This past week I went up to Philly to visit a gradschool to check out their Environmental Education program.
I took the train which was kind of exciting because other than the commuter rail into Boston I've never been on a 'big' train before and it was really nice.
Philly has a very impressive public transportation - not so impressive aesthetics to the city but I think I'm spoiled by how nice D.C. is... You can also use Google as a reliable commuting source and it tells you bus, train, and metro schedules and how to get from place to place which is something that D.C. does not have - if I had known about Wmata (D.C.'s public transportation website) I would have lived in a different place from Mt. Rainier because I was relaying on Google and where I ended up moving to takes me only 11 minutes to go to work on subway but on Google it was telling me it would have taken an hour and a half...but I'm getting off topic.
What I really want to discuss is body language and how we orient ourselves when talking to someone.
As I mentioned I went to visit a gradschool the other day - I got in earlier than expected (thank you Philly for being efficient) and explored around the campus for a little while.
The one thing that threw me off/was kind of neat was the feeling on being at a Castle. All buildings were stone and everything 'fit' together very nicely where Farmington has a hodgepodge of brick, asparagus sculpture, and stick frame houses that give it community character and you can tell that UMF is integrated into the town.
This school is a campus plopped in the middle of three major roads and has special entrances and it just does not have an integrated feel -and I would need a car. Although the public transportation is great up to the college there is a separate campus for science programs and I'm pretty sure I would need a car just to get around which is annoying because I sold mine.
Walking into the admissions building reminded me a lot of walking into Merril Hall with a giant staircase but when I went into the room and all of the chairs were set up in a speed dating kind of way. I do not really like describing it as that but I feel as though that is the best way to describe how the room was set up. There were professors on one side and when it was your turn you went and sat across from them.
I waited for a couple of minutes and began people watching trying to get a feel for the body language of the room. One professor was looking anywhere but in the eyes of the potential grad candidate, a couple were looking around the room and seemed completely uninterested, and a couple of professors had their hands to their chin with a couple of fingers placed on their face and slumping.
I walked over to one of the professors slumping, received a weak handshake and you could already tell that she was not interested in what I had to say.
I mentioned that I like alternative education and already have some experience working at a 4-H camp teaching environmental ed and gardening and she just shuffled papers, glancing over my transcript.
I was asked what I was doing down in D.C. and I said that I am interning in National Geographic's Education Department and her attitude completely changed. Suddenly she was sitting up, there was a smile on her face and she was making eye contact with me. Just dropping one name changed everything and changed how my interview went.
My transcript was actually looked at, we went over courses that I already have knocked off of the program (earth science classes, math, etc.) and she was genuine in how she treated me.
The interview ended with her telling me that I am a very driven and determined individual for someone so young and that she cannot wait to see my application.
It completely BAFFLES me that just because I am able to drop the name of National Geographic I am suddenly a worthy individual. And she hit the nail on the head - I am determined and I am driven and although sometimes I freak out about what I am going to do with my life, I do have goals and my attitude towards work and school are parts of my personality that I really appreciate.
The more time I spend at NGS the more I realize that this internship is truly a step in the door anywhere I go but it should not be the defining moment in my life that makes me a potential candidate for a job, acceptance into master's program, etc. It is my personality and attitude and work ethic that will help me move forward in my life.
Although it is probably not the school for me (I still need to do a little more research) going to that interview was not only a grounding experience but a learning one because now I know that maybe a small private school is not the option for me.
I guess the lesson learned is be careful of your body language because you never know who is going to walk through the door. I think if my experience had been a little different this school would still be high on my list. National Geographic is important to have on my resume but I had to be impressive to get here.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
NW v. NE
Even though this week is a short week it has been pretty hectic - mostly because I moved last night to a safer part of town - I've had too many instances happen where I was previous living that this opportunity to move to a safer location came up and I knew I had to take it. Already I am a lot happier where I am living.
Which started me thinking about Town and Regional Planning last year and I how I thought things were changing in Inner cities and they are - poverty is just being pushed out instead of in.
For me to get to Mt. Rainier, MD (first stop outside of DC, NE) I would have to wait at least a half hour for a bus (because who can ever know when it is going to decide to show up), take the bus for a twenty minutes to get to the metro (that was 1.3 miles away but it was too risky to walk, even in the morning), take the metro to one stop, transfer and wait, take the metro twenty minutes into the city. All in all by the end of my stay in Mt. Rainier I was taking nearly 2hours out of my day (one way) to go 5 miles into the city and would be late for work.
To get home I would have to leave work early, commute and transfer on the metro and then run to the bus because if I did not make the 5:30 bus I would have to wait until 6:30 for the next one to go to my house all because I was too afraid to walk the 1.3 miles. Going home would take a little over an hour.
I should not have to be afraid but I was and now where I am living I only have to walk .5 miles to the metro through a nice section of town or walk .2miles to catch a bus and it all brings me to work in under a half hour and I am neither late nor need to leave early.
It baffles me that cities constantly say they are looking for ways to improve the system but the people in Mt. Rainier are angry. They are frustrated that they have to wait up to an hour sometimes to catch a bus home and that there isn't work near them. I was talking to one woman while waiting for the bus a couple weeks ago and I mentioned that I might try taking a bus from Ft. Totten (the stop before mine, NE) and she looked at me and said "Do not take a bus there, you will get raped".
Where I am living now (Friendship Heights, NW) is right near my friends at AU and a couple of work friends and the AU girls told me that the worst act of violence they've heard of in our neighborhood (in the past 3 years) is this man who will sometimes run around pinching a girl's butt.
It is ridiculous that because I am a white female who was previously living in a black community would constantly have to worry about being raped, mugged, chased, etc. but now that I am in a white community my biggest concern is a man who might try and pinch my butt.
Obviously I still have to be careful and keep my guard up because I am in a city but my risk has gone down significantly and all I had to do was move 7 miles West of Mt. Rainier.
It is also really frustrating that the predominantly white areas of DC have a bus stop at every corner while the black areas have one maybe every half mile and they are usually located in the 'better' parts of town.
Anacostia is said to be the worst neighborhood in DC (SE) and I was talking to someone from AU who mentioned that the first say of orientation he was brought on a tour of Anacostia where people yelled at the group constantly saying they needed to "go back where they came" and would be warned at intersections to not go down certain streets because they would not "come out the other side".
Anacostia from the 2000 Census was 92% African American (http://www.servinghistory.com/topics/Anacostia::sub::Demographics) - Mt. Rainier, African American and Hispanic are the predominant races (http://www.city-data.com/zips/20712.html) and in Friendship Heights 84% are white (http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/neighborhoods/guide/show/subarubia).
Anacostia Average Income: $28,934
Mt. Rainier: $46,913
Friendship Heights: $145,460
(All incomes gathered from city-data.com)
I did not realize the income level was jumping to nearly 100K...
I feel as though I could rant all day about inequalities and how neighborhoods and cities should not have that much disparity in only a few miles radius but it happens and we all know it happens but yet there does not seem to be much being done.
The one good thing I noticed in Mt. Rainier was this Co-Op called 'Glut' - organic and vegetarian everything and my grocery bill would often be under $40 dollars for a week - but I would have to walk quite a ways and by the end of my stay in Mt. Rainier once I got home I stayed home and did not venture past my bedroom.
Now I can leave at 5 o'clock on a Sunday and get my groceries and not have thoughts and concerns flooding my head about safety. Some of them will be there but not all.
I have to keep telling myself that I was not defeated by Mt. Rainier - our system is flawed and one person living in an area will not change the years and history of backlash of pushing poverty around to wherever is seen fit. My friend that helped move me last night is living in Georgia/Petworth which is still NW but on the edge of NE and has a few sketchy parts. She was even freaked out by the area I was living, especially hearing the sirens go off literally every 10 minutes.
My brain is flustered but hopefully living in a better area will at least ease one of the topics running through my mind.
Which started me thinking about Town and Regional Planning last year and I how I thought things were changing in Inner cities and they are - poverty is just being pushed out instead of in.
For me to get to Mt. Rainier, MD (first stop outside of DC, NE) I would have to wait at least a half hour for a bus (because who can ever know when it is going to decide to show up), take the bus for a twenty minutes to get to the metro (that was 1.3 miles away but it was too risky to walk, even in the morning), take the metro to one stop, transfer and wait, take the metro twenty minutes into the city. All in all by the end of my stay in Mt. Rainier I was taking nearly 2hours out of my day (one way) to go 5 miles into the city and would be late for work.
To get home I would have to leave work early, commute and transfer on the metro and then run to the bus because if I did not make the 5:30 bus I would have to wait until 6:30 for the next one to go to my house all because I was too afraid to walk the 1.3 miles. Going home would take a little over an hour.
I should not have to be afraid but I was and now where I am living I only have to walk .5 miles to the metro through a nice section of town or walk .2miles to catch a bus and it all brings me to work in under a half hour and I am neither late nor need to leave early.
It baffles me that cities constantly say they are looking for ways to improve the system but the people in Mt. Rainier are angry. They are frustrated that they have to wait up to an hour sometimes to catch a bus home and that there isn't work near them. I was talking to one woman while waiting for the bus a couple weeks ago and I mentioned that I might try taking a bus from Ft. Totten (the stop before mine, NE) and she looked at me and said "Do not take a bus there, you will get raped".
Where I am living now (Friendship Heights, NW) is right near my friends at AU and a couple of work friends and the AU girls told me that the worst act of violence they've heard of in our neighborhood (in the past 3 years) is this man who will sometimes run around pinching a girl's butt.
It is ridiculous that because I am a white female who was previously living in a black community would constantly have to worry about being raped, mugged, chased, etc. but now that I am in a white community my biggest concern is a man who might try and pinch my butt.
Obviously I still have to be careful and keep my guard up because I am in a city but my risk has gone down significantly and all I had to do was move 7 miles West of Mt. Rainier.
It is also really frustrating that the predominantly white areas of DC have a bus stop at every corner while the black areas have one maybe every half mile and they are usually located in the 'better' parts of town.
Anacostia is said to be the worst neighborhood in DC (SE) and I was talking to someone from AU who mentioned that the first say of orientation he was brought on a tour of Anacostia where people yelled at the group constantly saying they needed to "go back where they came" and would be warned at intersections to not go down certain streets because they would not "come out the other side".
Anacostia from the 2000 Census was 92% African American (http://www.servinghistory.com/topics/Anacostia::sub::Demographics) - Mt. Rainier, African American and Hispanic are the predominant races (http://www.city-data.com/zips/20712.html) and in Friendship Heights 84% are white (http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/neighborhoods/guide/show/subarubia).
Anacostia Average Income: $28,934
Mt. Rainier: $46,913
Friendship Heights: $145,460
(All incomes gathered from city-data.com)
I did not realize the income level was jumping to nearly 100K...
I feel as though I could rant all day about inequalities and how neighborhoods and cities should not have that much disparity in only a few miles radius but it happens and we all know it happens but yet there does not seem to be much being done.
The one good thing I noticed in Mt. Rainier was this Co-Op called 'Glut' - organic and vegetarian everything and my grocery bill would often be under $40 dollars for a week - but I would have to walk quite a ways and by the end of my stay in Mt. Rainier once I got home I stayed home and did not venture past my bedroom.
Now I can leave at 5 o'clock on a Sunday and get my groceries and not have thoughts and concerns flooding my head about safety. Some of them will be there but not all.
I have to keep telling myself that I was not defeated by Mt. Rainier - our system is flawed and one person living in an area will not change the years and history of backlash of pushing poverty around to wherever is seen fit. My friend that helped move me last night is living in Georgia/Petworth which is still NW but on the edge of NE and has a few sketchy parts. She was even freaked out by the area I was living, especially hearing the sirens go off literally every 10 minutes.
My brain is flustered but hopefully living in a better area will at least ease one of the topics running through my mind.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Lots to Do
In the upcoming few weeks I am going to have a lot on my plate which is really exciting but kind of nerve wracking at the same time.
For Julie:
Finish up brainstorming lesson plan ideas
Organize lessons into a spreadsheet
Meet Thursday for a JulieSarah meeting to discuss the brainstorming
Meet Friday with Kim, Kathleen, and Julie to go over the brainstorming I've done - add in their input and get started on the contracting process
For Sarah W.:
Research the Oceans magazine and document/request permission for all of the pictures Sarah labeled.
Research MyshotYourShot to see if there are any additional photos we could use for an upcoming conference on the Ocean
Make sure the photos are copyrighted correctly and can be used
Have all of this done by 10/20
Today is the first day I've felt crunched for time with two projects going but I'm planning on managing my time - morning Julie, afternoon Sarah.
I might need to do a little more work for Julie this afternoon so that everything is ready for our meeting tomorrow.
It's kind of crazy that wish-list making starts next week for classes! I cannot seem to wrap my head around the fact that I'm a senior and will be graduating next Spring!
For Julie:
Finish up brainstorming lesson plan ideas
Organize lessons into a spreadsheet
Meet Thursday for a JulieSarah meeting to discuss the brainstorming
Meet Friday with Kim, Kathleen, and Julie to go over the brainstorming I've done - add in their input and get started on the contracting process
For Sarah W.:
Research the Oceans magazine and document/request permission for all of the pictures Sarah labeled.
Research MyshotYourShot to see if there are any additional photos we could use for an upcoming conference on the Ocean
Make sure the photos are copyrighted correctly and can be used
Have all of this done by 10/20
Today is the first day I've felt crunched for time with two projects going but I'm planning on managing my time - morning Julie, afternoon Sarah.
I might need to do a little more work for Julie this afternoon so that everything is ready for our meeting tomorrow.
It's kind of crazy that wish-list making starts next week for classes! I cannot seem to wrap my head around the fact that I'm a senior and will be graduating next Spring!
Friday, October 1, 2010
Best Project Ever
Brief background of what is going on right now in the Oceans Department of NGS:
Oracle gave us a grant for Ocean Education grades 9-12
We have a budget left over and are developing lesson plans for a 3-5 program
I've been going over standards and familiarizing myself with both National Standards for ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies and Ocean Literacy Standards that NGS developed.
We have this extra budget to hire writers for the lessons
My new project:
Julie and I will be brainstorming and having a meeting next Thursday to go over everything I find and help mold it better to then give to the writers
The better the materials and more information we can find the better the lessons will be developed
This project is going to be a lot of fun and I am really excited to start developing the frame work for some of the lessons that are going to be created!
Oracle gave us a grant for Ocean Education grades 9-12
We have a budget left over and are developing lesson plans for a 3-5 program
I've been going over standards and familiarizing myself with both National Standards for ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies and Ocean Literacy Standards that NGS developed.
We have this extra budget to hire writers for the lessons
My new project:
- Brainstorm activities
- 3 Ideas per subject per literacy standard
- general ideas
- expand from ideas -> use mapping tools for ocean conveyor belt
- have the lesson ideas vary in difficultly -> based on 4th grade level
- Standard 1 (The Earth has one big ocean with many features)
- -> waves, currents, + ring of fire
- - waves will be easier to find activities compared to currents
- Standard 2 (ocean and life in ocean shape the Earth)
- -> erosion - is it a lab activity? calculations?
- - historic use of rivers + damning - pollution, un-natural drainage, pesticides, etc.
- Build a Frame Work for these activities
- Be CREATIVE - what would I have wanted to learn? What activities would be cool and exciting?
Julie and I will be brainstorming and having a meeting next Thursday to go over everything I find and help mold it better to then give to the writers
The better the materials and more information we can find the better the lessons will be developed
This project is going to be a lot of fun and I am really excited to start developing the frame work for some of the lessons that are going to be created!
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