Well, I didn’t make the Wind Ensemble. But I did hear some people who I think live on my floor playing chamber wind music last weekend, so maybe I can get together with them. So it goes.
This week has been our first week of regularly scheduled classes and assignments and such. So here’s what my schedule looks like:
Monday: RW1 (9 am – 1 pm)
Tuesday: All-Class Lecture (7:30 pm – 8:30 pm)
Wednesday: War Reporting (6 pm – 8:30 pm)
Thursday: Nothing for now, but I will have radio starting in late October from 6 pm – 10 pm
Friday: Journalism Law (9 am – 11 am) ; Critical Issues (12:30 pm – 2 pm)
You’ll notice a lot of empty time, particularly during the week. But, this time is meant to be reporting. We have regular stories due for RW1 every Wednesday evening. Last week was the elderly. This week was police (I got called by Prof. Gissler on Sunday afternoon to head out to East Flatbush to talk to the community where two policemen were killed in central Brooklyn last weekend). Next week is welfare. I’ve found a 36-year-old guy, a former ex-felon who is dealing with raising his two-year-old daughter, and is going for his commercial driver’s license to be a bus driver soon. I have to go back next week to get the full story. Should be interesting.
I attended a Farsi class on Monday — but it doesn’t seem that I’ll be able to really take it. Prof. Kasheff said that he discourages people from auditing the class, but if I don’t audit it then I have to take it for a grade and pay extra money for it, et cetera. That’s no good. It’s just too much money and effort that I can’t afford right now. But I have gotten to know Nazanin Rafsanjani (no relation to the former Iranian president), who is Iranian-American from Minnesota, but went to Berkeley and majored in PEIS (’02), and worked at KQED for awhile. She’s cool. And it turns out that she dated a guy I knew from my Farsi classes, Nate, who spent a few months in Iran last year. Maybe she can teach me more Farsi, inch’allah.
On Wednesday I had breakfast with my thesis advisor, Joseph Nocera, of Fortune magazine. I pitched him my idea of finding a newly immigrated Senegalese family, which he seemed to like. Now the question becomes, where to find a family. I guess I need to go over to Harlem and start chatting around. And to call Pape Laye’s daughter, who lives around here, apparently.
Last night I had a great dinner with Jon and Denise (Thanks again, guys!). Denise is a good friend of my Mom’s since elementary school. We went to Brick Lane Curry House in the Village, which apparently is a mini Indian neighborhood with a whole curry row all along 6th St. I debated what to order for awhile, but then finally I decided on Goat Phaar:
An excruciatingly hot curry, more pain and sweat than flavor. For our customers who do this on a dare, we will require you to state a verbal disclaimer not holding us liable for any physical or emotional damage after eating this curry. If you do manage to finish your serving of curry, a bottle of beer is on us.
This curry was a thick, essentially stew-like curry, with chunks of goat and made of loads of chili peppers and seeds — almost like a paste. Quite hot but still very tasty. The heat, however, was again overstated, at least when compared to my palette. My mark of distinction is whether or not it makes me cry. The last time that happened was when Boyk and I went to Mariscos La Costa in Fruitvale shortly after it opened. I took a bite of his tostada and cried for five solid minutes. It was beautiful. This phaar, while it was great, managed to get my tearducts to barely react. And yes, I did eat the whole thing. And yes, I did get a bottle of beer (Newcastle) and downed it proudly.
Today was our first Law class. They have us sign up for specific seats so that they can call on us and grill us on the various cases that we’re supposed to have read about the week before, just like in law school. None of us look forward to that. There was a chance to gain semester-long immunity from questions, when it was asked what the year 1476 has to do with censorship and so on (we were talking about prior restraint and the 1st Amendment). A quick Google search revealed that it was the year the printing press arrived in England. Someone else answered (without outside help) before I could. So damn. But yeah, I’m glad I’m not a law student. It’s damned intimidating.
Got a meeting with Kevin McKenna, editor of Circuits this afternoon. Very much looking forward to that.
Oh, and I’m working on a story for Wired News this afternoon as well. Will run on their site on Monday morning.
The subject line is from a Cingular ad that I saw on the subway.
That is all.
