A very real an tangible way...

The past three weeks of the NUF experience have been entirely different than any other point in the past year. We returned to New York the last week of May, and for me, there was the added difficulty of being injured. Complications between the insurance company and my orthopedist's office impeded the process of my recovery, but after finally getting everyone to talk to each other (it only took two weeks to get an MRI done) the actual process of discerning the difficulty took far too long (the results of my MRI didn't arrive to the doctor's office until several days after the scan was taken) all of which left me dealing with a level of pain that, on a scale of 1 to 10, I would assess at 20.5. Fortunately, the day that the scans showed up at my doctor's office, I was also able to get in to see him, and to his credit, he prescribed the best option (an anti-inflammatory medication) which reduced the swelling of the disc and allowed it to move off the nerve, relieving a great deal of the pain.

Fortunately, classes started after I started taking the medication, and had already started on the way back towards being whole. The outlink for this post is to the organization run by one of my professors for this semester, and it is to him that I credit the title. We were having quite an in depth conversation regarding the Human Resources frame in an organization, and how the language in memos, though the requester of a feedback memo might be asking for valuable feedback, might not land just right when it reaches their ear once they've actually begun to read said memo. Truer words were ne'er spake, and as I frequently communicate to the class of 2012; you can redo a budget, you can ask for another strategic plan, you can even reshuffle the organizational chart, but you cannot, cannot, cannot pull back a message.  Especially if it's on the internet. There's a leadership lesson to be learned here.

The past three weeks have been a complete test of endurance: 12 graduate credit hours in 6 weeks, several days out of the week where we are in class for a total of about 9 hrs a day, trying to squeeze in a few workouts in between piles of reading, writing effective papers, statistical analysis, and economic theorizing. As I commented to one of my classmates this morning, I feel as if one of the widely destructive tornadoes that blew through the South last month continues to rage unrelentingly throughout my cranium. So far, we've received back our Stats and Econ midterms, and papers from each of the classes where we need to submit them. Everyone has a clear idea of where they're standing, and is feeling incredibly worn and as if their reserves of motivation are running a bit low. We all do our best to keep each other up, but it's like the last mile of the marathon, where you feel your body on fire, and there's still a climb to the crest of a hill to cross the finish line...

In the midst of all the coursework is the need to find my way into a new position, something which - to quote a classmate, - is renting a lot of space in my head. But, several opportunities are beginning to show up, and I'm confident that something will solidify shortly.

However, these past few weeks have not been devoid of fun, and I'll have to follow up this post with a write up of the scavenger hunt that I designed and led, a couple weeks ago for the incoming cohort of NUFfies. As always, I intend to leave you with a bit of music, but of a different sort: One of the most amazing things in NYC is a program called 'Music Under New York' where the MTA actually pays artists to perform in the subway stations, turning the entire affair into a form of public art (see also Jerry Mitchell). To that end, the video below was one such artist that really reminded me of the spirit of New York the first weekend after I was back in class:

Media Strategy

This week has been full of unexpected surprises. For example, what started as a minor twinge in my back Tuesday night ended up being a slipped disc Wednesday morning, and that has peppered my experience throughout, up through today. To be sure, the symposium which I'd signed up for on Wednesday was a difficult experience to sit through because the very act of sitting caused me so much discomfort that I'm not entirely sure how, exactly, I was able to accomplish it for hours at a stretch. In contrast, having been to this event, I've managed to make a few new contacts, and find out more information about potential places and positions towards which I can focus my efforts. Also, it's been raining in the capitol region for the past several days, which pleases me greatly since it keeps the heat and mosquito population down, and makes the experience a bit more bearable.

The Dialogue on Diversity is a series of day-long symposia focused on different topics, and this one was specifically tailored for the purpose of discussing health disparities in the minority and immigrant communities in the United States.  One of the main presenters with possibly the greatest number of representatives from its myriad offices and subdivisions was the Federal government's Department of Health and Human Services. Specific sections spoke on topics that ranged from obesity - one study claims that every child born in the US in 2000 will in some way be affected by obesity, unless, that is, we make some changes in our diet and practices, - Food Insecurity - one representative spoke on the evolution of Food Stamps into the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program, and it's potential for wider impact in minority communities that are in need, - the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (which, it so happens, is the purpose for the title of this post,) and quite a few others, including National Minority AIDS Council, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, National Council of La Raza, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and several others who made clear several crucial health concerns for the future of our communities.

One of the most salient messages from everyone's presentation was the fact that information needs to be more available, more accessible, and more clear for the general public, especially those who stand to benefit from the broadest range of programs. For example, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius put together a video commemorating the first anniversary of the Affordable Care Act.

This is fantastic, but many more people need to be drawn to the site, and made aware of the fact that Healthcare.gov is a central information warehouse where they can make comparisons between healthcare plans, search for providers, understand the law, and find contact information for DHHS personnel. Also, there is the potential for several of these organizations to partner together for the purpose of realizing their communications outreach goals, and bringing their message to their target audience. I'm hoping I can help in that endeavor in several ways, this particular blog piece being one of them. 

But that was just Wednesday...

Friday, I presented a Social Media 101 workshop for the Altrusa District 2 conference, and it went over fabulously. Altrusa International, from their website, is "...an organization of professional women and men who volunteer our energies and expertise in projects dedicated to community betterment. We are also a community service organization that espouses volunteerism, service and fights for literacy and against AIDS." They are presently in the midst of a rebranding campaign, looking to increase their membership, and in truth, having heard some of the fantastic stories that this organization has been capable of achieving, they ought to attract a very wide audience. I would personally like to see the organization draw in a much larger crowd, committed, as I am, to the public service, hence the current objective in educational attainment.

I'm always pleased by how much people change their minds in an hour's worth of presentation and a few short demonstrations. Nearly the entire room went from eschewing the concept of even getting involved in any sort of social media interactions, to questioning excitedly what are the next steps. Once they realized that you could use these newfound super powers for good instead of evil "Can we set up a Facebook page for a Community Activity?" Absolutely, go and check out the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park.) "What if I don't want to have a blog where I tell the world every last detail about my life?" That's not necessary. You have complete control over the content of your blog (and for a great example, read mine! Or, go and see the Bronx News Network) Also, don't confuse your LinkedIn with your Facebook page PLEASE!!! I was asked several times if I was available for strategy sessions (yes,) and if I had a consultation fee (also yes,) but noone seemed to flinch at that idea. Many business cards were exchanged, and I feel fairly certain that I might soon be needing a secretary. I kind of like this sort of adventure, truth be told, I'm getting to utilize my technological, educational, and business acumen, and manage my own schedule. I could see myself falling easily into this pattern. Stay tuned and we'll see how this goes. If you find yourself needing to work on such a project, find me on my LinkedIn, through Facebook, or leave a comment here.

Ya sé como convertirme en viento

Esas palabras de 'El Alquimista' me siguen de lugar en lugar. Varios hechos últitmamente me hicieron recordarlas. En fin, me he convertido en el mero imagen de lo que nunca pensaba que iba a ser: el analista estadistico y presupuestario, no muy diferente del Santomé—protagonista de Benedetti,—aunque no me haya acordado a ninguna tregua conmigo mismo todavía. Es una cosa bastante desconcertante para un lingüista, de repente contar con tanta destreza matemática, pero no hay que complicar la felicidad. Falta un més para regresarme a casa, a Nueva York, digo, la casa en el Bronx ya no me queda abierto. Sin embargo, me encantaría regresar al lugar, o quizás un lugar cerca del mismo.

Today is Saturday, and it's an odd feeling. I finished, printed, bound, and packaged my capstone this past Thursday. I could have actually put it in the mail then, but I just didn't move fast enough to get out of the office on time, so it went into the mail yesterday (Friday). The required postmark date for the final draft is this coming Monday. There is only one other classmate of whom I am aware with enough forethought and planning to have completed the project at the same time, and she is to be commended. Every other classmate I've spoken with is steadily chipping away at the final version as I write this, or has already pleaded for an extension already cognizant of the fact that they won't be capable of making the deadline. I mention this because this blog, our cohort's studies, and even the entire point of this accelerated course is to train "leaders." Leaders prove themselves in the heat of battle, under the pressures of actually being in the lead, they manage their time well, know how to access the right resources at the right time, know who to call if they don't have the answer to a problem, and so forth. 

Leadership, in contrast, is not endemic to those with a haughty attitude, a practice of unprecedented self ascription of power, the inability to speak softly and wield a big intellect, or any of the myriad personality malaises which I've witnessed in excess along this very uneven and incredibly difficult trajectory. Of course, there are several people in my current experience that do not fit the disparaging commentary above. In point of fact, I can think of several. But I am distressed and disappointed by those that do. I feel sincerely that a poor choice was made in many cases, and that these individuals, in truth, do not belong in the position of access to power.

In reality, the whole purpose of this post was to announce that I had managed, much as I did with every other version, data set, or significant piece required by the professors, to turn in the final draft early. By all counts, mine arrived the date it was due, hard copy, through the mail, and an extra one sent to the folks so they can have it on their shelf. I had to maintain a personal standard, you see, though that has caused several of my cohort members great consternation. But, I can tell you, given that the chips were down, who I would rather have on my team.

Mentor for a morning

Last Thursday I took a personal day and went up to New York City for the Mentor for a Morning event at Baruch College. I'd been anticipating this for some weeks, it was an opportunity to meet with several people with whom I would not otherwise have interacted, or, more specifically, had the opportunity to interact. Really, I dislike doing 24 hr turnarounds in NYC; I don't get to see my family as much as I'd like, I completely miss out on the opportunity to see my friends, and it feels as if there's something waiting for me on the other side of the mirror (if anyone understands the pre-Colombian mythology reference.) Officially, we are down to less than two months away from the termination of our mentorships, and it feels like I could seriously use a vacation. I told several people during my trip that they shouldn't be surprised if I suddenly turned into Ghost Rider and my head burst into flames spontaneously. 

Talking with the mentors, I've found out several things: 1) my resume seems to be needing a bit of tweaking if I'm going to anxiously pursue a communications position. 2) As one mentor mentioned - 'There's a lot of gold here.' I am often - despite any outward appearances - unsure of whether or not that's actually true, so it was good to hear it reinforced. 3) Two different mentors suggested that I take the time to attend whatever free events I could get myself into related to the agencies with which I'm interested in working. Interestingly, both also suggested the idea of sending introductory letters, and how to format them - something I always forget to consider entirely. So, in between completing the last two assignments for the semester, gingerly escorting my capstone through a wordsmithing forge, and preparing my taxes this week, I'm going to be carefully tooling a letter of introduction to several places, to be followed up perhaps around the beginning of Summer II with official cover letters and resumes. In the interim, resumes, cover letters, applications to Federal and Municipal agencies, and some serious networking has been going on, all with the objective of being able to step lively from the stage for graduation into a desirable position.

The way back and forth from NYC, however, was incredibly adventurous to say the least. On the way up, I met an Audio/Video producer who does some fairly high level work I was fortunate enough to hear about but won't repeat here. We managed to get along swimmingly, and the best part is, one of my closest friends from years and years agone is also an A/V specialist and in need of something to do. Taking care of my friends, cuz it's all about your network. The way back, however, was not so pleasant, as it took six hours plus to complete a four hour trip, something about the air inside the bus completely unsettled my stomach, and I was unable to complete anything remotely resembling 'work,' even blogging. Once safely returned to the District of Columbia, it was still an hour plus to get home since we returned at an hour when the bus/train connections slow down and are entirely disjointed. The remainder of the weekend was mostly unproductive, I'm only up to about 5 pages with the final assignment for Management II (we have an 8 pg limit. Who puts page limits on these things? Ugh,) and still have to knock out 600 words for the last Leadership class assignment, but I'm not concerned about those getting done by the end of the day tomorrow. It's the whole taxes thing that's got me worried.

While I was in NYC, since Friday was a furlough day, I made the decision to stay an extra night so I could wake up and have breakfast with my dad, who I don't get to see or interact with enough while I'm here, and spend some time with one of my close friends from the city Thursday night. He's one of the integral members of a small collective I've affectionately termed Team Green, but it is to him and the rest in that collective that Joe Cocker is dedicated:

Power

I've listed The New Teacher Project as this blog's out-link for a purpose; It's been roughly two months since I've posted something here, and in that time, the NUF mid-year conference has happened, at which we heard incessantly about leadership, what it means, precise ways for you to foment that within yourself, and what precisely to do with it after you've managed to get ahold of it. Gina Rudan spoke to us about how she helps others find the intersection of their skills and their passions, and that was an interesting conversation. David Mensah spent a great deal of time talking about finding your personal mission, and I realized at that particular point, that I hadn't really nailed down what mine was. All was not lost, however, as I realized shortly after my triumphant return to the Capital region what precisely that was.

One of my closest friends in New York has a brother-in-law that lives in the area, and inevitably, we've also become fast friends. His children likewise think I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. Once I was back there, interacting with youth, it came to me like a Mack truck to the face - the youth, the future of tomorrow. That is my mission: to make sure that they are raised well, that they are shown the proper way to operate in society, that they learn well how to be valuable members of our culture. To that end, I've begun to refocus my post-fellowship job search to ensure that it has to do with Youth Development or a position as Education Director for an institution.

Amusingly, I recently read about a program in Philadelphia that has to do with interpreting in the school system. At the same time, I found myself wondering if there has been sufficient forethought and planning gone into the program for them to select a director. I know that operating simultaneously in two fields that I hold near and dear to my heart would be closely akin to paradise. We shall have to see how close to that I manage to find myself.

I continually refer back to Collins' scale of Level 5 leadership for a reason. Having participated in martial arts, operated in a school system, studied leadership through this fellowship, performed as an interpreter, written as a citizen journalist, and a whole variety of interesting things during my professional life, I believe I have developed a sense of what the term entails. I know for a fact it is horrifically overused. I also know that a majority of people overusing it have generally done so for the purpose of powerful self ascription of importance. My particular issue is education, youth development, and within that language access. So, when I see like posting a list of nearly 5,000 teachers who will find themselves under the ax due to 'budget constraints' and other efforts meant to unwind collective bargaining are solely to the detriment of or nation, and most specifically the more than 1.1 million students in the NYC Department of Education's care, I know 'leadership,' due to its overusage, is losing any semblance of validity. There is a better way, and there are agreements to be made. Students of history remember that the first thing every cult of personality did in order to rise to power was to decimate the teaching force. TNTP has been complicit in producing proposals to that end, and it is apparent that their objectives are in line with the philosophy.

Leadership is not only in the professional field, however, and this is where I find myself in a quandary. Our capstone experience is potentially one of the most intense pieces of the entire fellowship, but having done one or two dedicated research papers while in my initial Master's degree at NYU, and very similar types of brain intensive work as a teacher for 12 years - curriculum writing, and major projects that I developed to be able to utilize in the classroom, - this was perhaps less of a stressful enterprise for me than it likely should have been. I turned in 51 pages (with 52 references) nearly a week before the due date, and dedicated the remaining time to advising and coaching classmates that might be finding themselves in a difficult place. This week, I also received word from one journal that I had pitched an essay to that they are willing to accept my writing. I'm incredibly pleased about this because, not only does it result in a publication credit, it also results in remuneration! This, I believe, is more the type of leadership - thought leadership - for which we should be aiming.

Next weekend, my sister, my parents, my closest friend from high school whom I have not seen in nearly 20 years, and his wife and children descend upon my small hamlet for the weekend. My sister is also participating in a range of events and conferences with the City Council Chairman of her town, meetings with Congresspeople, and so forth as she climbs the political ladder. There is an evening planned for the DC dozen to meet with her, the City Council Chairman, and several other key players in about a week, and it will be the first time I'm in the same room with so many noteables at once. I think this is the point at which I should feel apprehensive. My main preoccupation for the evening is to make sure that I have enough networking cards available to hand out at the encounter. I can almost guarantee that there will be interesting photos from the affair.

Not necessarily as interesting as a Mariachi band headed by Antonio Banderas, but, you get the idea...

Un umim, y un tumim.

Those who have not read "El Alquimista" by Paolo Coelho, if you can comprehend it in Portugese, good for you. Spanish is a highly suitable secondary stand-in. The English version is only minimally approximate. But the reference to his work in the title of this blog is crucial. It is an experience I do not hesitate to recommend.

These past weeks have been so full of momentous events and developmental challenges that it seems impossible to approach them all with a clear head and find a particularly poignant point with which to punctuate my pontifications. But then, at the same time, that specifically is the purpose of this post; 'pontification,' as if emanating from the office of a pontiff, which clearly I am not, nor do I harbor any desire to be. Besides which, Jewish heritage likely precludes you from such a position, though I'm certain I don't know the rules behind it. 

In any case, I had initially intended to deal with this in a later paragraph, though it seems to have jumped to the fore much earlier. Following directly on the title, and my perambulatory ramblings above, I'll have to begin with Tuscon, and the most recent shock to the National psyche. Avid readers of this column will have already developed a prescient sense that I published a timely article regarding Jared Lee Loughner's atrocities, though my purpose here is unique. Much like the allusion to pontificatory publications in the principal paragraph, we suffer in this country of ours from predilections for perturbations and aversion to sobriety. We love dirty laundry, the public is galvanized and drawn as iron filings to a magnet once the mudslinging starts in a political dialogue of any sort. Politics infects everything - our schools, our national sports, our buying choices. And the virulent infection spreading throughout society erupts from series of non-events, is perpetuated by a two-step flow, and is delivered by the hypodermic injection of the ubiquitous media-rich environment that surrounds us. As a teacher, we are admonished for allowing students to witness anything visual, read anything, or hear lyrics that might be considered overtly contentious, inciteful of violent behavior, or blatantly erotic. Never mind that some of the greatest - both greatly inspiring, and tremedously soul wrenching - moments in history were caused by none-too-mysterious confluences of all three. Perhaps that, in a sense, is an indicator in our supposed 'last bastion of freedom,' and that instead of a tacit acceptance of the modernized version of barely beveiled Puritanism as the subtext to the national political conversation, perhaps we should convert to a more strict orthodoxy of freedom. This coming Monday is Martin Luther King day, a holiday repealed by the Tragedy in Tuscon state, and how might the overarching themes inside their political borders change if public service, peace, and not just tolerance, but acceptance of brothers, neighbors, and all the children under the sun dominated instead of guns, hatred, and discord? As a teacher we are trained habitually how to interact with developing minds, how to treat them with care, what to say, and what not to say, and how to urge them along in a positive direction. 

Similarly, and I've said this habitually in conversations recently: way back in the 90's, when Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls were gunned down mercilessly (depending on how you view this,) a call went out to the entire rap community to calm down the lyrics because the country could ill afford to continue losing children to inner city violence. We all know the power and reality of influence that media has on the developing mind. That is the both the reason for and against using it for carrying punditry along the pundit-tree while the majority of the students across the land are crippled due to plummeting literacy rates and incapacity to comprehend, let alone remember history, nor understand the importance of the imagery that's being used. In stark contrast, every available voice that regularly utilized inflammatory language, consistently poured vehemence onto the airwaves, perpetually placated the masses with their rage inducing rhetoric, immediately took to their chosen distribution device - radio, television, web page, newspaper, - and quickly claimed "it couldn't have possibly been the lyrics." In the Communications field that's known as ad-libbing (or liberalizing your dialogue. Perish the thought!) In the Education field that's known as 'Brain Storming.' I claim no responsibility for the parity of this technique with another, much more pedestrian term. What I'm driving at is the fact that every single one of the "operators" - even that is a military term - pontificates, from every side of the quadrangle. O'Donnell's "Where is freedom of speech in the Constitution" to the Libertarian "What does the EPA, or the Department of Education...do?" to the Sarah Palin "blood libel" to Paul Kanjorski's hugely inflammatory commentary on Rick Scott. The answer, as I've said often and early in my column, is Education. Not the kind that's going on now, but the kind that takes into account classics, critical thought, philosophy, and trains students to be thoughtful, insightful, and enlightened citizens of the union. 

To that end, the College Board has made the magnanimous decision to revamp the AP Biology course and exam (two separate operations that, of all things, are closely coordinated.) This is crucial, because at a certain point in educational history, the Advanced Placement curriculum and exams were the gold standard against which each other class was measured. They represented - and I would warrant they still do - the pinnacle of educational achievement, the meter stick against which all other class curriculae were measured. Disproportionately, and as is pointed out in the excellent piece by Valerie Strauss, the longer we perpetuate that continually failing No Child Left Behind and conversion to privatization of our public experience has to be universally tempered with the ever present ideal that our objective is to plant the seeds of the ongoing Enlightenment Era thought experiment that is American Society. At the same time that the AP curriculum was the universally held ultimate objective in terms of educational attainment in the Secondary system, Arts, Sports, Music, and Foreign Language programs flourished, and this was indeed for the betterment of our society as a whole. Heed well the lessons of the daguerreotype analysis. For if we should continue down the path we are currently following, we shall be lulled slowly to sleep by our infinite ignorance, only to be woken up, as the man in the video, by the scurry of rats as they seek to do their natural, genetically precoded duty to help decompose that which is dead: our minds.

Leaderblog

During my studies with the National Urban Fellows, I have been charged with a great many characteristics: gregarious, overly productive, at times mildly pedantic, literary; all of which I acknowledge and accept as things I need to either celebrate, or work on. Since my last post, I've been party to a whole host of leadership decisions, and perhaps have even been involved in a few, though I always hesitate to consider things 'leadership roles' until I've written about it, and perhaps that's one of my faults. In an interesting twist of fate related to that previous statement, one of our recent assignments was to develop a conversation using the Blackboard Discussion Board section of our Journaling class to properly treat the concepts of 'Reflection on Action, Reflection IN action, and Knowledge in Action.' How that has been represented in my agency varies in degree across the profile of personnel, however, I find it at once disturbing and amusing that Pope Benedict XVI would publish a statement using precisely the same terminology at the point in time when we had this assignment. A reflective practice indeed, and quite a serious set of circumstances.

As I wrote to my parents in an e-mail just this past week: "...the Integrated Workplace Management Software implementation heated up, the boss' 'transition team' meeting involved me, and his administrative assistant, and that's it, and strategic planning for the division is underway using the flow chart I designed..." of which I made light as though things had slowed down due to the holidays. But secreted away inside of that short summation of the last 5 days' events was a few kernels ready to pop on the hot surface of my race tuned, fabulous firebird funny car, nitro burning, quarter mile winning mind. That IWMS meeting I attended included, unless I miss my guess, every division head in the agency and me, to represent my division. I managed to gain some key insights, and introductions to the project team from the vendor. Luckily, I've made good friends with the Chief Information Officer, and I was able to ask him some of the hotter questions that remained as I left the meeting. Also, during the meeting, the announcement came of the selection of the interim Director, and they are not somebody at the even Deputy Director level, and that was a great deal more surprising than the mayor not simply picking a standing replacement. I also wonder, as Dove Seidman said in his article for Bloomberg News if this choice has the wherewithall to do that which is  "inconvenient, unpopular, and even temporarily unprofitable," or if there might have been a different purpose altogether.

Of course, this speaks to something that Professor Greg Sicek mentioned during a Brookings Institute presentation that the answer to our country's education dilemma is not something that is fast, cheap, and easy, and rather what we need to do is long, expensive, and difficult. In my training in the martial arts, these sensibilities are always expressed, nearly every lesson. There's no such thing as developing the necessary skills quickly, they are only acquired over time. "Repeating a technique 10,000 times, you begin to understand the reason..." and so on, and so on. A similar thing can be said to be visible in the current climate of 'Leadership training' or 'Business Leadership' wherein collections of people in groups large enough to be statistically significant enter into accelerated programs with pie-eyed dreams of leadership. "Tai Chi in 12 steps" as quintessential NYC personality Roberto Sharpe comments in the video below.

So, leadership, what does leadership mean? How can we assess who it is that has the prowess, training, and proper mentality in order to lead? The Harvard Business Review Blog carried a recent post entitled 'The Value of Ritual in Your Work Day,' in which the opening remarks contain a recollection of a scene in 'The Last Samurai' of a japanese warrior performing a tea ceremony. This, to the Western mind, is undoubtedly oxymoronic - a warrior arduously focusing on the minutiae of properly preparing something so effortlessly simple as tea. But, the author notes:

"This, I realized, was the source of the samurai's strength."

And I believe that is in essence the point of this post. Peimin Ni is a philosophy professor who periodically writes columns for the New York Times, and two of his recent posts are appropriate here. He starts by quoting an earlier article written by a visitor to the Shaolin temple in China:

In a 2005 news report about the Shaolin Temple, the Buddhist monastery in China well-known for its martial arts, a monk addressed a common misunderstanding: “Many people have a misconception that martial arts is about fighting and killing,” the monk was quoted as saying, “It is actually about improving your wisdom and intelligence.”

Not how easily 'fighting and killing' could be exchanged for 'being productive and making profits,' and 'martial arts' could be replaced with '[business] leadership training.' As is frequently the case, the leader of a particular school defines the character that such training will take: is it primarily technical, with a conveyor belt type approach, turning out finished students as fast as humanly possible? Or are there internal mechanisms that the teacher seeks to instill in his/her students before they are granted 'mastery'? Is the skill of passing on the acquired knowledge also instilled in the student? Or will the storehouse of knowledge for which they are now responsible remain solely with them? This begins to drive at the oft quoted ideallic state of 'creating leaders around you.' Though this is a rare and infrequent practice indeed.

Another story that Professor Ni relates is being invited to a dinner by a practiced and very effective martial artist, who had come to an impasse in a very philosophical section of a manual he had been reading. Knowing of Peimin's facility with Asian philosophical trends through history, the practitioner asked that he please decipher the text, and provide a certain level of insight into its meaning:

"I looked at the manual. It was on a martial arts style called xingyi quan. While the main body of the book was about postures and movements of the body and energy, which Mr. Wu had no trouble interpreting, the introduction was basically a treatise about metaphysics. It contained views derived from the Song dynasty neo-Confucian scholar Zhou Dunyi, in which an abstract concept, called wuji, the ultimate non-being, takes a central role as ontologically prior to taiji (t’ai chi), or “the primordial ultimate.” Oddly enough, the author offered no indication about how the ideas should be translated into the martial arts, as if it were all self-evident.

Thanks to Mr. Wu’s practical background and drawing on my own philosophical training and experience in the practice of Chinese calligraphy art — a form of kung fu which is deeply influenced by traditional Chinese philosophy — it did not take me long to convey the basic ideas to him and help him see the intellectual connection between the metaphysics and the martial arts, though we both aware perfectly well that it would take lots of cultivation for the connection to be embodied and manifested in the practice. The point is basically to empty oneself (including the metaphysical idea), so that, paradoxically, one can achieve unification of the self and the world! Mr. Wu sighed, regretfully, “Today’s martial arts practitioners focus too much on the surface performances. That is not real kung fu!”"
 
"Surface performance" or "performance measurement" or "metrics" or "profitability" or any of a host of other monikers that I could easily list here that readily demonstrate both the inherent callousness, and intrinsic fallibility of that system of thought. Tai Chi in 12 easy steps. What, precisely, has our efficiency gotten us? Robosigning and derivatives markets caused a global problem so severe that it will be a miracle if we ever manage to return to pre-2008 levels. The Washington Post's very detailed article of how we've become responsible for our own runaway extinction train is instructive, to say the least. Eight presidents in a row have touted initiatives to create American energy independence, and none have been successful. We expend far too much effort futilely attempting to create significant change at the margin, when it's the structure of the entire balance sheet that needs to be shifted.

Cogito ergo sum

This past week's election cycle has brought an inordinate amount of commentary, not to mention controversy, and indeed the worst appears yet to come, as one party attempts to functionally reverse the direction in which the other had been taking the country. This pattern is cyclical, and in another couple years, the presidential elections will happen, and there will be a hotly contested battle which I predict, at this early stage, will be a referendum on the current referendum, which was never really a referendum to begin with for the simple fact that noone was call to account for anything, and the - as they've been termed in publications farther out along the political spectrum - 'The Red Scare' was not so scary after all. Indeed, I asked this on my Facebook page the following day: given the fact that there were so many media outlets cheering, rooting, egging on those who would undo all of the good that our president has done over the course of his current mandate, that when the chips fell, and the Blue team still held the Senate, and the Executive branch, and the majority in the House was only by 60 seats (near enough so that a few good compromises could create enough influence to stem the tide) it is to wonder the following (and New Yorkers always get blamed for asking the hard questions,): when 2012 comes around, will there then be references to a vast 'conservative media' conspiracy?

Of course, my mother would say, 'out of the mouths of babes', for, as luck would have it, there was the entire Keith Olberman controversy which blew up Friday morning following election night, and continued through the weekend, with MSNBC eventually recanting their suspension of the anchor, though not before suffering umbrage and the hyper-intellectualized deprecation at the gilded tongue of Rachel Maddow. Her comparison at the very least begs for the practices of her competitors to be looked into, if not fully investigated.

But this continues to bring up the critical teaching point, at least for me, of Collins' Level 5 leadership, which is a persistent theme throughout the Public/Private leadership literature. All of the people who just managed to garner positions in Congress spend the majority of their soundbite time trumpeting their cause to unseat President Obama, to repeal health care, to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, to stand in the face of power and shout defiantly 'NO!' These are the same party constituents that orate fervently claiming to be the ones in favor of 'opportunity.' Harvard Business Review has a different perspective on the matter, in an article entitled 'Is what's good for Corporate America still good for America?' The answer, I will allow you to discern for yourself, but the evidence is compelling. Secondly, in a New York Times Op-Ed piece published today, Nicholas Kristof uses a term that brought to mind terrifying images of inhuman labor conditions, should wrenching poverty, greed, pestilence, and eventually revolution. The difficulty in his utilization, however, is the fact that he makes the claim about the US, which increases the potency of the comparison, but perhaps the time has come to make such a comparison, as borne out in Kristof's column 'Our Banana Republic.' For those of us in the Spanish teaching profession, who have made (or previously had made) a career of learning and researching these exact historical details, and carry around montages of photos, paintings, poetry, and period style films in our memories, we warned of the potential for similar consequences in our classes. We spent inordinate amounts of time preparing lessons, and explaining the hard concepts, and the literature, as demonstrated in La United Fruit Company by Pablo Neruda. I would suggest everyone read it and make a distinct comparison between the current (as of 2010) top 1% of Americans absorbing 24% of the GDP, and the situations in the poem.

There has been, of late, -and perhaps I've only noticed it in the New York Times because I only have time in a day to look through perhaps two publications with the flurry of activity that's going on throughout the program and my mentorship,- a renewed focus on the Civil War era. I imagine that is not without good reason. Today on a day when the Commander-in-Chief finds himself beset on all sides by hysterias both manufactured and real, one other such article surfaced in the Times, and its parity with the current duo-chromatic myopia, entitled 'Lincoln wins, now what?' What the historians seem to be telling us is the following: be conscious of your history, lest you be doomed to repeat it. Though, given my recent visit to the Brookings Institute, and seeing insights into the future of Education policy for the years to come, I must ponder the nation's capacity to successfully perform that task.

Finally, in order to bring this full circle, the following blitzed across my e-mail box Wednesday night, after a long day in the office, and an even longer and more involved online session with professors, from an individual in a similar position to mine, which in reality was the purpose for returning to the question of Level 5 leadership:

"Before we end the night and since I deal with this in this group all the time, I have to take the victories I get and rejoice when I can. So I say this with love and respect to all my Dem friends here, which is almost all of you here, NA NA NA NA EH EH EH GOOD BYE (Pelosi) !!!!!!

BIG LOVE"

If this is the character of the supporters of the team opposing Pelosi, and the President, does that truly represent the type of leadership we need in a climate that, above all else, requires maturity, a willingness to reach out, create coalitions, search for best solutions, and best practices, and continue the progress that's been made?

Milestoning in order to drill down into the information

Over the past few weeks I've been in a flurry of activity. At one particular team meeting, I implored the Contract Specialists with whom I sit to invite me into the process, so that I can begin to actually see what is going on.  For the majority of the time I'd been in the division up to then, I had focused almost singularly on the writing of regulations and a new template for Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Maintain contracts, but had not actually witnessed any of the goings on in action. Since then, I've been on multiple site visits, participated in award meetings bid openings, conference calls, and pre-proposal conferences, meetings with policy analysts, general counsels, and all the time maintaining a breakneck pace with developing the writing projects I've been given, and completing class assignments. I suppose I ought to be tired. But, I'm sticking to my self-made promise of exercising during the week, and going on no less than an hour's walk on the weekends. We'll have to see how I accomplish that once it gets cold. But the agency recently granted me access to the fitness facility in the building, so that should prove interesting.

This past week I attended a presentation at the Brookings Institute, the first time I'd ever been there, which provided me with more than enough material to write a solid article on the matter. In stark contrast, I feel that sitting in a room with so many education experts, including the Special Assistant to the President on Education from the Public Policy Council that I may not necessarily have gone down the wrong path. At one point in history, when, to quote one of my professors: "...and then Western Capitalism collapsed..." everyone - including teachers - were loosing their jobs, it seemed that the decade plus of my life that I had spent in the pursuit of higher understanding of education, its principles, and how to apply them, all of the practice, all of the development, had been entirely in vain. But then, enter my time as an interpreter, and following that, my entree into the National Urban Fellows program, and it seems that everything happens for a reason.

Having been through the entirety of the above, it's an interesting thought experiment to consider what is the significance of 'leadership.' That term can apply to the classroom, the agency, study groups, and of course, the frequently named municipal, state and federal levels. But I have yet to truly find myself a leadership role model after whom I would pattern myself, at least in the Public Administration/Business arena. I carry with me images of leadership styles that come from the dojo, and from Steinhardt, and ready comparisons for what Jim Collins would term Level 5 Leadership.

Interestingly, and speaking of leadership, tomorrow is Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity. Amusingly, at the same time, the good folks at GovLoop.com have convened an erstwhile collection of Federal level employees, intent on bringing attention to the fact that they, in direct opposition to the popular belief that they are lackadaisical, unskilled, and poorly trained, are anything but those three adjectives for a parallel rally. Additionally, they hope to present that working for the Federal Government carries with it a distinct collection of benefits unavailable to those in positions outside of its purview.

In any event, stay tuned to my Examiner page for the next amazing adventure, and here for insightful commentary on the commentary.

Facade of the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C.

This, it seems, is a strong argument for story based learning. Every time I hear the word 'rally' this scene kicks on in my head. Never fails:

Where's the closest tire shop?

So much has happened in the past two weeks, that it is nearly impossible to publish a faithful report, though I will endeavor to create something of a fillet.

As part of our assignments, we've been given the task of reading, and commenting on posts of our choice from the Harvard Business Review Blog, and that said, I've made a range of comments, here (as J. Valjean), and also here (as the title of this blog.) As time passes, and I acquire more information on the management aspects of public administration, it is indeed interesting to see the collection of thoughts on HBR blog. Written almost uniquely from the perspective of the private business industry, rather, as far as I've seen anyway, even as pertains to the field of Education, I'm repeatedly surprised by how - despite undeniably parallel organizational structuring, and practically mirror imaged management philosophies, - that the business world seems to inherently lag behind the public sector in terms of the more internal development type of evolution. Ed Sermier would ask: "What does that mean?"

What I mean is this: I read the "Leadership Lessons of Ants" and I'm still pondering the comments of several of the posters who seemed incredulous as to the validity of a parable to teach any sort of modern world utilizable theory. But then, coming from a teaching background, and having specifically set up learning experiences centered around parables to teach specific life lessons, perhaps I have a different perspective. Of course we use parables to teach life lessons, why do you suppose the Bible is still a best seller? Aesop lived and died centuries ago, but the inherent applicability of creative solutions (as in the crow who filled a jug with stones to be able to raise the level of water and in so doing, drink from what would have otherwise lay at the bottom of the jug, out of reach.) The Lion and the Mouse, another story not from Aesop, but a classic of Spanish literature, and an excellent lesson about how rumors quickly become something other than what we might like them to be: Los Tres Cuervos. And, let us not forget that amazingly talented inventor of moral infused children's literature: Horacio Quiroga, and his 'Las Medias de los Flamencos'. In each of these, lessons from the animal kingdom bear striking resemblance to how we might conduct ourselves amongst friends, family, and even professionals.

In terms of that, our agency is guaranteed to be in flux shortly, as there is an impending mayoral shift, and everyone at executive level has, as a matter of protocol, had to tender their resignation. This puts all of the Fellows at the agency in a difficult spot, because we've only just arrived, and the potential for significant organizational change in a very short amount of time is very real. The one Fellow placed at OCA reported a climate change so dramatic once it was announced that an administrative overhaul would be taking place, that the 6th degree would have been easier to deal with in the Six Degrees of Climate Change. I have personal feelings on the matter, perhaps I will share them as time goes on.

In the meantime, I've taken to inserting myself into as many leadership oriented activities as possible during my time at the site. I've found that it has become necessary for me to specifically seek opportunities for myself to be involved in the leadership process. At the same time, I'm participating in the rewriting of legislation, creating new contract templates, and it's a good thing that I have a background in language and linguistics, otherwise it would be a great deal more difficult for me to handle the tasks I've been handed. Also, in terms of that, I'm still not sure I'm entirely clear on the following that my mentor told me as I was trying to nail down the specifics of piece of the template with him: "Procurement is solely a commercial exercise, whereas Public-Private Partnerships are more development or investment." I'm foreseeing a conversation with Professor Savas in the future...

Last week, our Program Director came down for the Idealist career fair, and several of us in the DC area made it down to staff the table with him. During the couple of hours we were there, we were successful in attracting quite a bit of attention, and at the very least handing out quite a few information packets. I think we caused quite a stir. And speaking of a stir, having to finally articulate the Initial Capstone Proposal this week was even more difficult than the writing tasks I've been handed for the mentorship. I spent the better part of an afternoon scribbling notes and pacing back and forth by my desk muttering to myself (from the example of Booth, et al.) "Where's the closest tire shop?" But, in the end, it got done, and shipped out several hours before the deadline. Now that I have a focus, I can set about streamlining my data collection.

And now, what you've all been waiting for: El Gran Combo

Mark Twain

"I have found out there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them."
-Tom Sawyer Abroad, Mark Twain
 
This past week has been especially harrowing. In the slight amount of time we've had since classes have actually finished, there is the consolidation of (at least for me) 11 years of my history into a few boxes, and jettisoning whatever doesn't fit into the storage unit to be recovered upon my return. It's an interesting side trip down memory lane that hopefully won't take me too long. I'm planning on being in the DC area for the entire week preceding the beginning of the mentorship to get the apartment arranged and visit some long time friends that I haven't actually seen in person in quite some time.
 
Last week I journeyed to our nation's capital with a classmate intent on meeting with my mentor, and seeing the actual location where I'll be living. We actually managed to work rather well as a team on the way there and back, despite both of us being very take charge type personalities. So, Mr. Twain, we found out we don't hate each other. It's a major paradigm shift to go from living right in the middle of the Bronx to the suburbs of DC, questions arise every so often in my mind if I'll actually be able to handle the culture shock, but, stay tuned here, it should be interesting. I managed to trip over a 'New York Style deli' close to the apartment complex - which prepared some excellent sandwiches, had some good coffee, and cakes from Junior's. They will likely be seeing a good deal of me while I'm there.
 
My meeting with the mentor went well, I felt, and everyone in the office seemed excited to have me coming on. We spoke briefly about some cursory ideas relating to the project they decided to put me on, and I expressed my interest in being involved. After returning to New York, I was also able to read the writings of NUF's 2010 fellow that worked in a different section of the same office. Having done all this legwork, I now feel more informed about what opportunities and challenges I might face during the course of the mentorship.
 
And so, the end of an era, to begin anew. Like a phoenix rising out of the flames...
 

 

Here I am, back on the road again

At a certain point in history, I was constantly traveling. My parents lived in a different section of the country from me during my college years, when we were young, we went on so many road trips they simply became a matter of course. But for the past decade plus, my entire life has centered around the Bronx, and teaching, or translation/interpreting. For the past 12 weeks, we've been in a crucible - a container specifically designed to withstand fantastic temperatures, while at the same time allowing the metals within to compose a supposedly stronger, more resilient alloy. We've been tested, and tried, and not found wanting. Truly, we have woken up this morning to a much deeper understanding of the life process occurring around us, to a clearer perspective of our roles in it, and a renewed sense of purpose. Each of our personalities - all of us bringing worthwhile leadership qualities, - had begun to mesh, we each played off each other, we all contributed to make the classes we began and fought and worked through, the best that we could, and we had all come to rely on each others' strengths, become a unified team keeping each other afloat and keeping the communication very open, not unlike a Spartan phalanx.

And now we are off to widely disparate, very far away places.Many of us (including myself) have networks already where we're headed, and so will be far from alone. Though we won't be able to simply turn to a classmate during a budgeting issue and say "hey, how did we do this on the last case study?" Or, "I'm about to publish this OpEd, can you look at it real quick for me?" or, "Is this supposed to be a chi - squared analysis? Or a regression equation?" The process is a bit more difficult. Ah well. It's amazing how, despite our resistance, we've become so amazingly reliant on each other. I guess this is what Jim Collins is talking about when he suggests 'getting the right people on the bus'. Today was bittersweet: we were all excited for the new opportunities, sad that it won't be until January when we're all in the same space again.

And so, following the theme of a bit of song, Bob Seger:

Ranai

The title of the particular technique above is especially poignant for this entry, given that this week we've had a few major events. From the Japanese, the nearest literal translation is "Order from Chaos" - something that shows direct parity with our current state. On Monday, we finally heard our assignments for the coming year. I will be stationed in Washington, D.C. as a municipal functionary, along with no less than 4 other classmates in the same office. A total of eleven of us from this cohort will populate various Municipal, Non-Profit, and Federal agencies across the metro area, and I daresay that - in and of itself - will be an amusing adventure. That said, in a strange serendipitous twist, a good friend from high school, who's younger brother lives right inside the area, happens to have a place to rent me and so that was worked out with all due haste, and I don't have to worry about the landing pad when I get there. It remains to be seen whether or not I will manage to have time (or money, energy, or all of the above) to get back in the dojo while there. Stay tuned.

Adding to the chaos -> order progression was our reading this week of Jim Collins' book "Good to Great". Prof. Sermier's voice was a constant track in the background of my mind as I went through this book: in regards to executive pay, 'getting the right people on the bus', 'what is essential to the mission of the organization', but then, just last night, he told us this is the management book he would have written had he ever been given the opportunity to write one. My mind is filled with new concepts, and how they relate - connect all the dots - of all the points that we've been learning across the courses: The Hedgehog Concept, The Flywheel versus the Doom Loop. Buildup and Breakthrough, and the 'Stop Doing List'. In a few short hours, the fairly simple language in the book could easily be understood, and re-presented visually, as a road map for take companies from just successful, to industry leaders.

Now is the mad dash to find places to live, hunting for NUF alums from previous classes who are willing to lend a hand while we adjust to the new arrangements, and getting read to leave NYC while still trying to make sure that we finish our PAF 9120 papers due in August. I am almost completely decided on leaving my apartment and finding something else on the other side of the mentorship, unless, of course, they ask me to stay there, which is entirely possible. I'm slightly distraught at being forced to leave my pets with my sister, though, I suppose that's necessary for now. There has been much speculation about whether or not we will all make it through the various odd assignments, the research paper writing, the intense work schedule, etc, during the next twelve months. My personal feelings, following along with my budo training, is that work is work. You do what needs to be done, and reserve your deeper emotions for family life, and those close to you. Understand that statement means nothing at all about having passion for your work. We absolutely should, and it would be futile to enter public service lacking it, however, I hear several of my colleagues already becoming slightly unnerved by the prospect of what needs to be done. Having already been there - twice - perhaps I'm just a bit jaded.

Through all of this, one song has continued to play in the background of my mind for the past week. The Great Satchmo, Louis Armstrong:

So, MiGoVaSWOT?

This morning started off with a presentation by PMF, one of the NUF's long-time supporters, on financial management, and the highly utilitarian value of Excel and building Macros. While I enjoyed a bit of a review of what we've heard up to now in our budgeting class (structural balance, material errors, amortization rates, time value of money, etc.) and our Public Affairs class (bond structures, bond variations, bond markets, bond manipulation, bond refinancing) I believe the presentation might have been better focused on simply the ways in which the financial model they had set up and were demonstrating during the presentation might have better been manipulated to our greatest advantage in strategic budget planning. Unfortunately, this section of the presentation seemed incredibly rushed, though, I do happen to have the contact information and can likely ask for a more detailed explanation.

In the meantime, I've taken a few more initiatives to heart about the use of social media, and have recently developed and populated a LinkedIn profile. Then, while I was at it, I took something of an initiative to go on the hunt for other, related social media resources that might be of some pertinence to the effort I'm making in the MPA degree. Here's a smattering of the links I farmed from the internet:

• Latino Rebranded: Latinos and Social Media - Louis Pagan takes a look at this crucial viewpoint. How are we showing up? 
• The Center for Hispanic Leadership - Interestingly, we've just finished an online lecture for one of our classes entitled "Public Management" where the professor spent a good amount of time discussing how to effectively write a mission statement. CHL's is as follows:  "To empower the professional growth and talent development of Hispanic Employees through the use of culturally-tailored curriculum that helps accelerate the awareness and potential of their unique skill-sets and capabilities in the workplace."
• The Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute -  "The only proven Hispanic national grassroots network for economic freedom"

Some interesting reading, to be sure. This week also brought us an introduction to PAF 9180 "Policy Analysis" - essentially a research class, which should help streamline us into the Capstone writing experience. Those of us in the cohort who have either completed major research proposals before, or their PhD *grumbles* will recognize the format, and quite likely the resources. The Craft of Research Booth, Colomb, & Williams is the very same text that we utilized in the Intro to Research seminar I took during the latter part of my graduate studies at NYU, which is to say, that right now I'm sharpening up my three minute elevator story (you really have to read the book to get this.).

Oh! and we got our Stats final grades back today. If the graph of the class' grades is a skewed curve with a long left tail, I was closer to the peak towards the right. 'nuf sed.

Muga Mushin

Yesterday was the final round of mentor interviews at the end of a highly pressurized week. The Statistical Analysis final had the majority of the class in fits, and I heard from several people their feelings on it were not positive. My heart goes out to them, because I understand their frustration. At times like these, I remember clearly several key words in the writings of Takuan Soho, from 'The Unfettered Mind', specifically the part entitled 'Annals of the Spirit Sword Taia', and 'fudoshin'. But more on that as (or if,) it becomes relevant.

I was selected for interviews with the EPA, in which I spent a good 10-15 minutes responding to questions from the interviewer regarding the children's book I wrote, illustrated, and self-published. The reason didn't become immediately apparent until he got around to making a point of saying that he was specifically looking for creativity and finding someone that thinks in, around, outside, under and over the box. Though, until I heard that I wasn't entirely certain that I might have found myself in the wrong place. The City of Philadelphia Parks Department (currently undergoing a merger with the City of Philadelphia Recreation Department) also asked me to come in, and I signed up for an interview with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This last one was particularly important because of how closely related our work is, given that one of their grantees, the Hablamos Juntos program, was a key factor in a policy paper that I turned in last week for my communications class. Everybody liked what it was that I had to say, and I'm entirely uncertain at this point, having had several 'successful feeling' interviews, where it is that I'll be ending up. I do know, however, that I'm beginning to feel incredibly comfortable with the idea of being in the leadership position.

It's an odd thing - as a teacher, you're automatically a leader in the class, you're a person with a great deal of responsibility, lives depend on you, yet, to consider yourself for a position of leadership as it's contextualized within this program is frequently outside of the realm of possibility for most people in the education field. "I'm just a teacher" is such a common phrase... kind of like "I'm just an interpreter." It sometimes surprises me that I've managed to overcome that feeling, and why it is that the sentiment is so heavily ingrained into the communities in the first place? But, I know I wasn't selected for this by mistake.

The anti-hero

Another Social Studies teacher friend of mine sent along this video of Jay Leno at Universal Studios in California. It brought tears to many of us...

Today we're turning in the memo format book report on Little Pink House - the novel style history of one of the most famous eminent domain cases in the history of the country Kelo v. New London, to which I've alluded in a previous post. Tomorrow is the Stats final, I'm a bit sorry to see it go, I keep repeating this at the end of each session to whomever will listen: had I but known all the statistical manipulations we just learned during my first graduate school experience, how much better would my analyses have been, how much more would I have possibly understood about the research I was reading, and so forth. Ah well. In the end, given that we've just completed quite a bit of deliberating with Prof. Mitchell who, like me, enjoyed making the crossover between stats equations and Public Affairs, in regards to economic development, its effects on children's education, tax abatements and their direct relation to businesses being able to afford to stay in town, and thereby also weakening the tax revenue pool with which to fund school systems, (which historically are the critical things that large corporations go looking for in terms of criteria to stay in a location, because they need excellent schools to train an excellent workforce, in order to maintain a leadership position in their respective fields. So, you see how cyclical this becomes) there's this rather amusing equation to be extracted from the vast waste fields of data (both good and bad):

AGERICH(hat)= 3.141527 - 2.5 SMOKING + 10CEDUC - 8HTMES + 0.6802SMOKING*HTMES

And that said, let us not forget to always pronounce "chi" as [kai], and not "chai" [tshai] which is a very heady, fragrant, flavorful tea from the far East, made incredibly popular by coffee house franchises the world over *shudders*.

Tomorrow brings more mentor presentations, and hopefully an interesting look at a few local organizations. More on that probably this weekend, after the actual interviews happen. Stay tuned.

Las piramides de parangaricutirimicuaro

This past week has been quite the adventure. We received our midterm exercises (2 midterms and a paper) graded, and it turns out I managed above 80% on everything. Going forward, I'm fairly conscious of where the differences were in what the professors were asking for, and what I did so that when finals time comes around, I'll be better prepared. This week's main focus is getting started with Sermier and budgeting, and turning in the communications paper on Wednesday, which will likely take up the entirety of my schedule on the morrow.

Last Wednesday, as a result of no shortness of puppeteering on the part of one of our classmates who has a personal connection with the man, Puerto Rico Secretary of State Kenneth McClintock (some NY Daily News articles that include his name here and his bio here) came and spoke to our group about the island nation becoming a state incorporated into the union of the United States of America, and the benefits that integration might confer. This particular policy proposal was one that I might not necessarily agree with, and whose argument had a few holes, though I will have to argue that at a later post as I'm sitting with notebook in hand where I scribbled various thoughts and counterarguments during his conversation.

Friday was the last day of interviews on Fridays, as the school - pursuant to a directive from CUNY central as a money saving initiative - all facilities, buildings, and so forth will be closed for Friday's during the summer months. However, not to be outdone, I signed up for interviews with CH2M Hill, which has quite a few project happening on privatization of municipal services and where I might be able to infuse quite a few of my linguistic resources and be able to leverage the experience towards language access policy research. The Port of Seattle is in dire need of a fellow to develop a curriculum related to their Workplace Responsibility program speaks directly to my experience writing curriculum, especially for distance learning. New York Power Authority - whose energy sustainability projects really fall in line with my passionate drive to create precisely those types of solutions for the future (they were, after all, a huge drive behind my political choices in the elections) would likely stretch my capabilities, as that environment is clearly something that is outside of my comfort zone. The one organization that had selected me was Indianapolis Private Industry Council, whose inherent need for language ability and someone who has a clear mind of how to engage the immigrant community and develop vocationally related hard skills, as well as codify explanatory curriculums for such was clearly apparent during our conversations. That's an interesting position, and to be clear, there is likely to be a good deal of language access policy to municipal services to be written there. An interesting analysis of the process is delineated at my good friend 4everjung's blog

All of this is happening, I should note, as we're learning about simple vs. multiple regressions in Statistical Analysis, barreling towards a policy position paper deadline (see above,) and having to complete a 3-6 pg memo on the novel "The Little Pink House" which is less of a novel and more of a historical case study of how Kelo vs. The City of New London and starting Prof. Sermier's Budget class this week is swirling about in our brains. In times like these, the concept of 'zanshin' in budo: staring at a distant mountain, not so much a spaced out, disconnected vapidity, but more of an eyes on the prize sort of stare comes to mind. I'll see if I can't track down the kanji and put it in here.

And now for some PAF 9100.... wish me luck.

It's about the bureaucracy

Today was the PAF 9100 midterm exam, and that, in effect, was the one that held the most potential for difficulty. Whereas Research Analysis was a simple plug and chug workout which, though strenuous, produced easily predictable results, Public Affairs presented a challenge because we had no basis from which to organize our focus. Perhaps the best thing that one of the 2010 Fellows told us when they made a visiting presentation to our class was; "Write down EVERYTHING this guy says." We all were energetically working to figure out the definitions and rhetorical difficulties we had with the essay writing after leaving the lecture hall and reconvening in the lobby area. I, for one, know now that I had completely misinterpreted the term "Apportionment" and fielded the definition for "appropriations". In all likelihood, a common mistake, and not one that definitionally is not entirely incorrect. Essentially, they both have to do with allotting numbers of variables to certain categories, except that one has to do with budget dollars (appropriations) and the other with number of individuals inside of a congressional district. By way of illustration: Census Bureau Apportionment by Congressional District. I guess I'm not getting that wrong on the final.

Today we also have to turn in our rhetorical analysis of an Op/Ed piece to Prof. Devitt. I feel exceedingly comfortable with that assignment, these types of writings are a logical continuation of what it is I was doing in NYU's program, and I just hope that I can do my previous work justice with the current iteration.

It's time for the calculator

This past span of 4 days has been all about statistical manipulation. Bring me a data set and I'll force myself to calculate the area under your density curve! After getting woken up at cat o'clock, feeding the animals, and taking the general for a stroll, I was sitting on the edge of my bed holding my noggin in my hands trying to figure out how to relieve the pressure on the inside. My roommate came in and asked why I had such a long face.

"I've failed just about every math test I've ever taken." I replied. To which he countered,
"But you can explain this stuff to me! If you can do that, you'll be just fine! Besides, you're the professor!"
In reality, I almost got teary eyed; there it was again - that inherent faith that people have shown that I'm on the right path, and I have no idea what I've done to instill that in them. I told him he was right, and I went with the warrior spirit mentality - ichi go, ichi e - one chance, one opportunity, right now, immediate victory.

I managed to get through the initial run through the exam with minimal hang ups, then went back through to check the math at least 4 times. I reworked one problem set so many times I had to stop myself from doing it again after I was convinced it wouldn't yield a separate result. At the end, I was more than 95% confident that I had done a reasonably good job.

I walked out of the class amphitheater with a wave to the professor, and proceded downstairs to sit out in the sun on the patio outside of the vertical campus. As luck would have it, that was also the man travel path for everyone else exiting the exam, all of whom wore faces summed up in an excellent Spanish word: extraviada. The first to come out was C.C., and she appeared nearly on the verge of tears, but after a few minutes of discussing the problems and a few lighthearted jokes, we got back to feeling more positive. About half an hour later, the remainder of the cohort - roughly a dozen folks - swarmed out of the building en masse. A scarce few seemed to have better feelings, and several began invoking a higher authority.

If I've managed to do well on this exam (and, judging by my score of 80% on the first homework, and having done the second one also in a similar fashion,) then I will have finally conquered, for what it's worth, the computational arrhythmias inherent in my linguistically predisposed mind. That's got to account for something, no?

"Masakatsu agatsu"

True victory, is victory over self.

Century ride

Happy Birthday to 4ever Jung!

This morning began the second round of interviews with mentors, and we had seen presentations from The Cleveland Foundation, The Knight Foundation, and the Multiple Sclerosis Society, but there were a few for which I held a vested interest. I first came to know about the Knight Foundation's work during my time at NYU, when I had fond fantasies of someday becoming a well respected journalist, or at the very least, a published writer. Having accomplished that (see the link above) and garnered attention from the likes of Impre.com, I'm not entirely certain that a syndicated column is necessarily the objective any longer, but more the promulgation of ampliatory effects for the foreign language journalism industry in this country as a whole. Unfortunately, I did not warrant an interview with them, though I did manage to slip a business card (with a cue towards my writing) into Damian Thorman's hand, and I felt this to be a positive interaction, especially since he spent a goodly amount of time speaking on the foundation's work in developing foreign language media after I pressed him on it.

The one organization that did, in fact, express an interest in my abilities was the Multiple Sclerosis Society, where I imagine that I might be able to find a happy home; their newest initiatives relating to developing a diversity council, creating a curriculum for interpreter training and development, as well as being able to readily deploy the program to different locations around the country, produce, direct, and capitalize on web 2.0 media, etc, sounds as if there is a definite possibility of deep connectivity in terms of what I might be able to offer them. Both of us mentioned this during the interview. This could, in effect, be quite beneficial for all concerned, because I would get to remain, as Miguel says, in the center of the universe, and I would also be able to finally bring to bear the totality of my breadth of experience and education in a position where every last one of these skills is appreciated. Let's all of us keep our fingers crossed. But, as Miguel is also wont to say, this is only the second round, and we've managed to see a total of half a dozen, out of a total of 42 total mentorship opportunities, some of whom are looking for multiple mentees. We shall see.

Two exams coming up this week and an op-ed analysis is due for Devitt's class this week in the middle of all of that. This past Wednesday, during the several hours break in between Devitt and Mitchell, I went to the gym with one of my classmates, and after days upon days of sleep deprivation, working out pretty hard, and then not having eaten very much during the day, I suddenly felt as if my mind was short circuiting, and had to sit down as I drank my extra large gatorade. After that I fell asleep atop a pile of folders in the lounger area of the 8th floor, and woke up approximately 30 minutes later. It was surreal, as a linguist, to feel as if my language skills were failing (perhaps this is just my personal neurosis, after spending so long hyper-focused on discreet meanings and semantical analysis of particular phrazing - I should post the diagram of Groucho Marx's now famous "I once shot an elephant in my pajamas..." for the rest of the class to see,)

and then the last year in translation and interpretation, if I feel that the message escaping my lips isn't exacting in diminutive detail, or if I sense the language centers of my brain shutting down due to lack of sleep [because I was up til odd hours trying to finish readings for PAF 9103 AND 'Question of Intent'], I'm immediately frustrated, and this in turn worsens the problem, even if it doesn't seem that way to the radio audience... But, it seems I didn't make any egregious errors, and that, in itself, is pleasing. Tonight is hammering away at the above mentioned David Kessler book, and trying to put something together for Communications. Tomorrow is pancakes and an editing session involving Dr. Dre, presumably June, Dante, and a few others, and pancakes. Lots of pancakes. Tonight, possibly in between Communications and Public Affairs, I need to clean. Amusing how little things like that go by the wayside when the work you're doing is seemingly so much more important. Maybe I need to investigate finding a place with a dishwasher next time.