Didn't realize I was living for 3 years in the Mansion Hill Neighborhood

Much of the mansion hill neighborhood is in desperate need of reconstruction and resurfacing,” Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said, applauding the effort to include pedestrian lighting in the Gilman Street plan.

-Daily Cardinal

but in the end the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself

So today is pretty big deal in the world of Katy.

I'm prepared to blow peoples minds.

Hopefully the chips (cards?) will fall in my favor.

ps: new favorite band - the weepies.

On why we need more teachers

Dear Ms. C,

What’s up? Mom and lil bro/sis are good.. So you asked me to write a letter about why we need more teachers in my school….

Here is my answer….

I don’t think people get how things are here. People don’t care about us and don’t think we are gonna be anything. They tell us to shut up and don’t wanna hear what we have to say. So I guess we start to think that what we gotta say don’t matter. We get angry and we don’t care anymore. Then teachers like you come in and try to care. At first we pretend that it don’t phase us. We act all hard like we don’t need that and we just ignore you. Then you don’t quit, you don’t leave us. You keep buggin us and show you care and respect us. We aint use to that with other teachers. We need more teachers like you Ms C. because you were the first person to ever ask me what was goin on with ME. To care about ME. Because you started to care about me I started to think about why. I started to realize that I could write good and that I liked to write out all my thoughts. You wanted to hear em and you wrote back. The words we tell each other keep me going. They make me realize that people care about what I gotta say and that I should keep sayin it. If it weren’t for you I don’t know where I would be.. Not in highschool and def not making B’s. We need more teachers because my friends didn’t have that. Some are in real bad places now and I know they gotta voice too. We need more teachers to listen to that and to write back and really care about them too. If we don’t get that in my school my boys are gonna get lost in all the stuff around them. To them school is a joke and I wish they coulda had you as a teacher so they coulda seen that its pretty tight when you learn poetry through rap lyrics. One day you told me that Tupac and Biggie knew lots of words and that’s why they were so good at writing rap songs. I thought it was a joke but then the more I listened and paid attention I heard all these words that I didn’t know what they meant. I know what you mean now and I try to learn more words so I can sound like them. Its all about the words Ms C. We need more teachers like you so we can see how school relates to OUR lives and OUR future. We aint seein it in the textbooks. We do see it when you make it real to OUR lives. I know I am not the best student but I care now. I wanna be like you and go to college and all. It sounds pretty cool from the way you talk about it and I never woulda said that before the summer I met you. Thanks ms C and please help get more teachers for us.

We luv ya

J. A. H.

You'll always be a part of me...

I may have turned the page on my @ career but it still is apart of me and my past- a fabulous part.

This semester at the Global Village I stopped by and was looking at the awesome new marketing materials, many of which were from AI. In the global report, there was a chart of countries that made the largest overall growth in X-change (bitch) from 2007-2008.

My heart swelled up in my chest when I proudly read GUATEMALA at the top of the list with some crazy percentage of growth (200% or something?). They might not have the most trainees in the region, but I'll tell you one thing- @ Guatemala sure does have some strong LCs and crazy passionate people working really hard.

While I was the only trainee at the academy at the time, I just got an email from them asking for help to fill 8 TNs at the Academia.

Good trainee=company wants more good trainees
Good trainee experience= trainee promotes good company/country

numbers go up= more people getting mind fucked = more Dreams being lived= more lives being changed=makes the world a better place.

End scene.

Your current safe boundaries were once unknown frontiers

Well, the votes have been cast.

Now they will travel through the world of mystery and magic until one day, if I should be so honored, one will take on a new meaning for me.

me duele la cabeza

It freaks me out to think that I have to pick in less than than a week where I want to potentially live for 2 years.

I still have no idea.

Stuff white people like

Cozy on Gilman street last semester three giggly girls had tears rolling down our faces laughing about all the stuff white people like- such drinking fair trade coffee and staying in hostels.

Tonight I had the pleasure of hearing the success story of the blog and his book from Christian Lander himself at the start of the Wisconsin Book festival.

He wrote his first word in January and last month he was on Conan O'Brien. Pretty Amazing.

Great public speaker and just pretty darn hilarious.

It somehow didn't surprise me that 2 of his top 5 'posts' that he chose to read were 'Study Abroad' and 'Scarves.'

Love will come set me free

I can see the light!

With a running list of things to do in my head, it's been nice to take a few extra moments while walking to class and see the BEAUTIFUL colors of fall. I took an extra walk up Bascom on friday to show my roommate a really pretty tree and today I felt the urge to call someone and tell them about a building that had BRIGHT red ivy all along one side.

Fall semester is 100x better than spring semester in Madison~ and I encourage study abroaders to opt for a Spring Semester abroad hands down.

On another note, I went to see my International Studies advisor today to figure out my last semester at UW. I figured i have an 18 credit semester ahead of me, with at least 2 IS classes, 2 Spanish and 2 more Ed policy.

Oh how i was wonderfully wrong. As of finals this semester, I'm done with my IS major!!!! :)

Next semester is looking preeeetty darn fabulous right now with my favorite classes of all time left- two spanish of my choice and 6 credits of ed pol. I'm thinking doing one normal EPS class and then an independent study for kicks and giggles. HURRAY.

...

As for bigger and broader life changes- I have an interview for post grad shtuff on Oct. 30th with TFA. Scared. Excited. More to come...

...

Oh yea, and this chickita is 18 today! (crazy!) Happy Birthday Yo!- see you Saturday!

witte'n it.

Decreasing spending on education reminds me of not recruiting for AIESEC for one semester.