CLPP Conference at Hampshire College

I'm going to this conference at Hampshire College in two weeks on reproductive rights, and I'm super excited about it! I've been doing mostly LGBT-focused activism for the past couple of years (LGBT activism was my original "in" into organizing) and I'm just now starting to really expanding my focus and look at the intersections and overlap between different movements. I'm also taking an adult education class on white people challenging racism that starts in a week, which I am really looking forward to.

The conference is sponsored by Hampshire's Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program, and is known as CLPP. I don't recognize most of the workshop presenter's names, but the ones who I do recognize are really good. It should be a really good introduction to reproductice rights organizing for me, and it looks like it also has a lot of stuff for people withmore experience.

I'm also excited to be going to it because it's at Hampshire, and I am getting more and more excited about Hampshire. While at CLPP I plan to check out their Jewish Student Union, and hopefully go to their Shabbat dinner. I'm also planning on stopping by the Queer Community Alliance Center, and since I'm staying on campus, I'll be checking out the dorms and mods too.

This should be really enjoyable.

Cooking with my Dad on Friday

I love Friday Shabbat dinners. I've always loved them. In my family, it means that we all commit to being home by 6, and we have a special, long meal where we all get to catch up on each other.

Last Friday, I made a really elaborate meal: cheese tray, homemade sushi, edamami, bubble tea, homemade challah, and chocolate covered strawberries. I have pictures on my flickr account. I was cooking with my dad, and he was teaching me how to tell when the challah was ready. We were singing along to Marc Cohen or the Dave Matthews Band or Smash Mouth on iTunes, and attempting to make sushi. (We both had very different ideas about how to make a sushi roll - neither of us was particularly right!)

I love spending this time with him, and I love the time that I am able to spend with my family right now. I'm not afraid of moving out and living by myself, I just don't want to leave my family. And thus the conundrum: there are many things I would like to do in life that my family can't do with me.

Riding the Rails

Every day for the past week I've gotten up in the morning and promised myself I'd update this blog, and every night I've gone to sleep saying I'll do it tomorrow. I have to get better at updating this!

My train trip has been over for about a month now, but I still love trains. The New York Times recently published an article on Amtrak - Riding the Rails. It's a great article, and true to my experiences (including the Amish men and college students on laptops.) The author even followed the route that I took for part of my trip (DC-Chicago-Emeryville), although he got a sleeper car and I was in coach. Check it out.

Final On-Time Record

DC-Chicago (Capitol Limited) = Exactly on time
Chicago-Denver (California Zephyr) = 50 minutes late
Denver-Emeryville (California Zephyr) = 40 minutes early
Emeryville-Los Angeles (Coast Starlight) = 30 minutes early
Los Angeles-Portland (Coast Starlight) = 7 minutes late
Portland-Minneapolis (Empire Builder) = 22 minutes late
Minneapolis-Chicago (Empire Builder) = 27 minutes early
Chicago-DC (Capitol Limited) = 32 minutes early
DC-Boston (Northeast Regional) = 45 minutes late (it left DC 23 minutes late)
Boston-New Haven (Northeast Regional) = 4 minutes later
New Haven-Boston (Northeast Regional) = 17 minutes late (the train actually arrived in New Haven 32 minutes early, which was impressive, even if we couldn't leave the station before the scheduled departure.)

Overall, I was super impressed, especially because I was expecting the train to always be late. And, when the train from DC to Boston was delayed and left late, it worked out better for me! I was on a train that was supposed to arrive at 1:35pm, and the train to Boston was supposed to depart at 1:25pm. But I still made it, and got to come home 3 hours earlier!

And, if you're curious, Amtrak's website lists the on-time records for all of its routes: Amtrak's On-Time Performance.