Living Swimmingly

My family came to visit the past weekend; we toured the much-touted Georgia Aquarium, new home to gars and jellyfish and sharks and beluga whales and seahorses and otters!

Definitely click this

Don't aquariums just lend themselves to beautiful pictures? (And no, I didn't use the flash--presumably no blind fish from my photography)

Traffic Video

Melissa, newfound friend and fellow Robertson, advised me of a certain video ridiculing Atlanta traffic laws by...obeying them. Here's the link, enjoy:

I'm funny, click me!

Update on the chemical spill situation (see earlier post): my car is trapped in the parking garage for ten hours at minimum. Hence, dear coworker Helen has driven me close enough to walk and tomorrow I tackle MARTA to get to work. Heh heh heh...if I don't post anymore you'll know it's MARTA's fault. I've actually heard the system is not terrible, but the system hasn't really caught on for the majority of Atlantans, so there likely won't be a comforting crowd of confident commuters.

City Sprawl--Problematic for All

For the Southeastern Council, I'm researching/reading a number of magazines and newspapers relating to innovative grantmaking and nonprofit activity. However, I really like reading, so I tend to just read every article and side-feature (it gets really bad on the Internet--one site always leads to another, until researching recently-created endowments and fiduciary trusteeship turns into a sensational outbreak of avian flu, the hilarious games on Greenpeace's website, or the newly formatted "Thief and the Cobbler").

Back to the point--here's a link to one of those articles that caught my attention and reaffirmed I am not alone in the vicious world of Atlanta traffic:

Page three, "Affordable Housing and the American Dream"

P.S.
Hm...I may not have to battle traffic for a while. Behind the SECF's building on Hurt Plaza and also inside the parking garage (housing MY car!!) has occurred a toxic chemical spill--no one is to leave or enter for a while. *Sigh* Crazy city.

P.P.S.
Facts about the Atlanta commute (I'm really stuck on this topic, I realize--but it's an unavoidable, torturous, integral part of the city):

Daytime population swells by 62% each day by commuters-Washington, DC, is the only American city that beats that daily percentage

90% of Atlanta commuters drive to work for an average of 30 minutes

Working Atlanta families spend 2/3 of their income on housing and transportation combined--the national average is 50%

The bottomline is no matter who you are, getting around the city is taking more work and more money. The growing traffic is a definite deterrent for tourists (I have many friends who won't visit, sole reason being the terrifying roads and drivers--ok, that's the reason they give me :) ); and not only that, the infrastructure is constantly in need of repair; accidents from roadrage, fatigued drivers, and apathetic pedestrians occur faster than you can say ATL; and metro Atlanta is losing skilled workers (including law enforcement officers) and families who would rather live somewhere else where transportation isn't an eternal hassle.

Robertson essay: Being lost--a new find for me

In the course of an average, planned-to-the-minute day, I rarely schedule a time to think, to reflect, to wonder. Now I’ve got three and a half hours for possibly that purpose alone.

I am writing this on the back of my map, sitting in my car on Atlanta’s I-285 Perimeter road, a five-lane, circular highway enveloping metro Atlanta. Just after the five p.m. rush hour, the typically-bustling freeway is now comparable to cars oozing out of a crowded parking lot.

Not only that, but steaming, indiscriminate eighteen-wheelers loom to my right, my left, my front and my rear. If I really wanted to see blue sky, I suppose I could open the sun roof.

I have to be honest with you here: I am not feeling courage or collaboration or community service. All I want is to escape my 72-wheeled box, find the nearest exit to I-85 and find out whether Freedom Parkway will be my ticket home.

Read the rest!

Stone Mountain

We settled down on a blanket amidst dozens of kids and couples, all waiting for the sky to darken and watching a large mountain intently. As soon as 9:30 pm rolled around, fireworks burst from a stage in front of the mountain, booming country music blared, and multicolored lasers traced the graven images of Robert E. Lee, his horse Traveler, and two fellow mounted (yuk yuk) comrades with their horses. Stone Mountain's nightly laser show is a family affair promoting Georgia, homey values, the Southeast, and America--blazingly patriotic and memorable, we sang along with "Georgia on My Mind," "Devil went Down to Georgia," "Rockytop," and "God Bless the USA."

More!

CNN Center, Cyclorama, the Flying Biscuit, Piedmont Park

Too much to do and all too much fun! Check out my trips with some friends to various Atlanta attractions--random facts, observations and general entertainment.

Margaret Mitchell--aka Peggy the rebel

It was wonderful and made Margaret Mitchell , or Peggy the rebel, truly come alive for us. I've found that most museums dedicated to an individual or a famous work tend to gravitate towards hagiography and forgetting human flaws. This one, however, certainly admired Ms. Mitchell but offered an insightful, comprehensive and personal view. Yay! Read Gone with the Wind!

Thangs Ta Do

Includes Emory Autism Center, Screen on the Green (Ferris Bueller's Day Off), dinner at Little Five Points

I'm a bit concerned; I'm starting to doubt that I will be able to see everything Atlanta has to offer in just two months. :) However, I am certainly giving it the ol' college try.

(Just a note in regards to earlier confusion--I'm not working or interning at Emory's Autism Center, just volunteering there when I get a chance, usually on Thursday nights)

.

458: Eat Well, Do Good

I arrived at 9am wearing the suggested T-shirt, jeans and ballcap (I never wear hats, this is very exciting!). After enduring a volley of staff names and retaining none, my mentor gave me a tour around the pantry and kitchen.

Mike the mentor believes in learning on-the-job after a short overview. Thus, he told me to "go in the back, get an apron, and bake a cake." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, not thirty minutes inside the place and I'm baking a banana cake in a pan (more like a vat). It was terrific fun!

All the specifics: what it is, who they are, what I do!

The Carter Center

There are a host of things that I never expected to learn here. For example, learning about former President Jimmy Carter's lifelong commitment to human rights. Random, I know.

TRAFFIC HERE IS HELLACIOUS

You think the title's extreme? Wait till you hear about the jammed, panic-inducing, usually 80 mph, bumper-to-bumper, relentless flood of vehicles all vying for the same twisting, one-way roads every single day.

Yesterday I had the three-and-a-half hour experience of being utterly lost on and around Atlanta's Perimeter, I-285. Goodness gracious, it's just a big circle, right? Right. A simple circle in the same way that you can just look at one spaghetti noodle in a heap of spaghetti and find its end (incidentally, there is a "Spaghetti Junction" in the ATL--no joke).

Lunch with the Crazies

The other day I excused myself from writing press releases for the Southeastern Council for a nice, mundane excursion: lunch.

Later: Suddenly I realized that this thirty-ish fellow with the nicely coiffed hair, suspicious lack of New York accent, and strangely unmarked business card (yes, he gave me his card--had an AOL address on it and no street address--odd, I thought) was asking me out.

Don't Let Atlanta Burn

Lisa shared with us that there was/is talk of exchanging the Atlanta program for another location.

WHY? Atlanta is unforgivably metropolitan, this is for certain; perhaps it is easier for some to live more closely aligned to their normal lives in a city with all the amenities and outlets you can imagine. However, I happen to be from a tiny place (Town pop.: 728) and wanted something different--Atlanta completely qualifies.

Let Freedom Ring

"Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major. Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. Say that I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things in life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say. If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody he is traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain." --the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Info on Internships

Today I have officially met my mentors for the summer. I have the opportunity to intern Mondays through Wednesdays (9 to 5) for the Southeastern Council of Foundations, a regional association of grantmakers and private foundations, or RAG. On Thursdays through Saturdays (mostly 8 to 3) I'll be working at Cafe 458, a local restaurant/employment-aid organization helping people achieve self-sufficiency.

Read for more details!

Catching Up

I stood at the entrance to Burberry, exceedingly curious as to what makes their clothes so ridiculously expensive. Is it the make? Is it the fabric? Is it all just hype? When I entered the clerk smiled at me kindly, noting my age, garb, gaping jaw and judging me (rightly) as a less privileged customer than usual. But why not humor me? I went to a nice beige jacket and held the tag between my fingers--What? 95 dollars? I can almost afford that! I thought with surprise.

Then I tilted the tag (you see, the black ink on the black tag hadn't completely caught the light) and saw another digit prior to the 95. Oh. I backed away from the jacket carefully.

I'll catch up; it'll take some getting used to. By it I'm referring to the mix of people (everyone from fellow students to big-time business owners to the man in the Rastafarian cap waving the flag around in the park), the traffic, the commerce and all the other ingredients comprising the city atmosphere.

More to catch up on

Introduction to Where the Planes Come In

Welcome to the Idiot's Guide to Atlanta!

What I know so far:

Atlanta, Georgia, is an incredibly diverse, Southern city whose suburbs sprawl far beyond I-285 (a gigantic road encircling the heart of the city and known as the Perimeter) and back into history.

Atlanta serves as

• the birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr., famed civil rights leader;
• the residence of Margaret Mitchell, renowned author of novel Gone with the Wind;
• the central hub for many of America's airlines;
• the most popular destination for African-American travelers;
• location of Stone Mountain, one of the largest monoliths of exposed granite in the world;
• the site of the largest 10K race in the world on Peachtree Road;
• the origin of Coca-Cola in 1886;
• the capital of the U.S. state Georgia;
• operations area for over 135,000 businesses, 28 counties and 110 municipalities.

What I plan to do and find out:

I have the exciting privilege of living quite close to Atlanta for roughly two months with sweet, adventurous friends who are fellow Robertson Scholars. That's right--I represent the Robertson Scholarship (see site below) and will be actively working on the qualities of courage, collaboration, ethical principles, intellectual curiosity, leadership and a commitment to helping others and the community. Let me know if you've got tips or questions about anything I post--I definitely would be thrilled to receive comments, be they questions or compliments.

About the title...I should hope I'm not an idiot, but I've certainly accomplished quite a few idiotic feats whilst here in Atlanta (so far we have a tally of walking five blocks in high heels down a sketchy neighborhood and under a dark bridge and bringing queen-sized and single-sheets for a full-sized bed). As many others say, you've just got to laugh at yourself and learn from it. To put it simply, I'm here in Atlanta (and in life) to learn and to act on what is right, so I plan to chalk these experiences up to tuition and share them with yall.



Sources and Places of Interest for You:

Robertson Scholars

Atlanta's Historical Heritage

Fast Facts about the ATL

More stuff than you wanted to know, but I enjoyed it




P.S. I'm using the font "Georgia" for this site--how apropos. Yay! :)