November 3, 2008

  • I ran four lengths around the CU track today -- but not consecutively.  I stopped after my third time around, even though I was determined to at least make 4.  Since taking jogging last year, I've been motivated to run randomly... even though those times may be months apart.  It's not about runner's high (I don't run that long to experience it, I think) but it's just the feeling of ... "I want to work out today".. "I'm itching to go for a run this afternoon"...yeah..

October 28, 2008

  • Any suggestions for a planning issue?

    Word of the day: McMansion
    from Wikipedia,
    "McMansion is a pejorative neologism, coined by NY environmentalist Jay Westervelt, to describe a particular type of housing that is constructed in an assembly line fashion reminiscent of food production at McDonald's fast food restaurants."

    I'm trying to find a planning issue to write my reflection paper for my Urban and Regional Planning course on.  I was going to do the Santa Barbara Ranch Project (aka Naples) (the Board of Supervisors of SB County as recently as 10/21 voted in approval of it! ) but I think it'd be a larger task than I can reasonably undertake.

    Now, I'm looking at Gothamist, amNY (do they still hand those out every morning at subway station entrances ?? ) and related blogs in hopes of finding some current--having been featured in the newspaper in the last 6 months--planning issue to cover.

    I need to summarize the issue, highlight the debates (historic preservation, environmental concerns, economic progress, urban renewal, etc.) and provide my own recommendation, if applicable.  It has to be a maximum of 2,000 words, or roughly 6 pages.

    Does anyone have suggestions for a planning issue I could research?

    Question of the Post (er, question #2): What do people want me to bring back from HK?!? =]

October 27, 2008

  • October 26, 2008
    Election Special Issue


    Barack Obama, Forever Sizing Up

    By JODI KANTOR

    From his days leading The Harvard Law Review to his presidential campaign, Barack Obama has always run meetings by a particular set of rules.

    Everyone contributes; silent lurkers will be interrogated. (He wants
    to “suck the room of every idea,” said Valerie Jarrett, a close
    adviser.) Mention a theory and Mr. Obama asks how it translates on the
    ground. He orchestrates debate, playing participants off each other —
    and then highlights their areas of agreement. He constantly restates
    others’ contributions in his own invariably more eloquent words. But
    when the session ends, his view can remain a mystery, and his ultimate
    call is sometimes a surprise to everyone who was present.

    Those meetings, along with the career they span, provide hints about
    what sort of president Mr. Obama might be if elected. They suggest a
    cool deliberator, a fluent communicator, a professor with a hunger for
    academic expertise but little interest in abstraction. He may be
    uncomfortable making decisions quickly or abandoning a careful plan. A
    President Obama would prize consensus, except when he would disregard
    it. And his lifelong penchant for control would likely translate into a
    disciplined White House.

    Winning the presidency would be the latest in a lifetime of
    dramatic, self-induced transformations: from a child reared in
    Indonesia and Hawaii to a member of Chicago’s African-American
    community; from an atheist to a Christian; from a wonkish academic to
    the smoothest of politicians; and now, just possibly, from an upstart
    who eight years ago was crushed in a Congressional race to the first
    black commander in chief of the only superpower on earth.

    Turning deficits into assets — a skill Mr. Obama learned in his 20s
    as a community organizer — could well be called the motto of his rise.
    With his literary gifts, he transformed a fatherless childhood into a
    stirring coming-of-age tale. He used a glamourless state senator’s post
    as the foundation of his political career. He mobilized young people —
    never an ideal base, because of thin wallets and historically poor
    turnout — into an energetic army who in turn enlisted parents and
    grandparents. And even though his exotic name, Barack Hussein Obama,
    has spurred false rumors and insinuations about his background and
    beliefs, he has made it a symbol of his singularity and of America’s
    possibility.

    But in the Oval Office, Mr. Obama would have a new set of deficits.
    Just 47 years old and only four years into a national political career,
    he has never run anything larger than his campaign. He began his run
    for president while he was still getting lost in Washington, a city he
    does not yet know well. His promises are as vast as his résumé is
    short, and some of his pledges are competing ones: progressive rule and
    centrist red-blue fusion; wholesale transformation and down-to-earth
    pragmatism.

    Mr. Obama’s ambition and confidence have long confounded critics and
    annoyed rivals. In 2006, the still-new United States senator appeared
    before Washington’s elite at the spring dinner of the storied Gridiron
    Club, and as tradition dictated, roasted himself. He ticked off the
    evidence of his popularity: the Democratic convention speech that had
    won him national celebrity, the best-selling books, the magazine covers.

    “Really, what else is there to do?” he said in mock innocence. “Well, I guess I could pass a law or something.”

    He passed a few. By the end of the year, he was running for president.

    A Disciplined Life

    Barack Obama’s lowest moment as a community organizer in the 1980s
    came when he brought the executive director of the Chicago Housing
    Authority to Altgeld Gardens, a decrepit housing project, to hear
    complaints about asbestos. Seven-hundred residents grew restless
    waiting for the tardy director. When he finally appeared, the meeting
    grew so raucous that the director fled after 15 minutes, to chants of
    “No more rent!”

    The young organizer was humiliated and angry, at himself. “It was
    embarrassing to him to have the residents out of control,” said Johnnie
    Owens, whom Mr. Obama would hire as a community organizer.

    Mr. Obama has always prized order. Even at Occidental College,
    during what he has called his dissolute phase, students remember him as
    a model of moderation: not the pot-smoking, booze-swilling Barry of
    “Dreams From My Father,” his first book, but a morning jogger who
    studied hard and might allow himself a puff of a joint here, an extra
    beer there. “He was not even close to being a party animal,” said Vinai
    Thummalapally, a friend from those years.

    When he applied for jobs, prospective employers often found that they were the ones being interviewed. In fact, when Michelle Obama
    was interviewing for a position in the Chicago mayor’s office, her new
    husband accompanied her to dinner with her prospective boss to make
    sure the job would not compromise Michelle’s values.

    There is little Mr. Obama has controlled more tightly than his own
    story and message. Just as he was planning his entry into politics, he
    used “Dreams From My Father” to cast his peripatetic, confusing
    childhood into a lyrical journey. When he was elected to the United States Senate
    in 2004, Mr. Obama wrote his second book, “The Audacity of Hope,”
    laying out his political philosophy. It meant getting only three or
    four hours of sleep at night, his editor said, but he insisted on
    writing the entire thing himself’. (He not only read policy books to
    prepare, but also some of the articles cited in their footnotes.) For
    his presidential campaign speechwriter, he chose a 26-year-old who
    describes his job as channeling the thoughts of a boss who already
    knows what he wants to say.

    The senator has the discipline to avoid flaunting his oratorical
    gifts. Periodically during the campaign, rivals accused him of offering
    more style than substance; Mr. Obama responded with such sober speeches
    that supporters started to worry he was dull.

    When it comes to making decisions, Mr. Obama’s impulse for control
    translates into a kind of deliberative restraint. He has always
    required time to mull: As a community organizer, he spent his evenings
    filling journals, trying to sort out the day’s confusion. During his
    seven years as a state senator, he used the time driving between
    Springfield and Chicago for contemplation; when staffers suggested that
    a candidate for the United States Senate should have a driver, Mr.
    Obama resisted, saying the driver might intrude. Hence Mr. Obama’s
    fluster when he misses his daily gym time. “That’s when he can get his
    mind straight,” said Jim Cauley, his campaign manager in the United
    States Senate race.

    Mr. Obama resists making quick judgments or responding to day-to-day
    fluctuations, aides say. Instead he follows a familiar set of steps:
    Perform copious research. Solicit expertise. (What delighted Mr. Obama
    most about becoming a United States senator, he told an old boss, was
    his access to top scholars: he was a kid in the Princeton and Stanford
    candy shops.) Project all likely scenarios. Devise a plan. Anticipate
    objections. Adjust the plan, and once it’s in place, stick with it. In
    part, this approach explains how Mr. Obama won in the primaries: he
    exploited the electoral calendar and arcane differences in voting
    methods, and while Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton continually tried out new messages, Mr. Obama modified his only slightly, even when some supporters urged more dramatic change.

    Like all other campaigns, Mr. Obama’s is imbued with its leader’s
    personality: it is a tight, centralized structure, run by a tiny group
    that permits no leaks. On the trail, Mr. Obama has struggled with the
    unpredictable questions and irritating time limits of presidential debates.
    He does not always react swiftly to unexpected shifts. This summer, Mr.
    Obama had just finished a perfectly planned tour of Europe when Russia
    blitzed into neighboring Georgia; he took several days to settle on a
    position. After Mr. McCain’s surprise selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, the Obama campaign seemed to struggle to react.

    The only time Mr. Obama slips from “his normal cool self,” said
    Marty Nesbitt, a close friend, is “when something surprises him.”

    In 2004, Mr. Obama gained sudden fame and fortune: his convention
    speech drew a nationwide standing ovation, he won a Senate seat, and he
    signed a multimillion-dollar book contract. Flush with cash for the
    first time, he made two financial decisions that cast doubt on his
    reputation as an anti-corruption crusader. He set up a blind trust for
    his investments, but sloppily so, managing to put thousands of dollars
    into a biotech company that was developing a drug to treat avian flu
    just as he pushed for federal financing to battle the disease.

    And he allowed Antoin Rezko,
    a developer and longtime donor, to acquire and sell him land next to
    the dream house Mr. Obama was buying in Chicago, even though Mr.
    Rezko’s name was already cropping up in newspaper articles about
    corruption.

    Wielding a Scalpel

    Mr. Obama’s message of change can be hard to pin down, and he has
    spent his entire career searching for the right way to fulfill his
    desire for broad social renewal. First he became a community organizer,
    thinking change would flow from citizens upward; then he tried the law,
    which, as he learned from teaching legal history, was a highly
    imperfect instrument. Since then he has set his sights on changing
    government institutions, one higher than the next. Even in the Senate,
    he told a reporter, it was possible to have a career that was “not
    particularly useful.”

    Critics have used the Rezko incident to question Mr. Obama’s
    reputation as a reformer, to argue he has few core beliefs. They cite a
    proposal he made in the Senate for stringent reporting requirements
    concerning nuclear plant leaks, which he then softened after Republican
    colleagues and energy executives complained. The bill died in
    committee. Or the time he joined a bipartisan coalition on immigration reform but backed away when labor groups protested. That legislation collapsed, too.

    “He folded like a cheap suit,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and a close ally of Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama’s Republican rival.

    Most of all, his critics point to his “present” votes in the
    Illinois Legislature, in which he did not choose sides, avoiding
    difficult matters like trying juveniles as adults. At least 36 times
    (out of thousands of votes) Mr. Obama was the only senator to vote
    “present,” or one of just a few.

    Even some of Mr. Obama’s friends call him unusually opaque. After
    hashing out a question with him, “you may come away thinking, ‘Wow, he
    agrees with me,’ ” said Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Middle Eastern
    studies at Columbia and a former adviser to Palestinian diplomatic delegations. “But later, when you get home and think about it, you are not sure.”

    But defenders say that Mr. Obama’s reticence is as intellectual as
    it is tactical. He is a contextualist by nature, they say, suspicious
    of generalizations. He lived in enough places, at an early enough age,
    to realize that the same solutions do not work everywhere. Unlike his
    mother, an idealistic dreamer who moved to Indonesia without realizing
    a brutal coup had just taken place there, Mr. Obama seems more wary of
    venturing too far than not far enough. And his years teaching law —
    particularly chronicling the failure of broad, court-led efforts at
    social change — gave him a distrust of one-size-fits-all policies.

    Countless times on the campaign trail, Mr. Obama has cited the
    forceful speech he delivered in 2002 against the impending Iraq
    invasion. It had an unusual mantra for an antiwar rally: “I’m not
    opposed to all wars,” Mr. Obama repeated again and again, making his
    point as narrowly as possible.

    Similarly, in the recent presidential debates, the candidates twice
    wrangled over the same question: how should the government cut
    spending? Mr. McCain called for an across-the-board freeze, but Mr.
    Obama resisted. “That’s using a hatchet,” he said. “I want to use a
    scalpel,” he continued, once again bypassing broad principle for a
    case-by-case approach.

    A Commitment to Dialogue

    As a law professor at the University of Chicago,
    Mr. Obama taught a young woman named Uzma Sattar, who was unpopular in
    class, students said, because of comments she made that others
    frequently found abrasive. But in a recent interview Ms. Sattar said
    that Mr. Obama, whom she visited during office hours, was kinder to her
    than any other faculty member — the only one, she said, who seemed to
    understand the loneliness of being the sole woman to wear a headscarf.

    Barack Obama prides himself on trying to see the world through
    others’ eyes. In his books, he slips into the heads of his Kenyan
    relatives, teenage mothers in Chicago, Reagan Democrats, bean farmers
    in Southern Illinois, and evangelical Christian voters.

    He won the presidency of the Harvard Law Review in part because,
    weeks before voting, he made a speech in favor of affirmative action
    that so eloquently summarized the objections to it that the Review’s
    conservatives decided he felt their concerns deeply.

    That very first presidential election, carried out in the law
    school’s stately, leaf-strewn quadrangle, would prove typical of Mr.
    Obama’s lifelong quest to mediate conflict, and of the way that goal
    has merged with his own quest for advancement. He wants those on each
    side of the most toxic conflicts in American life — over race, faith,
    abortion — to resolve their differences, and in resolving them, to join
    his cause as well. He has a deep philosophical commitment to dialogue,
    suggesting that more of it will heal America’s bruised standing in the
    world, and he has expressed far more willingness to meet with enemies
    than his primary or general election opponents.

    But Mr. Obama’s efforts to relate to everyone can get him in trouble. He initially placed the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.,
    his pastor and an incendiary speaker, at the center of his candidacy,
    titling a book after one of his sermons and originally asking him to
    speak at the announcement that he would run for president. (Mr. Obama
    eventually canceled.) “Reverend Wright is a child of the ’60s, and he
    often expresses himself in that language of concern with institutional
    racism and the struggles the African-American community has gone
    through,” he explained in an interview. It took another year and a
    potentially mortal threat to his campaign for him to sever ties with
    the minister.

    Mr. Obama’s tendency to see things from the perspectives of others,
    aides say, meant that during the primaries, he could not work up much
    antipathy for his rivals.

    “He’s not consumed by hatred for his opponents,” said David Axelrod, his chief strategist.

    In fact, Mr. Obama can be overly familiar with them. When Mr. Obama draped a hand across Cindy McCain’s
    back after the second presidential debate, she stiffened visibly. He
    has done the same to President Bush and Mrs. Clinton. In 2004, he
    approached Alan Keyes, his opponent in the Senate race, at a parade and the situation grew so tense that aides had to diffuse it.

    “It’s an uninvited embrace,” said Stanley Renshon, a psychologist
    who studies presidents, of a habit that Mr. Obama has called
    unconscious. “Bridging has to be an invitation, not a hand in the back
    pushing you towards something.”

    Bridging the Divide

    As a teenager, Mr. Obama, son of a white woman from Kansas and a
    black father from Kenya, wanted little more than to feel like an
    African-American. Training his eyes on a grainy television in his
    grandparents’ Hawaii apartment, he imitated the dance steps on “Soul
    Train” and Richard Pryor’s outrageous jokes. He locked himself in his bedroom to read James Baldwin and Malcolm X.

    Decades later, Mr. Obama is a proud son of the African-American
    community, and at campaign events with black voters, the connection is
    visceral. He can seem both more relaxed and more animated than usual,
    stretching out his stump speech into something more like a sermon,
    luxuriating in the call-and-response with the crowd.

    Most of the time, Mr. Obama speaks lightly of the historic nature of
    his candidacy, and he is something of a postracial figure, with too
    many varied influences and constituencies to count. But a few times
    during the campaign — on the night of his Iowa caucus victory; in
    Philadelphia when he spoke of America’s failure to grapple with the
    original sin of slavery — Mr. Obama allowed voters to see just how
    heavily the country’s divided past sits on his slender shoulders. That
    weight seems like part of the answer to a central Obama mystery: where
    all of that burning ambition comes from, what possesses him to push so
    hard and so fast.

    Nearly two decades ago at Harvard, Mr. Obama had his first taste of
    a barrier-smashing presidential victory, one that made other students
    weep with jubilation.

    Gordon Whitman, one of the classmates who decided that long-ago
    election, recalled: “We all understood there was a chance to make
    history.”


    If this is not one of the best written articles ever!  ... To step back from the flush of excitement of reading this article, which was concise but expressive at the same time, I must say I don't "know" Barack Obama.  I don't know him, though reading his two books might help me to get to know him better.  But between that last article I read, and this one, my respect and awe for him is growing.  I can almost agree with those ardent Obama supporters who were supporters of him when Hillary was still in the race.  I can almost understand their fervor.  At the time, I saw Hillary as an intelligent woman with clearly expressed policies.  Obama was in the shadows, to me, stepping out only to speak vaguely of "change."  But perhaps this reveals my own flaw: it was inevitable that my tendency to be short-sighted helped me overlook Obama's quiet potential to be ground-breaking.

October 24, 2008

  • Intriguing stuff... I read an article about the psychology of how Obama and McCain make decisions (i.e. deal with ambivalence) but in it was a lot of stuff about their background--in particular, about their relationships with their fathers (or lack thereof) and how the way they navigate this relationship reflects itself in their decision-making approaches.  I wouldn't base my vote on an article about how McCain, in his approach to decision-making, is like a rider on a horse, going forward, but at any time might get kicked off by the horse, or that Obama's reflectiveness, calm and cool exterior, shows a decision-making capability that has been honed through his complicated relationship with his father and experience as a mixed-race man, but for me, the article adds a deeper understanding of who these candidates are, where they are coming from.  Also, it's interesting they both have written books linked to their fathers.  McCain's is Faith of my Fathers and Obama's is Dreams from my Father.

    I was also confused about why McCain would oppose POW legislation considering he was one himself, but apparently the simplest reason is that he doesn't believe live POW's are out there ?

    ---
    On a different, but not unrelated note.
    The question of religion and politics.  Religion in politics.  Religion being politicized.  Politics being relig-- you get the point.  From a friend's Facebook post to what I learned today in my Anthropology class and in courses in the past... everything is dovetailing.  Well, kinda.  More like flying past each other, but close enough for my brain to envision some sort of connection to be formed.

    -A guy in my class says that the fusion of religion and politics, in particular, the restricting of one's freedom to choose a religion, is a recipe for disaster.  In Malaysia, if you are Malay, you are Muslim, and cannot convert.  Here is the link: Link

    -Then there is the question of religious beliefs, not just as doctrine, which one subscribes to individually, but also religious beliefs as the point from which moral standards enter into the political realm, and thus affect the group.  Questions of practicality arise (does government govern better or worse when supported by moral arguments drawn from religion; does this entail an establishment of religion/infringe the free exercise of religion; etc.).  But also, there is the idea of maintaining the "purity" of church and the "purity" of state -- as if they are two worlds and shouldn't mix, let alone one subsuming the other.

    -Both of the above points deal with infringing on a person's right to choose for themselves what religion (or no religion) to believe in.  Arguably this is because it is bad for government to espouse a particular religion, since state power is so strong that the government allying itself with any religious stance may threaten basic human rights, like equality before the law, religious freedom, freedom of expression, etc.

    -Another guy in my class strongly objected to the injection of morality into political realm because he said that's the equivalent of humans taking on the ultimate power, as if they are God, but who can be in a position to do so?  "They don't know [everything]," he said.

    -Then of course, there's the aspect of how religion becomes politicized: when a belief system which is just that--a system of beliefs--is linked up to discussions of race, gender, and class and state policies are enacted that have repercussions for those who subscribe to that particular belief.

    -On the other hand, politics can also use religion.  For example, because of "American civil religion," those who run for President, whether they are devout practitioners in their privates lives, it helps rather than hurts them in the polls if they are religious, and especially if they are a Christian.  Religion, then, can be used as a source of power and for legitimization.

October 23, 2008

  • I just saw Palin in action... previously I had only seen her in articles, in NY Times photos... hadn't seen her live, or in the VP debate... and o.0 ... she isn't the most articulate person, and I come away with little in her remarks... it feels like she has a few talking points that she falls back on.  In the two clips of her in the interview with Katie Couric I saw, she seems dodgy (but she keeps her cool) & her answers aren't informative..

    Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart.  Here is the link: Link.  You have to scroll to Oct. 3rd.

October 22, 2008

  • It's so maddening.  This insomnia.  This absolute UGH It's one of the more important weeks in this whole semester and I won't give myself a break by going. to. sleep.  I just lie there hoping for some magic to work itself on me, but instead as the night goes on I find myself just suddenly BREAKING as I am suddenly in silent rage at this inability to fall asleep.  It's misery up until that point.  Tonight, as this has been the third night I can recall this happening while I've in HK, I said to myself, you know what.  This sucks, I can't exit the room and give myself a breather by the balcony--coz people's open windows are near that and are bound to hear.  I can't go to the bathroom to give myself a talk.  I don't have any outlet in my room, my roommate is awake and watching shows on her laptop.  I can't go into the hallway outside the flat, I can't go to the motion-sensored pantry, they must have cameras installed.  There's no escape, so I came online.  Perhaps by typing out my frustration I can feel better.  I don't know what's going on.  I can only explain it as some psychosomatic reaction... I am under attack by some hidden and not-so-hidden sources of stress.  I think I know them, though.  It has to do with academic and social and ... maybe Maslow's hierarchy of needs can come in at some point.. I have dealt with academic stress before.  But it's the stress of... this head-splitting self-actualization SOMETHING.  I don't know how to deal with my refusal to accept myself, I cannot self-validate, and then at the same time, I have to do crisis management while out in public (in class, on campus, eating, talking with my flatmates), and believe/remember that I have in the past self-validated myself.  It's this interplay of wanting to let it go and break down but knowing that I cannot, should not... I point out that I'm not cracking at the first bit of pressure.. as I might have a few years ago.. but I have applied some of the life lessons I've learned since..

  • Cookbooks worth checking out

    Nigella Lawson
    Moosewood?
    Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook
    Mark Bittman
    Julia Child
    The Joy of Cooking

    Here is the link: Link

October 20, 2008

  • I don't like Monday.  I didn't like today.

    Why do we spend all our lives in interactions with each other, when all we can really know is ourselves?

    I have to do laundry, I have two debates this week, a paper due, and a presentation.

    I want to go on strike from all the "should's."


    *anger*  *resentment*  *embarrassment*

    edit//
    I lack skills of eloquence.  Regardless.  I know I should focus, but I need to be emotionally- and physically- better rested.

October 13, 2008

  • NY Times, tunnel vision, and changing I.V.


    Bringing Special-Needs Schools Closer to Home

    Librado Romero/The New York Times

    SUPPORT SYSTEM Nick Meyer, 15, said his two-hour drive to school was too long and he missed his brothers.

    By WINNIE HU

    Published: October 12, 2008

    WESTBURY, N.Y. — Tom Holohan, a 16-year-old with
    autistic symptoms, grew up paralyzed by fear and anxiety about leaving
    his family’s home. But for the last two years, Tom has had to commute
    to a Connecticut boarding school that specializes in treating his
    disability, returning on weekends to his home in Farmingdale, N.Y.

    Librado Romero/The New York Times  LEADING THE WAY Parents involved with Westbury
    Preparatory School, a residential school for special-needs students,
    include Diana Tasco Meyer, above, Pat Schissel and Faith Kappenberg.

    “There’s always this thing
    inside you that you want to be home,” said Tom, who attended five day
    schools here on Long Island and tried home schooling before his local school district sent him to the Connecticut school, Devereux Glenholme. “I mean, I got used to living there, but every day I think about what’s going on at home. It’s really difficult.”

    Next year, Tom is hoping to attend Westbrook Preparatory School, a $2.5 million institution that will be New York State’s
    first residential school for students with high-functioning autism and
    that was founded after intense lobbying by parents, including Tom’s
    mother, Maureen Holohan, 48, who is on the school’s governing board.
    The new school, to serve 24 middle and high school students with
    average or above-average intelligence but in need of significant
    emotional and social support, is part of a statewide push to bring
    special education students back from out-of-state private schools by
    creating publicly financed alternatives closer to home.

    Since
    2005, out-of-state placements by school districts and social service
    agencies have dropped to fewer than 650 from more than 1,200, even as
    the number of special education students has risen slightly to 410,000,
    or 12 percent of the total student population. Besides Westbrook Prep,
    a half dozen New York City schools for the disabled are planning to add
    residential programs in the next few years.

    “New York is a great
    state. Why should our children have to be sent out of state for
    services?” said Lester Kaufman, executive vice president of Birch Family Services,
    a nonprofit agency that runs a network of schools for students with
    special needs, which is starting a residential program for 12 high
    school students in Flushing, Queens, next year. “We should be able to
    create those services locally where the families and children live, and
    this is exactly what this program is about.”

    As part of the
    government’s responsibility to provide an appropriate education for all
    children, school districts routinely send those with severe
    disabilities to private schools at costs of up to $200,000 a year per
    student. A New York State law requires school districts to exhaust all
    in-state options before considering an out-of-state placement, which is
    usually reserved for children with severe emotional and behavioral
    problems or multiple developmental disabilities.

    But there were
    precious few local options for those students, with the shortage of
    residential schools particularly acute in New York City and Long
    Island, where it was difficult to build because of limited space and
    high real estate costs, as well as local opposition in some cases.

    By 2005, according to state lawmakers, the price tag for out-of-state placements had reached roughly $200 million a year.

    “It’s been a problem for 40 years,” said Bob McMahon, executive director of SCO Family of Services, a nonprofit agency that will operate Westbrook. “It’s caused a lot of hardship for parents.”

    When
    Diana Tasco Meyer, 42, who lives in Manhasset, sought a residential
    placement for her 15-year-old son, Nick, this year, the closest schools
    for high-functioning autism that would accept him were in North
    Carolina, Tennessee and Ohio. She settled for a school in Rockland
    County that takes students with many other kinds of disabilities. “It’s
    upsetting that there’s nothing really in New York that’s a fit for
    him,” she said.

    But Nick misses his two brothers and says the
    two-hour drive to school is too far. “I’m not O.K. with it because I
    want to be home,” he said.

    Debate over out-of-state placements
    reached a peak in 2005, when the Legislature passed Billy’s Law, named
    for Vito Albanese Jr., a Brooklyn resident known as Billy whose father
    said he was neglected while in residential programs in New Jersey and
    elsewhere. The law seeks to expand in-state special education programs,
    reduce out-of-state placements and give New York officials more
    oversight of treatment in those private schools.

    “We were never
    happy with the number of students going out of state,” said Rebecca H.
    Cort, New York’s deputy commissioner overseeing special education. “It
    was always a concern, but Billy’s Law put a spotlight on it and gave
    real impetus for state agencies to work together to develop and expand
    in-state programs.”

    ^that's the first page.

    I read this and saw the photos, and it drew me in.  What if I could be someone who makes a difference in autistic children (and their families)'s lives?  by realizing their needs, by pushing for breaking ground for a new school closer to their homes so they don't have to commute 2 hours one way?  --and all as a social worker.  Wouldn't that be great?

    And then another thought: but just like they said, land in NYC is limited, that would probably have deterred me.  I think practical, remember?  I'm not quite the visionary.  I'm the idealist working with real limits.

    As I worked with my moot group yesterday, I realized I have a lot of the academic research and writing skills needed to be a lawyer, but I'm no orator.  I can understand it in my head, but when it comes to vocalizing it, I fail.  I mean, if I practiced, I could improve, sure.  If I stopped believing that I couldn't do it, I'm sure I could do wonderfully.  But it's not a natural strength.

    Mondays are so taxing for me.  It's always, thank God I have Tuesday off.  I'm not exactly sure why they are so taxing, but I'm going to say it's because of Cantonese class.

    Oh, and so re the question of what I'm going to pursue for a career... I really think I have to stop focusing on "helping" and "service professions," coz really, really, really! I will be able to help people/connect with others in any line of work I go into.  What I need to focus on instead is what I like to do.  Simple, right?  Nope.

    edit/

    Something interesting happened to me today.  My math skills are really rusty without practice and therefore, I don't trust myself when placed in situations where I am required to do even the simplest of computations.  That has a great effect on me, as we shall see.. We're learning dollars, cents, and buying fruits, etc., at the market in Cantonese class.  I'm talking with my classmate about what he wishes to buy from me.  He says, five German watches.  It's $1,999.90 for one.  I laugh nervously.  (I'm supposed to tell him how much he owes me.)  Teacher comes by.  Classmate restates his purchase.  Teacher laughs happily.  Teacher writes on the board, "1,0000 - 0.5."  My eyes widen in horror, darn it why didn't he just write the answer.  How much is that, ahhh.  I freeze with a mock panicked look on my face.  Classmate waits patiently.  Teacher turns to look at me.  Rest of the class are buying and selling from each other, but I don't notice them.  Commence tunnel vision -- my peripheral vision literally broke down on me before I managed to write, "9,999.5" on my paper and turn with a question mark on my face, toward my classmate.  He nods, and says, yea, something like that.  (Teacher has long gone on to help other students.)  I resume breathing. ||  My mom knows very well that my brain ceases to function when she starts talking about money (such as my student loans, my financial aid package, balancing a bank account..).  "It's simple, see, look..." and I'm already tilting my head away, saying nonononono and doing jazz hands.  And she's beckoning toward the paper, with a persuasive smile on her face before she loses me completely.  But I've never gotten tunnel vision before!  It was like hyperventilation.  I wasn't under peer pressure ("she can't do math?  what?") (Should I even mention my classmates are Economics/Business/Finance majors?  There's a reason they're in HK..)  but it was literally a thought "my brain is not functioning, I cannot solve the equation.." so overpowering, it manifested itself psychosomatically.

    edit2//

    I don't know when I.V. Master Plan is being implemented, but apparently, the El Colegio bike path tunnel has been demolished.   I don't know if it could be part of the UCSB's Long-Range Development Plan (or even the City of Goleta's General Plan) but if they have started implementing the IVMP, I am concerned about the changes that will be occuring to the place I consider a second home.  I read Eric Cardenas' comments on the IVMP D-EIR (you can read his comments, in the second letter, here) and honestly, there's so much history within I.V. --at least I think so-- and his concerns are just one part of the picture.  Not having read the actual Plan, I don't know exactly what the IVMP entails, but I hope whatever decisions the County of SB Board of Supervisors make are at least motivated by sound logic and well-thought out reasoning, even if not everyone can agree on the results.

October 8, 2008

  • poor writing ahead...

    the importance of 5 people

    My roommate made dinner plans with me and we ate at the "Western" style cafe on campus.  Unlike the self-serve canteens, there are waiters in this cafe.  We ordered the salad bar buffet and shared "sliced beef laksa" -- noodles in coconut milk, including this spicy taste... my teacher has gone over it in my anthro class but I didn't remember what it was... Anyway, (I'm a little spaced out right now, so forgive my poor writing skills...) we bumped into two of her friends.... so that was pretty cool.  Oh yeah and most of the people in the cafe were speaking mandarin, I was taken by surprise... umm the salad bar wasn't quite the salad bar you'd find in the U.S.... there was iceberg lettuce and thousand island and caesar dressings (the caesar dressing was the same color as the thousand island, which made me doubt that it was caesar but..) and there was borsch and cream of chicken sweet corn soup; corn; and tomato halves.  Not much of a salad bar, but hey it was vegetables... oh sweet vegetables.  Right.  Afterwards, we separated but we ended up back at I-House at the same time, and she said hi to me as I was taking a gulp of water.  When I was done refilling my water bottle, the guy waiting to refill his in back of me said hi christina and we had a short conversation, utterly devoid of substance, but i was leaving... and then in the elevator one of the girls, who apparently lives on the same floor as me, but in the other flat, was in my orientation group, so she knew my name, too... and after we parted my roommate was like wow you have friends everywhere and i was like, pfat i'm totally surprised because... well bottom line, i'm such a hermit and have been feeling like a recluse without any friends and suddenly this happened... which was totally unexpected... but yeah.  it was definitely nice to feel slightly more connected to people... for all this time when i was feeling totally alone.  of course who says it means anything... i don't really know the people that i happened to bump into and i usually never bump into anyone... bah the high must be receding... anyway, the importance of 5 people, my roommate, the two i met at dinner, and the two i bumped into after dinner... lifted my spirits in a way that me, doing activities that i enjoy, by myself could not have.