My first mid-term out of the way!

Well, I got my first mid-term paper of my graduate school career out of the way tonight. The paper was for my Law class which looks at the First Amendment and its implications on Education.
It was a 2000 word maximum paper and you may be thinking, well Joey, that's not so bad. True 2000 words is not bad at all. The problem was that the paper couldn't exceed 2000 words!! After my first draft, I was over by 200 words and hadn't written my last two sections. This paper was a little harder than I thought given that our professor literally gave us what to say and how to organize our paper. I thought, this is going to be cake. I mean, who holds a review and goes over each section of the exam and tells you what legal issues you need to raise? Well, now I know that the real test of the mid-term was whether you can be concise and to the point in your writing. There was no room for BS in this paper! It was state your claim, analyze it and move on to the next claim.
I'm glad that's out of the way (other than a final edit). The only problem is that I have two more mid-term papers looming for next week.
I have a feeling that from now until the end of the semester I will be living in the library.

On a different note, those of you in the education world, I recommend you picking up and reading a book by Jonathan Kozol named The Shame of a Nation. It is about the restoration of apartheid schooling in America. The first half will make you cringe at what is going on in schools across America, especially in predominantly minority schools. I haven't read the second half, as I was assigned the first five chapters for class. I hope to finish the book in whatever little spare time I have this week. My ethics professor, Thomas Sobol, is quoted in the book a few times. It's not often that you are taught by someone who is highly regarded and respected in the education field. This is where I am truly blessed to be in this program. The people I am learning from are amazingly renowned for their work in education.

Okay, so I need to get some sleep, so I can make my final edit of my mid-term before I turn it in tomorrow.

Now You be a Good Boy!

"Now you be a good boy Joey!" Those were the final words I heard my Mamaw say the Saturday before she left this earth to be with the Father Monday, October 15th. Looking back on my life and my interactions with Mamaw over the past week, this phrase keeps playing back in my head. Reason being is that those were the words she always said to me since I met her over 20 years ago every time we would part ways from visiting each other. Our goodbyes always ended with I love you and now you be a good boy. Even now at 29, she couldn't resist telling me to be a good boy, especially since I am living in New York. It was a serendipitous goodbye. No better way for her to tell me goodbye, than for telling me that phrase.
Well, I can honestly say, that I have lived those words to the best of my ability and continue to do so. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, that is why trying to live out Mamaw's phrase is so difficult for me from time to time.
The funeral on Wednesday evening was one of celebration. It was so comforting to know that when her pastor asked her how things were between her and the Lord and she said things are good, it brought joy to my heart knowing that I would see her again when the Lord calls me up to be with Him. The next day at the internment, I witnessed something I never witnessed before at a funeral. The pastor read from Psalm 55:6 which says "And I say, 'Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest...'" Then my step-brother, Chris, goes to a small white box and is given a white dove to hold on to representing the spirit of Mamaw. While Chris was holding the dove, three other doves were set free from the box and flew away. The three doves represented the trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Chris then let go of the dove he was holding. Now here is where the most amazing thing happened.
The three doves flew in one direction and the lone dove, Mamaw's "spirit," went in another direction. The doves right before flying off into the distance all reunited and flew away together. You may be asking what is so amazing about that.
Well, to me it was a perfect representation of the relationship Christ wants to have with us. The birds flying in different directions represented that we are so separated from the love of God, yet the Lord calls us to be Him through Christ, and if we listen and obey and offer our lives to Him, we will be united with Him. Seeing the four fly away together was just that; the Lord calling Mamaw to be with Him. What a visualisation of the Love God has for us. I hope that I've explained it well enough for you to understand what I saw.
I will miss my grandmother tremendously. She was full of life. I can only hope to live a life half as full as hers. I don't think that I will ever hear those words again, but I know they will forever be ingrained in my heart. I can only hope to make her proud by trying to be the best "Good boy" I can be.

Noose at TC

You might be thinking, does it ever stop at Columbia? First there was the Ahmadinejad controversy, and now there is racism.
Yesterday, October 9, a noose was found hanging from the office door of distinguished African American Psychology professor Madonna Constantine. I couldn't believe that this type of thing was happening here, at Teachers College, a place that prides itself in having diversity and equity in education. At the same time, no place is free of racism as long as it is prevalent in our country. TC is no different. AS diverse as our community is here, it doesn't escape the evils of racism.
Today we had a protest of solidarity where the entire college, students, faculty, and administration, stood outside of TC's main entrance to let people know that this college and university wasn't going to stand for actions as cowardice and awful as this. After Professor Madonna Constantine gave her statement saying that she wasn't going to be silenced from the actions of a coward on Tuesday, we walked around the Teachers College campus and then around Columbia's campus before returning for a town hall meeting.
Personally, I loved it. It was the first real protest that I stood behind and believed in.
Racism is horrendous. In the eyes of God, we are all equal. If I am to live a life representative of Christ and help in ending racism, I must love and be accepting of everyone, no matter where they come from.
The fact that racism still exists tells me that our society still has a long way to go in order to have this hate eradicated. One would've thought that we have progressed as a society from these horrible acts, but just as in Jena, La and now in the nation's best graduate school of education, it is evident that we haven't.
This event did cause a great deal of dialogue which is the first step to improving race relations, especially diversity on campus. In the town hall meeting that we had after the protest this afternoon allowed for everyone to not only voice their concerns, but also to hear suggestions about how to better our school as a safe place where diversity is not only embraced but racism is not tolerated.

A month in the city

I can't believe that it has already been a month since I arrived in New York and began graduate school. I think that I have fully adjusted to the hustle and bustle of city life as well as with the workload of being a graduate student.

My classes have been great. Most of the classes I'm taking are practical. It's exciting to know that I will be able to use what I am learning and apply to a school.

I've received my internship for the semester working at a public school in Washington Heights called WHEELS or Washington Heights Expedionary Learning School. It's a brand new school that when in full operatioin will be a a 6-12 grade school. It's a very progressive school where learning is very non-traditional. The students learn through a life experience model bringing in what they know already and don't know from their community and apply it to their learning. It's a take off from Outward Bound. The school puts Out Bound learning models in the classroom. I'm really excited to be experiencing what working in a public school is like.

If you all think about it this month, please be praying for me as I think this will be one of my busiest months this semester. Mid-terms and papers loom in the coming weeks.

So far so good I'd have to say. I can't wait for what the other 7 or 8 months have for me.

TC United-The Season begins

So amist all of my studying, there has to be room for exercise and sport, right? Right. Over the past month, I have been going every (almost) Wednesday and Saturday to play soccer with fellow Teachers College students. We have a blast and get pretty good exercise playing pick-up soccer at Riverside Park next to campus. Playing keeps me involved in the game I love to play and watch.
Well today, we started our intramural season playing in the Men's Graduate Division. What fun it was. I played in the goal, something I haven't done in a while, and did okay. It was great commanding the field from the back though. The goal was tiny, definitely not regulation, and the goalbox felt like I was in a cage. Not my favorite to say the least.
Anyway, we won 5-1. We played really well for a bunch of guys with a variety of experiences on the field.
Great to be playing again!

SNL-One of the last ones in

I preface this blog by apologizing for the length of this entry, but the details of this story are almost unbelievable that I had to include them in here. -JLM

Yesterday, September 29th, I got up at 6am (who honestly gets up at 6am on their day off?), walked down to the subway stop with my friend Jason, and headed down to 30 Rockefeller Center to stand in line for stand-by tickets to see the premiere of Saturday Night Live. We arrived at the Rock around 6:45 to find ourselves in a long line of people who wanted to do the same.
The chances of us getting in with the line in front of us where slim to none. Once we got there, we found out that we can either choose to see the rehearsal or the live show. Thinking our chances were better with the rehearsal we chose to get rehearsal stand-by tickets.

So one would think that the story couldn't get any better, right? I mean we got tickets for the show and our chances were better than going to the live show, and we have the possiblity of seeing NBA superstar LeBron James and Hip-Hop artist Kanye West live. Pretty I cool. That's a story in itself and my day would have been a good one even if we didn't get in. Well folks, the story gets better.

While standing in line, I noticed a diminutive young lady who reminded me alot of a girl I went to college with. I stood there staring for a couple of minutes wondering if who I was seeing was Molly Jeter (She's now married and I didn't ask what her last name is now). I stepped into the street to get a closer look, and I spot another girl who I recognized from Chapel Hill. Right then, I knew that it was Molly I saw because with her was Julie Deladdy, another college friend, along with Claire Whitehill, Terri Gentry (at least that was her last name in college, she's married now), and Julie's older sister Betsy (whose expecting her first baby in Feb). All Carolina girls! What a small world we live in! Who would have thunk that I would run into old college friends that I hadn't seen in six years in New York City? Well I certainly did not. The girls were having a bachelorette party for Julie who is getting married and watching SNL was what she wanted to do.

We all got our tickets and came back to NBC studios at 7:15 to stand in line again and hope we would be one of the stand-byers in to watch the rehearsal. The girls also had tickets for the rehearsal. Oh, I forgot to mention that Jason had accidentally washed his ticket with his shorts earlier in the afternoon and all he had left were three tan balls of washed paper. You know what I'm talking about, the paper all balled up that you take out of your pocket and realize it was a number you needed or a receipt you were looking for. For Jason, it was his way into the show! So he took his little balls of paper and showed them to the NBC people, told them the story (to about three different NBC people) and got another ticket! Unbelievable. I thought, no way Jason is getting in with his paper ball remains of a ticket. He's way too nice to just come down with me thinking they weren't going to let him in line. I was so glad that he got another ticket.

So the first group goes through the metal detectors and half of Julie's bridesmaids go through including Julie. So at least she got her wish, but that left the other half out and we were a few people behind them. Then they said to bring the next ten through, and low and behold I was the tenth one. I got in!
The show was awesome. The studio is small and it was really cool to see how all the skits on SNL were shot. The definitely maximize the space of the studio. Sets are moved by a batallion of set crew workers. After each skit, the actors run to the back to quickly change into their next skit costume.
LeBron was pretty funny and Kanye West was definitely the highlight. The man can put on a show whether or not you like his music. Being at the rehearsal allowed us to see all the skits they were thinking of putting on the show and an extra performance by Kanye.
I think that's one thing I will definitely do again. That is one Saturday I will never forget (other than the studying in between getting tickets and the show!)!

The Feast of San Gennaro, Chinatown, and the Brooklyn Bridge in one day.

One Saturday, a friend of mine and I decided to take a trip to Little Italy and Chinatown. What we found as we got off the subway and made our way to Canal street were sidewalks full of people looking for bargains of every type. Chinatown encompassed Canal street and every where you turned, all you saw was Chinese on the side of the buildings and the aroma of Chinese food everrywhere.
Walking through Chinatown on our way to Mulberry St. we found vendors selling every knockoff designer clothing and accessory you could think of. They say that you could find the real stuff in Chinatown down the little alleys of stores and in the basement. It looked kind of shady to me looking beyond the walls that everyone sees. In Chinatown you could find everything, fresh seafood (you name it, they had it), fruits and vegetables to whole peking ducks hanging in the windows. In some stores, live crabs would be crawling out of their buckets and onto the street. Jason almost stepped on one!

When we made it Mulberry Street, we found the Feast of San Gennaro festival going on.
The Feast of San Gennaro, little Italy at its capacity, is a week long festival where the heart of little Italy is closed to traffic and you get to experience the rich culture and food of little Italy. San Gennaro from what I gathered is the patron saint of Italy, at least of Little Italy, and an entire week of festivities go on here. We were able to watch the parade of San Gennaro commence through the streets. People would come up to the float and give money to be place on the stole of San Gennaro statue.
It was more like a carnival with games lining the side streets and booths full of cannolis and italian sausage ran rampant. The atmosphere was great and the smell of food made your mouth water for everything that was being sold. After we had our share of closterphobia and italian food we walked down to the WTC site and then made our way to the Brooklyn Bridge.
The Brooklyn Bridge was a cool structure in that you can walk across it while cars are crossing it at the same time. The views from the bridge are amazing. The walking path is made up of wooden planks giving you a nostalgic feeling as you walked on them.
So if you are ever in the city in the middle of September, those are some cool places to go and see and do it all in under three hours of you don't plan on shopping in Chinatown!!