Next Year

Well, it's been over a year since graduation, and we're off all over the world doing amazing things.

I've been kicking ass and playing outside in West Virginia, occasionally putting on a bear costume for kicks.



But my brief stint here is almost over, and then I'm off to bigger and better things. And after a month or so of internet searches, resumes, cover letters, online applications, references, phone interviews, skype interviews, and the occasional disappointing email or two, I have chosen my path for next year (or has it chosen me?)

I will be the Wellness Coordinator at Lincoln Middle School in Oakland, OR. That'll be about 3 hours south or Portland, where Meg's going to grad school next year. My basic duties will be to promote bicycling and walking as healthy forms of transportation, local foods and the student garden, and recycling. It's another AmeriCorps position, and it'll start August 31.

Anyone else moving out west next year?

-Vince

Hi Everybody

I wanted to post a few pictures from Georgia, and I got a few now. Here they are:

Above is Keti, Nino, and Cecilia.  Nino is their mother.  Their father was in the village building furniture so I don't have a picture of him.

This is Gio.  He is studying environmental science.  Its a sweet University to go to because its in giant Botanical Gardens that have a great view of the Sea and as many Mandarin Oranges as you can eat around November.

This is Grandma Nanoli.  She is awesome.  She even learned a few words of English.  She knows come eat, I love you, hello, and shit.  The power and water went out at the same time a few days ago and she said "Shit!"  And I smiled and she asked in Georgian if that was proper English. 

This is Grandpa Chope.  He is a cool guy who goes fishing all day.  He smokes cigarettes and hates products made by the Chinese, particularly fishing line.

Keti Number 2 and Gio.  Keti is sort of quite but really nice.
All in all there is Chope and Nanuli, their children Nino, Keti, Dato, and Levan, and their childrens spouses, Alegro, Maia, Dato, and all of their children, Keti, Tamari, Cecilia, Anna, and the new twins Tegla and Nia. 
It is a big but friendly and wonderful family.
So I hope all is well, and power shift goes super well, and y'all get together and learn some cool stuff and make things happen that change things.
Much Love,
Dustin

P.S. Anybody know where Jim is at?  I haven't heard anything from him since last summer.

PowerShift 2011

Hey everyone,

Remember when a bunch of us got together in DC to rally for sanity? It was great to have a central event and place to plan around to meet up. Well, here is another opportunity for us to do that, joining 10,000 other young people trying to make a difference in our environment and economy.

You guys hear about PowerShift this year? It's basically an awesome youth protest/training opportunity to protest against fossil fuels and to encourage a power shift toward renewable and green energy.

It's in DC from April 15-18. Registration is $50 I think but there are scholarships available and an even cheaper deal if you volunteer. In exchange for 8 hours of volunteering you can get in for only 10 bucks. 

Which is the important part of this post - I contacted EAC (energy action coalition, not environmental action club), and they said there's a bunch of these cheap volunteer spots if we contact them with names and contact info. I figured it would be a great opportunity to meet up with old friends who are also going, meet some awesome people, learn interesting things, listen to great speakers (or at least important people - Al Gore, Lisa Jackson) and have a fun time. Also, I have some friends and family in DC if you need a place to stay. 

Anyone down for a weekend in DC? 

Vince

PS Here is some more info about PowerShift:

This spring, over 10,000 young leaders will converge on Washington, DC to stand up for our future. At Power Shift 2011, we’ll stand together to reclaim our democracy from big corporations and push our nation to move beyond dirty energy sources that are harming the health of people and the planet.

You do not want to miss it. April 15-18 - Power Shift 2011 - will be an amazing experience. Talk to anyone who went in 2009 and they will tell you how incredible it was then, and we're going to make Power Shift 2011 even better. Check out this video for a small taste from 2009:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9kgn8uCa-o&feature=relmfu

REGISTER TODAY: www.powershift2011.org

Also, tell your friends and make sure they register as well. The more of us who go, the better it will be!

Email me if you have any questions

Dance Flurry

Happy Winter to all,

Today was possibly the coldest day of the year; -1 in my neck of the woods. Hope you all are staying warm. I checked out Saratoga's temperature at 9 this morning; -18! Sounds like a chilly first day of classes, if it is that time of year.

Which brings me to my point; Meg and I will be traveling up to Saratoga for the Dance Flurry on Presidents' Day Weekend (Feb 18-20) for a weekend of dancing, music playing, story telling, and general merriment. It will also be great to catch up with old friends.

So if anyone is in the general area (ie not Georgia, India, Mexico, Japan, China, or all the other exotic places so many of us are), and have $80 to spare (I know, it's steep) for the full festival or $25 for just a day, come meet up in Saratoga. I bet there will be something fun going on at Skidmore, and I have in mind visiting the Farmer's Market, the brewery and hey, you might even catch me dt. And if you still have your Skidmore ID, you can save $5-10 off your ticket price with your student price.

Hope to see you next month,
Vince

http://www.danceflurry.org/festival/

Jobification.

Hey all,
   I just wanted to drop a quick note to share with you a cool new resource Lucy and I discovered recently... It's a Sustainable Foods Blog. I know not all of you are into that, but I know a lot of you are, so I thought I would give you a heads up. From what we can tell, they post quite often and the jobs are all over, so....check it out!

     In other news, I'm thinking about starting up a small (very small) business, buying high-quality previously enjoyed clothing and screen printing designs on them based on plays on words that I've been writing down over the past year. Anyway, if anyone out there is or knows a great graphic designer or has advice about screen-printing, let me know (I'm in the very early stages of this process). My new email is nate.ykm@gmail.com.

Otherwise, waiting for the tulips. It's cold up here in Rochester.

Best to you all,

Nate

新年快乐！／あけましておめでとう！／Happy New Year!

Hello!

We spent the end of last year reading this blog, really enjoying hearing from all of you all, and talking about posting to it but never really getting around to doing so... so we decided we'd start the new year off better! It's so great to hear about all the things everyone is doing with their lives now that we're out of Skidmore (can you believe we graduated 8 months ago??? that simultaneously seems unfathomably too long and too short an amount of time to have passed). Here's what's been going on with each of us:

Our House

Dani- In June, I moved into a Brooklyn sublet I found on craigslist and started an internship with the Jewish Book Council, a non-profit org that runs a variety of programs geared toward helping Jewish writers connect with readers and helping readers connect with Jewish books. During my second week of work, my boss offered me a full-time, salaried position to start in mid-July, taking me completely off guard and sending me into a downward spiral of short-term life crisis confusion (AHH!). I was hesitant to accept (among other concerns, I was worried that the whole not being Jewish thing might trip me up after a while), but since other prospects were uncertain and I didn't much want to move back in with my parents and work for minimum wage at our local bookstore some more, I decided to go for it. The job has ended up having a lot of perks: ultra friendly, young co-workers; travel within the country (I went to New Orleans!) and internationally (I'm going to Israel!); and perhaps most notably, health insurance! Somehow I've wound up doing graphic design instead of the editing I signed up for, but it's been an invigorating change of pace. After my summer sublet ended, I found a new place with Rob and Zach Rowen that would guarantee us a home in Brooklyn through August of this year. And we all lived happily ever after, cooking tasty vegan meals, exploring the city, and playing just the right amount of videogames.

Rob- After graduation I headed home to southeast MA to start trying to figure out what I'm doing with my life. I got my dad's old (and my first!) car and started looking for work as a summer lab assistant in the Boston area. Unfortunately two weeks later my car caught on fire as I pulled into a parking lot, and I decided that this was an omen that suburban life was not for me (also, yay insurance!). Soon after that it also became clear that Dani would be staying in New York City so, after getting sick from a mystery illness for two weeks and then running away from all of my problems to Switzerland and northern Italy with my family, I took the plunge and moved to Brooklyn. Alas, I've realized I'll probably never get a lab job unless I go to grad school and my ever expanding job search has gone pretty poorly. I'm now trying to find palatable enough temp work to tide me over until June when I am hoping beyond hope that I will get into the Middlebury Summer Language Program for Mandarin Chinese with a scholarship and finally build up conversational fluency in a 2^nd language. In the meantime I'm prepping for the GREs, reviewing language skills I've forgotten, and also hoping to get a really cool sounding unpaid internship at the UN as an environmental policy advisor for a small island nation (a position I was partially accepted to in November but still haven't heard back about my next interview, so we'll see how that goes...). Aside from my lack of employment, and the generally overwhelming vastness of New York City, I am really loving living here. It's not necessarily a place I could spend the rest of my life, but there really is no other place like it.

We live on the 3rd floor of this awesome 1880s house

 

Our living room

 

The big/exciting thing is that we're also applying to go teach English in China in the fall! Till then, come hang out with us before we leave NY – we're south of Prospect Park in Brooklyn on the B/Q subway lines (~40min from Manhattan). 

We even have a spare room and mattress!

Wishing you all the continued best in our first full calendar year out of college!

Rob & Dani

sitting in my new down sleeping bag

hi ho,
there are many lentils in my house right now, and i'm trying to decide what to do with them.  lentil soup, probably.  any lentil recipe suggestions?

i hope everyone is having a good holiday, wherever in the world you may be.
i am in MA currently, had a nice christmas and am so happy there is so much pretty snow!
this thursday, dec 30 i'm heading down to DC with my family, where my parents are meeting up with their college friends.  they have a wonderful tradition of spending new years together (we should do this!)  eli's down there now at his mom's house, so i'll be meeting up with him as well.  anyone in dc area, let me know!

cheers and love,
kate