On Monday I woke up early and got on the road around 6:30 for the 2.5 hour drive to the University of Virginia. I found out the School of Architecture, where UVA's Urban & Environmental Planning program is housed, was having an open house and I couldn't pass on the opportunity to attend. Once I got out of the city, the drive was beautiful with along the rolling hills on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The leaves of the trees were in differing shades of color change and looked magnificent in the rising sunshine.
In the time I had to wander around before check-in I got to take in the beautiful campus. It is gorgeous!! Now let's remember, I hadn't been out of the city in almost a month so any sort of nature was bound to knock my socks off. And obviously rolling hills + changing leaves will look good on any post card. But with a closer look I was again not disappointed, all of the red brick buildings are beautiful though none pristine. They are used, they are real. After spending four years on a limestone-covered campus in southern Indiana it only seems appropriate that grad. school might be spent with the sharp red brick. Coming here also made me realize how much I miss IU and how much I really love the campus/environment of a large state school.
So I love campus, but I also love the school! While most Urban Planning programs grant an MUP (Masters of Urban Planning), UVA grants a MUEP (Masters of Urban & Environmental Planning) as creating a sustainable future has been important there long before being green became cool. This is important because one of the largest problems with Detroit and other rust-belt-type cities is that sustainable planning wasn't even thought about. In Detroit, there were cars, so they built roads, and cars went faster, so they build expressways...but no one thought about what would happen in the long run. The professors and students through out the day made sure to point out that while environmentalism may include solar panels and windmills, in this context it equally refers to creating a built environment people will enjoy and want to live & work within.
In short, love the program, love the school, LOVE UVA!
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Exciting people on the Metro
This week has been filled with lots of strange happenings, some of them bedbug related and others not. Some of those non-bedbug happenings involve DC’s infamous Metro system. Much like my summer stories of hobos in Detroit, these are things my mother would never want me to experience…story of my life.
Sunday afternoon a group of WLPers was waiting for a Metro, headed to class. On the platform with us was a short man, talking to himself and toting a suitcase. After a few minutes he took what looked like a steak knife out of his suitcase and began sharpening it on one of the metal supports of the Metro. We were all slightly alarmed, but he wasn’t eating on the Metro, so obviously, no problem.
After we boarded the Metro the man sat down near us and began analyzing (out loud) whether each of us might be racist or not. He would identify us as “the brown hair with the white shirt.” He didn’t seem very happy, so I can only conclude that we were all deemed racists.
That was my exciting weekend Metro customer but of course my Monday commute would not be complete without more excitement. While getting off at Union Station, along with hundreds of other Capitol Hill workers, we were in line for the escalator behind a gentleman in a wheelchair. Yes, wheelchair + escalator. The man rolled right on like he knew what he was doing and it went well for a couple seconds, then the stairs started to separate.
The man’s wheelchair began to roll backwards and took out the two rows of people in front of me, my row, and the row behind me. In what must be one of the only moments of solidarity in Metro history the escalator population banned together and slowed the wheelchair’s roll and caught the lovely gentleman inside it. After bracing ourselves we all finished our ascent and the man rolled away like nothing had happened. Those of us behind him were left staring at each other quizzically wondering what on Earth had just happened, and why?
Sunday afternoon a group of WLPers was waiting for a Metro, headed to class. On the platform with us was a short man, talking to himself and toting a suitcase. After a few minutes he took what looked like a steak knife out of his suitcase and began sharpening it on one of the metal supports of the Metro. We were all slightly alarmed, but he wasn’t eating on the Metro, so obviously, no problem.
After we boarded the Metro the man sat down near us and began analyzing (out loud) whether each of us might be racist or not. He would identify us as “the brown hair with the white shirt.” He didn’t seem very happy, so I can only conclude that we were all deemed racists.
That was my exciting weekend Metro customer but of course my Monday commute would not be complete without more excitement. While getting off at Union Station, along with hundreds of other Capitol Hill workers, we were in line for the escalator behind a gentleman in a wheelchair. Yes, wheelchair + escalator. The man rolled right on like he knew what he was doing and it went well for a couple seconds, then the stairs started to separate.
The man’s wheelchair began to roll backwards and took out the two rows of people in front of me, my row, and the row behind me. In what must be one of the only moments of solidarity in Metro history the escalator population banned together and slowed the wheelchair’s roll and caught the lovely gentleman inside it. After bracing ourselves we all finished our ascent and the man rolled away like nothing had happened. Those of us behind him were left staring at each other quizzically wondering what on Earth had just happened, and why?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
