Utica

Budget: ~$350

I'm still in Utica, living with Krista and Howard. Between exploring the city and taking bike rides together and going to the beach (on Oneida Lake) and playing board games at night and watching Japanese shows and seeing local bands, I've been trying to work, but Memorial Day weekend is not an easy time to find anything.

Much as I hate to think this way, there are definitely large differences in people, and how they act and how they think, based on geography. Farther east, particularly in larger cities, there seemed to be a general consensus of opinions on nearly any philosophical topic. Out here, particularly in smaller towns, there also appears to be a consensus, but of a very different sort, everybody both there and here falling squarely into their stereotypes. I see nothing wrong with this inherently, but the geographic dependence shows how susceptible all of us are to the opinions of those around us. Although I've also wondered how much of it has to do with people's unwillingness to confess to a minority opinion.

In this sense, Utica is interesting, being a city in a generally rural area. I've found more diversity of opinion here than anywhere else so far, and talking about any issue has been incredibly fun because you can never guess what anybody will think, and nobody is afraid to open up. This is one of the big reasons why I'm so glad I'm getting to stay here for a while.

The brakes on my back wheel have been annoying me, and I've been playing around with them, but while I can make them work well enough, some tiny amount of friction remains when I ride, so I handed my bike over to a bike shop. They'll take a few more days with it, which is obnoxious for what I'd expect to be a half-minute job with the proper tools, but I'll be trying to work, so it's all good.