Potential
Wheelbuilding at Sibley Bike Depot (January)
This class is designed as a complete introduction to the basics of wheel building. We are posting this class late, but if we have sufficient interest we will start the first class with lacing rims. The second class will entail bringing the wheel up to tension and truing it radially and laterally. It is okay if you don't understand what this means we will start at the beginning. No prior knowledge is necessary, however, it will be useful to understand the basics of truing.
We will be following Gerd Shraner's method feel free to peruse his book http://www.icelord.net/bike/ArtOfWheelbuilding.pdf
I am going to push this into January because not enough people registered in time. Please let me know if you would like to join us.
Location
Complete Bicycle Overhaul at Sibley Bike Depot (January)
This intermediate class will build upon the skills taught in the Basic Bike Maintenance class and expand through overhauling an entire bicycle. It's recommended that students have taken the Basic class or have a similar beginning familiarity with bicycle repair. Participants will take apart, clean, and repack all bearing systems, including hubs, headsets, and bottom brackets. In addition, the will install new cables and housing on brakes and derailleurs as needed, and lubricate/adjust all shifting systems. In full, folks attending this class will learn how to perform a complete tune-up/overhaul of a bicycle. Participants will work with the same bike through the class, in order to see the complexities and intricacies of one specific bicycle. Note: All class participants will fix up SHOP BIKES during this class! Bikes fixed up will go into one of Sibley's many community programs designed to promote biking!
The class will be 4 Thursdays: January 5, 12, 19, & 29 from 6:30-9pm each day.
Please contact me with any questions!
Micah
Location
Programming & Design
Enrollment is now active. Feel free to email / tweet / +1 / blog or repost this url so we can get some more signups.
No location has been set but we have options. Before class is officially nailed down to dates I would like to have a meet up with all interested students where we can talk about locations and ideas about what people are looking for in this class.
This is an experimental course designed to cover all aspects of web design and development in one program. The goal is to be project orientated and quickly move from basics into advanced topics like programming and interface design.
The goal is to have classes every other Saturday (dates not finalized) for three hours. Then two to three hours of "take home" work. This course should be about six hours a week.
It is important to have students that understand how to use a computer (how to get pictures off their camera, how to “google” things, how to check their bank statements online, how to install software) but you do not need to have any formal training to take this class. We will be starting at the bottom.
Traditional Artisans: Preserving the Folk School Education
Apprenticeship once offered an individual the opportunity to learn a craft from masters of that craft. Nowadays, apprenticeship is difficult to come by, which is precisely why this workshop/class/school/folk festival is being created. The purpose of this workshop/class/school/folk festival is to bring together the skills of old to pass them on to others in an effort to preserve the beauty of not only the craft but the culture of the craft. If you are interested in traditional skills/crafts, we welcome you to join this workshop. When enough interest is generated, we will begin offering opportunities to learn the following skills and begin planning our own Folk Festival - complete with an evening barn dance!?!:
Spoon/Knife Carving
A Spoonful of Creativity: Learn to Carve a Wooden Spoon and/or Cheese Knife
October 30, 2011; 12-5ish (material fee ~$30, beginners and experienced carvers are welcome)
Class size will be ~10 apprentices/professional instructor with additional craftspeople available to assist. Bring a high quality, sharp knife (Mora Knifes are great!)
Many folk traditions include the carving of beautiful spoons for use at home and as treasured gifts. The purpose of this class is to pass on that tradition by sharing the joy of learning traditional knife strokes and carving techniques to carve your own beautiful, durable and useable wooden spoon and/or butter/cheese knife! This class will begin with a brief presentation on spoons from across the world while you prepare to carve a useable spoon and/or knife. While you carve, the instructor will share mesmerizing folk tales and discuss woodcarving topics such as sharpening, decorating, finishing and design techniques. Feel free to bring your new and old wooden spoons to share. We will have some tools for student use and additional spoon blanks for sale.
Building an Earth Oven
I would like to organize a class to build an earth oven. I have done this before but never here in Minneapolis.
We will start with a classroom session talking about the science behind earth plaster construction and thermal mass cooking. Then we will build the oven over a series of approximately 8 sessions.
This class is early in formation. In order to make it work and do it cheaply, we will need to find:
1) somebody who has a whole lot of clay soil that we can remove from their yard
One Possible way to do this is by building a raingarden for someone. In building the rain garden we can extract lots of clay soil.
2) Find someone who owns some land nearby who would like an earth oven. Anyone?
3) Find someone with a truck who can haul clay and sand for us.
Until we find these things we will not set a date for this class. However, if you are excited about this please feel free to contact me. Lets work together to find the resources we need to make this happen. It is possible if it takes a long time figuring these logistics out we will do this class spring semester. In the meantime, lets work together to track down what we need, and maybe build that rain garden.
There is also a possibility that this class will be done in collaboration with the Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota (EJAM). They are starting a grassroots natural building campaign with North Minneapolis residents
Kiswahili Discussion Circle
this discussion group would be ideal for people who are either trying to brush up on speaking Swahili or who haven't yet had much exposure to Swahili but are serious about learning (e.g., you have plans to travel to East Africa). for beginners, we can offer some basic materials; however, the learning curve will be sharp.
people who have taken Swahili through St. Paul community education along with a local person who has briefly lived in Tanzania have committed themselves to help form the core of the discussion group... so this IS happening.
Location
Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, and Death: Our Existential Predicament
LONELINESS, DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, AND DEATH:
OUR EXISTENTIAL PREDICAMENT
Have you noticed a loneliness that cannot be solved by love?
Are you sometimes aware of a depression not caused by circumstances?
Do you have free-floating existential anxiety?
Is your 'fear of death' out of proportion to the actual threat?
These 4 and 7 other similar phenomena will be explored in this electronic group.
Our method of exploration is looking deeply into ourselves.
This cyber-seminar will take place by means of an already-established Yahoo Group
called The Existential Freedom Group.
Each month, beginning as soon as 10 people have the book and are ready to discuss it,
we will read and discuss one chapter from a book called:
Our Existential Predicament:
Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, and Death.
Over 50 pages from this book can be read on the Internet.
Just click the title above.
Students and faculty at the University of Minnesota
will find this book in Wilson Library.
And the publisher—Existential Books—offers to donate this book
to any public or academic library that will agree to put it on the shelves.
(Here are the details about this offer of free books for libraries.)
Readers who would prefer to own a copy
should buy it directly from the publisher.
A comprehensive course description will appear if you click those words.
Locations
Living Will Workshop: Creating Your Own Advance Directive for Medical Care
LIVING WILL WORKSHOP:
CREATING YOUR OWN ADVANCE DIRECTIVE FOR MEDICAL CARE
Facilitator:
James Park, existential philosopher
E-mail:
PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU
Phone:
612-871-7275
Course description:
In preparing for our own deaths, we should to ask 24 basic Questions,
discuss them with our loved ones, put our decisions into writing, and appoint proxies.
This workshop will be an opportunity to meet with others who are asking the same Questions,
deciding their own medical ethics, and how they want to be treated at the end life.
"http:www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/Q-L-WILL.html"
Here are the 24 basic Questions on the Internet.
Each week we will discuss about 4 Questions.
The printed resource for this workshop is:"http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/AD-OUT-NET.html"
Your Last Year: Creating Your Own Advance Directive for Medical Care
About 100 pages of this 250-page book are offered free of charge on the Internet.
This book will be available in class for $35.
But you can return it for $30 at the end of class." http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/LWW-EXCO.html">
See your options for owning or re-selling the book.
See a" http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/D-LWW.html"
comprehensive course description.
At the end of this workshop, participants will have written, signed, and witnessed
Advance Directives for Medical Care.
You are encouraged to attend with your proxy
Location
Are You a Person of Spirit? Six Capacities of Our Human Spirits
ARE YOU A PERSON OF SPIRIT?
SIX CAPACITIES OF OUR HUMAN SPIRITS
Name of facilitator:
James Park
E-mail:
PARKx032@UMN.EDU
(612) 871-7275
course description:
Shorter and longer course descriptions will be found here:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/D-SPIRIT.html
Being together with other persons of spirit can help us to tune-in to our higher capacities.
In the first meeting we will attempt to define and distinguish these four dimensions of our selves:
(1) our physical dimension
(given by our genes);
(2) our emotional-psychological dimension
(learned since birth);
(3) our intellectual dimension
(characterized by words, verbal learning);
(4) our spiritual dimension
(beyond body, heart, and mind; manifest in the following 6 capacities).
Our human spirits show themselves in these six phenomena:
(1) self-transcendence, self-criticism, and altruism;
(2) freedom—our ability to shape our own lives;
(3) creativity—our ability to bring something new into being;
(4) love—which opens us to encountering others as Thou;
(5) anxiety—which puts us in touch with our underlying Malaise;
(6) joy and fulfillment—opening to living beyond angst and despair.
Because the life of our spirits is so fragile, it is very easy to ignore the budding of our spirits,
so that our spiritual life dries up and disappears.
If we want our spirits to grow, we must prize and nurture whatever inkling of spirit we have
rather than dismissing and forgetting these capacities because they lack immediate practical value.
Location
Imprinted Sexual Fantasies: A New Key for Sexology
IMPRINTED SEXUAL FANTASIES:
A NEW KEY FOR SEXOLOGY
Facilitator:
James Park, existential philosopher
E-mail:
PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU
Phone:
612-871-7275
Course description:
We will read and discuss a book of the same name:
Imprinted Sexual Fantasies: A New Key for Sexology.
ISF offers a new explanation of human sexuality:
Each person is imprinted with specific sex-scripts
or sexual fantasies during our first 20 years of life.
Our first sexual responses are created not by nature,
not by nurture, but by mental imprinting.
If this hypothesis proves substantially correct,
it could revolutionize modern sexology.
Is this seminar for you?
Ten teasers from the text might help you decide.
Eleven chapters will be discussed in 5 sessions:
Session 1:
I. INTRODUCING THE SEX-SCRIPT HYPOTHESIS
This chapter is available free of charge on the Internet:
See the table of contents.
Participants in this class should read these 16 pages
before the first session.
After we introduce the class and the participants,
we will discuss this first chapter.
Copies of the printed book will be available in class
for the wholesale price: $25.
Session 2:
II. THE EVOLUTIONARY BACKGROUND OF HUMAN SEX-SCRIPTS
III. SEXUAL IMPRINTING AT CRITICAL PERIODS IN PSYCHO-SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT
Session 3:
IV. THREE LEVELS OF SEX-SCRIPTS
V. VARIETIES OF SEX-SCRIPTS
Session 4:
Location
Voluntary Poverty: How to Simplify Your Life
Name of facilitator:
James Park
E-mail:
PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU
Phone:
612-871-7275
Course description:
VOLUNTARY POVERTY:
HOW TO SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE
Would you like to meet other people who live simply?
This seminar has become a gathering place
for people already committed to voluntary simplicity.
What ideas do you have for saving money?
This seminar will be an opportunity to share our experiences
of living on much less than most people think is essential.
Can we be happy earning and spending less than $10,000 per year?
How do you obtain the small amount of money you need to survive?
How do you manage to spend so much less than other people?
Can any of your techniques be used by others?
Here is the comprehensive course description for this class:
Voluntary Poverty: How to Simplify Your Life,
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/D-VP.html
Here you will find more details about the life-style of the facilitator,
who lives at 75% of the federal poverty level.
You will also learn more about our Facebook Page,
which is called "Simple Living in the Twin Cities".
(There is also more about our Facebook Page
at the bottom of this course description.)
This workshop will be just one meeting of two hours.
This should be enough to share ideas for living cheaply.
If you would like to know how I save money on electricity, for example
(paying only $21 per month), go to:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/CY-ELEC.html
If you would like to read some books on simplifying your life,
go to the Simplicity Bibliography:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/%7Eparkx032/B-SIMP.html
TIME:
The February 2010 meeting of this seminar
was attended by about 12 people.
We are likely to have another gathering soon.
Location
Becoming More Authentic: The Positive Side of Existentialism
E-mail: PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU
Phone: 612-871-7275
BECOMING MORE AUTHENTIC:
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF EXISTENTIALISM
Do you want to make your life more:
autonomous, focused, organized, and meaningful?
Using a small book of the same name,
we will first define Authenticity, take an Authenticity Test,
consider several possible Authentic projects-of-being,
and finally explore Authenticity as described by
Camus, Sartre, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Maslow.
If you would like to read a three-page presentation
of the basic concept of Authenticity, go to:
Becoming More Authentic:
The Positive Side of Existentialism.
Another way to describe Authenticity
is to ask where we are on any of
23 growth scales.
If you click the link above,
you will see a phrase describing where we all begin
and a contrasting phrase describing
the destination toward which we move
if we are becoming more Authentic.
For example, here is the fourth growth scale:
In original existence,
we 'pursue' culturally-provided meanings and goals.
Whereas as we become more Authentic,
we create our own meanings and goals.
Existentialism affirms our personal freedom
to re-create our selves:
What is the new purpose of my life?
The instructor is James Park,
existential philosopher and author of the text,
which will be available in class for $15.
(But see cheaper options for buying the book.)
A comprehensive course description appears here:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/D-AU.html.
Class Time:
four meetings, two hours each,
to be arranged to suit the largest number of interested persons.
Class Dates:
Location
