too many whites

monday again and today was BEAUTIFUL out.

even after a blueberry muffin for breakfast, i felt hungry by 11am and RAVENOUS by 12:45pm when dais and i went to buy lunch. therefore, i treated myself to a large market lunch at diginn, a yakimochi, and a box of sesame biscuits from cafe zaiya. i was quite stuffed afterwards :)

the work day flew by and before i knew it, it was time to head out for my weekly meeting with the contractors. the meeting was quick and it sounds like they are working to finish by 12noon this friday, october 31st (one week earlier than their original projected timeline), in time for our move-in. how sweet! i have had a wonderful experience with russ, mike, and grant, and all their subs at fulton landing and would definitely recommend them to friends and family based on our experience.

then off to home depot to pick out materials and order window treatments - done! and back to the office for some late S&P announcements and a quick dinner at tappo (their margherita is awesome!), before returning to the apartment to ... yes, MOVE MORE BOXES.

apparently we didn't move enough out of the master bedroom on saturday so the painters couldn't finish the ceilings. it might sound a bit wierd, but it's fun to get involved in the remodel, even if it is just moving boxes. and it's a little empowering to accomplish something as a couple (boxes moved - check!). maybe a little like nailing the first dance at your wedding?

backsplash colors and materials - we decided to go with glass because we like to cook a LOT and i didn't want to have to deal with stained grout lines, which you can get with tiles. although i LOVE marble herringbone backsplashes! i think they're probably more pretty than practical. now for glass, our options were acid etched or back-painted glass? acid etched gives a soft milky look, but again, i think oil and cooking particles can get easily caught in there, so back-painted glass it is. now colors ... cool white, polar white, chantilly lace, matte white, lace white, wedding white, on and on ...  i think we chose the one in the middle ("matte white").

and finally our pendant lamps are up :) though their heights will need a little fine-tuning.

best: relishing the fact that i have amazing supportive girlfriends! i mentioned the possibility of a france trip over the holidays to them over email this afternoon and i was floored with the quick and comprehensive responses with regards to accommodations, places to eat and visit, and other suggestions based on their recent trips. love you guys, dais, rose, & han!

worst: eating too many sweets! im not putting in our usual mileage these last two weeks so probably need to tone it down with the treats ... 

smile: osmin at home depot shades dept was amazing to work with! she was friendly and efficient, and very thoughtful when answering my questions about the differences in shade materials. i have had a very good experience with HD's shade dept and would highly recommend them in the future.

charter vs public

my introduction to charter schools was the launch of the central queens academy (CQA) charter school, a tuition-free public charter middle school which started in the fall of 2012. one of my friends from college, grace, is on the board of trustees and has been intimately involved since the birth of its idea, while my involvement has been limited in the form of donations.

from my point of view, any education system which offers opportunities and challenges students, and whose students' positive performance and upward growth can be measured, is a school worth having. especially if funding comes from those with deep pockets!

however, for reasons i'm still trying to understand, mayor deblasio is a strong adversary against eva moskowtiz's success academies, which from everything i've read, have produced consistent top scoring students on state and local standardized exams. while these exams are not the only measure of a student's success, it's a good start. it would also be interesting to see what percent of these students continue on to study in a 4-year university, seek graduate degrees, and where they ultimately land upon graduation.

some of the controversy i've read about the success academies (not confirmed) are that they screen out severely-disabled and english-language learning students; utilize a funneling technique in which less competitive students are "counseled" or "weeded" out before graduation; employ non-unionized faculty.

it seems like i still need more facts and figures about these screening processes and techniques to understand the success academy's student demographics and profile and come to a more clear conclusion. with regards to employing non-unionized faculty, that's a whole different issue which i have very little understanding of, but will try to read up on.

ny magazine writes: "moskowitz’s network hires non-union teachers, who are paid well but can be fired for non-performance and provide their students with extended learning time." employees who are paid well based on performance and who provided their students with additional learning time sound like a pretty good system to me. isn't that an issue today with teachers at public schools? no checks in place and not enough good teachers?

there was one extremely strange fact that i read a couple months ago which confused me about the success academies, and i more recently read in the nation: "of the thirty-two eighth graders to finish at success academy, twenty-seven took the competitive exam to enter one of new york city’s prestigious specialized high schools. despite their excellent scores on the state test, not one of these students gained admission to a specialized school like stuyvesant or bronx science." 

how can this be and what does this say about the students? are they groomed simply to excel on the state standardized exams? so this leads me to wonder - are charter schools models for public schools? or maybe they are just different with their own sets of issues, but can serve as a form of competition for public schools. a little healthy competition, in my book, never hurts.

i'm sure i'll broach on this subject again when more interesting articles or related events arise.

here are some of the articles related to the subject which i've found interesting:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/why-do-teacher-unions-hate-eva-moskowitz.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/the-battle-for-new-york-schools-eva-moskowitz-vs-mayor-bill-de-blasio.html

http://www.thenation.com/article/181752/secret-eva-moskowitzs-success

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/nyregion/mayor-agrees-to-accommodate-4-larger-or-new-charter-schools.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/nyregion/thousands-of-charter-school-students-and-parents-rally-in-lower-manhattan.html

http://online.wsj.com/articles/higher-rent-for-success-charters-1412643454


anyways, wasn't feeling that great today so i treated myself. three times. :) here are a couple photos of my treats, including the delicious yakimochi i wrote about a few entries ago. yakimochi is one of my favorite snacks so it's likely this will not be the last time it's mentioned.

yakimochi from cafe zaiya
(sweet red bean paste wrapped in a savory grilled sesame mochi)

cheese bread and brownie from maison kayser
(cheese bread is probably not the bread's marketed name)

best thing: lunch time walk and catching up with my girlfriend, daisy, who has been on the go for the last couple months! she was traipsing through france for a week in september and along the west coast and in hawaii last week (yes!! amazing!!) she seems to be in a great place these days and i can't help but feel excited for her recent travels and all the great things happening for her lately. large spicy meatballs at diginn doesn't hurt either :p

worst thing: i guess the worst thing was walking down from the office to union square yesterday, and only totaling 7,832 steps (4.8 miles). im back in fourth place in the walkertracker challenge! these guys are insane - first place walked 19,216 steps, second place walked 15,012 steps, and third place walked 17,092 steps yest. are these guys all training for an ultramarathon or something? i commute from brooklyn and i can't even get that type of mileage in. my guess is that they must wear shoes in the house and count all those steps :p i would do the same, except my pebble doesn't count steps when im not wearing shoes. need to ramp up my game ... 3.5 weeks to go!

smile: while i was waiting for my girlfriend to buy lunch at the corner of 40th and sixth ave, an italian tourist and her teenager son came up to me waving a piece of paper her hands - "can you tell me where d'napoli's is (pointing to the name of the restaurant on the paper)? we have been walking up and down this avenue and people keep telling us to go in different directions!" she seemed so frustrated! since i had my iphone out, i looked it up and directed them - they were just three blocks south of the restaurant. her son also had a smart phone out so i took a look wondering why they had trouble finding the restaurant with a GPS phone in hand. it turns out the GPS wasn't very accurate and it was showing them one block off from where they actually were standing. that is pretty frustrating ... :/ anyways they seemed to understand my instructions so i hope they found their way!