blaze a trail
The following is a piece of a thread of Twitter chat I participated in a month ago.
@skibison: @NOMArchitects A2: Do you still really need to blaze ure own path? Have there not been enough examples to follow? #NOMAchat August 31, 2011, 12:43 am
@MelissaRDaniel: I wish I was tough like the pioneer women b4 me. But y should I struggle w/ same issues they did? @katherinerw @AIAWLS @AWAinLA #NOMAchat August 31, 2011, 12:44 am
@katherinerw: @skibison @NOMArchitects if u’r the only blk woman in your firm – YES! #nomachat August 31, 2011, 12:45 am
Filed under: African American Architects, Women architects | 1 Comment
Tags: african american architect, Architecture, NOMA, the only one, woman architect
growing
We’ve had bad luck with children; they’ve all grown up.
 |
| Flickr Photo by LadyDragonflyCC |
One great thing about community is sharing over time – sharing meals together, sharing news on the street, sharing advice, sharing as you and your family grow. My daughter, an only child has benefited from a friend and neighbor sharing her clothes as she has grown over the past five years. This handing down has been great because my daughter gets barely worn stuff, that she likes, and I get to save some money and time by not having to shop for lots of clothes. This sharing thing was going great until this summer. My daughter has grown almost 6″ in the last year. It feels like it all happened this summer. Don’t get me started on her feet. Continue reading ‘growing’
Filed under: community, home life | 3 Comments
Visitacion Valley Library
I mentioned in my last post that our new neighborhood library was opening at the end of July. Going from a small 2,00 square foot facility to a brand new 10,000 square foot building. I was there yesterday for the fifth(?) time since it opened. The change in atmosphere is amazing. Our old library was busy, but I am pretty sure lots of people who wanted to come to it chose other libraries because it was so small. Saturday the library was bustling. All the tables were full. The chairs were mostly occupied. Kids were reading. People were on computers. Teens were shelving materials. It seems every time I go in someone is asking to get a library card.
It will be interesting to watch over the next year how this new larger library in a new location, three blocks from the old site, changes the commercial corridor it’s on and if it facilitates greater connection in the neighborhood.
Filed under: community | 1 Comment
Tags: Architecture, gentrification, library, san francisco, visitacion valley
no conferences this year
 |
| On our way home from NYC 9/2010 |
2011 is three quarters done and I have stuck to my pledge this year not to attend any conferences. In the past five years I have attended at least one architecture conference per year and several of the years I attended two. I love the networking and professional development.
This year I decided to step back and take a break. I just did not want to do a travel for a long time to get to a large conference, to run around some big facility, trying to figure out another city. I have tried to still foster networking online and by phone email and in person with people here. I have been doing personal reflection and development especially after spending so much time the past few years focused on my career and completing the architecture licensing process.
I was also motivated by my finances. In the past speaking at conferences was an opportunity to get complementary registration and sometimes travel costs covered. Most times, I travel with my daughter so I pay for two. This year I wanted to be with my family for Christmas. Traveling for conferences didn’t leave a lot left to get in an expensive cross-country holiday trip. For the past four years, we have been in California for Christmas with friends or just the two of us celebrating. I am looking forward to being surrounded by family this year. Of course, my daughter will wish for an east coast snow storm.
Filed under: Personal development | Leave a Comment
gentrification (part 2)
In my last post on gentrification I wrote about changes happening in the commercial area to the south of my neighborhood. To the north of my’hood, there are even bigger changes in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco.
 |
| Photo by Eurofruit, on Flickr |
About 10 days ago, a new grocery store opened in southeast San Francisco. The store, Fresh & Easy, is part of Britsh company, Tesco. It is touted as the first new grocery store in the southeast in 20 years. Already the foot traffic has gone from nonexistent to brisk on the sidewalk outside the store. There are over 300 new condos and apartments in a two block radius of the store so it will be an immediate draw for those residents. Additionally, a lightrail train platform is right in front of the store and it has easy highway access. This southern end of the Bayview neighborhood’s commercial corridor, Third Street, is experiencing a turnover form industrial to residential. Two new restaurants are also part of the development here. It will be an interesting fall as Bayview and southeast San Francsico get amenities people have been asking for for decades.
Here are a few articles on the opening:
Filed under: community | 1 Comment
Tags: Architecture, bayview, fresh & easy, gentrification, san francisco, Third Street
 |
| Visitacion Valley Library weeks before completion |
I like my neighborhood. I am pretty sure that a lot of the people who live here would say the same thing. It’s not the busiest or the hot spot where everyone comes; in fact it’s not even on most maps that outsiders see of this fair city. Yet, we are here plugging away trying to be a little neighborhood. We have a coffee shop, a dry cleaners, a couple of bodegas, and the city just opened our new, fancy library. While much of the neighborhood is still as it has been for decades, there is no doubt that changes are coming.
Filed under: community | 1 Comment
Tags: families, gentrification, urban life
What safety net?
Lately I have been thinking about the whole set up of nonprofit, community work in light of the the financial times we are in. I have been asking myself how did we get to a state that Wall Street CEOs, who don’t make any tangible product, earn so much more than average workers, then shelter their money in foundations and such to avoid paying taxes, then community organizations who are trying to support those who don’t earn enough to support themselves go begging to those foundations to get money to help the poor, homeless, mentally ill, elderly, “less fortunate” people. My head is spinning just writing that. It seems like an endless cycle where there will always be people who are getting the short end of the stick and are stuck out in the cold, without a meal, with no support.
Filed under: community | Leave a Comment
Tags: community, families, urban life
Speech to Virginia Girl Scouts
 |
| Photo by Francine Williams |
I had the wonderful opportunity to speak at the Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s 2011 Girl Leadership Recognition Ceremony April 9, 2011. This is the GS council that I grew up in and helped shape me into the person I am. It was a great honor, like giving a commencement speech.
——————————————-
First, let me say thank you to the Commonwealth Council for extending the invitation for me to speak here today. I want to thank my mom and family who always support me. I also especially say thank you to my former leader Sarah Gregory for thinking of me. Because of her, Linda Cole, and women, like them, who gave of their time and talents to Girl Scouting, I am here today. Many people say that sort of phrase in an abstract way but I can honestly say it is true literally for me.
Girls Scouting introduced me to my career field and gave me the opportunity to see and do wonderful things and have adventures. It was a Girl Scout career fair when I was about nine, that I first met a woman architect whose work interested me so much, I began researching everything I could about what architects did and how to become one. A Girl Scouting Wider Opportunity summer camp in high school gave me two weeks of travel and further exposure to the skills needed to become an architect. That summer I also met scouts from across the US who shared my interest.
Filed under: community, Personal development | Leave a Comment
Tags: Commonwealth Council, Girl Scouts, Gold Award, Virginia
When you can’t go home
I’ve been thinking a lot about home lately. Maybe it’s all the crisis happening all over the world – Japan, LIbya, Egypt…Maybe it’s that excitement about 5 teams from my home state making it the March Madness Dance and one looking like a Cinderella…..Maybe it’s family illness making me want to be there just to hold a hand.
 |
| Plymouth, Montserrat Photo by Mike Schinkel |
A show last night got me thinking about what happens when you can’t go home. I was watching an episode of Globe Trekker in which the host was traveling in the Caribbean islands. The last island she visited was Montserrat. The island has an active volcano that erupted in the late 1990s.
 |
| Montserrat map By Turquoise Interactive |
Half the island is now an exclusion zone – no one lives there. There is a line which you have to request a permit to cross. The site of the village there was shocking. Houses had over 10 feet of ash and lava that had come down the mountain. Furniture, papers, belongings were just left in place as people evacuated the village.
Unlike New Orleans after Katrina or even Japan after the recent earthquake, where residents hope to return home, in the southern half of Montserrat, people cannot live there because of the active volcano. For most of us, if we choose to leave “home,” we can choose to return.
How would you feel if you couldn’t return home? What happens to community when people are uprooted permanently from a place? Can that community be maintained?
Filed under: community | 1 Comment
Tags: Caribbean, home, montserrat, volcano
 |
| Yumm! |
February and March is one of the best times of the year. Young girls get to try their sales skills, math skills, organizations skills and probably their parents’ patience during the annual Girls Scout Cookie sale. For a little over six months, I have been co-leading my 4th grade daughter’s Girls Scout troop. It is a great experience, even though at times exhausting. It makes me appreciate all those adults who worked behind the scenes to get me where I am.
But back to the cookies. I love helping the girls with the cookie sale. They get to interact with adults who are usually really excited to buy from them. I love standing at a booth and hear someone say “ooooo Girl Scout cookies!” They share memories of eating them, sometimes sharing with family and friends. Young and old, they all get a little sparkle when they hold the cherished box. The girls hear people talk about their favorites and even engage in some friendly arguing over which is the best – Thin Mints or Samoas.
As we wind down our sales, I hope our girls, many first time scouts, remember this time and the many people who buy because they have this shared experience of enjoying this wonderful treat and helping empower some girls, too.
What is your favorite Girl Scout cookie? or cookie memory?
Filed under: community, home life | Leave a Comment
Tags: food, Girl Scout cookies, Girl Scouts
