Tuesday, December 21, 2010
www.magiedarling.wordpress.com
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
NYC Highlights
So it’s been a while since I’ve written. Since Thanksgiving, it’s been all-too easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of planning – and doing – future adventures and trips. It is coming down to the final days of my time in the United States for a while, and so Mallory and I have been busy tying up loose ends with regards to that. And as if I wasn’t busy enough, I decided to take a few days in New York City with Aaron as a sort-of “sign-off” to the semester. As I type, I am on the bus back to Washington, D.C. , from NYC. Here’s an account of my last few days:
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On Saturday, I had a hectic few hours of packing the apartment. For at least a week and and half, I had been stowing away things, but two things made my efforts at preparation moot: 1) my ability to justify leaving things unpacked because of the possibility I may use them, and 2) the fact that I was packing bags with three separate destinations (NYC, Europe, and home).
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But after I fully checked out of my apartment (leaving behind all of my shampoo conditioner and washes, I would realize later), Aaron and I headed to the metro toward Union Stations to board our bus for NYC. The ride was about four hours, but seeing as though I have the talent of being able to easily pass out in any moving vehicle within minutes of boarding, the ride wasn’t all that bad.
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When we arrived in NYC, we met up with a friend of Aaron’s family, who would be our tour guide for the next few days. The three of us, with bags in hand, headed toward Times Square, pushing through the onslaught of people on the streets. Coming from a city with a cleaner, tamer demeanor, the numerous people on littered streets with seemingly endless flashing lights and billboards overhead, I was excited and overwhelmed.
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That night, we walked around Times Square and eventually made our way, via taxi, to Tom’s Restaurant, which, if you are a Seinfeld connoisseur, you will know that this is the place where many a conversation took place between Jerry, George, Cramer, and Elaine. The outside sign of the restaurant appears just as it does in the series; however, the interior was renovated and bears no resemblance to the original.
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The next morning, we got up and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where we saw various Roman and Greek pottery, beads, sculptures, and, believe it or not, safety pins the size of my spread-out hand. We didn’t have much time though, so what we were able to see was extremely limited. Also, we didn’t make it to MoMa, although we were told to visit more than once.
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From there, we walked around, seeing St. Patrick’s Cathedral and many high-end shops. At one point, we went into Armani, where we had drinks upstairs in the Armani Café. While shopping, we popped into the American Girl store, where we snuck a couple shots of the café located on the third floor, where girls and their parents can dine with their dolls. And if the dolls weren’t pampered enough, having a dinner they wouldn’t consume, they could visit the hair salon and get their hair done. For dinner, we ate at a small Italian restaurant with some of Aaron’s distant relatives.
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The next day was packed. We left the house at 8:30 a.m. and had a nearly hour-long dab ride to the place where we would take a ferry to Ellis Island and to the Statue of Liberty.
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After we visited each, we made our way to Grand Central Station. While I thought Union Station was pretty, I was in awe of the beauty of GCS, as it was fully decorated for Christmas. Years ago, GCS was, in a word, ugly. Its ceiling and windows were black with soot and everything was dirty and dark, and there was pressure to tear it down. But Jackie Kennedy sought to make it a historic landmark so that it could be preserved. As a result, the ceiling was cleaned, which revealed a marvelous painting of a starry sky with constellations – a painting that no one knew was there. During the renovation process, tons of black tiles were removed, but one was left in the corner of the ceiling to remind people of the treasures that can be lost when they are not taken care of and preserved.
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Afterward, Aaron and I made our way to Rockefeller Center, where we spent an hour skating in the middle of the city. This was the highlight of the trip.
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With the evening came our shows: the Radio City Christmas Show and the Phantom of the Opera. While we had to race to fit them both into our evening, our quick pace was well worth it, as both were fantastic expericnces.
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Tuesday, Aaron and I were on our own. Having seen the city with a guide for the first few days and having spent a bit of time looking at maps, we were able to get ourselves around with considerable ease. We made our way from the ferry to the Hop-on Hop-off bus, where we rode for about 10 minutes before we got off to see the Empire State Building. While we were on, however, I learned that the reason that there is a star in the Macy’s logo, is because the founder had a star tattooed to his wrist/hand because he thought they brought him luck.
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The 86th floor of the ESB was frigid, but the view was spectacular. We quickly snapped pictures before running inside to warm our faces and fingers. This process was repeated three or four times before we called it a day.
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We did a bit of shopping; got to see the old, wooden escalators in Macy’s; and saw the business of NYC shopping days before Christmas.
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As an end to our day, we went to Temple Bar on the recommendation of one of Aaron’s coworkers this fall. Its black walls and awning and its 5in./12in. sign matched the dark, polished interior. While the room was darkly lit, each table had a focused light on it, providing enough light to carry on conversation while staying hidden away. We shared a bottle of wine and had a great time. Noticing the couple next to us – an older man and a 20-something woman wearing fishnets – and they were talking about making poker bets and other casual topics clued me into aspects of the city I would otherwise like to remain ignorant of.
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On our last day, we ate Magnolia cupcakes, walked around Central Park, saw Bergdorf Goodman and the Plaza, and quickly ran off to catch our bus back home.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
A brief Thanksgiving
I apologize for not having kept up with my blog over the past week. With my family and a friend from college visiting me for Thanksgiving, I have been kept pretty busy.
So to sum up my past week, I hurried to finish a much procrastinated paper on Tuesday. Ironically, I had decided to write about North Korea before there was any bombing. So as I was finishing my paper, I had to keep amending the history in order to keep it as up-to-date as possible. That evening, I took the metro to DCA to pick up my friend Alyse. Due to unfortunate timing, we would not be able to see each other at all during the coming year, save this Thanksgiving. I was elated to see her at the airport.
The next morning, we got up, got ready for the day, and headed into the district. Before lunch with Aaron, we saw the White House, the top of the Old Post Office Tower, and the American History Museum. After lunch we headed to Georgetown, where Alyse was able to experience Georgetown shopping and cupcakes.
Thursday we got ready, and I made my favorite Thanksgiving dinner dish – cranberry marshmallow salad. Around noon, we went to the airport to pick up my family, who had arrived over 30 minutes early. Their airline luck would later run out, as their return flight was delayed an hour. But later Thursday evening, we had dinner with my Aunt Bonnie, Uncle Ray, and their son Todd.
The next morning we made our way to the Newseum, Ben’s Chili Bowl, the ice skating rink in the Sculpture Gardens, and Pizzeria Orso, which had apparently been rated as the best pizza place near the district.
Saturday, Alyse, Ray, Lisa, and I got a tour of the National Cathedral. Afterward, we picked up Henry and went to have lunch at Five Guys. From there, Ray dropped us off at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. While Henry got a bit of running in on the National Mall, Alyse, my mom , and I saw the National Archives. Then we picked up William, went to the Kennedy Center for the night’s Millennium Stage performance featuring Chelsea Green and had dinner at Two Amy’s.
Sunday started with breakfast with Ray and Bonnie, after which we went to Arlington National Cemetery to see Lee’s house and the grave of my great-great uncle, Walter Darling.
Finally, after what seemed like not more than a day’s time, we arrived, once again, at the airport, concluding what had been a brief but extremely enjoyable few days with family and a friend.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Today, Friday, I was able to meet with Sara Gast, who is a career intern here at ED and, amazingly enough, is the first paid person at ED that I have met that is under 30. That being said, getting coffee with her and discussing her experiences during her senior year of college and her experiences so far at ED were a much-welcomed excursion. Now that is not to say that I do not appreciate the people I work with, but working with people my own age on a day-to-day basis is something I have realized that I miss a lot. In coming to D.C., I had assumed that wherever I ended up, I would be in an office filled with young, passionate thirty-somethings, not realizing that there are lots of career-agency workers. Having gone through this, I now know to be aware of this when I apply for jobs and future working experiences.
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Things from our conversation that were worth noting, given the fact that I will be applying for jobs and working in the next two years, are as follows:
- Senior year, people will stress about having their jobs/futures ironed out to varying degrees. It’s best not to get caught up in it, especially if you’re looking to get into a field that is not in the financial industry, because those other jobs look to fill their postings a few weeks to a month after they’re posted.
- Taking a year or two off to work before going on to graduate/law school can be a really good thing. If you’re focused and know exactly what you want to do, fine, go on. But if you’re not sold on the idea of what you’re doing and where you’re going, it can become easy to drop out as it becomes harder and harder to justify the growing debt when you’re not working and you see many friends earning money. Also, there are many opportunities to have schooling paid for. For example, ED will pay for its employees to get higher education if it can be proven that it will add to the performance of your job in some way.
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In sum, it was great to have the opportunity to talk with someone who was so recently dealing with the same issues I’m thinking about now. She was able to recount the feeling/emotions/reactions she had during her senior year, how she dealt with them, how she planned for work post-undergrad, and how she feels being in the federal government now.
RTT
Thursday, I was able to speak with Jackie Gran, who is a leading policy advisor that works with Race to the Top. Here are a few of the ideas that came out of our intern luncheon:
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First of all, “access without excellence is an empty promise.” And to this point, that is essentially what we are guaranteeing: you can go to school somewhere, but the quality of that education may not be the best.
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The federal level needs to realize what its role is in education and in educating kids whose schools also have state and local regulations. ED would do better by being a warehouse of educational knowledge, providing states and local governments access to information from across the country that they would otherwise struggle to get or, even worse, not know of at all.
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NCLB was good in that it put a focus on the quality of education we are paying for and providing, and it did well to raise standards. Where it was weak, and is rightly criticized is in that it had no degree of accountability or extreme, but appropriate, course of action for schools that were seriously failing students. In an effort to address issues in a better way, RTT was designed to be “an outgrowth of state and local efforts, not a lay-it-over-the-top program.”
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Jackie said that an essential part of measuring whether or not RTT will be successful will be in assessing where the schools are/are not meeting their standards and providing them with the appropriate information and knowledge to be able to improve. It will not be successful if RTT reverts back to a system of merely measuring whether or not a school meets a standard. Consquently, this will also help to ensure that RTT is effective.
Calm explorations
Wednesday was significantly calmer. To start, I finished a paper in record time. In keeping with my procrastinating nature, I had put of writing a briefing on a protest or demonstration I had attended while In D.C. In my defense, I had written one in early September, but because my computer had crashed, I had lost the document – and since, had lost my drive/desire to write another. So I got up at 8 a.m., worked on my paper for an hour and a half, and had a completed protest paper done by 9:30 a.m. After that, I went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History, which has an entire wing devoted to Disney. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I was only able to see the wings having to do with the American presidency and America’s involvement in wars.
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After that, I was able to meet with a friend over coffee to discuss books we had read. Sitting in a Caribou, drinking a warm cup of perfectly made – including the necessary sugar and cream -- coffee, and discussing all of the unique, interesting insights we had was a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.
Bullfrog and beef stomach? Sure, throw it in.
To new tastes. Tuesday was the night for new foods, particularly new meats. Courtesy of David Lietz, a Luther alumnus, a couple other Luther students and I were able to go to Uncle Liu’s Hot Pot. There, you start with your basic broth, buy different vegetables and meats, toss them into the hot liquid, and eat! In a wild effort to make our experience as new and unique as possible, we ordered the following: scallops, fish balls, lobster and crab balls, meatballs, spinach, chicken, beef, noodles , and, wait for it, bullfrog and beef stomach. It was a fantastic time spent with friends, and I was surprised by my lack of aversion to the more off-the-beaten-path foods we tried!
Others' paths
On Monday, I got the chance to have coffee with a political appointee who works in a part of the Department that focuses on policy. His career, prior to becoming a political appointee at the age – I would guess – of no more than 26, consisted of working on a state political campaign for a summer during college and then on the Kerry campaign another summer. He also had taught in a Brooklyn public school through Teach for America. Upon the completion of his undergraduate degree at Harvard, he applied to law school, but didn’t go. Even still, he does not have a law degree, but he is seriously considering getting it because he sees it as a chance for him to open doors to higher positions in the future, as many of his colleagues and superiors have law degrees. He cautioned someone going into law school that weren’t firm in their direction (whether that be a specific policy or area of law) because he said that there was a high-likelihood that one would get caught up in the ambition of the other law students and lose his sense of direction or focus.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Future plans
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I guess I am intimidated of choosing a specific path because I’m scared that it will limit me – that I might turn down a great alternative option. But when it comes to my decision of what to do next spring, I’ll have to make a decision. I recognize that it’s better to have made a decision and have planned than assume that things will fall together, but I can’t help but think that so much of my future will be decided for me – I’ll either receive a certain scholarship/fellowship/admission/employment offer or not.
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Regardless, I ought to do some serious thinking about graduate school, law school, Teach for America, or work, and decide what I would most like to be doing.
Dog walking
Monday, November 15, 2010
Political will
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The next speaker was Mayor of San Antonio Julián Castro, who spoke about the role of local government in Promise Neighborhoods.
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Within San Antonio, he is dealing with 15 independent school districts, making his task harder to handle. Coming from a long-term development standpoint, he described the problems he deals with in urban education as the age-old question of the chicken or the egg; how do you help schools when neighborhoods are poor, but how do you improve neighborhoods when schools are bad? To this, Castro has tried to improve multiple aspects of the neighborhood in-step with each other. In addition to improving the school, he has put in great efforts to getting jobs into the area because this will not only help to develop the area, but it will also help to keep educated people from the neighborhood there, which is a vital component to improving the neighborhood in the long-run.
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So in an effort to tackle the problem holisticly, Castro outlined things he is doing to improve the community and, thus, improve schools: after school programs, $1000 education scholarships to students who achieve 3.0 and 95 percent attendance for college at a Texas school, support for Pre-K, and development of infrastructure in those neighborhoods. A key, he says, to the development of infrastructure and the programs is that the community is engaged in the process. This does two things: first, the community feels a part of the process, and therefore will not diametrically oppose themselves to any reform; and second, it will aid in the effort of creating effective programs because the people immersed in the issue have insight that those on the outside do not. And like Canada, Castro believes that you need to be able to facilitate the image in a kid’s mind, despite the tough neighborhood, of his/her success.
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When discussing how he maintains the political will to work on and devote energy to these neighborhoods, he says that “the way to ensure that there is community-wide support is to make clear the goals throughout the community, what they want to see done and how the community can see the benefits. This way, they can believe in and want that the same goals you have. Where you get pushback is from other poor communities, but my response is that ‘we’re starting here, but will grow into your community as well.’”
HCZ
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From the White House policy advisor: In July 2007, then candidate Obama had proposed a promise neighborhoods initiative to be modeled after Canada’s HCZ. Essentially, the idea is to tackle the problem of urban education collectively: not simply looking at creating good school opportunities, but getting parents involved, providing health/fitness/food education, creating a culture that says “education is cool,” ensuring that kids are save, providing the opportunity to work and gain experience that way, and many other aspects of urban life that stand in the way of fully developing academically and becoming a competitive employee.
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Their challenge, she said, was to think differently and be creative. They couldn’t simply take the HCZ and replicate it in other neighborhoods. They needed to take ideas, lessons, and general principles from Canada’s experiences that were transferable to other areas. She said that the three key concepts they got out of the HCZ were: 1) there needs to be a pipeline of programs – support throughout every stage of adolescent life because if you stop at any point, they are left back in the failing situations they were in before; 2) you need to reach all kids in an area because their friends and peers have a large impact on their desire to achieve; and 3) every aspect of reform needs to be informed and driven by data because that is the only way you can determine whether a program is effective. She liked to say that they were “predicated on outcomes.”
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Next, Canada spoke, saying: First of all, his job is not something for everybody to try to do – it has been a difficult road for him. The most frustrating thing, however, has been the debate over whether or not the effects of the HCZ can be replicated elsewhere. To this, he says “Absolutely. Sadly, only in our business [education] would you hear such a defeatist response to a question of whether or not people can achieve something.” He is further frustrated by the fact that the education of kids isn’t treated more like science, where the failure of the first initial heart transplants didn’t serve to say that it couldn’t be done, but rather that they provided information for future attempts so that they could be done better. He acknowledges that the education of a child is complicated, but he says that so is a heart transplant, and “we didn’t give up on that.”
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Canada stated that you can try to educate kids by providing a good school, but your best bet in providing them better opportunities in the future are to save the community, which takes much more than a school Prior to the HCZ, he would hear routinely from people that he wouldn’t be able to change the culture of a community. Obviously, he has demonstrated this to be false.
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Canada attributes the success of his program to a number of different aspects. The first is that education and support must be in place at every stage of development. Other schools, such as KIPP, only deal with kids within a certain age segment. This, he believes, does not make a long-term impact on their futures because they are no longer supported and, through returning to their original locations, are encouraged to revert back to their old habits. Also, by having support and education throughout all stages of life, older students can become active participants in rebuilding their community and serve as role models to the younger kids of where they can go themselves.
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To the question of whether their success is just a matter of education, he says “yes and no.” Yes, it is just a matter of education, but without the underlying foundations intact, education is not possible. If a kid is obese, as 30 percent of his students are, they struggle to learn. If they have asthma, as another 30 percent do, they struggle to learn. He says that these issues need to be addressed before you can expect a kid to learn. Also, there is so much education that takes place outside the classroom. In order to develop fully, the kids need to be engaged in other things as well. This is why Canada’s schools provide many other extra-curricular activities. “I have yet to meet a parent with money who questioned whether or not their kid ought to be a part of the soccer team.” He says kids won’t be best served if we expect them to wholly devote themselves to academic endeavors. He also employs about 1,000 kids because he believes that employment is another vital component to developing competitive job-seekers in the future. He says “kids without job experience are missing a lot.”
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Within his 97 block radius, Canada takes on the responsibility of the students within his charter schools and those in the public schools. This way, he says, kids cannot fall between the cracks when they drop out of one school or transfer. He does this also because he says that the schools community ought to be the target for reform, not a specific one. With regards to the debate of public versus charter, Canada says that this is a faulty debate because the concern should merely be making the schools, of any type, better.
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In order for the promise neighborhood program to be effective, he says that he must have a “critical mass” of students. With this critical mass, he is able to change the culture around education, as students’ peers are also on the same path and, thus, supporting them on their academic journey. Without the critical mass, a student’s educational path is an uphill battle because it goes against the culture he is in. In the HCZ, he works with 8,000 students, of which there are 11,000 in the area.
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“If there’s one guarantee when working in education, it is that there will be a lot of things that don’t work.” Canada really believes in having a data-driven system: if the numbers say a program isn’t working, he doesn’t keep it running or accept those results. To do this, Canada says that there needs to be flexibility to be able to change and adapt to the successes/failures of programs because problems will always be changing and there will always be new issues with which to deal. He asks himself, “In the end, is the program moving in the right direction?”
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He thinks that the best results for kids come through competition. The defeatist mentality is allowed to seep into the system simply because the public schools in many areas are able to stay open even while they aren’t functioning. Competition will bring about a can do attitude, because schools will have to perform in order to survive.
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He says that the earlier you intervene in a child’s education, the earlier you see results – and also create even greater potential. He says his lessons learned are that the community needs to be ready for change before it can start to improve. Given that, the community needs to be engaged in every step of the development process, otherwise the community will rebel and the programs will not be responding to problems in the most effective way. The community one would look to have a promise neighborhood has probably been neglected for a long time, and when it’s not neglected, outsiders have come in and changed everything, regardless of how the community functioned or what it thought of the changes. As a result, the community is in stop mode – stop to every change someone wants to make. To deal with this, one has got to be in conversation with and get involved with the people that are being served. In Canada’s experience, the people that will say “stop” initially are not the ones that will help rebuild the community. They will go off to the side, while others do what they can to be a part of the change. Through this involvement in the change, Canada says, people will come to believe in the goal that you have for the community and believe that it can get there.
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In contrast to the belief that supportive parents are a requirement for academic success of a child, Canada has had many kids without supportive parents succeed. He says that while he has lots of programs in place that are intended to help facilitate parent involvement, he also has just as many there to help kids who do not have the same supports make it academically.
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When asked whether or not he believed his funding model would be replicable – because the HCZ now receives large amounts of money – he says that it can be replicated because, as promise neighborhood grantees, these schools have been given validation that the HCZ did not have in the beginning. This validation, he says will go a long way in convincing donors that their school is a worthy cause.
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When asked “what do you say to a kid to make them care about their education? How do you combat the depression and acceptance of failure among a community?” Canada responded that you encourage a kid no matter where they are at. This looks different for different ages, but the goal of encouragement should stay the same.
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As his mantra, Canada says that education “is a matter of science and faith.” Science, in that, it is driven and informed by facts and numbers; faith, in that, when you can’t fully see your goal come to fruition, you still move forward.
Collective bargaining agreements
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Having watched Waiting for ‘Superman’ and seen its onslaught of union practices not more than two months ago, I brought a fairly critical eye to my reading of the agreement. One thing I noticed was the quick turn-around and response time that was outlined in the section on grievances. For example, if an employee wants to file a grievance, they have 10 days (LOOK UP) to do so (as a general rule, given there are no extraneous circumstances). I thought this was quite brief; 10 days to have an incident occur, figure out the proper procedures, and respond to it. But through talking with my professor, a former FMCS employee, I came to understand the problems that can arise from leaving the response-time window open too wide. If a person is allowed to file a grievance at any point after an incident, there’s virtually nothing stopping someone from filing a retaliatory grievance. The meat of the bargaining agreement, according to my professor, is the section on grievances. This outlines exactly how a violation of the contract will be addressed – thus, detailing how each issue at the margin will be dealt with.
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Today, union workers constitute little more than 10 percent of the total workforce. But they represent nearly 40 percent of the public sector.
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Another fortunate opportunity I had was to discuss unions with three guests to my class who had worked in mediation-related fields; one was a retired lawyer who had worked at a private company as a mediator/facilitator, another was a current FMCS employee, and the other had worked in the HR department of a private company and with aviation unions. Each had experience at some point in their career, working with unions, although I do not know if they were ever a part of contract negotiations. When asked what she thought of unions generally and whether she liked dealing with them, the FMCS employee explained that she thought they were a valuable entity, as long as the leadership was concerned first and foremost with serving its members. Employees are best served when they are working, which is also a goal of hers – to get people back to work – but she had spoken of times where leadership either ineffectively served members by focusing on non-issues, or poorly served its members by bringing a self-interested, prideful attitude to the table. She also said that instances, such as these, were rare.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Art and Amys
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At the National Gallery of Art, I walked around and saw many of the gallery’s most famous pieces, including the da Vinci I had seen while in D.C. last fall. This time, I took the time to read the panel about the artwork and realized that it was double-sided. Then, I made it down to the Chester Dale Collection, which I loved! I have always been drawn more to artwork that is rich in its color and contrast, so much so that it appears almost overexposed or oversaturated. And this collection was filled with such artwork. There were cartoon sketches by Van Gogn, a oil painting on cardboard – yes, cardboard – Picasso, Renoir, and nearly 100 more.
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At the National Portrait Gallery, before getting to the Elvis exhibit, we were able to see one entitled “Hide and Seek,” which included artworks highlighting aspects of life that would otherwise remain in the shadows. There was a self-portrait of a woman who, weighing nearly 300 pounds, laid naked next to a puddle in an attempt to make the statement that although she, in many ways, stands out, is still a part of nature and the world around her. The was also a disturbing photograph of a man who, according to the paragraph next to the painting, had just died. His eyes were wide open and he lay, lifeless on a bed with a tape recorder next to him. Apparently, his friend had taken the picture of him after he had died and having set his recorder next to his body. Another disturbing one was a silver platter that had on it a thick painting that resembled Francisco de Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son. Upon reading the description, this piece had been done in remembrance of the artist’s friend, who had died of AIDS. To create it, the artist had mixed his friends ashes with nail polish, creating what was now on display on the silver platter.
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Perhaps the most challenging artwork was the pile of candies laid in the corner of one of the rooms. Each was wrapped in bright-colored wrapping. I had initially passed by the piece, chalking-up its presence in an art gallery to a wave of contemporary art that, in my mind, was off-the-wall and lacked not only the artistic talent of older art forms, but also lacked articulate, meaning. I couldn’t have been farther off. I saw a warning sign that stated that consumption of the candy may be a choking hazard. This is what initially stopped me. I thought to myself, “Wait, why would this be here? Aren’t you supposed to leave the artwork alone?” So I went back to read a bit about the painting.
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The artist’s lover had recently died of AIDS. The 175 pounds of candy was meant to symbolize his partner prior to his illness. According to the description, everyone is invited to take a candy, to enjoy the sweetness of the artist’s relationship with his partner. But as the last of the sweet disappears, the viewer is to realize that they were quietly aided in the death of his partner, allowing the gay community and AIDS to be pushed to the side and ignored.
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Then, we made it to Elvis’ exhibit, seeing pictures of him on tour, with his high school sweetheart, and of him on stage – with a hound dog (which made my seriously miss Buddy and Basil)! Being 21 myself, I couldn’t imagine living a life like that right now.
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Then, we made our way to Two Amys. And for the second time, I fell in love with food. We got the bruschetta, warm olives, pizza, and I ordered a bottle of wine. As a first-timer, I didn’t know why she was explaining to me that she had opened it at the bar – because they have had bottles of this wine explode upon opening – or why she had poured a little into my glass to see my response. But no matter, I picked up on my cues quickly, and soon we were enjoying a great – my first – bottle of wine.
What happens when people don't get along or work together
On Wednesday, the LCWS group visited the Supreme Court. But our brief visit, which included looking at the historical setup downstairs and a 15-minute lecture by a curator in the courtroom, hardly compared to seeing the court in action.
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Thursday, at the office, there was an OCO All-staff meeting. Here, the head of the OCO, who is a political appointee, talked with the group about what we had accomplished this year and where we’re looking to go in the coming year. Setting the tone for the meeting, his microphone kept buzzing, creating an annoying noise every few minutes. Initially, I thought this was simply a problem with the equipment, but we found out later that it was a result of interference from his phone as it received messages. At one point, his phone rang –which is how we found out the source of the interference – and he took it out, pushed ignore, and set it on the top of the podium. Then the noise came again. He had not yet figured out that the noise was a product of his phone, but, by this point, he was alone in that. One guy behind me, fairly sternly, raised his voice and said, “It’s because of your phone. Turn your phone off!” So, he set his phone off to the side.
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But back to the content of the meeting. He briefly touched on coming up with a clear, concise message coming from OCO for the coming year because now with a divided government, education is an issue where they can find common ground and get legislation through. But while this message is something that he said OCO would have a part in working on, there was no substantive discussion of what that message would be or desire for input from those in OCO.
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After the meeting, I got to talk with my boss about what we thought of the meeting. I had started with how I thought it was odd that he brought up the notion of coming up with an overarching message but failed to take advantage of the opportunity to discuss it with the group. To this, she responded as though it was obvious that the group would not be the ones to come up with it, the politicos would. We also discussed his mentioning the new employee-evaluation system. He didn’t really know anything, which was unfortunate, because our meeting was an excellent opportunity for our leader to explain to the group the rationale behind the new changes made by the politicos. This could have done something to ease the tension between the numerous political appointees (ED has about 160 for its <5,000 style="mso-spacerun: yes"> But opportunity foregone.
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One last thing asked of OCO was for supervisors to meet with their staff and have a discussion of where each of them see and want their careers to go. This is all well and good, but as I could interpret from the sideways glances by the women in front of me, what good is this going to do when supervisors and staffers alike know that there is nowhere for them to move up? Only one office is hiring and not high-up positions. To me, this seemed to be an attempt to create motivation where there, rightly, is none.
Monday, November 1, 2010
A Halloween escape
Knowing that Rosslyn would be overrun with 30,000 marathoners, not to mention their supporters, I had made plans to spend the day with my aunt and uncle at Great Falls. Not only did this turn out to be a success in that I was able to wholly avoid the chaos that was the marathon, but also that with a brisk temperature, clear sky, and fall trees made for a perfect day to walk around the national park and take pictures. .
I hardly feel as though my words would top the pictures. So I will leave you to the pictures, suffice to say that spending an afternoon looking at nature’s beauty was a wonderful change of pace from city life.
Think for yourself
Saturday’s sane shenanigans began with coffee with Jonathan and a guy he worked with on the Obama campaign in Iowa. It was great to get to meet him, hear a bit about what he does at the Department of Defense, and listen to stories of the trying times he had while working on the campaign (sleeping in his car for four days and using coffee shop bathrooms to wash up and brush his teeth).
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But more than anything, what I appreciated the most was the opportunity to see what I believe to be Washingtonian appreciation in full glory. Upon first meeting my friend’s former coworker, he explained how he knew Jonathan and how Jonathan had been such a help to the campaign because he recruited 20 or 30 people to caucus. Later, when talking to a fourth person that met us for coffee, he explained that Jonathan had recruited 40 students to caucus. Jonathan repeatedly informed me, under his breath, that it was no more than 20.But no matter. With each explanation, his former coworker exuded genuine appreciation.
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This is not to say that all Washingtonians possess this fantastic trait. But this exchange, which I have seen on a number of occasions during the past eight weeks, was somewhat of an irregularity in the Midwest. Yes, Midwesterners are willing to help each other out, but there does not seem to be the same genuine, outspoken appreciation for others. Now noticing this, I hope I can keep this trait wherever I go in the future because, in light of a conversation I had with a coworker one day on the difference between managing and leading (and how the main difference is that a manager oversees that people do a task, while a leader will inspire them to work hard and put effort into their work), I think that this quality makes for a great leader.
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And onto the rally. We got there around 11:30 a.m., under any other circumstances, would be considered extremely early, but because there were well over 200,000 other people in attendance, we were in the second to last section with enough standing room to move my elbows out about four inches. And as you could have guessed from my 5’6” stature, I wasn’t able to see a thing aside from the other vision-frustrated ralliers who decided to climb trees in order to get a better view.
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Being at the rally was great, and it was fun to be a part of such a large cause. It was also exciting to see many different generations represented because as much as I believe in my generation, the cause seemed all the more validated because of the older population there, as Stewart’s message was something that struck a chord with them and their time-tested experience.
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And as one could have predicted, many news media outlets missed the point in their coverage of the rally. One station reported that even though the rallies were held in conjunction with one another, Colbert was still fighting strongly for his, to keep fear alive. Having been there, listened to their message, and understood that they were critiquing the dramatic, misrepresentative black and white contrasts (and other media tendencies) the news report came off as nothing but comical. How could they miss the point entirely?
Impatient rainbows
So instead of becoming more patient with age, the LCWS group could not wait the two extra days til Halloween and instead had a Halloween party Friday night. So after putting up the last of the Scholastic Art Exhibit at ED (where each student, aged 14-18, won a $10,000 scholarship for their artwork), I headed home around 6 to get ready..
A roommate and I had decided to go as the topic of our favorite youtube video: a double rainbow. So, having bought white boxers and t-shirts and a box of fabric markers, we set out to great two, fantastic rainbows across the front of our bodies.
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Other creative costumes that were in attendance, included: two pregnancies, John Boehner, a prisoner, Waldo, a doctor, a Scotsman, Christmas lights, a wanted criminal, and a whoopie cushion, among others.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Understanding through dialouge
Wednesday’s field trip was to Washington’s Islamic Center. Unfortunately for us, the hour or the only two hours that it rained hard this week encompassed our seven block walk from the metro stop to the center. By the time we reached the gates, you wouldn’t have been able to tell whether or not I had taken the time to try my laundry. And with proper irony, the clouds decided to stop raining about 10 minutes after we got there.
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With our shoes off and the women’s heads wrapped, we entered the mosque. I sat watching intently the four guys intently praying in a rhythm and pattern wholly unknown to me.
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After a few minutes of observing, the mosque’s teacher came to speak with the group. He gave us a brief history of this particular mosque, where different parts of the building came from, and then he opened up for discussion. People asked questions, such as: what are Muslims’ perceptions of Christians; how is the Quran to be interpreted, contextually or literally; how does Jesus fit into Islam’s perspective; how have things changed for Muslims in D.C. following 9-11; and is a hijab required of Muslim women? His answers to each of these provided an interesting, much more moderated response than the media or “common knowledge” would lead one to believe.
Lazy Sunday
After sustaining a sprint-like pace during my time in Washington, Sunday’s breakfast was a much welcomed rest.
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During our visit to Trader Joe’s the day before (which is where we found out from a cashier that there was a methlab bust in a GW freshman dorm room), I discovered heaven in the form of food: pumpkin pancakes. I quickly bought two boxes, along with a box of spiced apple bread mix. As a result of this marvelous discovery, Jaclyn, Aaron, and I realized that brunch the next morning was a must.
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So at 10:30 a.m. we got up and started cooking. Jaclyn was in charge of the bacon, Aaron setting the table, and I had the pancakes. And in an attempt to expand my culinary skills, I tried making a Mickey Mouse head (which failed) and the first letters of each of our names (which worked out well for all of us, save Aaron’s A).
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Once the cooking was finished, we sat down to our OJ, coffee, bacon, and pancakes, and enjoyed the morning.
To new experiences
It is obvious that with Washington comes a lot of history, but U Street has a history all its own. After the start of the 20th century, the neighborhood began to transform from being predominately white to more racially diverse. This continued to grow, and the community was doing well, until the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., after which, the neighborhood turned into a thriving drug scene. Since then, the neighborhood has turned around and is now a very culturally-rich area of the city.
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So, in an effort to take full advantage of the unique experiences U Street offers, I planned Friday evening around dinner at Etete, an Ethiopian restaurant that made The Washingtonian’s Cheap Eats List, and tickets to a jazz performance at Bohemian Caverns.
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First, dinner. After a few minutes of walking U Street, we found the Etete in all of its understated glory. But what the restaurant lacks in size, it makes up for in flavor. In deference to the Cheap Eats recommendation, we ordered the sambusas, which are lentil-filled, deep-fried pastries. This turned out to be a wonderful decision, as the warm, triangular dishes were a perfect combination of salt and spice. For our main meal, we ordered a spicy meat dish (which, after the sambusas and our waitress making sure we wanted the spicy dish, we were worried would be too much to handle!). But, again, this was a great choice. When our meal came out we had in front of us, a pizza-shaped, spongy bread with a pile of meat and two piles of vegetables on it and a basket of more rolled, spongy bread. With no clue of how to appropriately consume our dinner, we looked around, saw everyone eating with their hands, and realized that our wet-wipes weren’t superfluous.
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Once filled to the brim with fantastic Ethiopian food, we made our way to Bohemian Caverns. With its distinctive lit-up, piano-key awning, the jazz club is hard to miss. After checking in with the bouncer, we opened the door and walked through a corridor lined with stalactites and stalagmites to make our way to the caverns.
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Darkly lit with a single candle on each table, Bohemian Caverns has an atmosphere unmatched by anything I have seen – yes, even better than a cave party. The sea of white tablecloths surrounded the stage, with some tables just an arm’s length from the performers.
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As for the evening’s actual event, the expectations set by the mere presence of the room were met and surpassed by Louis Hayes and his group.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thoughts on a night with the police in SE D.C.
Thursday night after work, I was able to go on a ride-along through the Sixth District, including Anacostia and other parts south east of the Capitol. While on the ride along, I was able to talk a bit with each officer about the trends they see in crime; their thoughts on what promotes it and what best combats it; how they thought public housing affects crime; how they though public housing is doing generally, both in how it serves the individuals and its effectiveness; and how they thought the city ought to make changes in the way it combats crime and helps the poor. I also was able to witness, first-hand, the different policing styles and the subjectivity in application of the law. While social programs are always created with the intent of helping people and making up for what they’ve missed out on in society, if not properly executed they are both a detriment to the individual’s growth and they’re a waste of taxpayer dollars.
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I will begin where my ride-along started, which is with the near-arrest of three 20-somethings that were driving in Clay Terrace, the worse public housing complex in the Sixth District, their grandmother’s rented car that was past due. Having been the second police car to arrive, Officer --------- was not the primary on the incident and, therefore, was not in charge of making decisions regarding arrests. Although the three individuals met the requirements for the unauthorized use of a vehicle, the primary officer did not arrest them because he believed that they were simply stuck in an unfortunate situation. This decision was out of the norm, as the officer was asked to explain his reasoning to dissenting officers on 4 different occasions. Even -------------- thought that it was a “cut-and-dry UV.” From what I could gather, this differing decision was a result of two things: the particular officer’s compassion for people and the fact that the occupants of the vehicle were dressed fairly well, were respectful, and had a dialect that was, for the most part, free of slang. I think that while their respect had a significant impact — as it rightfully should — on the officer’s decision, I believe that the first and last factors did as well.
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To begin the discussion on housing, I will start with ----------‘s brief description of the history of public housing in D.C. In the 1960s and 1070s there was a large expansion of social programs and, consequently, a large number of public housing units were built. The prevailing thought was that, if all of the underprivileged were gathered together through a common, free place to live, then that area could be flooded with services such as vocational training, health care, child care, and the like. This way, some of the burdens they experience being poor, would be alleviated in the hopes that they would be able to work to a point where they could be self-sufficient.
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This is a great plan in theory, but having neglected the fact that these services would be the first to be cut during an economic downturn, public housing units have turned into quagmires for uninspired people, crime, and poor living conditions. Additionally, the simple fact that housing is free makes public housing a frustrating predicament in that, while it allows for people to currently live under a roof it: 1) disincentivizes legal work because as soon as the individual begins working, they no longer qualify for public housing, have to pay for their own housing, and have to work; 2) makes public housing seem standard and normal because the individual grows up within a community that does not work and does not see the opportunity for a better future; and 3) allocates a group of people that have nothing to do all day and, in turn, end up drinking.
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Having always been focused on meeting the needs of people, I neglected to consider the long-term effects of providing for them. Now, I am not entirely abandoning my caretaker mentality, but rather recognizing that it is not a benefit to provide for people unconditionally. Rather than the current public housing system, one with restrictions on certain habits, such as drinking and smoking, would be appropriate. For anyone that would argue that it violates their freedom, I would counter that they are free to live elsewhere and drink all they want, but when they’re living off someone else’s money, regulations ought to be allowed. Similarly, I would advocate for well-defined time periods in which a person is allowed to live in public housing. In the same way that a person is not allowed to collect unemployment checks indefinitely, public housing ought to be cut off at some predetermined point. Obviously, this would not include people with disabilities, who are not able to work.
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In sum, while my ride-along with the Metropolitan Police Department was not action-packed, it provided me with the unique opportunity for conversations with police officers who deal with the effects of effective and ineffective social policies, specifically public housing. Seeing it up-close forced me to grapple with the reality of tangible money being wasted, because when removed from the situation, it can become too easy to accept ineffective social programs instead of working toward better solutions, leaving the individuals worse-off and the taxpayers out more money.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Government entities
Wednesday began with a metro ride over to Foggy Bottom. There, I went to both the State Department and was able to listen and talk with a woman who had spent her career working as a mediator with FCMS.
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The first stop was at the FCMS building. There, we heard what was essentially an extension of the class — what it was like to be a mediator, the things she had done, and tricks she had picked up along the way. One interesting aspect of her job was that it could go all hours of the night, and because of that she always brought a change of clothes and would sneak off to wash up and change so that she would always appear fresh and ready to go, which made mediating sound so much more like a game than one would ever hope.
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Instead, what caught my attention was her brief mention that “it was good that those employees were unionized.” As soon as she said this, I scribbled down a question to ask her later. So, following her presentation, I walked to the front of the room to discuss her thoughts on unions, as she is often the one directly working with unions and their disputing party to make a solution. Her thoughts were that the quality of a union depends on its leadership. If the leadership is out for what’s in their best interest, whether that be wealth or pride, obviously the union isn’t served well. But if they do have good leadership, she thought they were a good thing — she included the teamsters in this category. While this makes for more effective meetings between large disputing parties, I don’t think unions are good for broad policy changes.
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In between FCMS and the State Department, I had lunch at a place where, every hour, on the half hour, the waitresses and cooks come out to dance to a song amongst all the patrons. It was uncomfortable for me and for them, and to make things better, there were tourists with their cameras in the face of a poor girl who happened to be dancing near their table.
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The State Department, on the other hand, was impressive in our ability to visit it (albeit we weren’t allowed to see any of the building, not even the bathroom, without an escort), but our speaker was less than candid, making for a moderately engaging discussion on the U.S.’s efforts to combat terrorism abroad.
Contrasts as consequences
To start Sunday off right, I went to the White House Gardens tour. Happening only twice a year, this is a special event. Getting up early in the hopes of avoiding what I thought would be long lines for tickets, I was pleasantly, and quizzically surprised at how easily people were able to get tickets to walk around, essentially, the backyard of the White House. In order to get an official tour—which is not even that extensive—one would need to apply at least two months in advance, wait in long lines, and have a government issued ID. But for our tour, one need only to pick up a ticket that they were handing out on the street, rip off the stub, and walk through a metal detector—no ID or prior check in.
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Once allowed in, you’re free to see the backyard swing set, the putting green, the fountain up-close, the gardens, the Children’s Gardens, and the outside of the Oval Office. As I was taking pictures of the Oval Office and of the yard space where a soccer ball had been left from some previously played game (and where Bo had, apparently, been running around only an hour earlier), I was awestruck. Awestruck of the historical decisions that had been made here. Awestruck of the ordinariness of the people who had lived here. Awestruck that I, and 12,000 others, could get this close.
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After the White House, we walked over to the Old Post Office, to relax, look at the city’s historic monuments from an aerial perspective, and realize that the city is a lot closer and condensed than riding the metro everywhere grants it.
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On to Monday. In a complete change of pace, I had a paper due in Monday night’s class and to top it off, we had a 130-page document for the secretary come in that needed to be expedited. What this translated into was a really busy, multi-tasking Monday.
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While my lack of paper writing was my own fault, and I was the one who had to deal with the procrastination, the life of an editor is much less in control. We, as editors, were obviously not in control of when we first received the document. Yet, we were the ones that were under the pressure to make the deadline. This can be frustrating when you’re dealing with more than one office that has classified a document as “high priority.”
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The frustration of this particular priority caused me to reflect a bit on my internship. While on the one hand I am really coming to appreciate what I am learning, how I will be able to incorporate it into my work back at Luther and The Gadfly, and how, through editing, I have developed a keener eye for the strengths/weaknesses of arguments and for clear/unclear writing, it lacks the inspiring creative process that excites me. I would much rather be the one writing the original documents than the one polishing them. And with this experience, my creative writing in the future will be polished to the point where I won’t need an editor.
City life
In true Darling form, Saturday started with two cups of coffee, both at the apartment and at Dean and Deluca. After two cups of liquid alertness, I went on to roam the streets of Georgetown.
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While enjoying a scenic walk amongst busy streets and numerous cafes and shops, I stumbled upon a used book store. Nestled into a neighborhood not more than a block off a main Georgetown road, I decided to venture inside and see if there were any treasures to be found.
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Considering the recent recognition of Vargas Llosa and my upcoming trip to Peru, I combed through the books looking for something, anything of his. But my efforts were in vain.
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Later in the evening, I went out with a few friends toward Vienna. Having never ridden the metro past Rosslyn, I did not expect the Vienna to be as far out as it was, given the layout of the metro map. And in the same underassumption of distance, Jacklyn, our navigator for the evening—whose one-time stint ends here—thought that the place that we were going was not more than a few blocks away from the stop. Having opted to wear heels that night, I wasn’t particularly happy to learn that her estimate was only a mile and a half off.