I didn’t add as many words to my initial list as I thought I would.

Here are my 23 words that contain the consonants NT in that order, and no others: aint, annuity, ant, ante, anti, aunt, auntie, innate, into, natty, neat, net, nit, not, note, nut, nutty, oint, onto, unit, unity, untie, and unto. Obscure / questionable words include: neato, nite, and nyet.

Is anyone else getting a boatload of Russian spam lately? It seems very odd….

Yes, I have found the new love

I love blogging

I love photography

but still, i love you too….

Oh, gentle readers…oh, oh, oh.

So this is what last Friday looked like, and the day after that, which was Saturday, and the day after that, which was Sunday, and the day after that, which was Monday:

Just millions and bajillions of drops of precipitation beginning to collide with one another within a cloud formation, creating a “charge separation”–you know what? It’s too long, to explain lightning. [Metaphor alert! Holy cats. I didn't even see that one COMING.]

What I mean to say is that I’m so all-fired-full of lightning and charge separations and et cetera right now that it’s no use writing a blog about apple trees or codling moths or somesuch. It isn’t in me. Electrical voltage whose temperature routinely outstrips that of the sun? Check. Codling moths? Nyet.

So I’m just going to post the poem “Vespers [in your extended absence, you permit me]” and leave ‘er there. Forgive me. It’s all I have to say.

I always feel as though I have to qualify the reasoning behind anything posted here which doesn’t equal the length of the Brooklyn White Pages.

Vespers [In your extended absence, you permit me]

In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, principally
regarding the tomato plants.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow
tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
so often here, while other regions get
twelve weeks of summer. All this
belongs to you: on the other hand,
I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of
that term. You who do not discriminate
between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
immune to foreshadowing, you may not know
how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,
the red leaves of the maple falling
even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.

Louise Glück

Day 28:9/28/08

Honestly, I didn’t do anything today. I woke up, went for a run, and then ate lunch with my family, which was Cerdo, the garbanzo stew that I think is okay, but nothing special, like a majority of the food here, it seems. I walked around for the city a bit, hoping to find something interesting to do, but the problem is that every store is closed on Sunday. Everything. On my walk, probably about an hour or so, I counted 3 open stores, both of which had nothing interesting about them. The culture here is very weird when it comes to the hours that stores are open. As I’ve covered before, everything is closed on Sundays. A good number of stores except for supermarkets are closed on Saturdays as well. On the weekdays, stores are open from about 9-2 and then again from 5-8. During that break, everyone takes a siesta and eats lunch. However, it makes it difficult when I want to buy something after school, like a snack, and I can’t find any store open due to the break. The best part of the day is that I saw a store called “O RLY”, and I’m going to go get a picture of this ASAP, probably tomorrow if I have the chance. I seriously laughed for about 5 minutes at this sign.

Today I spent a good majority of my day working on College applications. I forgot how much these things suck to do. I’m applying to Stanford as early action, so my goal is to get all of my applications in before the end of the month (the time when early action for Stanford is due) and not have to worry about them again. It’s a lofty goal, but I’m pretty sure I can do it, as I’ve got everything prepared and ready except for my essays, which are coming along pretty well. Because of the difficulty of getting School Transcripts and Teacher Recommendation forms when I’m halfway across the world, it’s easier just to do everything at once for all the colleges I want to apply to. The interesting part should come with the transcripts; I don’t know what different colleges will want me to do about the midyear and end of the senior year report, seeing as how I’ve already completed senior year. I’ll soon find out, I guess, because I’m going to call the colleges this week and ask what they want me to submit.

However, I don’t have my college choices completely figured out yet, which is slowing down the process. I’ve made a bit of headway, but nothing that substantial. It’s a hard decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly, and it’s causing me a lot of grief and stress, even when I’m across the Atlantic Ocean.

Today I got to talk to my family over Skpye. I’m talking to them about once a week through Skype, and I e-mail them frequently. I don’t know what Rotary recommends as far as talking to parents, but I could really care less, because I’ll talk to my parents when I want and when it makes me happy to talk to them. I think once a week is good, because then it means that I’m not spending all of my time talking with people back home, and yet it keeps me close to them. I tried to get to bed early so I could start the week off right, and I think that I was successful, getting to bed just before 12, undoubtedly a new record for me.  Tomorrow there will be more to report as I go to school yet again.

Peace.

First, a massive, superlative filled, bestest, greatest, wonderfulest, congratulations are in order for my cousin Nate who found out last week that he has a full ride to ASU Philosophy. The world better watch out for this guy, and college sophomores of the future will be curing his name along with Kant, Descartes and the like in Gen-Ed philo (well maybe not, but it sure would be funny!) Good job man! Grad school is a lot of work, but it is incredibly fulfilling, and worth every drop. Just remember, in the words of my advisor, “Grad school is training, get done, and get the Hell out of my office.”

No real content today. Just wanted to share two way awesome comic blog strips that made me laugh heartily:

As the well seasoned field dude that I am, this comic speaks volumes. No wonder I don’t take Jordan out to the field anymore! Something tells me she doesn’t get all excited about seeing shear layers, eddy shedding, and sediment transport. Alas, the live of a researcher. Nate, watch out!

Awesome. You don’t know how many times this goes on in my head! Peace out.

September 30, 2008

A few weeks ago, a Ukrainian woman walked in the office of a social worker in Bensonhurst. She was crying and desperate for help. She was a prisoner in her own home. Her husband had turned her into his slave. He psychologically harassed her, and abused her in many ways. He did not allow her to take English courses or work to make her own money. She did not have any family or friends and she could not communicate in English.

Like many Russian-speaking women, this 39-year-old Ukrainian woman stopped the abuse with the help of Project Nyet (nyet means “no” in Russian). She left her husband shortly after her visit to the Edith and Carl Marx Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst with the help of social worker Olga Vlafova.

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office has launched Project Nyet to fight domestic violence within the fast-growing Russian-speaking community. This program provides emergency services, financial aid, counseling and legal assistance in Russian. The district attorney established it two years ago and it is funded by a grant from the Department of Justice. Project Nyet also provides counseling and emotional support.

The Russian-speaking community is estimated to be over 500,000 people in Brooklyn and includes neighborhoods such as Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst. The coordinator of the domestic violence program at the district attorney’s office, Cristin Mathiez, said the problem of domestic abuse is particularly acute in the Russian community because recent immigrants are isolated by language and bring with them from their native country a fear of the police, preventing abused women from seeking help and stopping the violence.

Mathiez said that the batterers often frighten their victims with what might happen to them if they call the police. She said that immigrants were more vulnerable because they feared that reporting the abuse would put them in jeopardy due to their immigrant status.

“Domestic violence is all about power and control,” she said. “There is a culture of secrecy: they don’t want their partners to speak about it or learn about their rights.”

Mathiez said that illegal immigrants should not be afraid to contact them. “We don’t care about the victim’s immigrant status,” she said. “We will help anyone who comes to us. We even help them get a legal status in the country if it is an option.”

Project Nyet is the result of collaborative work of several organizations, such as the Edith and Carl Marks Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst and the New York City Domestic Hotline, which provides emergency assistance to victims of domestic violence. The social workers also work with several hospitals and police precincts to reach out to battered women and provide them with legal assistance in order to get the perpetrator arrested. After an arrest is made, the victims are informed of the opportunities available to them and they are immediately referred to a social worker, who helps them seek a safe environment and the option to flee their aggressor and find refuge in a shelter.

Mathiez said that more people are reaching out to them because women pass the information to other women and more people know where to go if they are victim of an abuse.

“We don’t advertise the meeting locations to protect the victims and preserve their safety, but they can call our hotline at any time and get the assistance they need,” she said.

Mathiez said they also reach out to the community through a talk show in Russian on Radio BCE, which gives victims of abuse the chance to hear about the topic and what actions can be taken. Mathiez said that their main goal was to keep the community informed and know what resources were available to help them escape violence.

She said that they worked towards making these women feel comfortable enough to open up and take legal actions against their abusers.

Olga Vlafova, 31, a Latvian social worker at Project Nyet, said that they help anyone who walks in the center regardless of where they are from or if they are undocumented aliens. She said that the organizations involved in the Nyet program worked together to provide a variety of services to help the victims of abuse. The district attorneys’s office provides legal assistance to the victims, and the Jewish Community House provides counseling and psychological support.

Vlafova said that many options are available to the victims, including financial assistance and shelters where they can stay if they leave their abusers. Project Nyet also provides the victims with cell phones programmed to call 911, and the victims have access to a 24-hour hotline that can help them in case of emergency.

However, Vlafova said, regardless of all the opportunities offered to the victims, it is still a challenge for the victims to permanently leave their assaulter. “On average, women leave their abusers seven times before they leave them for good,” she said.

Sabina Zhitomirsky, who runs Project Nyet at the district attorney’s office, said that they have helped hundreds of women, both in Criminal and Family Courts, and that they have significantly improved the lives of many Russian-speaking women.

For emergency assistance, victims can call the New York City Domestic Violence hotline at (800) 621-HOPE or Sabrina Zhitomirsky, counselor at the district attorney’s office, at (718) 250-3186.