Hurricane Sandy

Hi everybody!! The East Coast has been battling Hurricane Sandy (But mostly its aftereffects) this week, and my suburban New Hyde Park, NY is no exception! The MTA shut down Sunday evening in preparation for the storm and my own home lost power Monday just after noon (I think it was between 1 and 2 PM)! With that loss of power, unfortunately, there was also the loss of heat and hot water as our new water heater requires some power to function 😦

As if that wasn’t bad enough, a rather large tree fell across the street in my neighbor’s front yard…while my brother and I were there! (We’re close friends with the family there) In fact, my friend and my brother had been contemplating a quick CVS run to stock up on candy and other noms and were about to step off the front porch when they saw the tree fall and quickly ran backwards JUST in time to avoid being injured!

The tree brought down a lamppost and a lot of power lines, including the ones that run across the street to our house. I know my block still has no power but even if they do restore power to my area, there are a LOT of fallen trees and tangled power lines that need to be fixed before we can have power.

I’m not sure if it was because of that tree or the 2-3 others that fell along my street, but our cable/internet/phone lines seem to have gone down as well so at the moment, my house is in a pretty bad deadzone as far as technology goes. (Oh right, haven’t mentioned yet, but no AT&T coverage in my area right now as well. It’s usually spotty but atm it’s just gone)

Let’s recap – No power, heat, hot water, internet, cable, phone, cell phone, OR LIFE. Argh!

I’m at my Uncle’s home tonight because I wanted to check my LSAT score (They were supposed to release earlier this week, by Wednesday) but got online only to discover that the release has been delayed to tomorrow. Boooo.

But I am taking advantage of the power and internet access to charge my laptop, write blog posts (You’ll see another one up in a few hours, scheduled to be posted in the morning), check my email, and download hw files for next week.

And also email Professors and inquire what’s going on with our syllabus and what exactly is due next week.

Because ahora, yo no se nada!

HW – Week 2

Social Choice & Politics
[ ] Tuesday: Individual Preferences and Rationality; Analyzing Politics, chapter 2
[ ] Thursday: Voting Rules. Social Choice Functions; Analyzing Politics, chapter 7

Human Rights
[X] Tuesday: Human Rights in International Law, Chapter 2 DONE! 9/10 @ 1:30AM
[ ] Thursday: “Not by Bread Alone . . . but not without bread either.”
[ ] Thursday: “The Full-Belly Thesis: Should Economic Rights Take Priority over Civil and Political Rights? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa,”

Literature & The English Language (Thursday)
[ ] Deformance and Interpretation
[ ] Hot-Air Textuality
[ ] The Alice Fallacy
[ ] The End of the Irrelevant Text

Creative Writing Advanced Fiction Workshop
[X] Wednesday: Read + comment on 2 stories from the week

OTHER STUFF
[ ] First DAC General Meeting – Thursday @ 7:30
[ ] Meeting with Professor Gilman – Wednesday @ 2:00

Poetic Tidbits – Oppen, Reznikoff, O’Hara

Charles Reznikoff, “On Brooklyn Bridge I saw a man drop dead”

On Brooklyn Bridge I saw a man drop dead.
It meant no more than if he were a sparrow.
Above us rose Manhattan;
below, the river spread to meet sea and sky.

George Oppen, from Of Being Numerous, “A Language of New York”

A city of the corporations

Glassed in dreams
And images–

And the pure joy
Of the mineral fact

Tho it is impenetrable

As the world, if it is matter
Is impenetrable.

Frank O’ Hara, “Having a Coke With You”

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

Note: I need to write a 10 page paper tying these together somehow. I will probably leave out the Oppen tidbit as it is from a much larger collection. The paper is due Thursday and I definitely don’t have time to do the piece justice in context to the rest of “Of Being Numerous” although I have so, so, so much to say about it if I could analyze just this one little tidbit. Enjoy the poetry, it’s all very short and sweet. Wish me luck with this paper!

Sorry to be falling behind on Blogging Honesty – I have 2 papers due this week and another due the week after. Then I’ll be done with my semester, wow. I’m really excited for it to be Thursday night lol, when both of these papers will be done. It’s 2AM and I’ve been up since 7 and I am totally WIPED right now. And I don’t really have much work done on either paper yet (1 is an 8 page first draft to be peer edited, and 1 is a 10 page paper on poetry and politics in New York City)

Such fun! Peace out, imma at least start outlining my ideas for the poetry paper 🙂 I’ve already read the pieces for my other paper (Aristotle – gender, sex, desire in Metaphysics, Physics, On The Generation of Animals) and annotated the readings heavily as I went through them looking for the 3 particular themes I’m supposed to focus on. So now it’s just a matter of penning my thoughts and as its a rough draft, it’s second on my priority list. Final paper is actually due 2 weeks from now for that class.

Aiight, good night. I’ll go to bed before 3AM I promise. Need to be up at 7:30 to get ready to get to class on time since I’m at home in Long Island. I was missing the comfort & feeling a tad homesick. I guess I need to be out of NYC to write a paper on it. Ironic.

Final deadlines for the Spring 2012 semester!

Just a to-do list of sorts!

[ ] 8 page draft of final paper (Final length will be 10-12 pages) for Philosophy class due next Thursday, 4/26
[ ] Final paper due by 4/10!
[ ] Final paper (10 pages) for Poetry and Politics class due next Thursday, 4/26
[ ] Final paper (10-15 pages + 5 minute presentation)
[ ] Exercise 5 due  by Monday, 4/30
[ ] LSAT June 11

 

Then I’ll be done! Onwards to summer vacation. So, so so very soon ❤

Spring 2012 Week 4

March 19-22

IMPORTANT NOTES:
Need to obtain books for CLAP and P&PNYC by Monday or Tuesday. Check BobCat first.
Need to finish response paper by Tuesday night

Controversies in Public Policy
[ ] Participate in class, is that too much to ask for -.-
[ ]  Exercise 3 due  March 29

Comparative Legislative Institutions – Due Wednesday
[ ] GLM Ch. 8, 9, 11
[ ] Cox & McCubbins Ch. 5, 6
[ ] Aldrich Ch. 2
[ ]  3-4 pg Response Paper – Do political parties induce political equilibrium or do they simply reinforce existing equilibrium structures in Congress? [DUE MARCH 21] 

Classical Literature and Philosophy – Due Thursday
[ ] Anne Carson (ed.), If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
[ ] Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet (selections)
[ ] Page duBois, “The Aesthetics of the Fragment” in Sappho is Burning
[ ] Blog posts. 3-4 over the course of the week

Poetry and Politics in New York City – Due Thursday
[ ] Bring Frank O’ Hara book of poetry to class

Why the week before Spring Break SUCKS

I’m done with all the assignments I had due before Spring Break. OMG the past two days have been so exhausting.

Too much nonstop studying. I read ALL of Nietzsche’s Birth of a Tragedy, extended version. Then I read about 4 chapters of Politics for one of my classes, 2 quasi-experiments and 2 strict randomization experiments for another.

After all that reading, I wrote a 3 page response paper for one of my English classes. I also finished another assignment due at 8AM. That one was designing a randomized experiment, designing a quasi-experiment, and analyzing one of the assigned quasi-experiments and interpreting the experimental design with regards to the use of regression-discontinuity. Obviously, I had to conclude whether the quasi-experiment resulted in any significant policy improvements as well as pointing out strengths, weaknesses, and improvements.

Talk about a mouthful. That short little assignment, graded out of 10 points,took me several hours to complete. Though just 3 questions, it was totally misleading as each question needed at least 3 pages of writing to answer. 

Yesterday and today basically SUCKED.

Yesterday I studied from like 7PM till 2AM. I finished the Nietzsche and experiment readings (and the readings for the other English response paper) yesterday so I could focus on writing today. I also did case research through Lexus Nexis at my internship for four hours.

Today I spent from 9:30 – 3:00 in class. Then I spent from 3:30 – 9:00 working. 

Then after getting home till about 10 minutes ago, I did nothing but write.

I wrote the stupid 9 page exercise. Then I re-did 2/3 of the questions because they didn’t have enough jargon in them. Then I wrote the 3 page response paper. Then i rewrote it almost entirely. 

UGH. It is 2:33 AM.

Splitting headache.

Need Spring Break. T_T

Spring 2012 Week 5

February 22 & 23
Small week because we had Monday off. I don’t have class Tuesday or Friday 😀

Controversies in Public Policy
[X] 2nd half of ESPMPP Ch. 2
[X] Coal Mine Safety Article
[X] British Medical Journal Article
[ ] Other stuff I couldn’t really find O.o

Comparative Legislative Institutions – Due Wednesday
[ ] Representative Government in Modern Europe: Institutions, Parties, and Government, Chapters 1-3
[X] UK vs. US – Legislative Comparison
[ ] Response Paper 1/4: The Electoral Connection, due February 29th! (On Stewart, Chapters 4 & 5)
[ ] Final paper proposal also due February 29th!

Classical Literature and Philosophy – Due Thursday
[ ] Plato’s Republic, Books II, III, X
[ ] Blog Posts, 1-2
[ ] Midterm Paper DUE MARCH 1!
[ ] Presentation DUE MARCH 1! (On Ars Poetica)

Poetry and Politics in New York City – Due Thursday
[X] Norton pgs 784-804, Langston Hughes

Spring 2012 Week 4

February 13-16

Controversies in Public Policy
[X Assignment #1 due Thursday @ 8AM
[X] ESPMPP Ch. 2
[X] BB Morgan and Winship, Counterfactuals and Causal Inference
[X] BB Fryer, Financial Incentives and Student Achievement, (education experiments)
[X] BB Dobbie and Fryer and Academic Achievement (educational regression discontinuity design)
[X] BB “Mammograms Value in Cancer Fight at Issue (interrupted time series)

Comparative Legislative Institutions – Due Wednesday
Week 1: What is an institution and why does it matter? (January 25)
[X] Stewart Ch. 3
[X] Problem Set #2 – from Stewart Ch. 2
[X] Aldrich, Why Parties?, 3-5

Classical Literature and Philosophy – Due Thursday
[X] Euripides, Bacchae
[X] Plato, Ion
[X] Blog posts. 3-4 over the course of the week

Poetry and Politics in New York City – Due Thursday
[X] Readings from Norton. Not too bad.

Spring 2012 Week 3

February 6-9

Controversies in Public Policy
[X] Read Wainer, “Understanding Graphs and Tables”
[X] Read Wainer, “How to Display Data Badly.”

Comparative Legislative Institutions
Week 1: What is an institution and why does it matter? (January 25)
[ ] Stewart, Analyzing Congress, Chapters 2-3
[ ] Aldrich, Why Parties?, 3-5

Classical Literature and Philosophy
[ ] Heraclitus of Ephesus
[ ] Parmenides of Elea
[ ] Blog posts. 3-4 over the course of the week

Poetry and Politics in New York City
[ ] Response Paper 1. 2-3 pages. Not graded
[ ] idk what else.

Spring 2012 Week 2

January 23 – 26

Controversies in Public Policy
[X] Breast Cancer
[X] Preventing Cancer
[X] Climate Change
[X] Essential Statistics for Public Managers and Policy Analysts, Ch. 5-7

Comparative Legislative Institutions
Week 2: Tools for analyzing legislative institutions (February 1)
[ ] Analyzing Congress, Chapter 1

Classical Literature and Philosophy
[X] Odyssey, Books 1-4 [THURSDAY]
[ ] Adriana Cavarero, “Penelope” [THURSDAY]
[ ] Pick what week you want to present [THURSDAY]

Poetry and Politics in New York City
[ ] Read pp 537-545
[ ] Read & Annotate Hart Crane Poems (The Idiot, Episode of Hands, The Harbor Dawn)
[ ] Must purchase Norton book by next class. MUST!
* Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, 3rd Edition, Vol. 1