Let's Just Get This Outta the Way, or Intro to Grad School, trial by fire

OK, I'll be the first to admit that I do not possess the strongest technical skills, especially in the math department.

My program @ USC apparently does not care as it is subjecting me to legal (environment of planning), intersectoral leadership (mainly public policy *yawn* there is a REASON I am not a public policy concentration!) & stats- ouch. Triple whammy. All in my first year. Not great.

I also have econ & demographics to look forward to. I say bring on the history & the theory!- those are my strong suits. As is negotiation- I've literally been professionally negotiating since the 7th grade (debate team) and I don't mind sayin' that I'm pretty darn good at it. I like to think that I can see your POV, but negotiate well enough that it's win-win for both of us with both of us walking away, happily clutching our piece of the proverbial pie.

However, apparently one needs to be good at quantitative analysis, to a degree, too in order to obtain a degree at SC. Yes, I know that rhymed.

In the real world though it will be (more) important to play nice with others, if one wants to ever get anything resembling one's way- when not being squished by the powers that be- hey! I'm just tryin' to save the planet here!

In the meantime, I have to put up with my legal professor, who gave very sound legal advice. . . Then would go off on a tangent about how we should all give up our cars & take public transit- yeah, good luck telling the people in Beverly Hills to give up their Maseratis. I also never managed to wrap my head around what he wanted on his exams and got a cruddy grade. At least now a B- doesn't sting so bad.

A month ago it practically paralyzed me into a depression. I don't think I'd literally ever gotten a B- in my academic career. Nietzsche said, "That which doesn't kill us, makes us stronger." The philosopher who went insane, did have a point there.

I'm having to sit through two weekend classes about "intersectoral" leadership, of which I have yet to ascertain what is so intersectoral as all we talk about is public policy. I think I'm literally the only one who's ever mentioned the word "planning" in class. The guy's in public policy so it is understandable. But sheesh, I get it- the government's contracted out a bunch of their functions to private for- and nonprofits and it's hard to maintain accountability in terms of results. Not like it was ever easy when it came to Uncle Sam.

And now I am slugging through stats. Apparently, drinking diet Coke and not being a regular soda drinker is not a good combination. Eh. . . gotta go read again. This should make for an interesting second half of a first semester.

Luckily, I have Sustainable Cities to keep me afloat, which helps remind me that there are other disciplines and it is to everyone's advantage to acknowledge the other so we can all recognize that we are all in this together, not really (perceived) adversaries! Now that's intersectoral! I've got communications, journalism, psych, planning, architecture, etc., concentrations in my class, which adds up to a lot of brain power! I always leave that class thinking that if we all pooled our collection knowledge we could virtually end global warming!

At least when I'm done with these classes, I'll never have to take them again! Gotta keep readin' for stats. Yargh.

Never Thought I'd Say This

but it's harder to write a short paper than a really long paper.

I am in the throes of writing my first paper since I furtively handed in my senior thesis on art theft and its risk management. Actually, I never had it officially by my theoretical thesis committee, but I received my diploma all the same. And it has a pretty little magna cum laude sticker on it too, so I'm pretty confident I officially graduated ;-)

I am actually trying to trim my ideas down to a concise thesis- not easy for a former/current closet art historian, whose discipline is composed of people who can babble on for pages about the curl of a finger or the hue of a dress. Literally. I've had to sit through those paper presentations. Painful at best.

At first I wanted to write about the history of suburbia- how it came to be and where it got out of hand- when it threw downtown under the bus and forced the inner city to subsidize their infrastructure. But it only has to be 10-15 pages. And that would take a bit longer.

Then I thought about smart growth and new urbanism and the criticism these movements have received, but that too could take a lot of time.

So, I have decided to do how to "solve" suburbia, which is one of my key interests in planning anyway

No, my solution is not to drop H-bombs on Naperville, Deer Run, and all those other oddly named pseudo-nature places where the closest thing to greenery is your shrubs you bought from Home Depot.

Instead I am concentrating on three areas that can be applied to any community- stopping cookie cutter development, less development that can only be accessed by cars, and the promotion of community building areas- cafes, bookstores, boutiques, etc., and citing real-life examples- pictures always helpful.

I've got til Tuesday- ouch + a presentation on an article that I have yet to read for Sustainable Cities. Guess what I'll be doing this weekend? :P