Fresh at College

Hey Everyone!

Typically I wander from blog topic to blog topic, not sure where the next entry will take me. This all changed this summer when I interned at New Haven’s City Hall and got introduced to a lot of resources New Haven has to offer a Yale student. Many of these sights, places and people I had never experienced before. I came back to school this fall with the resolve to blog about quirky and interesting aspects of New Haven that a Yale student could discover during their time here.

I really like Farmer’s markets. At home I went to one every Saturday in good weather that had incredible apple cinnoman doughnuts. New Haven has a very strong farmer’s market non-profit, called Cityseed. Cityseed mainly hosts four farmer’s market throughout the city, including Downtown, Wooster Square, Edgewood Park and Fair Haven. Additionally, Westville and East Rock (other New Haven neighborhoods) host their own farmer’s markets as well. I tend to shop at a market and then have a relaxed lunch with friends at Modern Pizza or Pepe’s.

The diversity of products at these markets is incredible. There are the obvious fruits and vegetables, but other vendors can sell soap, croissants and freshly cut flowers. When there is a birthday or special dinner coming up, I always make sure to buy a blueberry or cherry pie made fresh that morning at a local farm.

Another novel stand I look forward to at the downtown market is the Soup Girl. This is a private company owned by two women who cook and package different soups and sell for you to heat up at your own house. The best part about this stand is the fact that the variety of choices changes each week and is often dictated by seasonal ingredients. One day it will be a gazpacho and three months later they will offer a Butternut Squash Bisque.

I think that Yale University also does a great job of fostering relationships between local farms and the school as well. First, Yale offers organic and local sustainable options in every dining hall every day. Even better is when the vegetables come from our own Yale farm. There is something comforting about eating carrots and tomatoes raised a mile from your residential college.

Yale also goes farther to make sure students can understand where their food is grown. Each fall, Yale shuttles students to a variety of farm tours; these are usually the same farms that sell to the dining services. I was able to experience a farm tour this September. I boarded a bus at 7 am, picked fruit in an orchard for a bit and then received a free and delicious brunch made with ingredients from the farm. The best part is I was able to keep all of the apples I picked.

Yale is not surrounded by farm land, but the university does its best to bring fresh and local food to you.

Little Boxes

It started with a book. Actually, a picture book. I found it at the Harold Washington Public Library while searching for just one more text on the World’s Columbian Exposition. I believe it was located underneath Sociology, amid books on affordable housing and appropriate land-use policy.

The book’s cover read “A Field Guide to Sprawl.” In alphabetical order, the book humorously addressed land-use slang, such as “zoomburb,” “piggybacking,” and “privatopia.”

Segue.

Zoomburb: a rapidly expanding suburb

Piggybacking: the process of developers taking advantage of empty and inexpensive space farther from an urban center, jumping over other declining suburbs; this process creates growth in outward rings while inner developed areas depreciate or lose their population to better development outward.

Privatopia: a planned or gated community where physical and social appearances are regulated.

I loved this book. It was a crash course in sprawl terms and went in line with my interest in New Urbanism, sustainable development and architecture. The book combined legal and casual terms for sprawl with beautiful aerial photos of classic examples. It is much easier to understand the concept of a zoomburb if you see the entire community from the air.

I turned the book over at the end, excited to see the author. Dolores Hayden. Hmm, maybe she has other books I could check out. Then I read where she worked. Yale University. What???

Long story short, this small picture book pointed me towards Professor Dolores Hayden of Architecture and American Studies. I was thrilled when I realized that the author of the book I enjoyed worked at the school I attended. The next fall, I immediately enrolled in her class, American Cultural Landscapes. This year, I continued in her class, Suburbs and the Culture of Sprawl.

Professor Hayden is my advisor and has been instrumental in the direction of my studies. I think this speaks to the ability for undergraduates to foster professional or academic relationships with professors here. First, Professor Hayden has helped me plan for graduate school, where I aim to attend MIT or Berkeley for city planning. When I felt limited by the undergraduate catalog in green building, she recommended I speak to a teacher in the School of Forestry department.

Finally, Professor Hayden is one of my advisors for my senior essay. I recently received a fellowship (Thank you Yale!) to study Americanization of architecture in the Philippines, and she advised me on the application process and the research set-up. I will be working with her closely senior year to ensure that my essay is the strongest it can be.

On With the Show

I am getting ready for my Yale Drama Coalition retreat in New York City. The Coalition, or YDC, is the umbrella organization that oversees all theater performances at Yale, including Sudler Productions, the Yale Dramat, the Opera Theater and other shows.

The idea of umbrella makes me think of the acapella group, The Duke's Men, singing Rihanna's Umbrella:

I am having a good time participating in the board of this group. We intend to have a retreat in order to bond, plan the next year out and throw around new ideas for how we can improve theater at Yale. The reason Yale needs a YDC is that there are so many productions that go up each year that this group helps to coordinate everyone’s individual and group needs. We will run around Central Park, eat Thai food and swap favorite Broadway show anecdotes.

Like Forbidden Broadway:

The retreat is set for this Friday, where we would get on to the 5:30 train to the city. However, I found out this week that Stephen Schwartz is coming to Yale on Friday!!

The man who created Wicked, Pippin and Godspell is going to be sitting less than ten feet away from me talking about his work. Someone is going to have to hold me down I will be so excited. This talk is part of the Fridays at Five series sponsored by the Theater Studies department. I have talked to Sheldon Harnick and Alan Cumming (though I think that was hosted by the Yale Drama School). One component of the talk is a master class, where a select group gets to work with a professional on their acting. A group of Yale students will actually get to work with Stephen Schwartz. What!?! I told the retreat group I would be a little late.

A note about anyone who is thinking about participating or auditioning for theater: most of the auditions for shows for the whole semester occur in the first two weeks, around shopping period. It will be less easy to figure out audition dates than dance or singing auditions, because each show does not have a booth at the Fall Activities Fair. The first thing you should do is attend the open YDC meeting in September and hear about all the shows that go up. You will get to hear plot summaries and meet the production teams for each group. YDC will also be hosting a one-hour “What Not to Do at a Yale Audition” session as well. Auditions can be found on the 220 York Street door or at www.yaledramacoalition.org. Sign up quickly.

Segue into some photos from A Chorus Line, the show I directed last semester:

While I have sung and danced in a musical or two, I have found that I really enjoy directing and choreographing. Another thing I would like to advise you guys to think about is not to be afraid to push forward your own projects. It is definitely a good idea to think about assistant directing or stage managing to get to know the theater community and pick up techniques and tips. However, now that it is the end of my junior year, I really wish I had decided to direct by myself sophomore year. If you have a script you wrote in high school or feel comfortable collaborating with freshmen you meet in your building, I would encourage that. There is funding for shows, there are plenty of people who want to be in the shows, and Yale loves your creativity.

Summer? Planning?

January has passed and February has begun, and do you know what that means dear class of 2014? It means Yalies, like me, have to begin thinking about the three month stretch called summer. I don’t know if it’s ridiculously early because it is Yale or everyone in college starts the scramble now.

Cancun?

Backpacking through Europe?

I have kept a pretty loyal plan since freshman year about what I do each summer. Home, study abroad, internship. The first summer I went home to Chicago, spent lots of time with my family and worked at an internship in Chicago. This was good because it honestly might be my longest stretch at home for awhile. The second summer I studied abroad at Cambridge University. Junior summertime has rolled around and its time to think about this summer.

First, I may diver a little from my plan, something that can always happen, I had such an incredible time internationally last summer, I want to explore two or three weeks in another country. Yale has an excellent database of fellowships and grants, so I am putting together the paperwork this month. I am applying for 4 or 5000 dollars to travel to the Philippines. I will use that trip to acquire research for my senior project on Daniel Burnham’s work in Manila. Yale’s fellowship money has allowed my friends to travel the world so the research isn’t just written source based.

Yes. Philippines

But I digress. Back to my plan. I want to work in New Haven. This is because it’s what I want to do after I leave Yale. I am an urban studies major and New Haven is a small enough city that I could start at a young age in the city or private development areas. I also like the idea of knowing what summer housing is available and being able to stop into the Admissions Office (J) when I can. I am planning on applying to more internships, but the one I am most interested in is the President’s Public Service Fellowship.

The President’s Public Service is a paid 8-week fellowship where you are assigned to work at a public service job in New Haven. I applied for City Planning or the New Haven Economic Development Corporation. I was really inspired by my tour of City Hall in my class “New Haven and the American City” where I realized a good portion of City Hall were Yale graduates. I would work forty hours a week improving New Haven.

Hopefully my summer destination.

I have an interview this Tuesday so wish me luck! Hopefully everything goes well.

Schedule Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Shopping period is finally over, my schedule has been signed by Dean Wood, and I now realize that the real academic term is beginning. This is a post- shopping period time where classes are non-introductory and you don’t have the choice of leaving to go to another class at any time. I thought as a junior shopping period would be easier; I would be older and classes would drop into my lap. Wrong. When you are a junior, every class you want or need is usually a seminar with capped enrollment at 15, meaning you frantically shop four times the amount of classes you need.

When all is said and done, I am happy to announce that my class schedule is everything I wanted. I did not settle; I did not cope. On the way, I had to say goodbye to some near winners of the shopping race: Malaria and Lyme Disease, Ecological Urbanism, City of Rome, and New York and the Twentieth Century. There were also ten or more other classes I had on my list that I won’t tire your eyes out with. I am taking Suburbs and the Culture of Sprawl, Sustainability in Science, Globalization and Space, Transportation and Urban Futures, and Advanced Dance Composition.

First off, these classes all make sense because I am in an Urban Studies concentration underneath the American Studies major. After my freshman year, I interned at a film production studio that produced a documentary on Daniel Burnham, a famous city planner responsible for the Plan of Chicago and the Washington Mall.

I had already been obsessed with the 1893 Columbian Exposition (a Burnham plan), and after the internship, I became entranced with the idea of city planning. So my interests at Yale are really any class having to do with a city and then Theater Studies as a double major.

I thought I would just run through a couple of my classes and thoughts on them.

Suburbs and the Culture of Sprawl:

This is my second class with Dolores Hayden after taking her lecture class. I have been waiting to take this class ever since my freshman year, when I circled it in my blue book. Professor Hayden is one of the leading scholars on sprawl and urban development. I discovered her books over a summer, flipped the cover over and realized that she taught at Yale. Professor Hayden is also helping me develop my senior essay. I am applying for grant money to travel to the Philippines to research the Americanization of architecture in Manila and Baguio. For her class, I am planning to write an essay about the effect of wholesale stores, such as Costco, on the suburban landscape.

Globalization Space:

Keller Easterling is a giant in her field, seeking to pair architecture, infrastructure and the idea of a world market into one class. It's an intimidating class because Easterling does not use a lot of conventional terms and her theory is very independent. We use a lot of terms in section such as "infrastructural disposition" and "the form of markets." However, I feel like the course material will become more tangible as the semester continues. For example, last lecture we weighed the pros and cons of building high speed rail in the United States versus other countries.

Sustainability of Science:

In high school, I took five subjects and felt well-rounded. When you get to college, you study in a certain area of subjects (humanities) that you may find yourself scrambling for a credit in another discipline (science) as an upperclassman. I wanted to avoid sciences for non-science majors because I have a strong biology background and wanted to challenge myself. Sustainability of Science is a college seminar that means that with just fifteen people in it, the professor and materials are extremely accessible. I think a semester studying sustainability can ultimately help me when it comes to green design and sustainable cities.

Transportation and the Urban Futures:

I have taken a lot of the Urban Studies courses in the undergraduate level, so this semester I explored possible classes in the Yale School of Architecture and School of Forestry. I found Transportation and Urban Futures at the Forestry School. My friends think I am crazy because the class meets at 8:30 on Thursday far from where I live. However, this topic is so interesting that I am going to go to bed early on Wednesdays to get up early enough. Believe me, 8:30 is much more difficult in college. The class is also going to give me hands-on experience working on the transportation re-routing of Greenwich, CT.

Advanced Dance Composition:

In regards to my second major, I prefer to take classes that are performances workshops, meaning I get to work on a stage or in a studio for credit. I have always been involved in dance theater, but this year I began taking classes with Emily Coates. Emily Coates danced professionally with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Twyla Tharp and Yvonne Rainer, so it is great to work with a professor who has first-hand knowledge of the performance world. I am taking a choreography workshop where we take literary and film sources and interpret them through dance. This Wednesday I led the workshop and created an entirely new dance inspired by the book Space and Place by Tuan.

History of Art (Renaissance to Present)

So you may have counted and realized that this is my sixth class, even though I said I was taking five. Don't worry, I am taking five. I think I attempted to take six once. My mom said I was crazy, my friends said I was crazy and my dean just shook her head and laughed. Denied. So no, I am taking five. BUT I have decided to audit art history. This decision came after my summer session in England where I took a weekend trip to Paris. I spent time in both the Louvre and the Musee D'Orsay. Aside from the Impressionist paintings and the Mona Lisa,

I felt like an illiterate person staring at a book. I just didn't have the background to appreciate the paintings and sculptures I saw. So I am auditing art history in the hopes of absorbing knowledge that will make me much more aware of what I am looking at in museums.

It’s looking like a good semester academically, but I will keep you all posted about how these classes turn out later in the semester.

Break Time

The beach we spent a day at.

Hey Yale 2014! I am writing this blog inside the Fort Lauderdale Airport, after a relaxing four day vacation with my family. We left two days after Christmas and flew into the Miami area, stayed one night, and then drove the entire length of the Keys. I had a very different picture of what the Florida Keys were before I got there. I think I had more of a Bahamas in mind. The Keys are actually a string of islands that never quite left that area of fifties roadside kitsch, essentially a classical Main Street America strip lined with beaches. Once I got used to the quaint wackiness of it all I enjoyed it. I was able to snorkel for the first time, eat conch fritters and exhaustively pursue Key Lime Pie. One down side was the weather is a bit breezy for laying out on the beach without many layers.

Required food group in the Keys.

For my family, this vacation would not have happened on a traditional high school holiday break. Most likely, you were let out the 21^st of December and have to be right back after New Year’s, probably the fourth. The perk of being a college student at Yale is that Winter Break is about a month in length. This allows not only time for your family, but the chance to entertain ideas of trips, and of course loafing around your house as well.

Every other year for me has been playing the fall finals game and getting home as early as possible. My last blog mentioned my fanaticism for Christmas, and that sentiment at school has always meant I am chomping at the bit to fly home on the first or second finals day. Sophomore year I left so quickly I kept getting called by people in my college about hanging out. I had to explain to them I had already left. A little off-tangent, but freshman year I overslept my Connecticut Limo and had a great time paying the 200 charge off. This is my junior year, and I actually was able to take my holiday blinders off and realize that I had a couple of days to spare before heading home. This is also because of an odd layout of the Yale Calendar, where my last final was on the 15^th. Instead of flying home, I went to visit my good friend Lauren at her home in Westchester.

Nothing is stranger than leaving college in a car when you are accustomed to flying. One minute I am standing in the Stiles Courtyard, the next I am in her Jeep on the highway. No shuttle, no baggage security, all very unsettling to me. Lauren found this funny, because she is so spoiled in her short commute. (You may think you want to be as far as possible for college from your parents but you will miss dinner and laundry, believe me). Lauren and I relaxed in her house and the next day did a Girl’s day in New York City. We had tea, shopped and saw Next to Normal, a really moving Broadway musical. I flew out to Chicago the next day.

My cousin and her new sled.

The days up to and on Christmas are a blur, a mish mash of seeing every friend you can, furiously shopping for gifts you have not bursared, and cramming all of your holiday traditions into three or so days. Christmas Eve I opened presents, Christmas Day I opened presents, and I then flew down to Florida to tan my face (not) for New Year’s. New Year’s will be fun, as I am staying Chicago and celebrating with high school friends.

While the days after New Year’s for me will be devoted to a tour of my friends at Big 10 schools, I have started saving for a Yale tradition that I unfortunately am missing this year. Each year the Yale Alpine Skiing Team coordinates a 100 person ski trip to Tremblant, Quebec for Yale students. It is pricey, but it is a week of relaxed ski lodge time with your Yale friends and gives you the ability to meet others. Several of my close friends are going, including my friend Sara that I visited in Miami. I have a whole year to save the money, and I will definitely be there the next year. You may think that your school breaks may be boring after time at college, but they actually can turn into a lot of fun events jammed into one month.

Holly Jolly Yale

I am sitting at work right now trying to blog about the holiday time at Yale. It's difficult right now because it is sixty degrees outside and there's no sign of snow anywhere. Exactly a year ago I had to wade through mountains of snow coming back from Thanksgiving. Well not today. Today I walked out of Stiles in a coat and felt self-conscious. Global warming? Maybe. All I know that it will be nice to lounge on Old Campus for an hour, close my eyes, and pretend it's fall. In December.

Holiday time for me starts the minute I throw my door open and luggage down after my flight back from Turkey Day. I would like to make a disclaimer first. This blog will deal heavily with Christmas, because I personally celebrate Christmas. The great thing about Yale is that even if you celebrate one holiday, you still get to experience different holidays, like the delicious latkes next Tuesday from Yale Hillel. The worst thing about holiday time at Yale is that you are only back for two weeks between breaks. This condenses the revelry and holiday cheer into a short time.

Two of eight of the boxes I am allowed to store at college are filled with Christmas decorations. This includes two trees, eight strands of lights, two advent calendars, wall and door hangings and boxes of ornaments. It's a lot of trouble at the end of the year, but so worthwhile when I open the box in December. The decorations are not only for my room, but for a hopeful takeover of the hallway and maybe the Stiles courtyard.

My trees are cute and all, but the tallest one measures in at a measly two feet. For a hardened Christmas veteran, there is something really special about a tall tree. For the past two years, a small group of Stilesians have gone to a nearby Christmas tree farm and dragged an eight foot tall tree up four flights of stairs. It is decorated beautifully for a month or so and then with no other option, tossed magnificently from the window (we checked for passerbyers below).

Our residential colleges pull out all the stops for decorating and holiday spirit. A visit to a dining hall reveal twinkling lights, decorated trees, bows and baubles. At some point Trumbull College will offer gingerbread house decorating or Branford will have a station for Christmas Cookie decorations. The Saturday before reading week will be the annual holiday dinner, where the dining halls will offer special dinners and the freshmen will go to the Feast of Comestibles in Commons. This is a parade of delicious food sculptures, desserts and even buckets of freshly cooked lobsters. It was one of the most over-whelming feasts I have ever encountered my freshman year.

The reason I keep checking for snow is that the first major snowfall of the year means a giant snow fight on Old Campus. With everyone divided into residential colleges, the competition can get really fierce. Snow forts pop up and trash cans are filled with snowballs ready for battle. This snow fight can last the entire day. People are either in the frosty spree or cowering in their rooms apprehensive of emerging into the melee.

I am going to take in Christmas in New York over reading week. A group of my friends and I are going to hop on a train and walk around Fifth Avenue, Central Park and other Christmas-saturated venues like we do every year. It's a fun difference from time at Yale and New York is magical in the winter. I feel that it can be a cliche that I explore the same places every year, but how can you avoid ice skating at Rockefeller Center or the windows at Henri Bendel's?

Although it is finals times and I have so much work to do, it's a tough struggle of choice between holiday time and everything I have to accomplish. My plan is to stay focused on my goals but still take time to help at a soup kitchen, stick out my tongue for snowflakes and hug my friends in an ugly Christmas sweater. I wouldn't miss this time of year, even with the stress, for anything.