The beginning of living in poverty....

The past week has been quite interesting. I'd like to start by giving you a couple of things I saw in a subway, just yesterday:
-a guy with a really long pinky fingernail (it took me a minute...)
-a very near fight between two guys who seemed under the influence of something (could have just been stupidity...); the half of the subway car they were in cleared out within about 2 seconds. It was kind of crazy.

I also got to wait in the food stamp office for about 40 minutes for the second time. This was interesting...the whole food stamp process has been not what I expected--everyone told me that it would be embarrassing and frustrating, with people who were really rude. But I haven't felt embarrassed at all (maybe my mindset...), and everyone has been super-nice. The wait has been annoying, but not tortuous, though the whole process has certainly been very very frustrating. I could not believe how many overweight people there were--basically everyone. And there were at least 2 kids who were so huge, they looked like they might burst at any moment, which was incredibly sad. It makes me really pissed at the system...we give people food stamps, but don't teach them how to eat a balanced diet on a budget. It probably costs our health care system ridiculous amounts of money.

Anyway, we had our "Pre-Service Orientation" this week, which turned out to be pretty awesome, thanks to our great leader, Ben. He was hilarious and just a really great teacher and leader. He was just cheesy and upbeat enough without being annoying. I also learned some pretty depressing things about poverty--3.5 million Americans live on less than $5000 PER YEAR. Half of them are children. 35 million Americans live in poverty. Those are just ridiculous numbers, considering how much money we have in this country. So that was interesting, if frustrating.

I've also been fascinated with Sarah Palin, and have read and/or watched just about anything I can find on the internets about her. Her anti-abortion stance cures me of any interest I have in her as a representative (ie--I would NOT vote for her), but I think she does have an interesting story. And it is certainly challenging of my open-mindedness. I find her pretty hypocritical, but she's also feisty, which I like. All-in-all, I really despise some things about her, mostly in a more general way--I have read some really interesting things about people talking about her as the perfect example of feminism because she's balancing work and family (though to me, going back to work 3 days after giving birth is not balance...maybe it is for her), but I really do not respect her choices. I think she is socially irresponsible in how she parents, and in the decisions she makes. So that pisses me off in a personal way. Anyway, those are my thoughts on her. They're not totally developed, probably because a lot of my opinion about her is in regard to feminism and gender roles, which I'm still so at odds with myself over.

This weekend I was going to fly down to Wilmington for my grandmother's 85th birthday, but unfortunately Hanna will be visiting while I'm supposed to fly in, and I don't think an airplane will land during a hurricane. Just a thought. So as of now, I'll be staying in the NYC, and oddly, I don't really WANT to go home...I have so much to do here (food stamps, medicaid, getting my room set up, visiting place in New York City...) that I just don't have any desire to go to back to the Carolina. And though I miss individual people there, my life from living in Chapel Hill is so very far away, and visiting Chapel Hill will not bring it back...those days are over, and I'm acutely aware of that. I may try to fly out of NYC to Wilmington on Sunday, but I'm not positive yet.

I went on a site visit, to a PS in Brooklyn (Bushwick) to see where I'll be setting up the equipment to take air quality measurements. I'm a little more excited about the whole process, knowing that I'll be doing something in the real world, not in an office. Though I'll get to do some of that too (data entry, newsletter organizing, Spanish translation, etc). So I'm hoping it will be a good balance. Love to all--I'd love to hear from everyone (even if it takes me a while to get back to you...)!!