Thinking of Talya

Earlier this evening I was informed that a friend who is volunteering with the American Jewish World Service in India was hit by a train and is a medically induced coma in Mumbai.

She is an amazing, beautiful woman who has a tremendous amount to offer the world. I ask you to please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

To learn more of Talya and the amazing work she is doing visit her blog: http://talyasarit.blogspot.com/

Game Plan

I have been pretty awful at updating my blog. I will blame it on grad school, whether its a good excuse or not. I have decided that I should get back into the swing of things. The updates keep me sane amongst the hundreds of pages of reading I do in the areas policy research methods and identity development.

The challenge is with so many new shiny internet toys such as twitter, tumblr, and older favs such as facebook, I spend more time playing online scrabble than I do engaged in self-reflection.

http://shrosin.tumblr.com/ is now up and running for short updates. If I ever want to rant on or publish lots of photos, I will be sure to do that here.

And since photos are WAY more interesting than anything I will ever write, here are some (not so) recent ones of Brian and I, and Brian's brother Neil, at a Bar-Mitzvah in Feb:

No More Snow

Boston, I'm done. Its March 1st and were expecting 12 inches today. While I appreciate the shovel induced workouts, I prefer running in the warmer weather.

Can we make a deal that this will be the last great snow fall until December? Please??

twitter me this

in efforts to check out the newest tools the 'kids' are using these days i was introduced to both twitter and tumblr.

twitter, like facebook is a social networking site. although besides for posting short 140 character updates now and again i don't quite get the point. i guess its like iming or texting via computer.

tumblr is another blog venue. i am finding to be clean and easy to use. i may soon transition out of Place Witty Title Here to: Red Geranium Untitiled at shrosin.tumblr.com

will give the green light when good to go.

The Return of the Fireside Chat

Transparency in government from government? pretty damn cool.

The New Yorker magazine this past week made comparisons between Obama and FDR in their article "New Liberalism". It is worth reading if you are interested in political paradigms and what may or may not lay ahead.

What an exciting time to be studying public policy!

You Know Your In Grad School When...

1. you no longer have any free time
2. you need new glasses due to the amount of time spent reading thousands of small words on a daily basis
3. being able to read an article in the newspaper or the New Yorker seems like a luxury

and back to analyzing the welfare state we go!

hip, hip 5K!

We did it! 7 weeks of training and Brian and I each ran across the finish line of the Boston Luv2Run November run. The course was along the Charles River, and although windy--the scenery was quite spectacular. We placed 182 (Brian) and 188 out of 270 runners at 32 min and 33 min respectively. Not too bad for a comfortable pace... Here are some photos:

cartoon noise

Barack Obama's victory in this past week's election has coincided with some challenging class discussions that have been taking place in my Public Policy program surrounding race. As we discuss American liberalism and the evolution of federalism throughout the last 250+ years and how the idea of race has played into the two, it is interesting to hear how the American people are reacting and responding. Here are some political cartoons from around the country I found interesting commentary: