Back in Boston...Ten Years Later

This morning, I had breakfast with my aunt and Sunny and then it was off to catch the bus from New York Chinatown to Boston.

Boy, what a marathon trying to run through hordes of people trying to sell you fake purses and pirated DVDs.

The most hilarious moment was the bewildered reaction of a street food vendor when he turned around and saw a whole row of people peddling bags directly in front of his food stand. You can just imagine. =P

I had booked a bus for 1 pm, but I got there well in time for the 12:30 pm bus, so off I went!

I was exhausted so I crashed most of the way, but I woke up to the sound of about five different languages all being spoken at the same time as people were chatting away on their cell phones.

The dude next to me was talking very loudly and just when he finished talking he decided to play tetris...with the loudest, most obnoxious background jingle ever. My goodness.

The drive into Boston was pretty neat because I recognized some buildings from when I was last here, most notably historic Fenway Park.

After arriving, I took "The T" to my friend's apartment near Boston College.

It's been almost six years since we last saw each other, so it was nice to catch up. We grabbed dinner and ended up watching a rather interesting movie...Get Smart with Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway. I guess it got bad reviews, but 'twas pretty amusing.

Tomorrow, I am meeting with two other friends--one for coffee and one for lunch--before I head back to Amherst on yet another delightful bus trip.

Sadly, my short East Coast excursion is quickly coming to an end.

On an exciting note, UW recently announced its 2009 Exploration Seminars, and I'm excited to travel abroad again. My top choices?

• Education, Power, and Intersecting Identities in Central America (Belize)
• Stories of a Lifetime: Film Production in Greece (Athens, Greece)
• Social Democracy, Social Policy, and Saunas in Suomi (Finland)
• Auroville: An Intentional, International, Utopian Community (Auroville, India)
• Language and Culture: Making the Connection (Beijing, China)

Right now, I'm leaning towards Belize. Imagine something like this:

The topic is the most interesting to me, of course, though. Still...too many good choices! Any suggestions or comments? Leave me a note. =)

Alright, bed time before another day of fun catching up time with friends and traveling on a big bus. Night!

A Day (and Two Nights) in New York City

Well, I ended up catching the 10 PM flight from DC to Hartford, so with the shuttle and all, I made it to my aunt's place in Amherst, MA, around 1:30 AM. Plus, United managed to leave my suitcase behind in DC when we flew off, so I had no clothes until the next morning. Grr.

Anyway, I slept in until almost noon the next day before we headed to the airport to pick up my luggage and drive on into New Haven to meet up with my awesome friend, Rachel, so we could all take the train into New York. I'd never been to New York before (or New Haven either, I suppose), so this would be a fun trip.

We got in around early evening and ended up walking from Grand Central Station to the hotel a few blocks away. 'Twas a nice little stroll through the brisk winter wind, but the cityscape was well worth the walk.

Our fun-filled evening brought us to the Marriott Marquis, where my aunt, Rachel, and I got a little table overlooking Times Square.

Then we head to Tonic, a restaurant where my aunt's friend is a chef. Food was great as were the multiple, gigantic screens showing different sports games.

Rachel headed back home after dinner, and we ended up walking a few more blocks to Grand Central Station again.

Then my aunt and I headed back out with her friends, Paul and Sunny. It was a great first night in New York, although I'm bummed I couldn't blog about this last night. Oh well.

Today, we had Japanese food for lunch with Sunny and then in the afternoon I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

My aunt and Sunny decided to go shopping while I went through the museum. I thought I'd try and get through it quickly so I could join them in about an hour, but being the art history nut that I am, I ended up going through as much as I could. Sad news: my new camera has no memory card (yet), so I only had about 30 pictures to take...had to choose the best ones.

I started with the Greek and Roman statues...

...then headed for the European paints gallery where I saw paintings of places I've been. It's a pretty neat feeling to be like, "Hey, I've been there!" Anyway, first was Copenhagen, which I visited in June and July this year during my Humanity in Action Fellowship.

Then it was a view of Dresden, which is pretty much the same view I saw when I took a train between Berlin and Prague in August 2007.

Then it was Berlin, which I have visited twice now in 2007 and 2008. I swear I took a picture of the Tiergarten from the same spot as the painting of the left.

Then I found a painting of the view of Naples and Mt. Vesuvius, which I visited just this September. It's crazy that the view I saw looks exactly like the painting.

Then it was views in Rome with the Colosseum and Palatine Hill. Ah, good memories from August and September this year...clamoring through the Roman Forum with Steffen and Brukab.

Then I walked into the Impressionism Gallery which brought me back to the first time I went to Boston to visit my aunt, and we went to see the Monet exhibition in town. Honestly, all I remember was the Water Lilies. C'mon, I was in fifth grade. :P

After that, my art history and Western Civ nut went wild as I saw Seurat's pointillism...


...Cezanne's volumetric shapes and asymmetrical lines...I did one of my humanities art posters on Cezanne. :P

...and of course, Van Gogh.

But nothing quite made more excited than to see something extremely familiar on the wall...

I took a picture in front of these dragon-type statues from Babylon's Ishtar Gate in Berlin's Pergamon Museum. Quick flash-back to August 2007 when my Berlin study abroad program toured the Pergamon (I know, I'm such a nerd :P):

Then I visited the Assyrian gallery, which was pretty dang cool.

...before walking above the main entrance hall to head to another gallery...nice live classical music near the cafe.

I ended up walking into another European paintings gallery, but I saw two of my favorite paintings--Panini's Ancient Rome and Modern Rome, in which he painted a bunch of tiny little paintings and famous sculptures in Rome. Cool, huh?

Those were neat because I could actually recognize the majority of the locations and sculptures in the painting. Anyway, the last paintings I saw were some of the best...Vermeer and Rembrandt. I didn't get a picture of Vermeer's Young Woman with a Water Jug, but I did get Rembrandt's Self Portrait as an Old Man.

After the paintings, I headed to the European Sculptures section, which had a pretty awesome atrium.

In the back corner, I spied another art history piece, albeit a copy--Rodin's Burghers of Calais.

By then, I had already gone through the museum for about an hour and a half, so I decided to call it a day and head out (don't worry, I actually saw more than just these pictures--I could only take a few pictures, remember?). Before I exited though, I decided to check out the Egyptian gallery, and I found one of the coolest Egyptian exhibits I've ever seen--the Temple of Dendur. It had a ring of water surrounding it!

After the museum, I met up with my aunt and Sunny again, and we headed over to Keen's Steahouse, a pretty historic steakhouse in the city. We stopped in Bryant's Park first though and got a few pictures with the Christmas tree.

Then we headed to the steakhouse, and man, the steak was deeelicious.

Dinner was incredibly filling, so we headed home, where I spent the past hour writing this blog. Blogging is a lot of fun, but it does take a while. :P After dim sum in Chinatown tomorrow, I'm going to head to Boston to spend a night with a friend and catch up with some other friends as well. I'm excited to go back to Boston; it's been a long time since I was last there.

Back to Amherst on Monday and then Seattle on Tuesday before Spokane on Wednesday. Crazy...I'll be in a different city over the next few days, but I love it. Alright, time for bed. Nice to break out the travel blog again.

Stuck in DC

I'm on my way to Hartford, Connecticut, and I left Seattle this morning at 7:30 AM. I had one stop in Washington Dulles first though, and well...I'm still here.

My 5 PM flight to Hartford was canceled due to bad weather, and I was bumped to the already very full 10 PM flight. If that one doesn't make it out tonight either, I won't get to leave here until 8 AM tomorrow...

On a sort of exciting note, here's something I found in the airport. Enjoy!

Keep your fingers crossed that I can fly out tonight. I sure hope so...

A Few Notes About My Trip to South Bend

After a busy week in which I had two midterms, two essays (one written in English, one written in German), two scholarship presentations, and not enough time for all I want to do, I'm finally getting to spend a bit of time to reflect on my trip to South Bend.

First, the presentation I made on Thursday morning ended up being to the entire student body at South Bend High School (9th to 12th graders), but it went very well. The school itself isn't very large, so it seemed like there were maybe 200-300 students total sitting in the bleachers of Koplitz Fieldhouse.

Typically when I start my presentations, I ask a series of questions to get everyone involved, so I asked how many of the students were planning to attend college. More than 75% raised their hands, which is great. As a teacher told me after the presentation, most of the kids in South Bend have grown in families that have traditionally worked in the timber industry or oyster industry for three or four generations, so the idea of going to college isn't the norm.

On Wednesday night during the community dinner before my presentation to the parents and students, I tried to engage a young guy who was a sophomore at South Bend High School. His parents hadn't gone to college, but they were hoping he'd figure it out and work towards getting out of South Bend.

From our conversation, he wasn't so sure himself.

If anyone's ever tried to engage a kid who's not very interested in talking, you'll know full well the frustration of just trying to get through to them. I started asking basic questions like "What do you like to do outside of school?" and "What's your favorite class?"

The response was "I don't know" and "P.E." He seemed comfortable just giving short answers, so I started asking him more questions like "Where do you see yourself in five years?" and "If there's one thing you could do before age twenty-five, what would that thing be?"

The response: "Uhh...I don't know."

After I finally stopped asking him questions (which I'm sure he appreciated a lot), I concluded two things: one, his parents completely understand that education for him is his only ticket out of South Bend, but they also seemed to think because they hadn't gone to college themselves they couldn't be more straightforward and forceful with it.

Second, the student himself hadn't fully figured out his own goals and ideas, so he was still relying on his parents to help answer a lot of things for him. If his attentiveness from the back of room during the presentation was any indication, I hope he's thought his own goals over a bit more now.

At the school on Thursday morning, of all the students who were at the presentations, the group that surprised me the most was the group of juniors who were taking notes fervently and participating actively throughout the presentation. They had been some of the best participants the night before, so they were excited to have all the answers to the questions already.

Overall, it was a solid trip and seemed to provide the students and school with tools for how to best approach the scholarship process. The general mood seemed to be that South Bend offered little to hope for, so it was a neat opportunity to share my message with them. I really liked the principal/superintendent of the school, but I feel horrendous for having called him the wrong name for the whole two days. For some reason, I confused him with some else...how embarrassing.

After the presentations though, I drove through South Bend to take a few pictures of the area. It really is a neat place.

I took a picture of my motel room again. This time from the outside in the daylight.

It had a nice view of the Willapa Bay.

South Bend High School was just a minute away down the road. I spoke with the principal/superintendent, Mr. Morris (whom I embarrassingly kept calling Mr. Rogers by accident while in South Bend), regarding the scholarship packet for seniors, and it turns out every senior has to complete a profile of the things they do throughout senior year and then use that info to apply to a large number of local scholarships. Every student applies unless he or she opts out of it, so their critical need is taking advantage of large state and national scholarships, which is why I got invited.

Across the street was the Early Learning Center where the GEAR UP coordinator who helped plan my trip worked. The building had crayons in front of it.

On my two and a half hour drive back to Seattle, I stopped by a McDonald's ten minutes out of South Bend and saw a really nice house on the water across from the parking lot. Naturally, I took a picture.

As I drove back, I passed through picturesque areas that you don't see everyday in Seattle.

But you also see the effects of the timber industry on the area too.

Nonetheless, it was a great trip to an area of Washington that I'd never been too, so I am grateful for the chance to have spent some time in South Bend and getting to meet folks whom I sure won't forget.

South Bend, Washington...not Indiana

Two weeks after my trip to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to speak to high school students and families about scholarships, I am now in South Bend, Washington, for another scholarship trip. South Bend is a small town about three hours southwest of Seattle and about two hours north of my hometown, Portland, Oregon.

The GEAR UP coordinator for South Bend Schools emailed me back in May to find out info about bringing me down from Seattle. A few months later, we finalized the details, and now, here I am in South Bend. I'm staying at a local motel that recently renovated their rooms, so it looks really nice.

I talked with Doug, the owner of the motel, who was one of the friendliest people I've met. He is in his mid-fifties and, as he gave me the password for the wireless network, shared with me the massive technological changes that have occured in the past six years.

He told me some great stories about when he first heard of a thing called the "internet," to which he responded, "What is an internet?" He talked about the day when he first saw a computer mouse, and how all his co-workers were playing with this mouse connected to a large fax machine.

It was pretty fun to just chat with him and hear how he grew up in Montana, then worked at SeaTac Airport in Seattle, and then finally moved to South Bend eight years ago and bought the motel two years later.

South Bend, it seems, is a nice place. At first glance, it's a quaint, picturesque town nestled on Willapa Bay. The people are friendly and hoping for their kids to do well in school.

On a deeper level though, I learned that, beyond the scenic serenity of South Bend, the economic depression in the Willapa Bay area makes it difficult for some of the parents with whom I spoke to find reasons to stay in this area. They are hopeful that their children will take advantage of education because it's, as they say, their best chance to "get out" of South Bend.

The high school students themselves did not have the tools to maximize their scholarship resources other than a packet of 50 local scholarships they receive during the spring of their senior year--a few months too late, if you ask me.

I spoke with the ASB President of South Bend High School, a senior who hopes to attend Western Washington University, Eastern Washington University, or Lewis and Clark College next fall. Her experience of seeing her older sister, now a college freshman, receive the scholarship packet so late in the year has inspired her to push for getting the packets distributed earlier in the year.

I am looking forward to speaking to all the high school students tomorrow. I'll speak at 8:30 AM and then drive back to Seattle after that. I'll have two midterms to look forward to on Friday as well as a short paper. Can't wait till the weekend...

My next scholarship trip will not require an overnight stay as I'll be going to Covington, Washington, just south of Seattle. That'll be next Wednesday, but before then, I'll add my pictures from this trip. Time for bed!