Dinner Pictures on Line

see the Dinner Pictures link below. It's on Snapfish, and they ask you to register - sorry! - but it's free.

The Lawn/Micheal Pollan

I was looking through my notes for another class and saw a quotation given out in the context of the pastoral/urban pastoral:

"Lawns are purged of sex and death. No wonder Americans like them so much."

From Michael Pollan's book Why Mow?. (excerpt at http://www.history.vt.edu/Barrow/Hist3144/readings/pollan.html)

I know we are almost at the end of our discussions, but I think it would have been interesting to discuss the lawn/garden and how it can be both liberating and confining. It also would have been interesting to add the lawn into our discussions of the artifice of the suburb--another space where aesthetic overrides utility (a rigidly maintained lawn as a space where the suburbanite can enjoy nature is acceptable while allowing the lawn to grow naturally and "out of control" is shunned and even made illegal).

There is also some interesting stuff about American's "democratized" the lawn (in comparison to the enormous lawns of English estates) by breaking them up into surburan sized, supposedly affordable plots.

Anyway, this book/selection from it may be a good source for anyone writing a paper/memoir focused on suburbs--and even if you aren't its a pretty interesting read.

Suburbanites Censored

This is hilarious...and so true. Enjoy.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcC66gEtBLo

Conditional Happiness

I realized today that although last class-time I told everybody what I was going to talk about, I never actually posted my topic online. So here it is, for archival purposes. =)

For me, the idea of suburbia is on the whole a positive one. However, I also believe it is a completely unrealistic and impossible way for people to behave. Just like the ideals of communism, utopia, and the hippy movement, I think the suburbia concept is doomed to failure due to the inescapable reality of human nature. Chiefly, I find that on the whole people validate their existence by how much they must struggle to achieve something. Once they achieve it however, discomfort sets in and they become unhappy. Imagine you've toiled and saved your paychecks for the past five years in order to put a down payment on a nice house in a nice neighborhood. When the day finally comes that that house is yours, you feel elated. Unfortunately, inevitably you look at you neighbor's house and realize his patio is bigger, or his front yard is better landscaped, or his lawn is lusher. (The phrase "the grass is always greener on the other side" exists for a reason...) Eventually, after their "big struggle" to achieve the suburban middle-class dream is over, most people begin to quantify their happiness not by what they do or what they have, but by comparing themselves to what their neighbors do and what their neighbors have.
I had a friend in middle school who lived in a very nice brand new neighborhood, the epitome of suburbia, where all the houses where painted in the same color family and everybody's driveway had a minivan in it. When we were younger (and I suppose more innocent to the ways of the world), we both defined out happiness by what we had. She had a favorite doll, and playing with it made her happy. However, and we started to grow up, I noticed that she would increasingly define her happiness by how happy her friends were- if one of them got a new doll or a new dress, she seemed to suddenly feel inferior. It was almost as if she liked it when a friend was down about something because then in comparison she was doing much better than them, and that brought her happiness up. But when something went right for someone else, but not so much for her, that brought her down because now when she compared herself to that person, she was doing worse. This competitiveness in her eventually made our friendship a little cold, but I do think it's a good example of the contradicting nature of suburbia. Suburbia stands for harmony and equality and peace, but people need to struggle to feel alive and in such a setting, this translates to hyper-competitiveness and jealousy. We've all heard the stories of suburban mothers and the way they compete for power in their school's PTA.
Unfortunately, I have not escaped being touched by all this. I do sometimes catch myself becoming slightly depressed when on of my friends' life is suddenly coming together and I'm kind of just coasting along in mine. I am trying to be a better person though, and be happy for other people instead of constantly comparing my achievements to their own.

Carpooling and Videocameras

It seems that a lot of us have cars, but in the interest of minimizing pollution, gas consumption, automobile traffic, and lack of parking, as well as in the interest of promoting a more social method of transportation, I propose that we strive to use as few automobiles as possible tonight. Let's try to have at least 3 people per 4-5 seat car. I have 1 car with 4 extra seats, and I live 5 minutes by foot from Embarcadero Hall.

Also, I'm borrowing a videocamera from one of my housemates, but the more cameras, the merrier...

The image of success

For our video, I want to talk about how the suburbs can be so highly image oriented. As we've talked about in section, it is often the appearance of wealth and success that matters. I had a friend in high school who drove a nice SUV as soon as she turned 16 and who's mom made sure to be driving a practically brand new Mercedes (thank goodness for short term car leases). However, this same girl lived in a small 3 bedroom townhouse with her 5 younger siblings that barely had enough room for all of them. Her mom often slept at her office because she had to work so much just to keep the family going. It was confusing to see such a misallocation of resources, yet it all focuses around presenting an image of success. While this may be an extreme example, I have also been guilty of wanting more than I have, simply to be viewed as something different (maybe something "more") than I am. This type of image obsession is manifested throughout suburban lifestyle, as I can even remember looking at model homes, as the developers put fake smiling family photos throughout the house, and make sure to have cookies baking in the oven so that it smells like a home. From the time a family moves into the suburbs they are highly aware that sometimes life can be all about presentation and nothing about substance. As we all know, the difference between what you see and what you get can be substantial.

The Suburban Burden

As a society we demand too much out of our suburbs. We expect them to be affordable, to be clean, to be safe, and to be homogenous. We turn their streets into playgrounds, their parks into birthday party venues, and their trees into makeshift houses. Adults see in them the California dream. Children see in them what their parents allow them to see, usually happiness, sunshine, and laughter along with the occasional butterfly or rainbow. The point is reality tends to be a completely subjective construction based on one's perspective. Choosing to hear, see, and speak no evil by no means prevents it from happening. We have been conditioned to believe that acknowledging the shortcomings of the suburbs is somehow a reflection on the people who live there. The true "reality" is that the suburbs often turn out to be more than some bargained for.

The secret of the suburbs that I came up with revolves around the idea of personal responsibility and accountability. Too often mischievous activities go unchecked or unpunished in the suburbs. Last year Tesoro High School in Orange County had a pair of students write in their assigned journals how they planned to torture, mutilate, and kill their teacher. Various articles go into great detail and get extremely graphic in describing the students' plot. Both students were suspended for a short period of time and as one article cited, "This being California however the two have continued to play on the school football team." In another copycat death threat, two students at my alma mater left threatening and graphic notes depicting the death of their teacher lying on their desk's after class. Sure enough my former honors chemistry teacher found them and reported the students, fearing her life. Once again the students went before a school board hearing and were allowed to return to school without any consequences. Even the principal of my high school had recommended the two students be expelled. My local paper noted, "We are astounded that a teacher could have death threats and the students be allowed to come back on campus with the perception that they got away with it," Sepulveda said. "They are back at our campus getting high-fives."

In the wake of numerous school shootings, I am amazed that more severe disciplinary action was not taken against these students. I guess what these stories really expose about suburbanites is their relentless avoidance of scandal at all costs. Acknowledging that a larger problem exists would be incriminating for many people. These children are products of their environments and their upbringings, nothing more nothing less. The real secret is that the suburbs don't always do their part to produce fine and upstanding citizens as most of us expect them to.

Here are the two links if anyone is interested:

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_334220021.html

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1152152.php

The knife

I have lived in the same neighborhood for my entire life. Have known all of the same people. And everything has always seemed so normal and safe. I would run up to my best friend's house every night to go play with her and my parents would not have the slightest worry in their heads. One night, my friend and I were sitting in my window-seat which looked out to the front of the house. I saw something move in the bushes across the street. The same bushes that I have just ran past a couple of hours earlier. "What is that?" We stared in the direction and the bush moved more. Then we saw a head of a man peek over towards us. He had caught us. Or had be caught him? Was this Jim who lived next door? Chuck up the street? No, this man was scared that we have seen him. He tried to hide, but we knew he was there. The next morning I woke up only to go outside and try to piece together what had happened the night before. I walk outside and am looking towards the bush on the other side of the road, when I notice something a little closer. I looked down on the grass right in front of my house and there was an huge, old rusty knife laying on my grass. Was this man trying to threaten me? To this day we have no idea who this man was or what he had meant by this knife.

What I Know

First let me preface by stating that as a science major, I have been intimidated by writing a blog that honors English majors could construe critique and criticize. However, I have decided to simply write about what I know, unembellished and unapologetically. I’ll be the first to admit that I have a very limited view, particularly concerning the suburbs. I was born not too far from my current home and I have never moved. I went to private school and grew up in a conservative, republican, Christian home with one older sister and two parents that met in high school and are still married. Despite the homogeny between my self and my family as well as between my family and others, we were different. I was different. I am a first generation Californian and even further removed, I am a first generation American. Being born and raised in California, I never viewed myself as “the other.” It wasn’t until I encountered racism at a very young age did I realize that I was different. The existence of racism in the suburbs is a secret that many would like to deny; however, it is alive and well. Racism is an area with which I am all too familiar. Hopefully with our generation being more educated than ever before, racism will slowly die out, and it will no longer be a secret of the suburbs.

Who's got a car?

Are their any folks out there who'd be willing to give us freeloaders a ride to Chris's house? Let's organize!

Horror in the Suburbs

This fall a 13 year old girl was raped by a man in his 20s. Apparently he had been hanging around the middle school for about a month. A week before the rape, the girl had stayed after school to watch her friends play basketball, and on her way to the bathroom the man approached her. She kicked him and ran away, but did not report the incident to her parents, friends, or school officials because she didn't want people to worry.
Both of the girl's parents work, so she usually walks home from school and spends the afternoon alone. The afternoon of the rape she did not lock the door behind her because she was in a hurry to go the bathroom, so it was easy for the attacker to follow her inside.
Two other girls knew about this and decided to keep it a secret. When the victim wrote her friend a note about how she was planning to kill herself, the girls told their parents, who then contacted the victim's parents. Over winter break the family moved to another apartment complex and all three girls had to give police reports and visit therapists.


This is so horrifying because people move to the suburbs specifically so that they will be able to protect their families from these kinds of incidents. Yet in order to afford to live in this community, parents must work full time, leaving their children home alone for several hours every afternoon. No one is really safe and even in the nicest communities, there are dangerous people. They can easily follow you home without you knowing it, it is easy to forget to lock the door, and you might assume that schools are a safe place with enough people around to notice something out of the ordinary.
Furthermore, this girl did not report this rape in part because she did not want to cause more problems for her parents. In the past few years they have had financial problems, job changes, and they have moved several times, so she thought that her rape to just add to the list of things they had to worry about. The fact that three 13-year-old girls tried to deal with this without the help of any adults also shows that the suburban attempt to protect innocence failed.

Film idea?

Hey guys! What do you think about this for an idea: I want to analyze the "politics" that exists in the suburbs. For instance, the measures that are taken in order to keep the homes in a uniform fashion, as not to disturb the flow and cause a stir up. Also, the actual politics that exists in the burbs, well at least these in places like the OC, that effects everything from the development of the city to funding of certain programs.

Is the suburb the place we think it is?

I believe that the stereotypical suburbia is represented through the idea of similar homes, families, and relaxation. These descriptions almost imply that suburbia is seen as a place of happiness, where all is equal, families are together and relaxes at all times. However, the reality of suburbia is actually far from these stereotypes. Through living in a suburb for all of my life, I have come to learn that not all is what it seems or is described on wikipedia. I have come to learn that suburbia is realistically described through the following phrases: 'spread-out entertainment', 'lacking nature', and through the idea of business parks. These realistic descriptions seem to pertain more negatively than that of the stereotypical image. The idea that there is spread out entertainment does not make entertainment extremely accessible as that of the relaxation of a stereotypical suburbia seems to exemplify. The idea that the suburbia is lacking of nature is interesting in that this place that is stereotypically seen as a nurturing place for a family. However, it is interesting that these communities are completely man made, and lacks nature. I believe that nature is important for individuals in order for them to appreciate, rather than simply seeing identical houses in rows over and over again. Where there is barely any means of reflection through the sights of the patterns of the suburb, nature provides a means for an individual to come to his/her roots and obtain a unique serenity.

Two ideas, one gossipy, one telling

have two stories, sorry for the lateness.

The first speaks to the interconnectedness of the suburbs in Davis. I guess the moral could be "Everyone knows each other, everyone's sleeping with each other and everyone's in therapy"

My best friend since second grade was having a really hard time in highschool and would later on in college, dealing with various problems that she wouldn't get to the bottom of until later. In highschool though, her mom sent her to a shrink that she would talk to once a week. I ended up learning who this shrink (her name I think was Eileen) was because she was connected to my mom. My mom is in AA, and her AA sponsor knew Eileen, because the sponsor's husband had divorced her to be with Eileen. I found this out because my mom and I were cruising through garage sales and we saw the Ex husband and Eileen running one of their own. We stopped and looked through some stuff, (my mom was maintaining safe, non-ex wife related conversation) and I found a black pea coat and a green scarf. About a year later, I was hanging out with my best friend while she still lived in Santa Barbara and she was boredly looking through my closet. She found the pea coat and asked if she could borrow it.
So for about another year, my best friend was walking around, wearing her own former therapist's pea coat, and the pea coat of the woman who broke up my mother's AA sponsor's marriage, without knowing. I didn't tell her until a few months ago because I didn't want her to know that I knew who her therapist was. Turns out she really didn't care, she thought the whole thing was a riot.
Also, epilogue. My mom's NA sponsor might be this therapist's therapist.

This one is more about the hierarchy of the suburban community.
Our neighbor BK had divorced from her husband and was left to take care of three rowdy boys. The oldest was August, who despite being occasionally rough around the edges, (think a young Eminem), was a good kid who loved the outdoors and skateboarding. This was a little after the Columbine shootings occured and August was in highschool. It was after school and August was stopped by a school officer who saw that he had a knife hanging from his belt. Technically they weren't on school property at the time, but August cooperated with the officer and gave him the knife. It was a fishing knife, and his dad had given it to him. The officer later said that August was cooperative and respectful, but it was at the height of the whole zero tolerance fiasco, where kids who brought GI Joe guns to school were being suspended, so August had a lot coming to him, (even though it wasn't during school hours or on school property). They had a hearing where they called in his mom and reiterated every incident August was involved in, in addition to the current offense. His mom didn't have much money or power in the community. He was expelled from the district and had to go live with his dad out of state so he could go to school.

Then in my senior year of highschool, this kid Adam Liston got busted when authorities found a loaded rifle in the back of his truck while it was parked in the student parking lot, during second period. Unlike August, Adam's mom was the head of the PTA. When the school tried to expel him, she got the whole PTA against them. Adam was good at sports and popular amongst a lot of the football players, so they started their own campaign to keep Adam in school. Some of my friends started a campaign to keep him out and make the rules apply to everyone, but in the end, Adam was let back into school. He went to a good college but I don't remember which. The moral of the story:
If your parents are wealthy/still married/prominent in the community, it's okay to bring a loaded weapon to school. Have a blast!

Sex, Drugs, Rock n Roll: The Underbelly of Suburbia

Although I've moved around a lot, I consider my time in Ohio as most typically suburban. I lived on a cul-de-sac in a community with its own homeowner's association and its own park. I had a "gang" of kids on my street that I played house with, romped in the woods with, and played kickball with in the front yard. In high school in New York there were gangs of a different kind. Equally suburban but influenced more by its proximity to New York City, my Long Island community was less idyllic. We were not allowed to wear bandanas or gang colors to school for fear of fights. That didn't stop the three stabbings to occur, two of which I witnessed first hand. One involved two of my close friends, and the blood is still on the street in front of our neighborhood bookstore. Drugs are another facet of the suburbs that isn't much mentioned. Every boy I dated smoked pot, and many did harder drugs. One of my friends, a drug dealer, was the richest kid in school and clearly didn't need the money. Those cookie cutter houses were filled with just as much sex, drugs, and rock and roll as any urban apartment. You just don't hear about it in the media because suburbia is supposed to be a safe haven from all of these things.

Two Suburbias, One in the Same

I have always lived in suburbs. My family thought that they would be a nice place to raise a family, and they were right. I have fond memories of my childhood: barbecues, Boy Scouts, pool parties, Little League Baseball. Most importantly, my family living in a place where there were other kids my age. Having these immediate comrades enabled the neighborhood to grow up together. Most of the houses were the first to be owned by their inhabitants. Within a few years, a nice little community had been developed. Soccer moms and dads would all pile into their minivans and go to the fields on Saturday mornings and top it all off with an evening of drinking with the neighbors. Things were good...on the surface. After a while the darker side of humanity crept into our sphere of utopia. Divorce, adultery, alcoholism, rage...I knew not of these things until the family across the street began to crumble. Pretty soon, those kids had two families; neither one of them complete. I began to realize that things aren't always nice and clean. I became aware that man is evil and insatiable. The real side of people came out when comfort levels were reached. Lust and envy manifested as a result of the inequality of the separate islands of my little housing tract.

I guess what I kept with me from the suburbs is an appreciation for the finer things and order. I have now developed an awareness of the valuable and retarding effects of living in cookie cutter houses. I didn't find myself in the suburbs but I know that they are a big part of who I am as an individual.