In swinging london

12 hours in london and I do that following.
1. Go to the National Gallery and stare at paintings
2. Traditional English breakfast with tea
3. Walk to buckingham palace, trafalgar square, picadilly circus, and leicester square
4. Fish and chips with a pint of beer
5. Tea at Fortnum and Mason

Generally be amazed by how beautiful, efficient and stylish everything just feels in London.

The latter part actually amazes me the most. London is expensive. But to make up for it the food tastes fresher, the buildings look cleaner. The employees seem nicer and less disgruntled. The airport checkin, security services and customs is automated and streamlined so I'm not dying going through all sorts of lines. I'm actually sort of happy to be spending my last few hours in London between primitive JFK/LGA/ORD as opposed to going straight to the chaos of India.

Might as well enjoy it I guess. Sigh, will miss the order and comfort... now if only I could live in London for a bit...

Just in case

Pakistani officials have sent troops to the border of India and Pakistan and for the first time in my life I'm actually listening. With two days to go I am about to embark on a three week trip to India. I talk to my friends, family and experts and here's the consensus.

Father: my company's income for next year heavily depends on my going to India/Mumbai so I'm going.

Mother: this is my third time trying to go to India and I keep cancelling. I'm not getting any younger and I'm going to see the Taj Mahal.

Official Experts: War breaking out between India and Pakistan is highly unlikely.

US consular: No mention telling travellers not to go, just extreme vigilance.

Indian friend in Delhi: Its like flirting/foreplay, India and Pakistan do this all the time. Nothing is going to happen.

Indian friends in Chicago: anything can happen to you anywhere you go. Just go and have fun, you'll be fine.

Sister #1: Just go and be prepared to run fast and far away when noises happen.

Sister #2: Register with the US consular.

Brother in Law #1, Impersonating Jewish Mother: "ARE YOU CWAZY?"

Brother in Law #2, Phd in Political Science: Well they have always been playing this game with each other.... no comment.

Sister#4: Please come back alive.

Friends: oh Vow. be safe. Maybe it will be safer now then ever considering its right after a major attack. Are you going to Mumbai?

Conclusion:
Unless war breaks out in the next 36 hours I'm heading to India with my Japanese passport, registered with the US consular and Japanese consular, and a long list of phone numbers from various friends. I will not be going to Mumbai and will not be staying at fancy five star hotels or be traveling in big groups. I am packed light and ready to run where necessary. Have got my shots, my cell phone, my carryon and paperwork. If something breaks out in the next 24 hours, I will be spending twelve hours in London so I'll just turn around and go home after I eat some fish and chips.

But just in case if anything does happen...
It was nice knowing you all.

When ya gotta go, ya gotta go. Hope that its not my turn and that fear is taken over by joy as I enjoy the splendors of India. I have been planning this trip for seven months, scrimping, saving and planning. Here's hoping everything turns out well.

Back In Chicago

And I am back in a whirlwind of PDFs to read, presentations, interviews, research, and "friend" building with my classmates. My California lifestyle disappears as I stare at my computer screen reading journals and case studies. My love of fresh produce subsides as the salad greens and fruit I bought two days ago is already covered in slime. The knots in my shoulders are already starting to come back and although I ride my bike in town, the feeling a freedom is gone.

I am depressed.


Two weeks back into school and I am hoisted into a new challenge with the City of Chicago's innovation center. My classmates are all back in the swing of things. I have one week to revise and submit my resume to a career fair and we parade our "skills" and qualifications for so and so consulting group, big corporations. "I want to do user experience design, I want to be a consultant, I want to tell stories, I want to be an innovation leader", my classmates say. I don't know what I want to do professionally.

I am lost.


After a never ending challenge starting at age 7 when I was thrust into Japanese school, I feel like I've been constantly fighting battles. Ending up in situations that were actually harder than I was prepared for and constantly panicking to catch up, to be at a certain level, often times I feel like I'm always thrown into an ocean, each one harsher, wilder and different than the others. Swallowing tears and almost drowning each time, I always learn how to manage, but then the ocean changes again. The results of leading this lifestyle has given me more awards, skills, accolades, experiences, degrees and accomplishments than most. But I also feel constantly pushed to keep moving forward, the challenges continue to come and I am always unprepared and swinging wildly.

I am exhausted.


I return to school and while I have friends at my school, they are also my competition--and we are undercutting each other to get into the "best" classes, work on the most "high profile" projects, and we all dream about getting that interview with the dream company. I try to make friends outside of school, and the moment I receive calls to see a movie or hang out... I need to go to a research interview. My new roommate starts to ask me what I want to do and I'm overcome with a sense of awkward jealousy as she waxes poetically about the company she has interviewed with and how she came to my school to obtain that dream. I have no-one outside of school to objectively talk to in Chicago.

I am lonely.


In nine more months this expensive torture will be over and I am more confused than ever as to where I am going. But an overwhelming feeling of "I don't care" is coming over me and I contemplate my options in life. Fuck I just don't know.

I am waiting.

California

After a whirlwind semester and hectic shuffle, I am now in Mountain View, CA in the heart of Silicon Valley interning for a software company. I landed a job that surprisingly lets me play with everything I am interested in while paying me handsomely. Life has been extremely kind to me and I just hope that I don't disappoint my new employers.

In the first week of moving in, the weather has always been 70-80 degrees and the sun is always shining. From my cubicle window I watch butterflies pass and humming birds sip from eye scorchingly bright colored flowers in jewel tones of orange, blue and pink. There is rarely a cloud in the sky, the grass is emerald toned and I ride my bike through uncarved pathways that run adjacent to entire industrial complexes of famous software companies. Lockheed Martin and NASA take up a portion of the shoreline and from a tram I witness rocket hangers the size of football stadiums with breathtaking awe at the sheer scale and size of land. California spreads its presence and powers side ways as opposed to upwards in New York City.

Google, Yahoo and Apple occupy massive spaces which they call campuses. My new friends tell me, that these companies basically pull geeks out of college and put them into another college environment. Silicon Valley Software Companies have campuses, not offices and in return for asking for hard work and long hours--the geeks are awarded with McMansion condos, high salaries, stock options and a mountain of perks on lush green campuses. Stopping by Palo Alto, I walk through an expensive and beautiful, college town and watch Stanford engineer or professor types with their worn sweaters and jeans discuss physics over Merlot, grilled chicken, polenta and avocado. In Sanata Row, a shopping mall/luxury living complex has sprung up where the ladies who lunch pick at their salad greens, Louis Vuitton shopping bags en tow. San Jose center is clean, green and empty on the weekends as massive buildings support vertical campuses for yet more software and computer companies. It barely feels like a lived in city and over the weekends, the streets are empty and I feel as though I have walked into a suburban corporate "city" in upstate NY.

In the tech housing apartments complexes where they have put me up, I am surrounded by what seems like hundreds Indian families, brought to the Valley by their engineer husbands who work as US intermediaries to India where most back-end software development now takes place. My apartment has a deeply engrained smell of Indian spices to it and every afternoon I take a tram or bike home to see Indian families frolicking on playgrounds. To get around without a car is hard as stores and restaurants are only in shopping mall areas and commonly located on major traffic streets not close to my office or apartment. When I do go out for food I notice that the Asian food is excellent and the produce is always fresh.

Heaven on Earth. Shopper Paradise, dripping of money and a high quality of living, there's a reason why people regard the West coast as "the best coast". But similar to any city, hidden between the lush tech towns I walk into dry, dusty and burnt looking towns where the shopping changes from Gucci to Dollar stores and French bistros and Sushi joints turn to Pollo Loco and Pink Elephant Taqueria. One can get churros in any area of the city but here I get them fresh from a street vendor wrapped in a paper towel, where as in Palo Alto I get dainty sticks on porcelain plates with chocolate dipping sauce. The schools in these towns are fenced in and run down looking with slogans such as You Can! and Apply Yourself! written on the signs next to murals of Mexican culture adorn cinder block buildings.

When I had visited in March, on our drive back from Yosemite I remember driving through town after town of "farmer towns" where farm workers live in modest, small low level houses in latino towns between acres upon acres of orchards and vegetable patches. During the day you can see road side stalls of fresh produce and in sharp contrast to the lush farms their towns are dry and brown. The state of California is officially in a state of drought and yet the tech towns are a lush green shade with water fountains and swimming pools on every corner. Oblivious to the needs of farmers in Salinas and other farm areas who arr scrambling to water their crops.

The power of money and ignorance and an ability to turn a blind eye to the overall needs of a population versus the wants of the individual's lifestyle. It happens everywhere and has been forever. I just realize that after a semester of walking through the Chicago ghetto and studying the dollar a day poverty in the emerging markets that I've just become more sensitive.

ouch

Slow down, you crazy child
you're so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you're so smart, tell me
Why are you still so afraid?

Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?
You'd better cool it off before you burn it out
You've got so much to do and
Only so many hours in a day

But you know that when the truth is told..
That you can get what you want or you get old
You're gonna kick off before you even
Get halfway through
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

Slow down, you're doing fine
You can't be everything you want to be
Before your time
Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight
Tonight,...
Too bad but it's the life you lead
you're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need
Though you can see when you're wrong, you know
You can't always see when you're right. you're right

You've got your passion, you've got your pride
but don't you know that only fools are satisfied?
Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

Slow down, you crazy child
and take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile
it's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two
When will you realize,..Vienna waits for you?
And you know that when the truth is told
that you can get what you want or you can just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even get half through
Why don't you realize,. Vienna waits for you
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

-Vienna, Billy Joel

The Dilemma of Freedom

Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, Boulder, Washington, NY, London, Tokyo, Berlin, Auckland, Shanghai; you can work anywhere in the world you want.

Jobs in websites, jobs in museums, jobs in advertising or design firms. Work for the government, work for a big company, work for a small company, work for profit, work for an NGO. You can work anywhere you want.

A mountain of opportunities, a mountain letters to write, a million paths to take and hundred of places to visit. A mountain of Friends to keep in contact with. A mountain of skills I want to hone, A mountain of topics to explore, learn and master. A mountain of books to read, a long list of art I want to see. A desire to create various types of art, a desire to cook a good dinner for friends. I have no house, no car, no husband, child, pet nor ties. I have an overwhelming mountain of freedom to do absolutely anything I want and I don't know which way to go.

Through childhood to my early twenties, I followed the path everybody told me to go and I was miserable doing it. A few days before I turned 25, I lied in a hospital bed in pain, swearing to make a change. That year I cut the cord and took a leap of faith to do what I really loved. For the last few years I've made decisions based on what I knew my heart wanted and I learned what I wanted and went where I wanted. Fueled by rebellion the leap was tough but I was so happy for making it. But now I've reached a point of confusion, rebel fuel is exhausted and I've lost my way. I'm so far off the original track that nobody knows what advice to extend.

"You have amazing work, a good background, you're smart, you're creative, you can do whatever you want... what do you want?"

I have no clue.

Its a curious luxury, obtained by few, and I'm starting to get used to everything being up in the air. But I wonder, is there anything I can do to make this situation better? Guess its time to make real decisions, carve my own path.

Time for a break?

Typing away furiously as usual at my computer I'm overcome with a dizzy sensation and I realize its back, that stupid mysterious illness. For two days I did as the doctor said and slept/passed out resting and on the third day, the mountain of work has gotten higher and the internship I had lined up has disappeared due to the economic recession.

For the last month I've been sending my resume to every company I could feasibly want to work. Freelancing is easy. Making cash is easy. A generic "internship" is quite possible. Finding an internship in a career path that I want is not. Combined with school, searching for work and this stupid motherfucking annoying as hell symptom that won't go the fuck away, I'm reaching a point in which I'm contemplating taking three months off and just doing causal freelance gigs.

I haven't "rested" for 15 years. Maybe its a sign? Should I just be irresponsible and travel for the summer? (nothing intense) Enjoy life for once?

So many questions and everything is up in the air.

Yosemite

It probably takes a couple of years, experience and better equipment to reach Ansel Adams territory. Never the less, it was gorgeous.

It might be time

WAHOOO! POWDER! YAAAAMAAAAADAAAAA SPRING BREAK TIME! READY TO GO? Laura picks me up and we take the 4 hour trip to Lake Tahoe to go skiing. Nature is smiling at us, its mid-march and our mountain has just gotten a foot of fluffy white powder snow. The conditions are amazing as we "cut-up" the mountains as the first ones on the slopes. I adjust to skiing in powder but still sometimes am not used to plowing through knee deep powder snow with my skis. Falling face forward I eat snow and lose my skis a couple of times, but THAT'S THE BEAUTY OF POWDER, absolutely nothing hurts. After the trip, Lar takes me to a remote national park and we soak in natural hot springs while the snow falls and 20 Russians soak and talk merrily in the pool. After two full days of skiing, we drive back through quaint mountain towns, see sloping hills covered in massive windmills, and drive through orchards and orchards of almonds, oranges and apple trees all starting to blossom white snowy clusters of flowers.

The hotsprings and the mountain range near Tahoe.

Lar drops me off with Yuko and then Yuko proceeds to take me into the mountains of northern San Francisco where we hike for four hours and my weary muscles cramp several times as we climb up. I'm laughing and crying at the same time through the pain but look to the side and see all of San Francisco from high up. I look down and wildflowers are blooming everywhere. Eagles and condors fly overhead, soaring by the dozen and the air is clean.


Don't you want to move here? Yuko and Lar almost say in unison and in the same tone. They've been waiting for me to move out to CA for four years. It's probably time to start seriously considering the logistics to get out here. But for all the nature and beauty of CA, there's also poor public transportation, a life that revolves around a car, slower (not stupid) people and a different value system that I can't always comprehend. The desire to move out here is great, but I still wonder if the West Coast is really right for an up-tight New Yorker like me. I'm not really sure, but its probably time I check it out.

Things I am grateful for

"Lar paid me to get you drunk." Yuko said as she poured me another glass of wine. "Tomorrow we're going hiking, Thursday we'll go to Yosemite, Saturday we're having a BBQ, Wednesday we're having a dinner party, Saturday and Sunday Lar is picking you up and you're going skiing in Tahoe. You can do your work in between."

With a tiny carry-on and a massive backpack, I brought a mountain full of homework, my laptop, and a mountain of books to read--basically running away from Chicago with my homework to California. When I arrived in CA, Yuko picked me up and took me to her home where I proceeded to open up my laptop, finished my mid-term assignments in a 14 hour paper churning session and spent another 12 hours researching the backdrop to doing business in emerging markets. I have two major classes to catch up on and a summer internship to find. Still working but at least in sunny CA, in one of my hard core work marathons, I typed away for the first two days of my vacation and when I eventually looked up, bewildered and blinking. I found out my friends had planned my spring break for me. Back home in Chicago, my friends from grad school send me updates to what I am missing and scold me to actually enjoy part of my spring break. My big sisters call me to ask me updates and offer advice in finding internships. Two weeks ago, 20 people from graduate school came to my apartment and sang me happy birthday as we feasted on Korean BBQ. I received numerous emails from friends all over, wishing me a happy birthday. And of course, my friends in CA are making it their obligation that I drink, exercise, eat well and have a decent spring break.

I still have lots to do, but thank god for friends and family.
That's all, its really simple, but I'm really grateful.

Searching for Jazz

Imagine this. A smoky dark bar on the corner of a quite street corner, unassuming with no major store sign. The insides are run down, aged leather booths, a Formica bar with metal trimming and a mirror that looks a little smoky, plenty dirty. The rest of the room is of old wood paneling, high ceilings, glass light fixtures from generations past, checkerboard tile floor, worn but clean and metal chairs from the 1950s with basic wooden tables. The waitress is a round black women in a stiff bright white shirt and black pants. Proper, warm, sassy with a hearty laugh, she offers you a plastic menu of collard greens, fried chicken, okra, steak, beer, soda or water. An elder black man, immaculately dressed in a white three piece suit walks into the store with an elegant companion wearing a colorful dress and a fur stole. Moments later, I almost bump into the gentleman and he tilts his white fedora and whisperingly says, “‘scuse me baby,” in a deep baritone. The steak was rich, the collard greens salty. The musicians were breathtaking, easy going, full of humor, skill and style. The place was pretty much empty, but smoke and music seemed to linger in the darkness of the bar. Welcome to the Crawford Grill on Wylie Avenue. Welcome to my ground zero of all Jazz/Blues experiences.

In 2001, while still an undergraduate in Pittsburgh, I had a random encounter with Jazz History when my friends decided to take me out for my birthday. My wish was to hang out with my close friends and listen to live jazz music. My friends took up my wish and one night we all piled into cabs to head to a local jazz club. Upon climbing into the cab however, our driver informed us that the place were going to was known for gun shootouts. Staring at our bewildered faces, he took it upon himself to take us to the Hill district and to the Crawford Grill. Little did we know that we’d been dropped into a time-capsule of Jazz history, neglected, overlooked, but completely unforgettable. From the 1920s to 1950s the Hill district in Pittsburgh was a premier black neighborhood and area in which the creme de la creme of the Jazz world performed. The jazz clubs in the area was the birthplace, or incubator, of some of the most influential musicians who produced the purely American art form of jazz. Mary Lou Williams, the pianist and musical mother to bebop innovators Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk was discovered in Pittsburgh. Earl "Fatha" Hines, Errol Garner, Billy Eckstine, Kenny Clarke, Ray Brown, all enormous talents in jazz, all ground breakers, were all discovered there. As the economy and neighborhood fell to dis-repair and crime, Jazz clubs quietly disappeared and we had happened to stumble into the most venerable and last standing Jazz club in the Hill district. The Crawford Grill, in its time, was THE place where artists such as Louie Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington would play and we were witnesses to the clubs’ sad melancholic end-note.

That magical night ended with 8 college students, completely out of place, but utterly excited to have stumbled upon one of the most authentic Jazz experiences we could ever encounter. We ran around, ecstatic about our experience, told our friends and tried to return later, only to discover it had closed its doors soon after our visit. Ever since that visit, I have visited several Jazz venues, in search of that same experience only to discover something else, or to be bitterly disappointed.

My experiences with Jazz in Chicago have been mixed. Upon performing this assignment, I decided to visit Blue Chicago, one of the more popular Jazz venues in the city. Upon entering the club, the artifacts made me reminisce of the Crawford Grill: dark,, shabby, a worn plastic menu, drink choices of beer, beer and beer. The room itself was not very big, around 700 s ft and there was a small empty space for dancing on a gray tile flower. The furniture looked rundown, not polished but worn in recently, without an essence of negligence but over-use. Wooden stools lined up against a metal rail and slender counter where we ordered our beer from a dumpy white waitress in sweats and pony tail. To the right hand back, a small stage awaited performers as tourists started to fill in empty formica tables and cracked red pleather booths. From my experience, Blues clubs have a similar veneer as a Jazz club, but with lower brow tastes and the interior of Blue Chicago wasn’t very different. Unfortunately, in addition to the typical jazz and blues club ambiance, Until bright orange t-shirts, and souvenirs plastered over the top of the bar. The jarringly new orange t-shirt looked out of place and immediately labeled the identity of the club–tourist destination.

Despite a tourist destination vibe, I have sometimes experienced some truly memorable Jazz performances. But sometimes, I have been to slow nights with forgettable acts. Unfortunately, this was one such night–amateur practice night, entertaining but not entirely memorable. For Jazz music to truly be memorable, I once heard that you need “Heart to tickle the soul, Grit to go with the gravy.” Unfortunately, in these performances, both of these were missing. Additionally, attitude, performance and style was missing so while the music was not bad, it did not reach a level of memory in either of these areas. What remained was a sad tourist shell of what Jazz and the blues are really about. A mediocre complaint of a man’s desire to not work, a tepid interpretation of a painful life; the intensity was missing but the beat was right for some dancing. An excited tourist group from Tulsa awkwardly danced for half a number and sat back down on the area. Excitement just didn’t last long,

While going through this experience, I remembered the sad, proud and dying Crawford Grill and I understood why it died. It refused to change and got left behind. As Jazz has lost its original popularity it had a few directions to go: tourist destination or collaborate with the philharmonic and perform for an affluent aging white crowd who grew up listening to the original masters of Jazz. Soulful musicians still exist, but generally in order to continue to exist, Jazz and Blues have had to water down their work to cater to a wider audience. I was reminded of fine art and classical music, desperately trying to retain importance in a world no-longer interested. As a result of disinterest, theatrics, shock value and sex appeal are being applied to keep interest going. That particular night, neither intensity of the soul, theatrics or sex appeal lingered–as a result the experience was tepid, temporarily fun, but hardly as memorable as my experience years ago. In the end, I ask the question, when does attitude, performance and flippancy become a gimmick, or the real thing. I also wonder how to overcome such an intense authentic first experience and where I can find the real thing again. In the end, I also realize that nothing can beat authenticity and proud skill exhibited masterfully, soulfully and exquisitely.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

- Mary Oliver

Can you really make a difference?

He was in his mid to late 40s and constantly battling drug addiction. Coke, heroine, gambling and weed were his vices. He wanted a job and to move into a nice place but he couldn't keep a job long enough to get approval to move in. He didn't have a job but spent alot of time milking the system to manage a household of eight. He was born and raised in the Projects and just wanted to finally get his life together. "This time, this time its going to happen. I'm clean, I can do this. This time, I can do it," he said. By interviewing him, I briefly got schooled in how to sell drugs, who to pay, what product to pick, why it doesn't work anymore. He told us everything and his life story in this interview and then he asked us the pounding question.

"Do you really think this will change something?"

We gulped and laughed nervously. We don't know, we can only try we said. He then pointed towards IDA B. wells and asked.

"What happens to them? They don't have jobs, they do all sorts of bad stuff. I was bad, I know what they do. What happens to them when you tear it down? Are you just gonna let them collect somewhere else? You can't just sweep them under the rug ya know. If you don't take care of them, they'll just flounce around and wreak havoc elsewhere."

We nervously agreed and told him we'd try our best.

When I took this course, I knew what I was getting into. When I joined this school, I knew I'd be learning about people. Now I'm getting schooled daily by people, not just school and there are new expectations to deliver. After our interviews I walked around the elementary school looking at student work. Colorful, clean with papers and cute small furniture, you would have trouble believing the school was almost torn down for being dismally bad. Here are some drawings I saw on the walls. It is new motivation to try my best. If only children were journalists and if only politicians had to answer children as part of their debates, maybe change would actually happen then.

For Jim

I couldn't get a full picture and its through a dirty window but train pics of the Metra for you.

Todays' lesson

What do young people in America want? Given a week and not much direction my team was given the task of trying to figure out how to capture the attention and needs of a younger generation to capture a new market for NPR. Quite frankly there a MILLIONS of businesses that are doing this work and they charge MILLIONs to tell major multinational companies how to do it. My team of four was given 5 days and no money. So I'm pretty sure that I don't know the answer yet. But for a strange reason one of my classmates knew somebody who had teenage boys so completely lacking direction, we decided to interview them. At my school my experience these days have been to go interview people from amazingly varied backgrounds and to try to understand their lives. Saturday morning, I found myself waking up at 7am to go catch a train to Hinsdale, Il and then onto Midlothian Illinois. What followed was one of the most depressing/ eye opening interviews so far.

Upon arriving to the house, I first think the house is pretty normal until I realize the entire backside is utterly under construction and covered in plastic sheeting. The family is very kind and polite and more than willing to answer our questions, but we realize immediately that these people are probably not NPR's target market. The entertainment system is sleek, a Wii, an xbox 360, overstuffed couches and flat panel screen tvs and the kids yell and scream as they play with their Wiis and a massive dog runs around in circles to the front and back. As we interview the family and the kids we start to find that this family is really NASCAR's target market as their house is covered in auto gear, manuals and information. As we interview the boys, we find out none of them read books, they are barely passing/care about high school. Coming from an insulated background I realize that people don't look things up, try new things or really care to know. People actually aren't very curious. They don't really care about where they get their information, about authenticity nor the truth. They don't care to chase things down and most of the times they wait for tv or other mediums to simply feed them their information. If skateboarding gets hard, they quit. After spending weeks, months, years obsessing over information, books and learning, working and trying so hard to overcome daily challenges; interviewing these boys makes me feel really depressed.

This is how it usually is.
These are the people who we're really designing for....
not my sisters nor my friends.
My god I can't believe how blind I am.

For once we questioned our value system and how we judge. The mother and father get along well, make sure to discipline their children and put them through school. They teach them about fixing cars and are actually teaching them a really necessary skill. They don't live opulently, but they have entertainment, a close family relationship and friends in their neighborhood. Quite frankly they're not wealthy, but they seem happy and probably fill the definition of success. This is the reality of most of the world and this is who most products are catered to. And with that realization, we freaked out and spent three days reading every childhood, adolescent development article and pulled all sorts of data regarding media, information, internet and social values. I'm tired, my head is twirling and I can't think anymore... which is why I'm writing here instead.

I still have no clue what young people want. But its a definite first lesson.

Visiting the "Projects"

As part of another project, we are now exploring the Oakland area of South Chicago, an area not so safe and originally filled by the IDA B. Wells Housing project. The Ida B. Wells Homes Housing Project was built in 1941 as a PWA (Public Works Administration) project. It included a city park and was a segregated development for African Americans. In 1961 the Clarence Darrow Home Project was built adjacent to the site, and it was demolished in 2000. In 1970 the Madden Park Homes Project, the last of the large CHA public housing projects, was built on another side of the Ida B. Wells Homes. Today, Ida B. Wells is mostly vacant, half torn down, and in some cases, still occupied by squatters. On the new site, they are currently building mixed income housing called Oakwood shores. We are in the process of investigating this area for school and trying to figure out how neighborhood development can take place in a place that's been pretty scarred historically. Some of the past inhabitants now live there and there are several strict rules involved with moving in.

Ida B. Wells Homes consists of 2 and 3-story brick apartment buildings which are not necessarily bad in and of themselves. However, they were arranged in a configuration that created numerous hidden spaces and pockets between buildings where drug dealing and violence could occur. The site features vast internal spaces which are hidden from view and isolated from the city streets.

A photo of the buildings in the summer time (photos and information from here)




By the clueless insistence and pressure from our advisers, we went downtown to visit the area and get an understanding of what the neighborhood was like. We hopped off the train, only to realize that EVERYBODY was looking at us strangely. One Japanese girl, one Korean man and one Indian girl, obviously not poor, was walking around their neighborhood, walking into stores, taking photos and looking for Oakwood shores. At 30 degrees it was a downright balmy day for Chicago, but the area was oddly spread out, deserted and gray. There were lots of buildings, houses, boarded up, broken windows, cages and old signs. Although it was during the day, walking around was intimidating and we moved briskly towards the development. The streets were pretty much abandoned but at some points passerbys looked at us warily and occasionally asked questions. "WHAT You Doin here? " a woman asked us with her stroller. We pointed to Oakwood shores told her our story. She responded, looking at Ida B. Wells. "I live in another project down south, YOU EITHER STAY OR YOU GO, its up to you"
We realize that Ida B might be considered bad even by other projects standards as she keeps ranting about the residents of the area.

On the way to the projects.

The former community center for IDA B. Wells. At first we walked to the door, trying to get information. After trudging through we realized the place had long been abandoned, stripped and somebody was living there, banging on the pipes.

The entrance to the only supermarket in the southern area of the development. The entrance is beyond unfriendly but inside the store was utilitarian, clean and had a good supply of products. Never the less, the environment of the area is utterly different from the vibrant style of Little Village area. Surprisingly although alot of the houses on the streets are boarded up and pretty decrepit, you can see that the neighborhood was once beautiful, with once beautiful townhouses interspersed. On the streets you see regular cars parked with occasional foreign luxury cars mixd in.

When we returned on the weekend to the area, we soon realized there were alot more cars parked in the supermarket lot and it was a place where everybody was walking around and talking to each other. Apparantly this lot is a hangout spot. Even during the week, some people were parked in the lot, simply hanging out and lounging in their cars.

This was as close as I wanted to venture towards IDA B. Wells. They are planning on tearing this area down within the next year and replacing it with the Mixed Income Oakwood Shores. As we approached Oakwood Shores, we noticed a massive bulletin board of shiny happy people and colors sticking out just like we did in the bleak gray environment.


Walking through the new development, we couldn't believe the markedly different environment that had been created in the area. A Disney-fied neighborhood of beautiful single homes, mixed homes, apartments buildings had sprung up .
Despite the friendly presence of the signs and billboards, when we walked up to the real estate office we soon learned that the doors to a beautiful showroom were locked and would only be opened by phone call. We called and explained our project and got inside to an extremely enthusiastic real estate developer who told us about the entire project and showed us a luxury showroom.

The entire development plan of the area. Currently 1/5th has been built and the rest needs to be torn down.


We walked around the model room and said to ourselves. HERE? You're building THIS, HERE?

This project in the former "PROJECTS" is rather interesting. We'll see how well they do with the mixed income part.

AMERICA! YEAH MAN, YEAH!

On a trip to the Chicago Auto Show, I found myself surrounded by the real America and the testosterone fest of boys, cars, bikes, trucks and muscle cars. As this was my first time ever at a car show, I was surprised to find that concept car aren't as funky. I also realized that this show was quite frankly, a waste on someone like me, who can't tell an accura from a porsche.

Despite my overall lack of real interest in the cars, I had to admit, some of the concept cars were breathtakingly beautiful in their streamline form and styling.

Some were also amazingly HUGE and ridiculous looking. This car/truck/suv/monster makes the original boat station wagon I drove at 18, look like an anorexic supermodel. The details got even better when we walked to the back and found...

A 40 inch flat screen tv and probably one powerful sound system ever built into a car. I see know this is the equivalent and the Hummer limos combined with the tailgating community/drive by hip hop party. I wonder if the gas mileage on this car goes over
10 miles/gal.

The situation got even more interesting when I realized the US military had established a presence there. Soldiers in military garb gave away goodies, spoke to young men, and lured them to the booth with a virtual guitar playing competition. Hard core rock music played in the area as I looked around to notice...


A massive pickup truck with rocket launchers. And..

A tank. Where all the young boys could go inside and play with the controls. And...
A Helicopter. Where once again, young men and boys would go inside and play around with the controls.

When I think about it. Its awfully smart of the military to be there. It is a prime recruiting place with so many young men ogling cars. The rock music and cool "toys" and awesome guys who would tell you all about their work probably could possibly be pretty attractive to the unemployed and technology oriented. God bless people who enlist and fight for our country. They are brave, hard working and deserve all the applause and respect from those of us who would rather pretend they are above it all and apathetic. But it still really irritates me that the military entices people to enlist by making war look fun/cool. Yeah man yeah! Join and you can hang out with the brothers and launch those missiles and drive these tanks. Yeah!

I guess everybody gets their kicks somewhere.

Ethnic Chicago

The thing about Chicago is that once you leave the predominantly White and Rich North side, there are amazing pockets of ethnicity in the west and south. As part of one of my school projects, I am now researching some of these pockets. Last weekend, our visit was to the Pilsen, Little Village area known for a prominent working class Latino population. Combining a visit to a great Mexican restaurant and The American Museum of Mexican Art, we hopped off the 18th st station on the L and was flabbergasted to find an entire train stop covered in art.


Murals of mexican artists, Jesus Christ and Mary, Aztec, Mayan, Olmec art styles and copies of Frieda Kahlo's art covered every inch of the station and my team ran around for 20 minutes taking pictures of the murals on the train station alone. Once we poured out onto the streets we found that the colorful murals were everywhere you can find an open wall.



Who authorizes this? Who sets this up? We asked as we also noticed that every manhole cover on the main street looked like an Aztec treasure.


We walked into store after store, shooting pictures and looking around. Even without the "school" factor of the work, we were completely enjoying our explorations. The neighborhoods you never explore inside your own cities. Without doing this project, I would probably be thinking that Chicago is only about the north side only. Six months after I've moved here, I'm finally exploring a little bit.


At the Mexican art museum, we saw a collection of high quality Pre-Columbian, Mexican, Mexican-American and Contemporary art. The Latin love for color is simply amazing and attention to detail and craftsmanship amazed us. Painting below addresses the Chupacabra, a mythical goat-like devil creature that appears in Latin American culture. Contemporary art addresses the creature and American culture today.

When we encountered this piece of art, it covers an entire wall. At first we thought it was weaving or painting. We eventually found out that they were a million seed beads and out jaws dropped. Other pieces of art included paintings of Diego Rivera's, recreated using feathers.

If you ever find yourself in Chicago's 18th street area. Check out Nuevo Leon. It is a great Mexican restaurant with cheap prices and good food. The store front is really pretty too. Although it probably sounds gross to most, the beef tongue -mexican style is really tender and yummy.