November 2006 Archives
On November 1, the Worldchanging book hit the shelves. I wrote a few pieces for it in the "Retrofitting Suburbia" section about ways to retool suburbia to fight sprawl. The book is chock full of information about sustainable approaches to living on this planet. It reminds me a little of the Whole Earth Catalog at one point in my time. The book is beautiful, too--I love the cover with the shiny, radiating bird.
I'm planning to be in New York for upcoming events surrounding the book. See you there?
We had a wonderful party at the Anchor in New Haven, complete with amazing cake. Today, Birke and I are doing a photo shoot together and then I'm going to write, write, write.
Really, I love birthdays. They're unilateral: everybody gets one. I wasn't drunk and wished everybody a happy birthday. (After all, you say "happy Thanksgiving" and "merry Christmas" and "happy holidays" -- why should birthdays be unidirectional?) So happy birthday to you on my birthday.
November is almost done. I'm almost 35. Ugh. Here are a few posts about what's been up.
First, on November 4, 2006, my brother Andy married his longtime girlfriend Carrie. Andy and Carrie are the parents of Jack (almost 7) and Maddie, aka Mamie (age 2) and have been together for close to nine years. It was a wonderful, touching ceremony. Everybody looked great and had a great time. The ceremony was in St. Paul, Minnesota, at the Fort Snelling Chapel. Enrique came with me and has now officially met almost my entire family.
On either side of that trip to Minneapolis, Enrique and I visited PhD programs. If it's not been clear already, that's what I hope comes next: starting a PhD program in architecture in the fall. Right before Halloween, we went to Cambridge to visit MIT and Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Right after my brother's wedding, we attended the Princeton Open House (and got to see our friends Joy and Sara, who graduated from our program in May 2006).
I'll talk more in the next post about what I've been doing the last two weeks: research at the Centre for Canadian Architecture in Montreal. It may have to wait, though: we're in downtown Montreal as I write this and we're about to hop in the car to drive back to New Haven for Thanksgiving.
... while Dems in the Senate rock it.
Today, I sent this note to Harvey Jacobs, the urban planning professor I had in 1994. He taught Green Politics.
Dear Professor Jacobs,
In 1994, I took your Green Politics class as a senior German major. I wouldn't expect you to remember me, but our final project was on the history of Madison's waste management and landfills.
But that's not why I write. Yours was the first class, the day after the election in 1994, when the Democrats lost so heavily to the Republicans. When you walked into class, you started our discussion with, "Are you depressed? I'm depressed." The one hopeful thing you mentioned was that eventually, the pendulum would have to swing back. I had to think of that last night as election returns came in--that maybe indeed, the pendulum is swinging back.
I have to wonder, what will you say to your class this week?
Best regards,
Molly Steenson
If I were teaching, I'd say I was hopeful for the first time in many, many years.
