Per aspera ad astra

One of my goals for 2008 was to read 100 books. As of this afternoon, I have 71 (and will at least eke out a 72nd by tomorrow). So no cigar. Regardless, I think I did well. My books are from a range of genres (sci-fi, Judaism, basketball, YA, Russia, grammar, etc.) and I even knocked out a few classics I’ve been meaning to read.

Rather than clog up your page with a list of my books (check out my Goodreads if you’re interested/want longer reviews), here are the best/worst of the bunch:

Best:
1. The Kite Runner : Khaled Hosseini
2. Atlas Shrugged : Ayn Rand
3. Three Cups of Tea : Greg Mortensen & David Relin
4. Doctor Zhivago : Boris Pasternak
5. Midnight’s Children : Salman Rushdie

Runners-Up (and equally recommended):
Do They Hear You When You Cry? : Fauziya Kassindja
I Know This Much Is True : Wally Lamb
The History of Love/Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close : Nicole Krauss/Jonathan Safran Foer (married)

Happily, it was much easier to narrow down the Worst- I read so many fabulous books this year, but the few terrible ones stick out like sore thumbs.

Worst
1. A Separate Peace
It bugs me that so many of my Worst Books are required readings in high/middle school/Korean SAT prep courses. There’s not much I can say about ASP except Ugh. John Knowles, next time make a semi-sympathetic narrator, and kill off the martyr character using a disease/complication that actually exists.
2. Island of the Blue Dolphins
As much as I love stories with a self-sufficient female protagonist, this book fell short of my expectations. Fans will say it’s better because it’s based on a true story, but I feel there’s a large difference between a 20-30 year old woman (True Story) and a twelve(?) year old girl being marooned on an island. So, okay, it’s a coming-of-age-Robinson-Crusoe story. I wish it had been written by a woman, preferably a culturally-sensitive one, because O’Dell’s cautious storytelling robs the book of what it could have been.
3. Robinson Crusoe
Some people have a problem with the premise- but I think a novel about someone on a desert island, even with religious overtones, has potential written all over it (look at something like Life of Pi- okay, there’s a tiger, but Crusoe had a dog AND cats). This story was just dry, insensitive, and overly pedantic, without even having the grace to be well-written.
4. Hairstyles of the Damned
Book Summary: Whine Whine Whine. I’m Punk.
5. The Twilight Trio (I didn’t bother with the 4th, after hearing devotees spurn it)
I understand why these are so addictive for the tweens and teens (hell, after the Required Books like RC and ASP, I hardly blame them for wanting some action). But wow, are these terrible. Vampire coolness aside, here’s the summary: Spineless female protagonist with unhealthy addiction for emotionally dependent boyfriend. Thrilling!

Here’s to 100 in 2009!

It’s my mom’s birthday! Happy birthday, fellow female traveler extraordinaire!

Thanksgiving 2008.

Pont Alexandre III- Paris 2007.

Delfont Mackintosh Theatre, Les Miserables- London 2006.

Coming in 2009– the Ross women do Ireland!

Sinatra had it right when he said that New York never sleeps; it’s one of those cities that has an energy about it that’s irresistible. And as I discovered in early December, there are few places in the world that can get you in the holiday spirit better than the Big Apple.

My favorite building in the city- none other than Rockefeller Center. There are photos of the tree out there that are heaps better than the ones I took, but I like this shot.

We walked a good portion of Fifth Ave, including (of course) all the the must-see shops and their decorations.

Lord & Taylor storefront (above) and one of the window displays (below). I haven’t previously been a big holiday person, but a few Christmases away from home (and the ebullience of Katya, who has never experienced Christmas American-style) have made a sentimentalist of me.

One of the greatest parts about being in NYC is just walking around everywhere and seeing the different architecture, neighborhoods, and people. For the latter, there’s arguably no place better than Central Park.

Skating at either rink at Central Park (below) and Rockefeller was $20+, with a wait of more than an hour. Somehow I was content with watching from the sidelines. (Katya was upset there wasn’t more fast, daredevil skating)

Okay, so we cheated and got a tour with one of the rickshaw drivers hanging along the edges of the park. It was cold! At any rate, ’twas well worth it.

Our driver (biker?) was from Tunisia and is moving to Chicago in a few months (and is so far the only man I’ve heard complain about the beauty of New York women). Super personable guy, though he was a bit daft and let Katya try to bicycle.

Final NYC shots: St. Patrick’s Cathedral, partially obscured by the soft, ethereal fog of… the food vendor right next to me.

And my favorite NY statue (located appropriately right by my favorite building)- Atlas, 1937.

Get it? If not, you’re obviously not as big a fan of Atlas Shrugged as I.

After bidding farewell to Jenni & Katya, I was on my way back to Iowa. Goodbye, New York!

Okay, so Broadway is never really dark. It reminded me a lot of Seoul- neon lights everywhere and masses of people rushing about. Just a really cool, exciting area to be in.

Katya, Jenni and I at Times Square on Friday night.

The red stairs (which we’re sitting on in the above photo) on top of the ticket booth in the middle of the road are apparently fairly new and provide for a great view of Times Square.

In the spirit of doing everything stereotypical tourist-y (and because I love musical theater), I resolved to see a Broadway show. On Saturday, Jenni and I ventured down to the tkts booth under the red stairs in the hopes of scoring discounted tickets. Our show was playing at the Eugene O’Neil Theatre, which only seats 1108 (Several hundred less than the theaters that show Wicked and Lion King). Could we do it? Jenni prays.

An hour later, our toes were numb, but we were indeed the proud owners of two half-price orchestra seats for Spring Awakening! (Music by that guy who did Barely Breathing)

We spent the rest of the afternoon warming up by walking around Washington Square Park (the park with the arch from When Harry Met Sally and a dozen other movies) and the NYU area, then returned for the 8:00 show.

Hands-down incredible, incredible show. It’s won 8 Tonys and a handful of other awards- and for good reason. It’s a rock musical about teenage angst in 19th century Germany– though the description does it absolutely no justice (in the same way that saying Avenue Q is about a bunch of twentysomething puppets).

After the show, we walked down to the Stardust Diner. It’s famous for the singing waiters that prance. I got an apple streudel and wasn’t terribly impressed . Maybe worth it for the experience, but if you must go, get a (very overpriced) coffee and be done with it.

Okay, the real origin of my last post (how easily distracted I am):

In the spirit of complaining about Christmas shopping, my boss mentioned that this year she isn’t giving gifts to most of the adults she knows; instead she’s donating money in their names to UNICEF, an organization she regularly contributes to.

Now, I’ve previously been one of those people who would much, much rather have a toy/doll/CD player/computer/cell phone than to hear that someone gave NGO XYZ $20 for me. But as much as I love getting gifts, they’ve been diminishing in number/unique coolness over the years. Someday (but not yet, parents!) I’ll get to the point where I don’t really need, or really want, the generic gift card or hand lotion.  And there are some people (like aforementioned boss) who I would rather gift in alternative ways.

So what’s a girl who hates charity to do? Fortunately, I found at least two solutions fairly quickly!

Central Asia Institute: I’ve already gushed about Three Cups of Tea (please go read it!), so it’s fairly natural that I’d support the foundation that came from the whole adventure. What makes them different from the aid organizations I was so blatantly bashing last post? Well, they are refreshingly guilt-free. The book and the website focus on the fact that change needs to happen in Central Asia (Pakistan/Afghanistan specifically) and how it can happen through promoting education, particularly women’s education. Like Greg, I am a firm believer that education, when done properly, is the key to alleviating poverty, disease, and a great majority of human rights issues in the world today. CAI doesn’t accept materials (they’re cheaper in-country) or foreign volunteers (more overhead cost and safety issues). What greatly appealed to me, as I was reading Greg’s story, was that he built a school and then put the control in the hands of locals. There are no Peace Corps volunteers running around teaching about HIV prevention; Afghan children are taught by an Afghan teacher. This is specific, sustainable and localized, and the results speak for themselves.

Kiva: Maybe I’m sort of selling out with CAI because of my crush on Greg Mortensen, but I promise I have no political or romantic affiliation with Kiva, a micro-lending website. The essentials: The site has profiles of several hundred entrepeneurs in the developing world (from the Dominican Republic to Bolivia to the ‘Stans). You loan (not give!) money to a single entrepreneur, who then uses the loan money to work on Project X that  they’ve previously planned out). They improve their community, make a little money, and repay the loan. You get your money back, and can choose whether to invest in another entrepreneur or take it  back entirely. During the project, the entrepreneur keeps you/Kiva posted on how their project is impacting them personally, as well as how it is affecting the community. Kiva is the first of its kind and is good at what it does- make it possible for a person to gain an economic boost and improve his community, while not robbing him of his independence and dignity.

I have serious reservations about donating to any foreign aid organization, no matter how reputable and well-meaning. Start: Look at the advertising. Christian Children’s Fund commercials , and others like them, all follow the same general format. Fade in with some clips of wide-eyed, too-skinny children in dangerous surroundings, cut in to a melodic spokesperson (double points for a celebrity!) who needles you for putting off donating because you’re too busy, then lures you in by mentioning the low cost and how great you’ll feel in the morning about sponsoring a child (this is usually the point where he picks a child up and/or ruffles a kid’s hair). The phone number pops up and the scene, usually one specific child (emphasizing *your* sponsored child) fades to black.

Don’t have time to adopt a foreign child or volunteer abroad? Don’t worry! For the low, low price of $1a day, you can validate yourself and not have to get off your couch! The growing penchant for efficiency (not only in America, but worldwide) means hands-off, quick-fix solutions are substituting more and more for real effort. This isn’t always bad- efficiency can be productive, but it increasingly almost never is. The basic overused example: Don’t have time for a nutritious home-cooked meal? Go to McDonald’s.

This fast-food charity appeal wouldn’t be nearly as effective without the implied guilt trip you get to take as a result of the marketing. Sure, call me a terrible person. I’m not ashamed to say that I don’t sponsor a child and, yet, I manage to feel great in the morning anyway. Yet somehow this commercial is supposed to insinuate that I should (or that I’d feel better if I just gave them $1/day). But I refuse, as Rand would say, to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence. I am grateful for every opportunity I have had, whether it’s getting a good education, staying in a secure job, and generally living a cushy lifestyle. So I agree with the basic mission of a lot of these organizations- that all people should have the ability to have a certain standard of living if they work hard enough towards it. But these organizations want me to donate because I pity the poor, and I most emphatically do not pity them. Pity is an emotionally manipulation and 99% inefficient (I have even less tolerance for self-pity). Lest you think I’m a terrible person, realize that I do fully support human rights, recognize the need for change, and would like to be part of that change. Just not because I feel sorry for anyone.

But for all that rhetoric about advertising, guilt trips, etc, there’s a fundamental flaw in all of this: Charity is not a sustainable solution to these- or any- problems. For all the accountability an aid organization can throw out, the results are ephemeral, if any. There are plenty of articles and books out there about how aid organizations are only multiplying the problems they’re trying to solve. When money/resources fall into the hands of a corrupt political system, is inappropriately allocated or causes dependency, organizations are doing more harm than good.

Some problems that are glaringly obvious: Aid organizations and those who benefit from them rely on donors (or the stock market- whoops!) to continue the program. A community that has grown accustomed to receiving tubs of water during the seasonal drought have less motivation to develop new agricultural methods. “Sponsor a child money” goes to community development projects rather than individuals (fortunately, eh? otherwise only the cute kids get to go to school )- but all too often these organizations channel their resources into totally inappropriate areas, whether through an overzealous idealism or the ulterior motives of a government.

Bottom line: Charity will not sustain itself, and it will not sustain a community.

As a final note, I’m really excited to see this documentary whenever I can find a way to get hold of it.

No first-time trip to New York would be complete without a visit to the Statue of Liberty. If you’re trying to see the Statue on the cheap, and don’t really mind not going up in it (a hassle with the new security system)- hop on the Staten Island Ferry (free!) and enjoy the 30 minute ride.

Fortunately, we went on Friday, which ended up being the least windy of the days I was in town. Still, I’m really glad I had my scarf.

Jenni got in on Friday morning and the three of us got to play tourist in Manhattan.

The Statue from a distance as the sun sets. *cue patriotic hymn*

When I was in Korea, Eunice and I met up with a high school friend of hers who found her on Facebook.  Good times (and Korean BBQ) were had by all, and she gave us her business card at the end- she’s a research manager at the Museum of Modern Art and told us to contact her if we ever came to New York. I did, and scored a bunch of free MoMA passes! (Let this be a lesson; Facebook CAN indeed be used for networking and not just stalking).

Keeping in mind that my opinions about artwork are completely uneducated. I like what I like- and that’s based primarily on aesthetics and my own preference for artistic rationality.

This was one of my favorite exhibits- Wall Drawing 260 (subtitle: “On black walls, all two-part combinations of white arcs from corners and sides, and white straight, not-straight, and broken lines”). Long title, and I don’t go for all concept art, but I liked the logic behind this one.

I feel that Andy Warhol is pretty highly overrated, but I do find a certain guilty pleasure in some of his work.

Jasper Johns. Colorful, vibrant but blurry, and otherwise aesthetically pleasing.

I have mixed feeling about Picasso, but really liked “Girl Before a Mirror”. While his work is rarely realistic in the traditional sense, I tend to prefer his *less* unrealistic paintings (like this or Blue Nude) to his ‘weirder’ work (say, Seated Woman with Wrist Watch)

One of Katya’s favorite exhibits was the ‘lobby’ area of the exhibit hall. Wall to wall projection of a nature movie (including flowers, a nude woman and lots of color) with trippy New Age music to go along with the general relaxing atmosphere.

Even if you don’t particularly dig modern art (I have a low degree of patience for Jackson Pollock), I’d recommend checking out MoMA. They’ve got a pleasant mix of paintings, sculpture/design work, photography and media– definitely worth seeing at least once.