January 21, 2006
This is the Beginning. Make it Count.
Urban Planning. Political Science. Men.
These subjects I will adroitly study at Case or CSU, or whoever accepts me. Hey, I’m going to need a husband. Preferably a civil engineer.
My life is starting right now. A life that blooms outside of my less-than-prefect-until-it-hurts mother and father and my surprisingly-absent-for-being-best-friends best friends. This is going to be fun.
Yet I’m scared, doubting myself at every corner. I know what I want to learn; but I’m not planning my life, that’s God’s department. Yeah, I’m a Christian. Or, as my gay best friend says, “A Christiany-Christian church girl.”
How do I survive? What will I do with the broken down dreams inside of me that I never knew existed? I just might find a path to my purpose. Once I receive an acceptance letter.
This is me... He, he... I'm a Photographer....
DO NOT CLICK ON THIS PIC.... The real picture is ABSURBLY LAGRE!
My Personal Statement... Thing
This fall I started my first lesson in urban planning. I completed a photojournalism project of East Cleveland, a dismal suburb of Cleveland I was taught to fear and avoid. When the town was founded it had Victorian, Mediterranean, and Gothic styled mansions lining the streets, but now it’s suffering from an economic depression lasting for decades. Old photographs of East Cleveland drove away the judgmental feelings I had about a town I never knew. I wanted to pass on this inspiration, so I photographed the buildings around town, hoping to capture some sense of the city.
Standard Oil, Euclid Avenue
Continue reading "My Personal Statement... Thing"
March 03, 2006
March 1st - Entry One: Yes, I know its not March 1st
The Blog that was meant for March 1
Leave it to Natasha to make a personal resolution set to start the first of March, and miss the deadline. I need to get that dame under control…
New Year’s Day is overrated. Today (as in March 1st) is the first day of my personal resolution. Now, I’m no humanist, though I’m fairly Hellenistic, yet usually realistic…. I went off on a tangent there, didn’t I?
That’s the annoying power of concepts. Take any word and add the appropriate suffix to it and you have a new concept with which to categorize people. Well I have no need in categorizing people, but I do want to define myself. So screw Hellenism, capitalism, socialism, realism, and the like! For as much as I agree with them I disagree with them.
I am concept all on my own. God made me… and He made me somethin’ funny, too. And I don’t mean funny: ha, ha. My resolution is to recognize my personal concept and to build the foundation for it in these next 100 days. That’s how long I have left of my childhood, and I’m not going into adulthood dysthymic, bitter, unprepared, undisciplined, and COMPLETELY too much Natasha and not enough Katherine.
Natasha, you’re on warning. Don’t screw up again. I have three journals:
1. Personal Thoughts
2. Habit Replacement
3. General Reflection
So I started the General Reflections a little late… IT WON’T HAPPEN AGAIN!
The Habit Replacement journal is low-tech and under my bed. The Personal thoughts journal… well that’s not fit for the general public. If you want to see that one, you’ll have to marry me.
Remember: Civil Engineers only
Okay, other majors can apply.
July 03, 2006
Urban Studies I
University: The Humanist Neighborhood
When Moses Cleaveland founded the city of Cleveland in 1796, he established what would later become downtown, naturally the hotspot of present-day Cleveland. A year after Moses, another surveyor set up shop and home in the Cleveland area and established what would become Cleveland’s second downtown, University Circle.
Stearns Road, in front of my high school, Cleveland School of the Arts, using alternative printing methods... freaky alternative printing methods:
Case, from the view of Wade Lagoon:
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July 11, 2006
Urban Studies II
Breaking Ground: A Photographic Analysis
On the cold day of March 15, 1968, late in the morning, this picture was taken to commemorate a drastic move to insure that University succeeds over time by spending money, time and effort to make the neighborhood its best. For the next two weeks workers lifted a Case Western Reserve University building off of its foundation and readied it for a 100-yard trek east ward on campus. The building, Claud Foster Hall, a three-story men’s dormitory, was being relocated to make way for the construction of Circle Center, a major investment to benefit the 32 member institutions of the University Circle Development Foundation of 1968.
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July 17, 2006
Urban Studies III
University: As of Now
University is improving because many of its famous institutions are renovating and expanding, its relationship with Downtown is expanding and its population is steady growing. University has always been a successful neighborhood, but with recent developments it has outdone itself as a Cleveland destination. The community is focusing more than ever on improving communication and access with the rest of Cleveland. This revival is indicating University as a welcomed complement to the residential neighborhoods around it; a center of growth on Cleveland’s East Side.