High Heels in Winter

Wintertime in New York City doesn’t seem to stop young women from wearing nothing but leggings and a skirt through the slushy winter mess. It seems the cost for looking good in the winter is the inability to feel ones legs. Coming from Maine I’m used to seeing everyone including the “fashionable” people wearing layers of clothing under their jeans, and always a heavy winter coat. This being my first winter in New York I was surprised to see that the way people dressed, primarily woman, did not change significantly even when the streets were cluttered with snow.

I’ve never really walked in high heels, but I’m willing to bet that walking in the snow with even just a three inch heel can’t be easy, and is most likely fairly dangerous. Still I see girls who are presumably going out to a club or even just walking around in heels and skirts. The higher standard of fashion seems to be outweighing the need to be warm or to walk comfortably. It is unacceptable it seems to go out side ones home without looking your best at almost any cost. This may not be the case with everyone in the city but it seems a vast majority of people living here follow the rule that you just don’t wear sweatpants outside. People seem to have this idea that you have to dress a little better if you live in the city, and frankly I don’t object to this idea. The cities population as a whole really does look better.

I’m not what you would call a fashionable person. I try to follow the dress code of wearing what’s comfortable, without being a complete slob. This is probably the result of growing up in a small town in Maine where Carhartt is considered a designer brand. The city however forces me to dress a little better. I came back to Maine during winter break wearing what would have been a normal day’s outfit in the city and met a frenzy of laughs saying, “the cities changed you man, you look like your going out on the town.” You simply don’t wear tighter jeans and a nice shirt to ride around in a truck. However at home I felt the sense again that you could wear whatever you wanted and it didn’t really matter. The city however has rules.

I remember one night that I had gone “out on the town” and had been persuaded to go to a salsa club of some sort. Upon coming to the entrance of the club the bouncer looked down at my shoes, seeing that I was wearing sneakers, said that I wouldn’t be allowed in without dress shoes. I was in shock that the shoes I wore were what were preventing me from entering. I had on a nice shirt, decent pants, and even a damn scarf. The club from the outside didn’t even appear to be all that nice, but still they strongly enforced a no sneakers rule. I was embarrassed by this refusal of entry and left the club with the other two unlucky guys who wore sneakers. This unofficial law would seem to be a contributing factor to why woman even in winter wear heels. If they, heaven forbid, wore something that they could walk through snow in, they surely wouldn’t be able to go anywhere.

Collectors and Their Collections

I recently spent some time walking through a flea market in Chelsea. My urge was to pick up every old picture, every lost relic of the year before and make it my own. This led me to think about the collector's need to collect and display or organize things according to their own satisfaction. The compulsion to collect crosses over into many aspects of society, the best example I could think of was the museum and the ability for an audience to view what a collector thinks is important. Also, a key part of museums and their collections is what they choose not to display and what they choose to downplay. The concept that most interests me when thinking and engaging in discussions of the museum as alive or dead, is the collection and the collected. The questions posed create a conflict between the institution and the art itself that is being displayed.
The shell of an industrial institution, turned art piece or a reflection of its past has become a part of Chelsea recently, with the opening of the Highline, a railroad track turned park that runs along 9th avenue. The Highline is just one example throughout this city of the ways people collect, display, and re-use. However, it seems that museums in this instance, are not as receptive to their public. The public needs to feel the beauty of the art housed inside the museum, instead of simply viewing it.
My impulse to pick up every rusty screw no longer serving its purpose in a door jam, or every wheel bearing no longer aiding the rotation and weight of an Escalade parked nearby is my collection. My collection is a collection of the industrial that is no longer in business. But is that what a museums collection is? Is a museums collection based on the art that has become of no use to anyone, so it is displayed very carefully as to preserve its dignity? I often think that my desire to collect the unused stems from my origins in Buffalo, New York, a once booming steel town, Buffalo’s steel and grain mills stand empty, but imposingly on our waterfront. My earliest memories of driving by them recall a sense that they were and still are very great, but that they are done being used for their original purpose. I was asking the same of museums. It seems as if they may be a shell of their original form and purpose, rejecting their old visions and ideology, they turn to sensationalism and business.
In my mind, the purpose of a museum is to make the viewers feel something through art. If they cannot feel anything, the institution of the museum is no longer affective.
When I walk into a museum, I feel its history. What does the collection mean to those viewers who are experiencing the museum without knowledge of its history. When I work at the Rubin Museum of Art, it is mesmerizing to me the ease with which people are attracted to these religious and historical relics of the Himalayas. I have always been drawn to them because I knew there was a story behind each symbol, position and framing of the art. The wall text does not do the art justice in the least, and the only way the general viewer is able to access this information is through a tour or if you have outside knowledge. The access of museums to the public, the openness of the collection is sometimes blocked by the exclusiveness. No experience can be had because nothing is provided to the viewer.
Is the collection of the museum and its institutions and politics something that is realized over time? So it is not immediately available? I think that museums should be a conveyance for people to have experiences with art. The exclusion of pieces or people within a collection is to the detriment of the viewer, and ultimately the museum as alive. Because if there is no experience with a living thing, no tangible relationship, the living thing will die.

A Life Battle

After thirteen years of remission, Bridget Frosina was apparently cured for good, yet a feeling in the pit of her stomach told her something was wrong.

Frosina was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia at age 3 and underwent treatment for three years with positive results. Her body showed no trace of leukemic blasts in her bone marrow and her blood cells had a normal presence. Nevertheless, at age 16, the symptoms of her cancer reemerged. Upon experiencing back pains, cold sores, and increased amounts of acne, she started routine check-ups with her doctor. An MRI detected an increased density in her back area, which her doctor claimed was normal in childhood cancer patients. Yet despite his comforting words, Bridget knew better. “I looked at my mom and said no, it's back. And like any mother she told me to stop thinking like that. Little did she know, I was right”, recounts Frosina.

According to Karen Seiter, MD at NY Medical College, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia is the most common type of leukemia in children. It is a malignant disease of the bone marrow, in which immature white blood cells are overproduced. The word acute refers to the short span in which the disease acts- it is fatal even after a few weeks of not being treated. After five years of remission from this cancer, a relapse is uncommon. Yet Frosina is the first person to have exactly the same type of cancer after thirteen years of clean health.

In December of 2006, Frosina started a new type of chemotherapy, this time with the use of corticoidsteroids. The new type of treatment was an utter foe to her self-esteem and teenage vanity. Her hair loss, bloating, and weight gain due to the chemotherapy and steroids, naturally triggered a vast amount of self-consciousness. “The first day everyone found out and visited me I sat in my hospital bed and straightened my [remaining] hair and put on make-up and bargained with the nurses to take the IV's out for so long so that my friends wouldn't see me as the sick girl”, tells Frosina. Yet between the side effects of the chemo and the high fevers, which left her septic for up to five days, it was quite a challenge to keep the appearance of not being sick. Rather than pretending, Frosina decided to take control.

Iliana Begetis, Frosina’s best friend recounts the first time she started experiencing hair loss, “She was sitting watching tv and as she combed her fingers through her hair a lock fell. Anyone else would’ve freaked out at that very moment! Instead, Bridget just looked at the fallen lock, got up, grabbed a pair of scissors, went into the bathroom, and chopped all of her hair off.” Begetis talks about Frosina with admiration and pride. Bridget considers herself lucky for being surrounded by people who strived to keep her positive during her disease, “There were days when I just didn't want to do anything and in a way gave up because I was just so tired of dealing with everything. But my friends wouldn't let me be like that and I really believe they are the reason I was the way I was throughout the whole thing.” Yet she did not receive the same amount of support from everyone who surrounded her. Her lack of family support was what affected her the most. She received no phone calls, no letters, and absolutely no manifestations of care from neither her grandparents, her aunts, or her uncles. Yet her inner strength and desire to battle her disease, predominated over any affliction she encountered. In August of 2008, she successfully completed her chemotherapy and has been in remission ever since.

This is her story. I have shared it with you for simply one reason: this story inspires. Everything that she is today connects to her cancer survival. The pain she felt made her human and compassionate; the endurance she gained made her determined and strong; her proximity to defeat made her more eager to succeed; her storm of grief triggered a clear sky of happiness. Right now, as a sophomore at U Conn, Bridget’s main goals lie in her nursing career, living her life one day at a time, and not sweating over trivial things. Lance Armstrong, says we have two options in life: give up or fight like hell. Bridget always opts for the latter- always.

"The Happiness Project" A Personal Pursuit

The following quote by Gretchin Rubin is a been-there-done-that thought I’m sure I can share with a few people: “In that moment I realized, I wasn't as happy as I could be, and my life wasn't going to change unless I made it change.” It’s one of those jump-off points where one asks, “well, great what do I do next?” And then proceeds to make an effort or thinks something along the lines of “ I am happy, I don’t need therapy or anything, I have a good content life.”

The amount of “happiness” and “self help” there is for sale these days makes me further question the success of anti-depression pills and therapists. I’m not knocking everything about the American health care industry I’m just saying, I think that our society is so obsessed with a doctor’s exam and a prescribed diagnosis that we’ve forgotten in many ways that we can heal ourselves. Not to mention, that the answer to our problems or the cure to our illnesses may be even less known and understood by a doctor than by us.

“I decided to dedicate a year to happiness,” Gretchin Rubin blogs about the motive of her project and new book. Author of The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin is a Yale Law graduate and my newfound inspiration for the launch of my own happiness pursuit. I know, call me a biter, but I can’t help but think we’d all be a little less bitter if we spent more time focusing on what makes us happy. The Happiness Project is Rubin’s reflection on a year she spent focusing on finding her own happiness. From health, organization, attitude, spirituality, friends, family and love, Rubin dedicated a month to each new resolution. Creating her own commandments, holding herself to a daily one-sentence journal entry and keeping the whole situation light-hearted by referring to her “secrets of adulthood,” Rubin had the whole process organized into a twelve-month project.

To complement, and I’m sure to get a little self promotion in with her book, Rubin has created a website, entitled “The Happiness Project Toolbox,” where readers can start, chart and blog about their own “Happiness Projects” as well as read up on the projects of fellow bloggers. I’m not going to deny my own excitement about the whole thing, I am a self-proclaimed nerd when it comes to the self-help section of any bookstore and I do like the idea of starting my own “Happiness Project.” This is why, as of yesterday, I have joined the web community of fellow happiness seekers on happinessprojecttoolbox.com. So far I have six Personal Commandments, the two most pressing being “#5. Whatever the present is, be there,” and “#6. Sleep.” Being a noobie to the whole adult scene, I only have one “Secret of Adulthood” but I’d say it is relevant in learning how to feed myself properly: “You sure do spend a lot of money on food, so you might as well be buying the good stuff.”

Granted, my route so far in this journey to happiness is not yet as nicely charted as say, Rubin herself, but two days has given me a rough outline and like she said “every project is going to look different.” Well of course, unlike Rubin I am minus two kids, husband and apartment on The Upper East Side; but when it comes to having the desire to acknowledge every moment of happiness there is and create many more, I am right there. I wish I could get my roommates in on this project. We could start by the self-responsibility of removing the film of food that acquires on the stovetop daily, and then we could all bond over the experience of not waking up to each other’s filth.

I’m excited to see how my progress pans out. My focus for this month is my health: mental, physical and spiritual. I mean sure, I’d love to wake up and look like Beyonce like every other women, but I’d settle for waking up feeling like Toni the tiger over a bowl of frosted flakes, and that’s why I’m starting where all good things do: bed. My focus this week: sleep.

LOEB DORM ROOM SEES INCREASE IN RODENTS

Residents nervous about large infestation

At around 11:00 P.M. on Monday night, a few Loeb Hall residents discovered, caught, and released an additional mouse to their previous rodent infestation earlier this winter.

After returning from her 2D Integrated Design class, Nikki Jean Walker, a resident of Loeb Hall dorm room 7D-2, noticed the same mouse that ran rampant through her dorm room before Thanksgiving break.

“It was dragging its back leg behind it because it was broken,” said Walker.

Walker texted her roommate, Kierra Ray, to notify her about their injured visitor.

“I [told her] I fell in love with the mouse because its leg was broken and it was just chillin’ next to me,” said Walker.

Ray immediately inquired about the mouse after coming back to the dorm when she got off of work.

Soon after, an uninjured mouse emerged from under the refrigerator and ran across the kitchen floor.

“I figured it was a different mouse because it was running faster and its leg was not broken.”

After calming down after their initial shock, Walker and Ray watched the mouse calmly walk around and stop to rest on a dishtowel that was on the floor. Walker requested the assistance of Tyler Howorth, a Loeb Hall resident on the same floor to pick up the mouse and put it an a small empty trashcan.

Pavla Kostich, a resident of Loeb Hall who resides on the ninth floor and regularly visits Walker’s room remembers seeing the mouse a few times while conversing in the kitchen.

“It was so cute. It just scattered around the floor and Nikki was so grossed out,” said Kostich.

The two Loeb Hall residents are now worried about additional mice that may be present in their room and kitchen.

“I’m kind of lying to myself and telling myself that it was the same mouse,” said Walker.

However, it actually was a different mouse. Both Walker and Ray believe that the mouse was a newborn because of its small size. They think that the initial mouse may have given birth.

Emily Butter, a Loeb hall resident who lives across the hall from Walker and Ray is concerned about the rodent infestation spreading to her room.

“I wouldn’t as scared as I would be annoyed,” said Butter.

If mice do appear in Butter’s room, she said she wouldn’t use traps because of her sympathy for animals.

 Walker and Ray felt the same way. After Howorth placed the mouse inside the trashcan, Ray and Kostich released the mouse outside on the sidewalk. They left the trashcan outside with a small bit of cheese.

“We didn’t want it to be too cold or hungry,” said Kostich.

However, Walker was not as compassionate as Ray and Kostich.

“I forgot about it as soon as they took it outside,” said Walker.

New School Hip-Hop

New York- New School student Jackson T. Whalan also known as “The Apsosoul” is currently writing and producing a new concept album that provides a message of peace through the genre of conscious hip-hop. Whalan plans to earn enough money through outside sponsors to fund the musical project in its entirety.
With already $1000 of the $8,700 Jackson hopes to have the album completed by March 31st. Whalan has been using multiple forms of media to promote his album, posting updates on donations, new songs, as well as video’s explaining the albums concepts of peace. Robby Baier says, “the donations keep coming and I’m excited to see the finished results.” With the deadline for the album nearing Whalan has chose not to focus on playing at venues but rather on recording the songs themselves. However Jackson recently preformed at “The Cypher” taking place at Club 7 in Berkshire Massachusetts, but otherwise has limited his performances.
This musical endeavor has been an ongoing project of both writing and recording songs since January 2010 with the help Robby Baier. Baier is a producer at Soultube Music and helps with the production and marketing of the album, as well as “many other creative souls who make music as a means for peace, empowerment, and consciousness.” The album “Now” will as Whalan says hope to “raise awareness of peace lying in the moment, spreading the message that hip-hop can be a means of spreading awareness of the positive and a way for people to come together.” The album will be music that anyone can listen to without prior knowledge of hip-hop, and should reach a wide demographic of listeners.
The Aposoul has been producing and performing music since the age of 14, growing up in Berkshire Massachusetts. He is currently living in New York City and studying at the New School. He plans to incorporate the new knowledge he has gained through his studies into his music. The city has also been a large contributing factor in providing vast opportunities to have his music heard, as well as providing him with inspiration and motivation. He has previously played at venues such as the Nuyorican Café on the Lower East Side, the United Nations National Day of Peace conference, as well as open mics at the New School. Jackson plans to keep performing at venues around the city and spreading words of peace once the album is finished, but right now he is “focusing on taking the album from an idea to a reality.”

Nursery Schoolers Explore Rainforest

By Kimberly Lightbody

On Tuesday, February 9th, the Mamaroneck Community Nursery School will hold a Rainforest Expo in their auditorium, culminating a three-week joint class project which emphasized the school’s “learning through process” mentality. The exhibition, which will showcase the students’ artwork, is the result of a collaborative effort between two classes in the nursery school, with children ranging from those who just turned four years-old to those who will soon be five.

During the rainforest unit, students worked on tasks such as decorating rainforest trees (made out of eight-foot carpet rolls), stuffing paper bags to make monkeys, cutting paper plates to make snakes, and creating leaves with finger paint. This gave the the kids a chance to learn about the rainforest in a fun and creative manner.

“The nursery school’s whole premise is learning through play and learning through process,” says Jeanne Lightbody, who teaches one of the participating classes. “That’s why we don’t do worksheets and we don’t do rote learning. The kids don’t know they’re learning and that’s why it’s so great.”

Indeed, rather than presenting the children with flashcards or memorization exercises, teachers at MCNS try to engage their students with activities and get them excited about the topic at hand. Two weeks ago, a woman came in from the local nature center with live animals to show the kids, including red-eye tree frogs and a boa constrictor, both of which were discussed during the rainforest unit. Such events make the rainforest seem more real and exciting to the kids, really sparking their interest.

“He talks about it all the time; everyday he comes home and talks about the different animals they’ve been making,” remarked a student’s mother. “He’s very excited about it. He keeps asking me ‘How many days until the expo?’”

Another benefit of the nursery school’s rainforest project is that it focuses on something that the kids have little experience with. Both parents and teachers have noted that the rainforest is something exotic and new for the children; it broadens their world perspective and increases their knowledge about different sorts of plants and animals.

“It’s a different topic, it’s different than superheroes or outerspace or dinosaurs, which he’s just naturally interested in and has talked about, so it’s a different topic for him, it’s good,” commented the mother.

Throughout the past few weeks, the students have learned about the rainforest’s different canopy layers, about what kinds of animals live there and what they eat, and about which kinds of plants can be found there.

“We’ve read a ton of books about the rainforest, we sing rainforest songs-- we do a lot with it,” said Ms. Lightbody.

This combination of different, interactive learning techniques aides the school’s mission. Kids become enthralled with the rainforest and proud of their work and achievements.

At the final exhibition, all of the students’ crafts will be hung up and displayed amongst the rainforest trees to create a sort of homemade rainforest for parents and childrens to see.

“That’s when they get really excited about it,” said Ms. Lightbody. “‘Cause it’s right there, they can see it all hanging: eight-foot trees, and snakes, and frogs. They’re very proud. And they love to bring their families in to see it.”