how much time I was in a posture and, a breath or two after I started to tire, would usually exit the position. Though feeling pleased do be doing yoga at home, I didn't feel much progress. Finally, I invested about an hour to create an audio recording of my yoga practice with each posture timed, and an audio cue to signal leaving the pose. In effect, I traded control for standardization. This has been most beneficial decision in my yoga practice. Investing the hour every other month or so (to update it) gives me a far richer and engaging home practice than I ever had before.

These micropayments of time shouldn't be substantial extra work. Beginning an exercise routine in order to get healthier is not an example here, its a substantial reogranization of time priorities; deciding to record your workout routine to ensure progress or adding 1 minute of jump rope before your cardio is. In the long run we notice these micropayments of time no more than we notice the payment of a penny. But unlike the penny, where the benefit largely goes unnoticed, when we speak of micropayments of time, the benefit is great, because it accumulates. We see benefits in the form of greater commitment, faster progress towards our goal, and less follow up work.

Like a Glacier

There is a great program the Peace Corps has called World Wise Schools, which pairs volunteers up with classrooms around the country in a pen pal style program. I keep correspondence with a third grade class and their wonderful teacher in North Carolina about life in Azerbaijan, life in North Carolina, and various other things. Its fun and productive (they gave me with 10 idioms to present in a conversation club, I taught them how to play 'buzz') and I try to keep on a somewhat regular schedule of every 2-3 weeks.

Similar to these emails, there is a perpetual search of what is truly worth writing reporting to home. I continue to think 'What is the overarching theme or plot I'm aiming for in these emails?' And, not surprisingly, I continue to encounter a blank in my head. At this point in my service it is largely isolated data points rather than an emerging pattern. So I continue to go through the week amassing random interactions and asking myself 'Is this 'bloggable?''

Things like a presentation on Easter a fellow volunteer did. At this PowerPoint presentation (in English mind you) there were probably 40 children formally sitting learning about, or at least seeing pictures of, various symbols used during the American Easter holiday. After the presentation, in typical Azeri style, there was eating and dancing, which is usually what I feel like doing when I survive through a PowerPoint presentation in America.

Or coming to a Health Club to teach some yoga poses. I had taught some intro level yoga in Denver when I worked at the African Community Center, so I came in with an idea of what we could do in 20 minutes. Never have I been so significantly off with a lesson plan. I forgot a key difference between America and Azerbaijan-laguage, and I had no clue how to translate the steps we was doing. But the kids had fun and by the end they had learned one position.

But maybe my favorite isolated data points come from my teachers at school, because it is here where I expect the theme of my service to emerge. School ends at the end of May, and the students, the teachers, the volunteer all know this. We feel this in our bones and fight against this knowledge in our minds. But a school day becomes worth it when I hear things like a teacher using simple drawing techniques she learned in our shared 7th form class in her 1st form class. Or when a teacher suggests that we adapt the 'make a movie' exercise for another lesson. Despite the fact that the glacier appears to be unmoving it actually is advancing inches at a time.

And it may be this very idea that is the theme itself of service.

By Popular Demand...

A picture of the tablecloth of kittens dressed as Greek Gods:

again, this is actually what protects my table in my kitchen.

Newly Launched: Just Between Seasonals

My sister is, what I call, a Wilderness Major. I think her exact education is on Wilderness Conservation Management or something, but I never remember. So I describe her as a Wilderness major, which usually buys me enough time to flesh out her description. Like that she worked as an outdoor firefighter soon after working with ranchers to advocate controlled burns (outdoor fires), or currently is working on a natural preserve in an absolute map-blip of a town called Battle Mountain, Nevada. To my mind, I do not believe a mountain, a battle, or anything else really, is there,

The world is not exactly an oyster for the Wilderness graduate. You spend four years in school only to hope that, upon graduation, you will have a chance to work at a very low paying job in the middle of nowhere. (Which actually sounds a lot like the Peace Corps, but I digress.) As one begins to build their professional resume they are frequently looking at seasonal positions that will help position them for better jobs in the future.

There's a lot of ambiguity for the Seasonal worker. With a guarantee you will not be earning your primary income for at least a few months out of the year you have to be wise with your money. Additionally, its rare that seasonal work provides a typical benefits package. You may find you have an awesome location-but no health insurance or its a great experience builder, but in the middle of nowhere.

Back to my sister. Meg has pretty successfully navigated the turbulent sea that is seasonal employment. She's dealt with the money, the house, the transportation, and she's done it with a dog. To help share this experience and provide a community of support she's launched Just Between Seasonals, as a resource and support for those looking to gain from seasonal employment rather than just survive through it. The site is well written and filled with worthwhile tips on making this type of lifestyle work for you, rather than your credit card company.

Regardless of your interest in seasonal employment, I highly recommend her write up on a Night Trapping Sage Grouse. Its an entertaining account of the spotting, capturing, and information gathering that is all-together so absurd it might as well be a metaphor for life. And hey, if this ends up turning you on to Sage Grouse trapping, all the better.

Of Course We Have Environmental Education!

The textbooks we're forced to use are pretty poor. They are exclusively in English, which make it difficult for someone who doesn't speak English to use. Activities have no connection to the actual information taught in our lesson. Passages are immensely boring and of little or no bearing to an Azerbaijani student. Phrases like 'project work,' 'now review,' or 'ask yourself' are used in a way that a normal student could not possibly be excepted to understand. In general, the textbooks seem like they were written by someone who understood what a textbook looked like, but had no clue as to what the actual goal of a textbook is (ie: to teach).

This week's challenge with the textbook is the unit many of our classes are in-environmental awareness and protection. The difficulty would be there if we were trying to teach this in the student's own language; most concepts, like 'reduce,' 'reuse,' 'recycle,' etc, don't have direct translation and Azerbaijan itself has been wrestling with the aftermath of being a site of brutal soviet industrial waste. Though a beautiful country with a large variety of ecological types, there is very real environmental destruction that has occurred.

In our book is a tip sheet of 8 simple things kids can do to save the environment, featuring all those feel-good tips we're used to. However, sorting your cans, glass, and paper doesn't have the same type of practicality when you are in a country with no recycling program. The class nodded their heads approvingly when I drew a little map of a river from Xachmaz flowing to Baki with bags of trash in it (because where else will you throw your bags of trash but the river?). I told them that people in Baki are drinking poisoned water because of our trash. No response. Thankfully some mouths dropped when I completed the map, drawing a river from Guba to Xachmaz, with bags of trash in. 'We're drinking poisoned water from Guba'. Whoa!-out of sight is not necessarily out of existence.

Its a combination of many things. The fact that the textbooks are trying to be textbooks for English children instead of Azerbaijani children. The fact that, historically speaking, we are in one of the most polluted areas in the world. The fact that the Not-In-My-Backyard is taken to an extreme, in that you can do anything you want to any place as long as it is not your walled in yard. But also, the fact that critical thinking is such an underdeveloped skill here that the connection is never made between the river you dump your trash into and the water you drink from the sam river.

Its frustrating on so many levels. As a teacher trying to teach English, as a community development worker trying to teach critical thinking, as a person working with individuals rather than state mechanism, and even as a (oh no-not this word) world citizen grossed out by the fact that people would rather throw their bag of trash on the ground rather than walk the extra 50 feet to a dumpster. But its beyond a lack of personal agency, these people are living in a state which does not provide the necessary means to deal with trash. Azerbaijan has a desire to become a high income tourist destination, a Switzerland of the Caucuses. If it ever hopes to attract serious Western tourist money it will have to clean its image up first. And this time, I'm not speaking in a metaphorical sense.