Day: July 25, 2006

|—————————————–|
| Blagden Alley Association |
| Monthly Meeting |
| |
| –> Candidates Forum <-- |
| |
| THURSDAY, July 27, 2006 |
| 7:30-9:00 pm |
| Paul Harrison’s |
| 932 O Street, NW |
|—————————————–|

The newsletter is at

http://www.pro-messenger.com/Blagden/Monthly%20Pages/2006%20Monthly%20Pages/BAN_2006_07_P1.html

The top contenders for

Mayor,
City Council Chair, and
At-Large Councilmember

in the September Democratic Primary election
have been invited to the biennial forum.

Most have replied positively. (That means they said yes,
but they are all doing thousands of things
these days.) Historically, most will be there.
We have lots of votng homeowners.
Candidates like that.

So the topic is politics.

The DC metro area has some 30 odd schools. Some of I had heard about before I arrived here, like Georgetown, Howard, George Mason and Univ of Maryland (Go Terps!). I did know about American as it was the school I briefly looked at when looking around for a graduate history program. Brief as in I saw the price tag and never gave it another fleeting thought.
I inwardly cringe when I talk to people going to American who are also struggling financially. I keep thinking of the associate I knew, whose parents were always struggling, and she went to American and had to drop out just short of graduation. Complete waste of money. If she was going to a state school the grants and other aid would have covered her. When reading today’s op-ed bit in the Post, I was a little sympathetic of the author till I read that she was attending American. I disagree with her that graduate school is for the wealthy. That is the beauty of state education and the importance of making sure local state (or District) governments support higher education. Compared to private education state schools are great value for money. Also, several years after you’ve gotten your degree no one gives a crap of where you’ve gone to school anyways.
As far as funding graduate education goes it depends on the program. Society needs some degrees more than others and some programs produce more graduates than there are jobs for, and so it is not in society’s best interest to indiscriminately produce a lot of specialists. Depending on the program, there may be graduate assistantships (GA) with tuition reimbursement and a stipend, scholarships and grants. Then there are loans. Those really make you think and ask, is it worth it? And if you are not willing to invest in yourself, why should anyone else? I made the investment, and it was worth it. Also it helps to avoid the expensive school in the expensive neighborhood.

This morning the new IKEA 2007 catalog appeared with my Washington Post. Which is totally wonderful because some idiot on Craigslist is trying to sell his copy for $20.
IKEA is great. Yes, I know some of you have forsaken IKEA, dismissing it as cheap and common, and whatever. But that’s the best part of IKEA, it is cheap and it is good design for the common man. I’m at IKEA almost every week. Mainly because the College Park IKEA (really it is Beltsville) has live jazz on Wednesdays from 6pm-8pm and my friends go there to dance (yes, because we’re weird and shameless) and eat .99 cent pasta (only available after 6pm).
Also one of the better things about IKEA, that works for people like me is that they seem to understand small spaces. Not everything has to be huge. When you walk through the showroom notice the “rooms” and how so much can be squeezed in a small amount of square footage.
Links
IKEA song
IKEA Hackers