Aw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akg8E6N2618&feature=related

Nerd + Spoken word = AWESOME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6kO6HLC0T8

aaaaaaaaaaawwwwwww yyyyeeeaaahhh

PASSED THE EXAM!!! I just saved myself thousands of dollars on a 3 credit course biatch. In between moving THREE times, a week long orientation, and even a little partying, I pwned. +1

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

The Good today was the perfect, beautiful weather. Ironically better weather than what I hear LA is having with all the fires and dry heat. AND I fell asleep and didn't really get to study as much as I should have for an exam, but the test has been moved to tomorrow morning! So more time to study.... this might be part of the bad. ha ha. Also went on a Boat ride! wooooo hoooo! It's funny drinking and dancing with faculty and staff, but this program is pretty "open" that way, I guess. You see the lady who was the gatekeeper to your admissions and financial aid getting down with the 60 year old woman who teaches field work. It's... AWESOME... and a little weird. Anyway, so there we were, all 300 some social work grad students on a boat... I couldn't get Andy Samberg's song out of my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOvaCV6uQp8

And for those who know me, you know I don't like beer, but I found myself on the roof of a boat, sipping Bud Light just like Obama, looking out at the Statue of Liberty and thinking, it doesn't get better than this.



The Bad today was news that I might need to move out of my place yet AGAIN, although not back to the mold-infested room which they are currently repairing. More updates on that as time goes on. By this weekend, I will have my permanent (hopefully) place of abode. I checked out the room I might possibly move into, and it's maybe 1.5 times the size of my room, but the bathroom smells like piss, I think because there are also 2 boys living on that floor. It smells like effin roses in the place I'm currently at.... okay, so not roses, but at least some kind of Pantene Pro V.

The Ugly today was an unsightly rash that appeared on my cheek after I used a certain face wash.... it's still there ARGH, but fading and somewhat hidden under mounds of foundation. Thank GOD for makeup. And NOW... time to study research... YAY.

Mold, lead paint, and 3 flights of stairs

So I'm finally semi-settled in my
new place, after battling the powers
that be for escape from my initial move-in place, a crummy one bedroom on the first floor with a lovely view of barbed wire, green mold carpeting a slab of cement, lead paint on the walls, silverfish crawling through the cracks (and onto my bed during sleepy time... yay), and big black toxic mold of sludge inside my closet with the kind of smell that smacks you in the face with sheer acridity and the branches in your lungs melt at its tips, smoking into your organs.

I called the super and told him to open the closet door and acknowledge the rank of black moldy crud, to which he sniffed and responded quizzically - What smell? I smell nothing. Followed with a comment muttered under his breath, "That's strange we just painted it." Ah, the elusive spores had made it through a half-ass attempt to cover up toxins. After a series of phone calls with only the slightest indication of veiled threats, I was allowed to move to the 3rd floor, schleping all of my crap for the second time. I was told this was a temporary allowance and that eventually I might have to move back. HELL NO. I'm nailing my shit to this new room.

The pics are the views from outside my first place, and then the new place - same building; what a difference a few flights of stairs make.

Anyhoo, on a lighter note, I'm getting to meet TONS of great people and unlike many academic programs focused on competition and pwning the other student to get the higher grade, the environment is extremely supportive, community-focused, and pretty cool to be around people who also want to pursue a career that doesn't pay crud, but offers those little emotional rewards that we sometimes get to have.

Currently at the start of a week long orientation with full days just learning about the school, the community, the program. I think on the last day we go on some kind of boat ride. Today we visited Harlem and had to write notes on the city of what appeared to be its assets and needs. A girl who lived in the area commented, "Oh heeeellll no, this is some rude ass shit, what are we visiting a zoo?" She has a point, but at the same time, it could also be fairly innocuous, don't we usually observe things when we're walking around anyway? Either way, let the learning begin.

RIP

I was never a HUGE fan of Michael Jackson, but I didn't dislike him, either. He was someone who was simply always... there. Whether in remakes of Billy Jean playing overhead in the club, splashes of tabloids, and white gloved inappropriateness in comedy sketches. I heard the news of his death while I was at work and my cell phone went off with texts and people in cubicles across my floor started gasping and saying, "Oh my dear, that's just so sad." (I work with a lot of older women who have at least 2 kids) And though I wasn't an avid follower of his personal or work life, a flash of his life's details - that he had married and divorced Lisa Marie Presley, had a Neverland Ranch, multiple plastic surgeries, and dangled a baby from a balcony - all passed through my mind. Why did I know these things about a man I do not, for all intents and purposes, know?

Because he was someone everyone just knew, and at some point tried to emulate, most famously his moonwalk which even after all these years, people are still trying to do. I saw it most recently on Britain's Got Talent as an Indian man danced his way onstage with a bhangra accompaniment. It was epic. What other artist has so influenced an entire world with a single move? It's like the theme music to "Jaws." With just two notes, everyone was on the edge of their seats. And it somehow found its way into kiddie pools and two hands clasped above the head sinking under the water for hours of fear-inducing fun. I think it's an apt analogy, and yet disturbingly so given the kiddie reference. (I am neutral as far as those allegations go)

But aside from all that, and I'm no expert on the history of how certain artists were pivotal in the movement to revolutionize music, I felt, without knowing exactly why, a great loss. I can't pretend to expound on why Michael Jackson was as popular (and in some cases infamously so) as he was. I don't know how he exactly changed music, I couldn't point out the notes or the details of his success. I just know that he did. I couldn't tell you how he garnered so much attention, when stars everyday do a lot stranger things (I don't recall Michael ever eating a live bat onstage) and are found guilty of crimes far worse than those alleged to him.

He was a man no one really knew, but everyone said they knew and in that way, we were connected to him through ignorance, lights, and paparazzi. And despite the fog of this pretension, I think I feel a loss because there was more to him, as with anyone, than what was published. So here's to MJ, the king of pop, a man who shared his life through music, dance, and a little TMZ.

Day 2... all right!

It's been a week since my last blog and I'm currently pondering the use of blogging for corporations who want to color their image with some youth or at least the illusion that they're "down with the people"? yay or nay? Don't leak corporate secrets! vs. Let's expand our network base. Seems to be the base arguments, but the question really is... Do corporations NEED to become a social enterprise? I imagine a stuffy old man rubbing himself with twitter/blogging/facebook to get in touch with his inner hormonal teenager. It's awkward and incredibly....amusing. There is the belief that nay, this isn't necessary because it's the consumers that need "bells and whistles" and businesses that need functional tools. But still, aren't shiny things nice? Me likey.

So these thoughts went down a wayward path towards specializing in Social Enterprise Administration in my stint to pursue an MSW. I'm wondering, aside from the non-profit world, does this extend into corporate philanthropy? Or am I walking down a question that is laughing at me as I ask it? A line of zeroes are following that increasing belly of debt and I'm wondering, what the monkey have I gotten myself into?