Table of Contents

1. Biography: About myself and this webpage.
2. To-Read Lists: What I'm interested in reading.
3. Featured Writing: Amateur prose and poetry.
4. Artwork of the Month: Pictures I like.
5. Rolodex: Other webpages I like.
6. Read/Watched Log: Chronological entries of books I've read and movies I've watched.
7. Music Collection: My CD collection.
8. Birdwatching Lifelist: Every bird I've ever seen.
9. Appendix: Miscellaneous objects and links.

Biography

My name is Aaron. I am currently a student of Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. My other interests are varied and include:

1. Topics in natural sciences, especially ecology, evolutionary biology, and more recently ornithology.
2. Grappling sports, weight training, and other sports
3. Language learning
4. Literature and film

If you don't yet have my contact information, you can find it below. Please feel free to contact me about anything you encounter on this site that you'd like to dicsuss.


email: adivsin "at" protonmail "dot" com
discord: aivsin

To-Read Lists

These lists are meant to be suggestive of the topics I'm interested in. They are not comprehensive.

Biology, Evolution, Ecology, and other Natural Sciences
1. Evolution - Zimmer
2. Guide to Flowering Plant Families - Zomlefer
3. On the Origin of Species - Darwin
4. Annals of the Former World - McPhee
5. Life Fantastic - Gould

History and Politics
1. Nature's Metropolis - Cronon
2. Ecological Imperialism - Crosby
3. Fanshen - Hinton
4. Rice in the Time of Sugar - Perez
5. Carbon Technocracy - Seow
6. Capitalism in the Web of Life - Moore
7. Sweetness and Power - Sidney Mintz

Theory, Criticism, and Philospohy
1. Capital - Marx
2. Science of Logic - Hegel

Literature and Film
1. Wizard of the Crow - Ngugi wa Thiongo
2. Petersberg - Andrei Bely
3. Native Son - Richard Wright
4. Paradiso - Jose Lezama Lima
5. Collected Poetry - Derek Walcott
6. The Passion According to G.H. - Clarice Lispector
7. The English Understand Wool - Helen DeWitt
8. The Red and the Black - Stendhal
9. The Carnival Trilogy - Wilson Harris
10. Gargantua and Pantagruel - Rabelais
11. Poems - Elizabeth Bishop
12. Crab Ship Cannery - Takiji Kobayashi
13. Three Streets - Yoko Tawada
14. Water Margin - Shi Nai'an

Featured Writing

I hope to write more in response to what I read, and to think more systematically; I hope you find these exercises interesting or useful.

1. Two Poems
2. An American Utopia - Frederick Jameson
3. The Triple Helix - Richard Lewontin

Artwork of the Month

April, Natalia Goncharova, "The Blue Cow"

See previous entries.

Rolodex

A number of my friends have webpages of their own, which may be of interest to you. I will also store other interesting websites here:

1. Olivia's neocities page: a friend studying the history of capitalism and the japanese railroad network.
2. Alex's neocities page: a friend who hosts some interesting artwork and poetry.
3. Advith's neocities page: a friend with an interesting blog.
4. Iris' neocities page: a friend studying Chinese history and Tiantai buddhism.
5. Richard's essays: an incarcerated penpal writing about capitalism, colonialism, and waste management.
6. James' essays: a friend studying 19th century German philosophy.
7. The Phenmoneal World newsletter: some great writing on various topics in modern political economy.

For 2024's entries

Read/Watched Log, 2025

1. 5-Jan-2025: Film: All For The Winner (1990)
   A spectacular comedy with great slapstick. Instantaneous recommendation from the very first scene. (100 minutes)
2. 9-Jan-2025: Fiction: Journey to the West, vol. 1 (2012) Wu Cheng'en
   translator Anthony Yu. What a fantastic story. I love the comedic bits between Eight Rules and Sun Wukong. I'm looking forward to finishing this, although I don't anticipate being able to do so soon. I'm also interested in reading Water Margin and The Plum in the Golden Vase. (379 pages)
3. 12-Jan-2025: Film: Sound of Metal (2020)
   A pretty good film. At times it accomplishes some really interesting effects with the sound design - I think of scenes where it is ambiguous whether it is simply a silent environment, or we are "hearing" Stone's deaf perspective. And the sonic congruence between the final party scene, when the experience of total social alienation overwhelms him, matching the total dissonance of the roaring distorted metal songs, is really striking. Underwritten and formulaic in many of its early beats. Lukewarm recommendation. (80 minutes)
4. 14-Jan-2025: Fiction: The Idiot (2017) Elif Batuman
   A really superb novel. Truly a feat that something so boring could be so quick-witted, so funny, and so intense and crushing. A definite recommendation. (423 pages)
5. 14-Jan-2025: Comic: Dykes To Watch Out For (1986) Alison Bechdel
   Spectacular. (77 pages)
6. 29-Jan-2025: Fiction: Klara and the Sun (2021), Kazuio Ishiguro
   An enjoyable novel, which was kindly gifted to me. I really admire a work of science fiction more interested in exploring a novel and unique subjectivity than poorly posed social-political questions. Really bruising in its final passages. Recommend. (303 pages).
7. 27-Feb-2025: Nonfiction: Emptiness and Omnipresence (2016), Brook Ziporyn
   My mind is like a sieve lately, so I feel like I got very little out of this. When I'm more powerful again I'll try the lotus sutra and the mohochikuan. Recommend. (336 pages)
8. 13-Mar-2025: Nonfiction: Age of Revolution (1962) Eric Hobsbawm
   A fantastic book. The wide breadth of topics is really stunning, and it leaves a lot of interesting topics I feel compelled to follow up on in greater reserach. Particularly interesting subjects to me were the political details of the French Revolution; the ambiguous relationship between scientific advancement and social, economic, political developments at the time; the process of deindustrialization in colonial India; and the history of the Greek revolution. A strong recommendation. (366 pages)
9. 27-Mar-2025: Fiction: The Adventures of Augie March (1953) Saul Bellow
   It took me a long time to like this book - I first tried reading it in my junior year of high school. At the end I really was wooed by the kind of idiotic, charming psuedishness of the character. I was also a little dissapointed in its self-seriousness and self-importance. Sometimes very well written but other times way too taken by syntactical excesses, or by pastiche. Would recommend, to some. (536 pages).
10. 3-Apr-2025: Fiction: Three Streets (2022) Yoko Yawada
    translator Margaret Mitsutani. A very good little set of dream-ghost stories. Liked it better than "The Emissary". Recommend. (80 pages).
11. 17-Apr-2025: Fiction: Four Short Novels (1966) Kenzaburo Oe
    translator John Nathan. Really, really good. "Prize Stock" and "Aghwee The Sky Monster" were my two favorites. Strongly recommend. (261 pages).

Music Collection

These are all albums I have on CD. I started a little collection from some old, scratched up discs my mom gave to me and have been adding to it slowly. Hopefully, I'll add a little radio station or music player here soon.

Visiting Discs: I checked these albums out from the library and listened to them at home.

Birding

I started going birding this winter, being newly enrolled in an Ornithology course and making some friends interested in the hobby. Here is my life list, organized by order and family. Within this list you can find a list of prospective birds I would love to try and find this year. My eBird is here

Accipitriformes (dirunal birds of prey)
1. Bald Eagle
2. Cooper's Hawk
3. Northern Harrier
4. Osprey
5. Red-Tailed Hawk
   Anseriformes (waterfowl)
6. American Black Duck
7. Blue-Winged Teal
8. Bufflehead
9. Canada Goose
10. Common Goldeneye
11. Common Merganser
12. Greater White-Fronted Goose
13. Green-Winged Teal
14. Lesser Scaup
15. Long-Tailed Duck
16. Mallard
17. Mute Swan
18. Northern Pintail
19. Northern Shoveler
20. Red-Breasted Merganser
21. Redhead
22. Ring-Necked Duck
23. Wood Duck
    Cathartiformes (condors and vultures)
24. Turkey Vulture
    Charadriiformes (shorebirds)
25. American Herring Gull
26. American Woodcock
27. Caspian Tern
28. Greater Yellowlegs
29. Killdeer
30. Lesser Yellowlegs
31. Ring-Billed Gull
32. Solitary Sandpiper
33. Spotted Sandpiper
34. Wilson's Snipe
    Columbiformes (pigeons and doves)
35. Mourning Dove
36. Rock Pigeon
    Coraciiformes (kingfishers)
37. Belted Kingfisher
    Falconiformes(Falcons)
38. American Kestrel
    Galliformes (landfowl)
39. Ring-necked Pheasant
    Gaviiformes (loons)
40. Common Loon
    Gruiformes (rails)
41. American Coot
42. Great Egret
43. Sandhill Crane
44. Sora
    Passeriformes (perching birds) (internally alphabetized by family)
45. Northern Cardinal
46. Brown Creeper
47. American Crow
48. Blue Jay
49. American Goldfinch
50. House Finch
51. Purple Finch
52. Barn Swallow
53. Purple Martin
54. Rough-winged Swallow
55. Tree Swallow
56. Brown-Headed Cowbird
57. Common Grackle
58. Eastern Meadowlark
59. Red-Winged Blackbird
60. Brown Thrasher
61. Gray Catbird
62. Black-Capped Chickadee / Carolina Chickadee (integrade zone)
63. Black-capped Chickadee
64. Tufted Titmouse
65. Northern Parula
66. Orange-crowned Warbler
67. Palm Warbler
68. Pine Warbler
69. Yellow Warbler
70. Yellow-Rumped Warbler
71. American Tree Sparrow
72. Chipping Sparrow
73. Dark-Eyed Junco
74. Eastern Towhee
75. Field Sparrow
76. Song Sparrow
77. Swamp Sparrow
78. White-Throated Sparrow
79. House Sparrow
80. Blue-Grey Gnatcatcher
81. Golden-crowned Kinglet
82. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
83. Red-Breasted Nuthatch
84. White-Breasted Nuthatch
85. European Starling
86. Carolina Wren
87. Northern House Wren
88. American Robin
89. Eastern Bluebird
90. Hermit Thrush
91. Eastern Phoebe
    Pelecaniformes (large waterbirds)
92. American White Pelican
93. Black-crowned Night Heron
94. Great Blue Heron
    Piciformes (woodpeckers)
95. Downy Woodpecker
96. Hairy Woodpecker
97. Northern Flicker
98. Pileated Woodpecker
99. Red-Bellied Woodpecker
100. Red-Headed Woodpecker
101. Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker
     Podicepediformes (grebes)
102. Pied-Billed Grebe
103. Horned Grebe
     Strigiformes (owls)
104. Barred Owl
105. Northern Saw-Whet Owl
     Suliformes (cormorants)
106. Double-crested Cormorant

Appendix

My button:

My memento: a certain jollity of mind, pickled in the scorn of fortune...

Additional Object #2: New Years Resolutions 2025

Additional Object #3: Page Counter