More Fours

Four things I have done since my last post:
1. I graduated from UCA with a Masters in CSPA.
2. I attended my first Virtual Symposium in Second Life.
3. I moved to New York City.4. I stood up in a wedding for the most beautiful bride I have ever seen (and I looked pretty darn good at my own wedding.)
Four things I have not done since my last post:
1. I have not finished unpacking.
2. I have not found a job.
3. I have not caught up on the internet (20 e-mails, 451 in my Google Reader, and 103 Podcasts).
4. I have not gotten caught up on Battlestar Galactica or Lost.

One of the Four

Jenn tagged me with a four meme. My understanding is that I should be sharing four lists of four with you. I think I am going to shoot for multiple posts with this one, so I'm taking a packing break to share the first one with you.

Four reasons (other than Sesame Workshop) why I am excited about moving to New York:

1. Public Transportation -- "With 714 miles of track, 469 stations, and 6,089 subway cars, NYC's subway system is the largest in the world. The subways run 24 hours a day and carry 1.2 billion passengers a year, while the City's public bus system consists of 300 routes and carries 600 million people a year (by far the most in the nation) on 4,200 buses." *

I seem to be missing a sense of direction. My friends call it a disability. What it means is, I can get lost anywhere. Even on my campus where I've lived for 7 years, if I find myself between two buildings that I don't regularly frequent, I can get turned around. Because of it, I hate driving and I rarely go to new cities on my own. While we were in NYC, all of that discomfort was gone. I happily walked all over the city knowing that no matter how lost I got, I would be a couple blocks from a subway stop and it will take me home. That is just in and around the city. There will be trains waiting to Boston, D.C., or Atlantic City for the weekend. I'm so excited, I am selling my car.

2. Theaters -- I've always been a fan of stage performances, so how could I not be excited about moving to the home of Broadway. Of course there is also Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway, local theaters, community troupes, and the constant live entertainment on the streets of the city. I've already prepped my hubby by telling him that if he is in a bind and doesn't what to do for an upcoming birthday or anniversary, he just needs to organize dinner and a show and he'll be golden.

3. Cultures -- We expected to hear a lot of people with New York accents when we visited over spring break. We didn't hear many at all. Instead we heard everyone talking in different languages. I didn't understand a thing any one was saying, but I really liked it. I guess part of me expected to see the machine at work in the heart of the city. People acting as cogs, going to and from work to fulfill the needs of 'the man.' Why I had expectations of mindless drones is beyond me, but I am happy to say it wasn't like that at all. Everyone was colorful and individual and I felt like I was in a place where everyone is so different that there is no normal. It was welcoming.

4. It just felt right -- I I wish there were some way to easily explain or quantify this, but it felt really good to be in the city. I felt more at home walking around in Brooklyn than I ever have in Arkansas. Don't get me wrong, Arkansas tried and took good care of me, but we weren't meant for each other. I'm already attached. I feel a sense of pride when I hear about new green initiatives that are going on. I cheered for the Giants this Super Bowl. In emotional ways that I can't really explain, I am ready.

As a sub reason under that one, I am moving closer to my little brother. I would really prefer it be a reason of its own, but it is a conditional closer. My brother is stationed in Albany with the Army so we will be a lot closer and we should get to spend some time exploring the city together, but since it is the army, they could ship him out at any point so we might not be close for long. I do have the secret motives of getting him to fall in love with upstate New York and trying to talk him in to settling down there after he gets done with the military and school.

Now, I should head back to my packing, but you can look forward to what I am going to miss about Arkansas next time.

*Ellen R. Shapiro in Relocating to New York City and Surrounding Areas (yes, I am the type of person would would buy a book about NYC)

Inevitable

My husband and I are in the same Master's program. In fact, we are in the same cohort so we take the same classes and use the same books. I've been told that it is so cute it is almost sickening. After spending any time with us, it is easy to see that despite our similar interests we both have different strengths and backgrounds. We find ourselves passionate about some of the same problems, but we approach them differently and use different tools to solve them.

A small example of how we work differently is the job search. I regularly check job listings on The Chronicle, HigherEdJobs.com, and Inside Higher Ed. When I find a job that interests me, I start researching the university and building up excitement. My husband learns about a university, decides if he wants to work there, and begins looking at the job openings they have.

Right after the December vacation, I saw a job listing on The Chronicle website for a First Year Counselor. I loved the time I spent advising Freshmen this summer, and living in the freshman dorm the past two years has really given me an appreciation for how influential this year can be. I moved on to looking at the university and was impressed with what I saw. According to the website they shared some of my values in education, and it was in a place that I would like to live. So I applied.

A couple nights ago my husband finished scouring the university he was currently working on and decided to start looking at the one I have been talking about so much lately. For the past two years he has been coordinating a large part of the living learning community that our honors freshman go though. Every time our Honors College has an Interview/Inform day, he comes home energized and excited about everything those incoming students are about to become a part of. So when he came across a job posting for a First Year Counselor, he thought about how much he would like to continue working with Freshman. He wants to apply.

This was inevitable. We knew it would happen. We just never thought about the possibility that we wouldn't realize we both wanted the job at the same time. We had already worked out a plan of talking it though and deciding which one of us should apply based on our strengths and the job description, but I jumped the gun because a couple months ago I thought he wasn't interested. Now we have to decide if he should apply. He is really excited about it, and he would do a great job. Technically, we'd be competing for the position, but we would both benefit if either was hired. Will it make him look bad that I applied over a month earlier? Is there any chance we would both look bad? What really could he/we loose? Would they throw both of our applications out? Tell me what you would think if you received an application and then a month and a half later received an application from that candidate's spouse.

Then and Now

In December I read Sesame Street and the Reform of Children's Television by Robert Morrow. It was a great book that talked about the beginnings of the beloved show and how they've been working to improve children's programming ever since. The other night, I started Getting to Sesame Street: Origins of the Children's Television Workshop by Richard Polsky. I am barely a dozen pages in, so I can't tell you much about it yet, but there is something that I've already noticed. So far, they both paint a drastically different picture of Joan Ganz Cooney.

It wasn't until I read the Morrow book that I really understood who Cooney was and what role she played in the Workshop. She is one of the original creators of Sesame Street and founders of the Children's Television Workshop. (She wasn't alone in doing either of these two things, but I am going to talk about how these two books have conveyed her so I'll be focusing on her involvement.) I really liked the Morrow book because he explained the setting that Cooney was working in and the research she did to justify her decisions. I wish I had the book here so I could find some quotes for you, but it has disappeared back into the interlibrary loan system. My impression and what I remember from the book is that Cooney was working against a lot of nay-sayers. People were criticizing head-start programs so the education purposes she wanted were under scrutiny. Parents were up in arms about what the television was doing to their families and the violence it was bringing into their homes. This meant that she was under attack for her choice in medium. Despite that, she wrote grants that funded research that ultimately shaped and justified Sesame Street.

The Polsky book is a little different. Let me share with you a paragraph from the second page.

One evening in February or March 1966 in New York, at a dinner party given by Mr. and Mrs. Cooney, the conversation turned to television. Among the guests that night were Lloyd Morrisett, vice-president of Carnegie Corporation and log associated with the foundation's activities in early childhood education and its more recent interest in television, and Lewis Freeman, director of programming at WNDT. As. Mrs. Cooney recalled that evening, Freedman said he felt television was going to be the great educator of the future. Morrisett then became intrigued with designing a TV series for educating young children and suggested that Carnegie representatives soon meet with Freeman and Mrs. Cooney to discuss in detail television for preschoolers.

That difference has really struck me. In one book she is a heroine standing against criticism and fighting for low-income children. In the other a television show was seemingly handed to her on a sliver platter (or her own china). I don't want to be overly critical of Polsky or call him sexist. I've just started the book, and it was published in 1971. I am just fascinated by my own reaction. I had to actually set the book aside because I was put off by my hero being described as a housewife. I am going to be working woman who also has a husband, children, and dinner parties. In fact, I've thought a lot about how much time I want to take off of work when my children are born. I am not at all put off by the idea of staying home with them while they are babies. If my perception of her is changed this drastically just by reading a second book, won't it be great to actually meet her and see how she conveys herself instead of how other people present her.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

When my friends recommend books to me, that is usually all it takes to put them on my reading list, but when Eats, Shoots and Leaves was recommended to me, I was reluctant. She's a great friend, but she is also one of those writing people. That is certainly not a bad thing, in fact, I'm a little jealous of those people. In complete honesty though, when a person who uses colons with confidence recommends a book on punctuation, I am not expecting a real page turner. I thought to myself, "Ya, that is something I should probably read." When it was recommended by a respected faculty member, I thought, "Ya know, I should probably buy that. I'm more likely to read it if it is lying around the house." When I finally accepted that I was going to be writing a lot of cover letters this semester, I thought, "Now is the time. Where did I put that book."

I was in for a great surprise. This has been the most entertaining book I have read all year (I'll even say academic year so we can start that back in August.) I was expecting so dry grammar rules and punctuation talk. The first night I was reading this, I laughed so much that my husband came in to see if I was crying. Don't believe me? I don't blame you I was skeptical too. Let me share with you a couple short passages.

"...But to be honest western systems of punctuation were damned unsatisfactory for the next five hundred years until one man - one fabulous Venetian printer - finally wrestled with the issue and pinned it to the mat. That man was Aldus Manutius the Elder (1450-1515) and I will happily admit I hadn't heard of him until about a year ago, but am not absolutely kicking myself that I never volunteered to have his babies."

"If there is one lesson to be learned from this book, it is that there is never a dull moment in the world of punctuation. One minute the semicolon is gracefully joining sentences together in a flattering manner, and the next it is calling a bunch of brawling commas to attention."

"In the family of punctuation, where the [period] is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practices the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets over excited and breaks things and laughs too loudly."

In short, if this is the type of book that will take several recommendations for you to read it, add me to the list of people who are telling you to check it out. It is punctuation for everyone.

Six Word Memoir

NPR's Talk of the Nation Interviewed the editors of Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. The idea started with a rumor that Ernest Hemingway was asked to write a story in six words and came up with, "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn." I found these fabulous.

Some of the ones that I really loved are:

Catholic school backfired. Sin is in!
- Nikki Beland

Painful nerd kid, happy nerd adult.
- Linda Williamson

On the seventh word he rested.
- Stephen Dubner

A Sundress can cure ones woes
-

Just let me finish this row.
- Libby

The stories range from funny and general to heartbreaking and personal. I've added mine.

Fairy tales abandoned, dreams coming true.
-Amanda D Allen

What is your six word memoir?

Fuengirola Zoo

My series of European journals is over, but there is one more thing that I would like to share with you: The Fuengirola Zoo. It is a small zoo in the heart of the city, but it feels much larger. There was only one spot in the entire zoo where I could see the high rises outside. It is a cageless zoo, so the animals all looked happy and there were monkeys swinging in the trees above our heads. In the places where we were separated from the animals, it felt much more like we were in a cage than the tiger on the other side of the glass. I haven't found any proof or documentation, but the people in town told us that it was designed by the same people who built Animal Kingdom. What do you think?

Disney's Animal Kingdom:

Fuengirola Zoo:

If you find yourself in Spain and anywhere near Fuengirola, you should definately go see it. It is just a short walk from the bus stop, and a great adventure.

It isn't without cultural differences though. As Mike and I walked the zoo, I decided that I was going to pick up some Fuengirola Zoo coloring books for my friend's triplets. I even considered some cute little monkey stuffed animals if I could convince Mike that we had room in the bags for them. When we walked though gift shop I was surprised to find out that they didn't sell anything at all that said Fuengirola or Fuengirola Zoo on it. Nothing at all. Even the postcards, which were obviously pictures of the animals we had just seen were missing the name and logo on both the front and back. I was disappointed, and I felt like an American consumer.