Geography Awareness Week

Geography Awareness Week was a success!

The Geography Department and GSA brought geography to the people.  Or least geographers got to hang out and do fun geography-related things.

So here's a recap of that fun week before you get down to finishing those projects and studying for finals.  There will be an end of the year pot luck.  More info on that later.

Monday:
Bret Hartt's coffee talk and tasting.  If you missed it, well I can't give you any coffee, but you can download and listen to his talk here.  You can even hear the coffee being ground!  Plus I have pictures.

The outdoor film screening of Urbanized by Gary Hustwit.  Unfortunately I missed most of that but what I did see was interesting.   Here's the trailer.

Tuesday:
 Bret Hartt's film screening of Breakwater about the Long Beach breakwater.  You can download and listen to the Q and A with Brett, the director and the editor.

Wednesday:
MAP EXHIBIT!  We got to show off various maps by students and faculty. 

Dr. Christine Rodrigue gave a talk on the geography of Mars, which was fascinating.  Have a listen to it here.  You can also read and view her slides at her website.  

Thursday:
The last film screening was on a documentary called Africa Representa by Harald Friedl.  This was a great film on life in Africa and how the people see their lives and those of the developed countries.

Mapping Phnom Penh and Cultural Night

So a lot has been going on with more good things to come.  First off:

On Oct. 24 Dr. James Tyner, a former CSULB alumni, came to our campus and gave a lecture on “Mapping Phnom Penh during the Cambodian Genocide.”  He discussed how previous literature had pictured Phnom Penh as abandoned after the genocide, but in truth the city had around 22,000 people living and working within it.  You can download and listen to the lecture as well as the Q and A portion here.  (Note: the audio has been edited. These things have been removed: the intro about his time at CSULB, long pauses and audience clapping.  I've also increased the volume of some parts to better hear them.)

Image from CSULB Geography Dept. website.

Then there was Cultural Night on Oct. 27 at Natraj Indian Cuisine in Long Beach.  Everyone had a really good time and the food was delicious too.  Because we were having such a good time, we forgot to take pictures but here's the flyer I made for the event.

A little background on the restaurant:


 Natarj in Long Beach was actually part of a larger chain of Indian restaurants started by two friends, Vijay Khosla and Inderjit Singh in January of 1991.  They started several locations throughout Southern California.  Some have been sold off, including the one in Long Beach, but that doesn't seem to have caused it harm any.  In fact, there are quite a lot of good reviews.

This is the couple that runs Natraj.  Image from their website.

Our Cultural Night group also had a really good time.  The people who run Natraj were very nice and accommodating to our need for a large party and of course the food was great.  I tried fish curry because I'd never even heard of that before.  I really loved the mango lassi, which is a yogurt drink popular in northern India.  Here's a recipe, so you can make your own.  I would go back to Natraj everyday just to have that!  Oh, and the fried vegetables too. 

Some of the dishes available.  Image from Natraj's website.

If you want to know more about Indian food here are two articles:  History of Indian Food and History of Indian Cuisine.  Happy reading!

As a final note, the LAGS will be having their next free lecture on Friday Nov. 1 at 8 pm.  This lecture is on "Cannabis City: Medical Marijuana Dispensaries in Los Angeles" by Dr. Steve Graves Associate Professor of Geography, CSU Northridge.  The lecture will be held at:

Los Angeles City College (LACC)

Science-Technology Building

855 North Vermont Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90029

   

You can find directions on their website or can contact us at csulbgsa@gmail.com.  Hope to see you there!