contribute to my community

We had an outreach meeting today, which I led. Our group seems happy, and they are organized with duties delegated. I know I did a good job leading, so pat on the back there.

With a friend, I have been working on developing a psychology outreach program (to complement the science outreach stuff I have been involved with). We will be targeting middle-school students, going in and making presentations in the schools to discuss how psychology relates to real-life, what kinds of careers use psychology, and talk about mental health & stigma. We will be distributing informational booklets with info on learning opportunities & mental health resources.

We’re pretty excited about this. It is my hope that, if we can get this off the ground and self-sustaining within the department, it could help a lot of people.

Tomorrow I am leading a science outreach talk at a summer program for highschoolers.

Articles like this make me think this kind of work might be more important than I think it is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/science/10survey.html?ref=science

I’ve been reading this blog, The Urbanophile (http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com). It’s fascinating reading about Midwestern cities and what smart urban planning can do to help make them better.

I am not from here and I sometimes get culturally exhausted. It feels so much more culturally impoverished and closed-minded than where I used to live. But I am trying to see that as an opportunity instead of just a limitation. By being involved in my community here (by supporting the arts and local businesses instead of big box stores, volunteering for different organizations, paying attention to city politics…) maybe I can help make this a better place to live.

I have to admit, I’m sometimes jealous of the people who get to live in certain places on the west coast! Seattle, Portland, and San Fran seem to be full of the kinds of opportunities that do not seem to be here in dysfunctional Charlotte. Oh well, jealousy never really accomplishes all that much, so, here’s hoping Charlotte grows up sooner rather than later!

Towards this goal I’ve completed the first step by filling out the Colman Neighbourhood Association questionnaire and will be dropping it off at the service centre. In summary, it is a sheet of questions regarding what my skills and assets are, and what type of projects/people/orgs I’d be interested in getting involved with. Yay for Seattle’s sense of community!

I live in Charlotte, NC. The overall community here is very homogenious. There’s a lot of sameness here. You have many opportunities if you are interested in money, republicanism, conservativeness, Christianity, corporations, pathological economic growth and development and so on.

That’s all fine, but I would like to live in a community that has just as many opportunities for those of us interested in the arts, creativity, imagination, passion, inspiration, diversity, counter-culturalism, and explorting all of Life’s many alternatives.

Since we (my wife and I) have not been able to work out a move out of this city, I figure that for the sake of my own survival and sanity, I have to figure out some way to play my small part in cultivating those opportunities in this currently stiff, rigid, and tightly wound community.