Well, ladies and gentlemen, in a few hours I'm getting up and starting my journey down to New Orleans. Tonight is my last night in my home, in this bed, on this computer, for a long, long time. I'll keep this post short and sweet. I'll try to be as consistent as possible in writing journal entries, maybe even a few as I drive down. I'm taking a week to get there and stopping off at colleges, seeing friends along the way. Right now I'm too tired to be nervous or excited, but we'll see how I feel tomorrow. For right now, all I want to do is sleep.
wish me luck.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Oh Lord. New York.
Ah New York. It really only takes one visit there for me to realize that no matter which cities I go to--New Orleans for the next five months, Boston for the next four years--none of them will be as enchanting and close to me as New York is.
I suppose a lot of a Blog is essentially just literary masturbation. I talk about all the stuff that's going on in my life, even if it's trivial in the grand scheme of things, and i'm talking about it just for the sake of talking about it. So this may not be that interesting for those reading it, but nonetheless, here is my day in New York.
The last few days before I start my road trip down to New Orleans have been busy, balancing the time between being with my family, being with my friends, and reserving a little time just to reflect personally. But I decided to go to New York today to see my oh-so-wonderful friend Dena Yago. The train to New York was funny. It was crowded so I stood at the end of the train, near the door of the vestibule between cars, holding my ticket and scanning for empty seats. I didn't have to look long, however, before a woman asked me if I would like to sit with her and her two daughters. They picked seats that were facing each other. They were on one side, and I had an isle to myself. The mom was very New Jersey. She was loud and bubbly and loved to drink and was going in to New York to do the touristy things: see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, then see the Thanksgiving day parade the next day. The mother talked the entire time and occasionally pulled the kids into the conversation. One was a sophmore at an art school somewhere in Ohio and was mortified by everything her mother had to say. She rolled her eyes a lot. The other daughter was in a nationally ranked (ranked first, actually) High School marching band in South Jersey. She had recently gone to the Marching Band finals in Annapolis and won. So it goes.
And then New York. Everybody is moving in that city. Places to go. There's very little eye contact. You aren't aware of everyone you pass. And there's something about that that I love. I went up to Isabelle Delouvrier's house next. This charming girl happens to have a five story house in the Upper East side and it is amaaazing. We got food and watched stupid game shows and sat and talked and gossiped and I felt like i was at Lawrenceville again. Isabelle still is at Lawrenceville. She's still stuck in the system. And listening to her talk about all these Lawrenceville kids--and me knowing exactly who they are--made me think about when the time will come where I won't know exactly who they are, and who they dated, and what their stories were. In other words, it made me think about when I'll be done thinking about Lawrenceville. Not yet anyway.
I left Isabelle's and then went up to Columbia to see Dena. Now, I could write pages about how ridiculously wonderful this girl is. But I can't, so i'll say this: she's absolutely brilliant, utterly charming, and exhaustingly beautiful. That about does the trick. She has seen every good movie, read every book that goes good movies are based on, and on top of all that has a fantastic amount of knowledge about good, alternative music.
We ate Fallafel and we talked. I hadn't seen her in about a month. I'm preparing to go to New Orleans, so this is my farewell meeting. We then meet up with her friends, who are all smart and wearing tight jeans and hip, and decide to see a movie that is only suited for such people: Darren Aranofski's The Fountain. This is a beautiful movie to look at, and (amazingly) has no CGI. It's filled with these ethereal images of what looks like Nebula's exploding and such, but it's actually all this microscoping photography of, like, yeast growing. Excellent. Narratively, though, the film was weak, and waay to over indulgent and pseudo-philosophical. I decided that the person that thought The Fountain is their favorite movie is the person that I will hate most in life.
The movie ended and I had to go but we both decided that this was not nearly a climactic enough goodbye. So, I'll be going in on Sunday.
Anyway, I need to be going now. But i'm so frustrated with not getting this post finished that I'm going to post it anyway. It's not done, but i'll be finishing it later. Consider this a to be continued...
walking around and going to Rockefeller center
people watching in Penn station (drunk people0
Maya
train ride (lights off, people smoking up)
I suppose a lot of a Blog is essentially just literary masturbation. I talk about all the stuff that's going on in my life, even if it's trivial in the grand scheme of things, and i'm talking about it just for the sake of talking about it. So this may not be that interesting for those reading it, but nonetheless, here is my day in New York.
The last few days before I start my road trip down to New Orleans have been busy, balancing the time between being with my family, being with my friends, and reserving a little time just to reflect personally. But I decided to go to New York today to see my oh-so-wonderful friend Dena Yago. The train to New York was funny. It was crowded so I stood at the end of the train, near the door of the vestibule between cars, holding my ticket and scanning for empty seats. I didn't have to look long, however, before a woman asked me if I would like to sit with her and her two daughters. They picked seats that were facing each other. They were on one side, and I had an isle to myself. The mom was very New Jersey. She was loud and bubbly and loved to drink and was going in to New York to do the touristy things: see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, then see the Thanksgiving day parade the next day. The mother talked the entire time and occasionally pulled the kids into the conversation. One was a sophmore at an art school somewhere in Ohio and was mortified by everything her mother had to say. She rolled her eyes a lot. The other daughter was in a nationally ranked (ranked first, actually) High School marching band in South Jersey. She had recently gone to the Marching Band finals in Annapolis and won. So it goes.
And then New York. Everybody is moving in that city. Places to go. There's very little eye contact. You aren't aware of everyone you pass. And there's something about that that I love. I went up to Isabelle Delouvrier's house next. This charming girl happens to have a five story house in the Upper East side and it is amaaazing. We got food and watched stupid game shows and sat and talked and gossiped and I felt like i was at Lawrenceville again. Isabelle still is at Lawrenceville. She's still stuck in the system. And listening to her talk about all these Lawrenceville kids--and me knowing exactly who they are--made me think about when the time will come where I won't know exactly who they are, and who they dated, and what their stories were. In other words, it made me think about when I'll be done thinking about Lawrenceville. Not yet anyway.
I left Isabelle's and then went up to Columbia to see Dena. Now, I could write pages about how ridiculously wonderful this girl is. But I can't, so i'll say this: she's absolutely brilliant, utterly charming, and exhaustingly beautiful. That about does the trick. She has seen every good movie, read every book that goes good movies are based on, and on top of all that has a fantastic amount of knowledge about good, alternative music.
We ate Fallafel and we talked. I hadn't seen her in about a month. I'm preparing to go to New Orleans, so this is my farewell meeting. We then meet up with her friends, who are all smart and wearing tight jeans and hip, and decide to see a movie that is only suited for such people: Darren Aranofski's The Fountain. This is a beautiful movie to look at, and (amazingly) has no CGI. It's filled with these ethereal images of what looks like Nebula's exploding and such, but it's actually all this microscoping photography of, like, yeast growing. Excellent. Narratively, though, the film was weak, and waay to over indulgent and pseudo-philosophical. I decided that the person that thought The Fountain is their favorite movie is the person that I will hate most in life.
The movie ended and I had to go but we both decided that this was not nearly a climactic enough goodbye. So, I'll be going in on Sunday.
Anyway, I need to be going now. But i'm so frustrated with not getting this post finished that I'm going to post it anyway. It's not done, but i'll be finishing it later. Consider this a to be continued...
walking around and going to Rockefeller center
people watching in Penn station (drunk people0
Maya
train ride (lights off, people smoking up)
Monday, November 20, 2006
Friday, November 17, 2006
What Brittany's Friends Miss About Her Part III
Shamsa.Oh, and I know this is a rather obscure Blog, but anyone who reads this, please, pleeease feel free to give your opinion on which ones I should choose. It's two pictures each: one with the person holding the board, and one of them by themselves as a portrait shot. That's the word.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Complications
Here's the thing.
The work that needs to be done down in New Orleans is so, so broad in scale. I realize that I'm making a pretty obvious point, but I read an article in the New York Times today (although it was from a few days ago) that really made me think. The article focused mainly on one high school and on one type of student. The school is John McDonogh School, the largest functioning high school in the city. The type of student is the student who is alone, students who are either living with extended family or by themselves. The principal of John McDonogh school estimates that up to one-fifth of the student body lives without their parents, parents who are forced to stay in their relocations to pay off debts and rents. The psychological consequences for these kids living on their own have manifested physically. Since the school opened two months ago, six "very serious" assaults have occurred, and fights break out daily. A student, refused entry in to his class because he was tardy, beat his teacher "unmercifully" to the point of hospitalization. The violence has resulted in heightened security, but the 25 guards in the building, the four police officers and cruisers on the side walk, and the metal detectors are only adding to the unease and aggression.
What surprised me so much about this story is that it went against what I believed to be the intuitive response after Hurricane Katrina; that after such a devastating event, family becomes most important. Reading something like this feels unfortunate, but even more it feels unnecessary. We want so badly for a simple solution for rebuilding New Orleans, that if we could just raise a little more money, get a little more support from the government, build a few more houses, then everything could, and would, come back together again. But this article has made me think about how deep the problems run in Katrina affected areas. Rebuilding houses is one piece of an entire jigsaw puzzle of problems that need to be addressed. It'd be nice to have someone to blame for all of this, someone who, when fixed, fixes the problems of the city with them. Perhaps this is a wholly American response: quickly looking to find fault, quickly looking to blame instead of looking for change. I don't know who to blame. I can't blame the parents, because many of them are forced to stay to pay off debts and rents. I can't blame the guards, because the high school students are ignoring authority and fighting all the time. But I can't blame the kids, because being parent-less and having my every move watched by law enforcement would make me lash out as well.
I don't know who to blame and I don't know how to change things. All I know is that i truly wish I had the ability to do more than just build houses down there.
If you're interested, this is the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/education/01orleans.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=e95f64cb644eb8e1&ex=1163826000
The work that needs to be done down in New Orleans is so, so broad in scale. I realize that I'm making a pretty obvious point, but I read an article in the New York Times today (although it was from a few days ago) that really made me think. The article focused mainly on one high school and on one type of student. The school is John McDonogh School, the largest functioning high school in the city. The type of student is the student who is alone, students who are either living with extended family or by themselves. The principal of John McDonogh school estimates that up to one-fifth of the student body lives without their parents, parents who are forced to stay in their relocations to pay off debts and rents. The psychological consequences for these kids living on their own have manifested physically. Since the school opened two months ago, six "very serious" assaults have occurred, and fights break out daily. A student, refused entry in to his class because he was tardy, beat his teacher "unmercifully" to the point of hospitalization. The violence has resulted in heightened security, but the 25 guards in the building, the four police officers and cruisers on the side walk, and the metal detectors are only adding to the unease and aggression.
What surprised me so much about this story is that it went against what I believed to be the intuitive response after Hurricane Katrina; that after such a devastating event, family becomes most important. Reading something like this feels unfortunate, but even more it feels unnecessary. We want so badly for a simple solution for rebuilding New Orleans, that if we could just raise a little more money, get a little more support from the government, build a few more houses, then everything could, and would, come back together again. But this article has made me think about how deep the problems run in Katrina affected areas. Rebuilding houses is one piece of an entire jigsaw puzzle of problems that need to be addressed. It'd be nice to have someone to blame for all of this, someone who, when fixed, fixes the problems of the city with them. Perhaps this is a wholly American response: quickly looking to find fault, quickly looking to blame instead of looking for change. I don't know who to blame. I can't blame the parents, because many of them are forced to stay to pay off debts and rents. I can't blame the guards, because the high school students are ignoring authority and fighting all the time. But I can't blame the kids, because being parent-less and having my every move watched by law enforcement would make me lash out as well.
I don't know who to blame and I don't know how to change things. All I know is that i truly wish I had the ability to do more than just build houses down there.
If you're interested, this is the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/education/01orleans.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=e95f64cb644eb8e1&ex=1163826000
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
What Brittany's Friends Miss About Her
I'm doing a little photography project for Brittany Patton, and, well, for myself. I'm feeling starved artistically! So this: Brittany Patton is in China for her entire Junior year. I've assembled some of her closest friends and will be taking pictures of each one and then making a photo book out them. Each friend has two pictures: one of them holding a white board with the words I Miss _____ and then their filled in memory; and the other is a portrait shot. I'll keep posting 'em as I shoot 'em. Here are a few of Hunter.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Hill Weekend
Ah, yes, The Great Return. For those that don't know, Hill Weekend is essentially Homecoming for Lawrenceville, built around a day of all the sports teams competing against Lawrenceville's oldest rival: The Hill School. But let's be honest here--first year graduates posing in front of the Lawrenceville student body to get recognition is as big a part of Hill Weekend as anything is. My memories of Lawrenceville hosting Hill weekend involve sitting in the bleachers in front of the football game, but actually watching all of the graduates standing on the track that surrounds the field for the entire crowd to see. They were talking to each other, but their bodies were facing the stands. Think of how elementary schoolers act on stage during the second grade play, and you have an idea.
There was a bit of that this year, but Hill Weekend offered all of us returning graduates something more, something I had thought about while watching as a High Schooler, but hadn't really understood until I experienced it as a graduate. This weekend, most of us ignored everything non-Lawrenceville. It became more than just going back to high school. We were back in high school. All the graduates convened at the Pep Rally Friday night. This was where the hugs, the handshakes, the small talk, the "oh my god!"s and "you look great"s took place. But as the night wound down, the graduates fell into their Lawrenceville routine.
A group of kids went off to eat dinner at Fedora's, the restaurant across the street from Lawrenceville that is oh-so-frequented by its student body.
Most kids walked through campus, stopping at their old dorms, and talking with their old house masters.I went on one of these strolls with two friends who had prefected one of the Crescent houses, and within five minutes of greeting the House Master they were asking her for gossip.
And as I was leaving Lawrenceville on my way up to a party, I drove passed a group of graduates hopping over the Lawrenceville fence to get onto Main Street, just as they had done all of last year.
And the next day, of the forty-five or so returnees that arrived on Friday night, virtually all of us drove the two hours to Pottstown to see the games. I spent most of my time at the football game. I noticed very little of the graduate posing that I'd witnessed in previous years. Most of us were in the stands watching. Most of us cheered for a school that we were no longer a part of. And when Lawrenceville won, most of us there charged the field with everyone else and jumped in celebration with the massively forming huddle. I found myself more invested in this Hill football game than I had been in any during my time at Lawrenceville. Why? Why am I unusually excited for a school that, while good to me, has moved on without me, with players and fans who don't really know how to feel about us returning, who maybe feel like we're trespassing?
I think that Hill weekend became a second chance of sorts for us, a moment for us to evaluate our time at Lawrenceville and focus on what we cared about: friends, celebration, and ultimately, achievement. We were Lawrenceville students, but better Lawrenceville students--a little more excited, a little more unified, and looking back on the past few days I realize that to the graduates nothing else was relevant. I can't tell you how many times I heard someone say "I'm not going to think about how much work I have to do when I get back." Granted, maybe all these people mean to say is that the mental burden of worrying over homework would dampen the fun of the weekend. But that's not the only reason they don't want to think about their college work. There's something to it that's a little more profound. We do not want to think of college work because we do not want to think of college. In a way, we wouldn't let ourselves. The weekend had become about returning to being a high school student. We were in high school. The idea of college homework is anachronistic. We do not need to work on college things. Do not mention these things to me. Do not break our suspension of disbelief. Do not pull us out of our characters.
But I'm writing this on a Sunday night, and Hill Weekend, my friends, is over and done with. And the people that wouldn't let themselves think about college homework are now forced to. And they have gone back to wherever they were on Thursday and, in a weird way, they are leaving Lawrenceville for the second time. I was so comfortable this weekend, everything was so familiar, conversation was so relaxed and benign (and i don't mean that in a bad way. Who has a revelatory conversation every day of their lives?), that i was, I realize now, blind to the fact that I will probably only see most of those graduates a handful of times in the rest of my life.
And that. is that.
There was a bit of that this year, but Hill Weekend offered all of us returning graduates something more, something I had thought about while watching as a High Schooler, but hadn't really understood until I experienced it as a graduate. This weekend, most of us ignored everything non-Lawrenceville. It became more than just going back to high school. We were back in high school. All the graduates convened at the Pep Rally Friday night. This was where the hugs, the handshakes, the small talk, the "oh my god!"s and "you look great"s took place. But as the night wound down, the graduates fell into their Lawrenceville routine.
A group of kids went off to eat dinner at Fedora's, the restaurant across the street from Lawrenceville that is oh-so-frequented by its student body.
Most kids walked through campus, stopping at their old dorms, and talking with their old house masters.I went on one of these strolls with two friends who had prefected one of the Crescent houses, and within five minutes of greeting the House Master they were asking her for gossip.
And as I was leaving Lawrenceville on my way up to a party, I drove passed a group of graduates hopping over the Lawrenceville fence to get onto Main Street, just as they had done all of last year.
And the next day, of the forty-five or so returnees that arrived on Friday night, virtually all of us drove the two hours to Pottstown to see the games. I spent most of my time at the football game. I noticed very little of the graduate posing that I'd witnessed in previous years. Most of us were in the stands watching. Most of us cheered for a school that we were no longer a part of. And when Lawrenceville won, most of us there charged the field with everyone else and jumped in celebration with the massively forming huddle. I found myself more invested in this Hill football game than I had been in any during my time at Lawrenceville. Why? Why am I unusually excited for a school that, while good to me, has moved on without me, with players and fans who don't really know how to feel about us returning, who maybe feel like we're trespassing?
I think that Hill weekend became a second chance of sorts for us, a moment for us to evaluate our time at Lawrenceville and focus on what we cared about: friends, celebration, and ultimately, achievement. We were Lawrenceville students, but better Lawrenceville students--a little more excited, a little more unified, and looking back on the past few days I realize that to the graduates nothing else was relevant. I can't tell you how many times I heard someone say "I'm not going to think about how much work I have to do when I get back." Granted, maybe all these people mean to say is that the mental burden of worrying over homework would dampen the fun of the weekend. But that's not the only reason they don't want to think about their college work. There's something to it that's a little more profound. We do not want to think of college work because we do not want to think of college. In a way, we wouldn't let ourselves. The weekend had become about returning to being a high school student. We were in high school. The idea of college homework is anachronistic. We do not need to work on college things. Do not mention these things to me. Do not break our suspension of disbelief. Do not pull us out of our characters.
But I'm writing this on a Sunday night, and Hill Weekend, my friends, is over and done with. And the people that wouldn't let themselves think about college homework are now forced to. And they have gone back to wherever they were on Thursday and, in a weird way, they are leaving Lawrenceville for the second time. I was so comfortable this weekend, everything was so familiar, conversation was so relaxed and benign (and i don't mean that in a bad way. Who has a revelatory conversation every day of their lives?), that i was, I realize now, blind to the fact that I will probably only see most of those graduates a handful of times in the rest of my life.
And that. is that.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
the key,
they say, to becoming a better writer is to write even when you don't want to write. Well, that's what I'm doing now. It's 11 30, I'm tired, but this blog is important to me, and thus i need to be consistent.
I feel that part of the reason I've been apprehensive to write in this since its inception is that i feel i don't have that much to talk about, or that i don't have a lot to talk about when it comes to what I've been doing. Most of my conversations regarding my deferral involve what I'm going to be doing (going down to New Orleans), but for now I'm just sort of hitting the daily grind--working in Trenton during the week, going out on the weekends, repeat.
But, for those of you who don't know what I'm planning this deferral (a lot of people think I'm up at Boston University), this is it:
In a little less than a month I'll be heading down to New Orleans for an indefinite amount of time, but at least four or five months. I'm planning on volunteering for a few months with Hands-On New Orleans (a well organized volunteer group--check them out), long enough to pick up some new skills, and learn the city a little better. When I'm ready, I'll leave, get a job for a contractor, and then get my own apartment.
The possibilities in this vague, idealistic plan are endless. I'm excited. I'm excited to see all the things that'll work out, excited to see what it will be like to have to work to put food on the table, to be self sufficient. But I'm also curious to see what's going to go wrong, what parts of my plan I'll have to change or compromise. So far things are going pretty well. The volunteer stuff is fallen into place, I have a job available to me in New Orleans, and apartment prices are reasonable.
I've also been corresponding with the editor of the Times-Picayune, pitching him the idea of writing a bi-weekly editorial for them writing from the eyes of a Katrina volunteer. It's a long shot, and he said there are no guarantees, but he asked for a writing sample. Who knows, i might, might, might just get to write something for the New Orleans Times-Picayune
I'm off. I promise to spice up this blog, but for now I need to set up the ground work. Wait for the end of November. I will have stories
Peace!
I feel that part of the reason I've been apprehensive to write in this since its inception is that i feel i don't have that much to talk about, or that i don't have a lot to talk about when it comes to what I've been doing. Most of my conversations regarding my deferral involve what I'm going to be doing (going down to New Orleans), but for now I'm just sort of hitting the daily grind--working in Trenton during the week, going out on the weekends, repeat.
But, for those of you who don't know what I'm planning this deferral (a lot of people think I'm up at Boston University), this is it:
In a little less than a month I'll be heading down to New Orleans for an indefinite amount of time, but at least four or five months. I'm planning on volunteering for a few months with Hands-On New Orleans (a well organized volunteer group--check them out), long enough to pick up some new skills, and learn the city a little better. When I'm ready, I'll leave, get a job for a contractor, and then get my own apartment.
The possibilities in this vague, idealistic plan are endless. I'm excited. I'm excited to see all the things that'll work out, excited to see what it will be like to have to work to put food on the table, to be self sufficient. But I'm also curious to see what's going to go wrong, what parts of my plan I'll have to change or compromise. So far things are going pretty well. The volunteer stuff is fallen into place, I have a job available to me in New Orleans, and apartment prices are reasonable.
I've also been corresponding with the editor of the Times-Picayune, pitching him the idea of writing a bi-weekly editorial for them writing from the eyes of a Katrina volunteer. It's a long shot, and he said there are no guarantees, but he asked for a writing sample. Who knows, i might, might, might just get to write something for the New Orleans Times-Picayune
I'm off. I promise to spice up this blog, but for now I need to set up the ground work. Wait for the end of November. I will have stories
Peace!
Thursday, November 02, 2006
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