Hiatus

It's been awhile since I last wrote in here. I've been writing in my journal and using http://750words.com/ a bit, but both are obviously very different than a blog. I would like to write again, even if it is only for myself but on a public platform. I have a few ideas for what I would like to do moving forward. Stay tuned!

Missing Ecuador

It's been more than a week since I returned from my Alternative Breaks trip to Mondana, Ecuador and Yachana Technical High School but I haven't written about it here or in my personal journal. I keep wanting to but I keep getting caught on somehow trying to pretend we are still there despite the fact that it snowed so much in NYC that NYU gave us a snow day yesterday. In case you were wondering, we had no snow in Ecuador. 

We did have lots of awesome food though, including the Tilapia and yucca I found on my phone a minute ago. It was my first time eating fish with scales and bones and was pretty difficult but completely satisfying. 

I was telling a friend about the trip today and she told me that every time I come back from a service trip it sounds like the newest one was better than the previous ones without me saying that in any sort of words. That made me really happy because even though each trip has been different, they could become routine in that I always know they are temporary, that I probably won't return, and that I probably won't keep in touch with the people at the site. I want to say that this trip was different, and I think it really could be, but the hard reality is that I probably won't return to Yachana just like I won't go back to Oak Ridge, TN or Bay Crest Elementary School. But that's okay, because the service and the cultural exchange still happened. I learned. The people we met there learned. And now we can share that learning and our experiences.

I have to go through my photos so I can include them in whatever writing comes up, but in the meantime, check out the blog from our trip to get a general idea of what we did: http://nyuabproecuador.blogspot.com/

Hillsong NYC

This video's not mine and it's not from the night I went, but it helps show the praise and worship part of the service :)

Rock instruments and rhythms and waving arms greeted us as we walked into Irving Plaza last night. I was with my friend V and her parents, we were going to church. But, I grew up Catholic, got confirmed as a Catholic, and continue to attend Catholic mass every Sunday. We walked into a concert hall instead of a church with a rock band instead of a choir and a woman preaching. Hillsong NYC was not my typical church experience, but it was an amazing spiritual and faithful experience.

Ghost Bikes

Spread throughout the city are bikes painted white and left chained to street signs. Some have placards, some have flowers in a handlebar basket. Every single one of them is placed at the site of a biker's death. Every single one is a ghost bike serving as a reminder and memorial to a biker's life and the pursuit of safe streets for all.

Ghost bikes are an international phenomenon that began in New York City in 2005. 67 bikes are placed around the city. Between 1996 and 2005, 225 bicyclists were killed in NYC. Between 1996 and 2003, 3,462 bicyclists were seriously injured.

Washington Square Park Construction Update

Washington Square Park has been under renovation for a couple of years now. As an NYU student, it's central to my experience in New York and my sense of space and place also. I lived on the park as a first-year student and, as a senior, I'm living on the park again. In between, I spent most of my time in the buildings (and bars) within walking distance of the square. When I think of New York, I think of WSP. And now, the park is nearing the end of it's renovations, check out these picture I took, one from near the fountain looking in at the construction zone and one from my window showing how nice the new lawns look!

NYU's Center for Academic and Spiritual Life Construction Update

In the fall of 2009, NYU and the Archdiocese of New York came to an agreement on the sale of the old Catholic Center to NYU. Deconstruction, followed by new construction soon followed and has been progressing quickly ever since. The new Center for Academic and Spiritual Life is planned to open in the summer of 2012.

As seen, the construction crew has begun enclosing the building, designed by Machado and Silvetti, in a brownish, sandstone like stone facing. Once the facade is complete, the construction will shift from stage two to stage three and the crew will begin working more intensely on the inside of the building.

Winter's Here

Winter is officially here in New York City: the Rockefeller Park lawn has been closed, though the sheets usually laid down to protect the lawn from geese haven't been put down yet. No more sports practice, picnics or relaxing on Battery Park City's largest lawn until next April (give or take a couple weeks).

Hudson River Park, You Rock!

One of my first "New York" experiences was running from Washington Square Park to Hudson River Park (via Christopher Street) and then running south on the Hudson down to Battery Park. I fell in love. The different piers and park areas and public plazas made my run interesting and the views of Ellis Island and Lady Liberty reminded me of why I came to New York: it's a city that contains the whole world.

On Sunday, I was walking on the Hudson with a friend and discovered that Pier 25 opened! I wasn't expecting it to open until spring. The Hudson River Park Trust has added lots of activity areas to the pier: a children's playground, a skate park, volleyball courts, an Astroturf field, mini-golf, boat moorings and public bathrooms. Some of the areas won't fully open until Spring, but the skate park, Astroturf field and skate park opened on November 4.

Here're are a few pictures I took:

Astroturf field 

Sand volleyball courts 

looking back at the mainland

Playground 

Skatepark (street-style)

And for extra fun, there was a dude with a parrot walking in front of us on the Greenway:

Meet David Trejo, creator of Mixest

I've been using Mixest for a little over a month now; both its website and Android application. David Trejo, 20, designed the simple indie music site with Eric Zhang. David is from Berkeley, California but goes to school at Brown University where he studies computer science.

What is Mixest?
Mixest is a Pandora style internet radio site focused on only the newest indie music. We especially like obscure music, the music you would only find after spending hours scouring the internet to find.

How did you get involved?
Eric Zhang and I were inspired by HipHopGoblin, a site that does the same thing except for new Hip Hop. I helped the front-end developing of the site. That means that I focused on simplifying the interface, culling bugs, and improving the user interface. I also coded the recent songs list, wrote the code that handles hotkeys and easter eggs. I also wrote the client code that handles unique song links.

Transplanted

My blog is named Transplanted because, when I created it, I felt uprooted. I had moved from Wisconsin to New York, had visited several countries with NYU, including a summer session in Dublin, and was preparing for a semester abroad in France. I wanted to document my experiences as a citizen of the world, as someone whose roots were spread from WI, was studying in NY, had lived in Dublin, and was preparing to live in France.

Lately though, I've had so much homework and so many meetings that my "world" has been my desk, my books, and my bed. With Thanksgiving coming around the corner, and Christmas soon after, my time will free up a little and this blog can go back to its basic function, to show that one's home is where he makes it, and that more than one physical place can still be home. To show cool experiences and interesting moments of my life wherever I am backed up by everywhere I've been.

You, my readers, can expect continued music posts and posts on whatever's going on in my journalism courses, but you can expect more experiential posts with pictures from my life in New York and elsewhere. Cheers!

Tuesday Tunes: Matt Wertz

I found this song in my iTunes over the weekend, it's a little old but good. I like the simple lyrics and acoustic guitar. Matt Wertz's "Red Meets Blue," for me, really captures the feelings of a beginning relationship, of the sweet and simple love and admiration of something fresh and yearning for more. Enjoy!

A New Way to Look at Time

For about $1000 (or free, keep reading...) you can buy QLOCKTWO by Biegurt + Funk, it's a pretty slick clock that forces you to read the time. "It is a quarter to nine," or "It is ten after three."

The secret, though, is that a dot in each corner also lights up, so that 1:18 would read as "it is a quarter past one" with three dots lit up. Before the half hour passes, you add the dots to the time. After the half hour, you subtract them. This means that 1:48 will read "it is ten to one" with two dots lit up. This makes the first half hour go by slower than real time and the second half hour go by faster because a casual glance at the clock would probably mean you aren't adding or subtracting the dots.

The best part is that everyone can enjoy this eloquent, almost time-bending clock. Developer David Trejo, who I will soon be profiling for his work on mixest.com, created a virtual version that anyone can access on an internet connection.

FastCompany profiled the clock today, but I know I've seen it before, either way, they get credit for motivating this post, though they didn't link to David's version which the makers of QLOCKTWO seem to have called a "nice Application with JQuery and CSS!"

Meet Nick Troiano from myImpact

http://bit.ly/bUynVu (pic credit)

Nick Troiano is from Milford, PA and is attending Georgetown University. This 21-year-old entrepreneur and his friend Chris Golden started MyImpact.org to help volunteers record, share and track their impact on Twitter.

Is myImpact important? 

Yes! There is a large body of research that indicates a platform like myImpact can help with volunteer recruitment and retention. Our goal is to use new technology and social media to engage more Americans in citizen service, increase the effectiveness of service programs and demonstrate that service is a solution to systemic national problems. 

Twenty years

(This is another poem I found in an old notebook)

Twenty years from womb

burst out crying, burst out small and red

began to grow and walk and humanize

learned to talk an harmonize.

Always in its warm, protective shadow

I remained.

Stumbling forward hands and feet first

mouth open and eyes in wonder

I wandered knowing always how to return

to that safe, sound spot

where, against the howls,

I could remain.

And now, twenty years from womb

from remaining and leaving, I have returned.

What I found, where I discovered, who I am

returned to you to share these things.

In disgust you turn away, close your eyes.

Once refusing to see, I can no longer ignore

that twenty years from womb

I've escaped your tomb.

Great Song by The Matthew Show

"A Brighter Place in the Sun" by The Matthew Show

The video's not the best quality so you can check here for an mp3 stream. Also, the video's two songs and I selfishly didn't bother to listen to the second, I just went back and did "A Brighter Place in the Sun" again.

I especially like the chorus: 

You are not the only one 

Standing on your own 

And someday far away you may find 

It’s not that hard 

To find a brighter place in the sun 

So far to the only place we see 

Where things are want, and never need, and meant to be 

Shadowed by the graveyard waltz of fear 

And if you run far enough, it won’t come near 

What Issues Inspire Voters?

Image from Good Transparency

The people over at Good Transparency create some amazing infographics on a wide variety of topics. Their newest one, here, takes survey data taken from Pew on which political issues are most important to Americans each year from 2001 to the present.

It gives a nice, clear, visual breakdown of data that might otherwise take a long time to sift through. It also shows the breakdown by party to show how each party's priorities have changed over the years. While it shows survey data from January of each year instead of October, the trends are still worth considering when questioning which issues could have the largest impact on bringing voters to the polls.

I think it's most interesting that there is no data on immigration until 2006. Legal and illegal immigration, and the contexts separating the two, have been issues in the United States for decades, if not centuries. Even so, the chart shows that Pew didn't ask the question, or maybe no one answered the question, until 2006, halfway through Bush's second term. Today, it is toward the bottom of the scale as far as political priorities go. Only 40% of Americans see it as a top priority. I bet, though, there are many thousands of Americans for whom immigration policies and status are first or second. This points at another potential negative of Pews survey, from which the data is drawn. If Pew calls or sends mailers, it is very likely that, more than the other categories, immigration priority numbers would be misrepresented because many illegal immigrants might not have phones or addresses or might not respond to anything having to do with their immigration status for fear of deportation.

Either way, this infographic shows valuable data. And, the questions arising from the data might be even more important than the data itself.

Facebook Connect

I am not a coder, nor do I understand most of what is said when I read about or listen to people talk about code. Even so, it seems that Facebook Developers' tools would allow me to do the technical things that I believe will make my site unique and more useful than existing sites.

This page lists many of the permissions a site can obtain from a user using Facebook Login as the default site login. Some of the things I would like to do, like access group data, would require extended permission codes, which people may be hesitant to allow. This means that I will have to ensure that my site's features, especially the friend and group based focus, are simple enough and compelling enough to convince users to give it a try.

Recommitting

After an LSAT, a leadership retreat, and a Teach for America interview, I'm ready to jump back in and plug away at this thing called entrepreneurship. October really showed how important it is that an entrepreneur's idea can and is and must be his baby, that nothing is more important, even if those other things floating around are much more real and tangible than an idea in one's head. I've lost almost an entire month so now it's time to get my act together and put things at full speed.

My Dad sent me a website he thought was similar to my idea: http://www.sweatmonkey.org/. It's a superbly organized and it looks great. It is similar to my idea in that it connects service organizations to volunteers. It also seems to be mostly targeted to high school students, which would be part of my target audience. The difference, though, is that mine would connect to Facebook, which allows for a viral marketing effect to happen in a much quicker and more efficient manner.

One of the best things about SweatMonkey? It's creator was a sophomore in high school!

Found

Found in a pocket journal, dated 5/12/09

Words rise from gaping mouths

Empty sounds with meaningless power

Light pierces from their eye, from your eye

Piercing my heart, pith giving fire

consuming my whole

Words rise from gaping mouths

Empy sounds with meaningless power

Warmth spreads from my hand,

your touch drying my tear-soaked depths

stilling my shivers

Words rise from gaping mouths

Empty sounds with meaningless power

Saying more in their silent omissions

Than in thousands of speeches before

Unlocking desire, hope, future

though just one of many locks

Words rise from gaping mouths

Empty sounds with meaningless power

I don't know if I meant to add more stanzas, the apparent pattern would seem to say "yes" but maybe ending there was supposed to be a resounding "no."

Remeber: Just Breathe

I first heard "He is We" in Paris via Purevolume. I was instantly grabbed by Rachel's and Trevor's acoustic sound, heart-filled melodies and honest lyrics. Here's one of my favorites songs: "Breathe." It reminds listeners to take a minute to breathe when tragedy or stress or fear strike. Follow the link to a "He is We" fansite for the song's lyrics.