It's been too long since I've done Sunday with my ladies, Mich, T, Hopie and I are the type of girlfriends that won't see each other for months and in this case sometimes years, but when we do get a chance together the energy is the same except we have better stories to bring to the table. 
Mama T (Queen of Clubs) with her new Lady Bird SF Earrings
Joe's Special Alla Nini's
Hopie Being eaten by the Aloevera Plant
Mich finally got her stickers LOL Photo> By HopieSpitsHard
YouthVote works with all public high schools to foster civic engagement Through a partnership between SFUSD and the Youth Commission, with funding from DCYF and support from San Francisco School Alliance. The Initiative is aimed at making elections and San Francisco's local leaders and government relevant and accountable to youth. Through our data collection process we are able to bring youth's voices to City Hall to guide our policy-making decisions. YouthVote's components include:
SFUSD continuation, charter, county, and court high schools participation in general elections using local, state and federal mock voter guides and ballots.
A survey aimed at guiding policy reforms reaching over 8,000 High School students. Coordination of the election process of the Student Advisory Council members who represent students needs to SFUSD.
A city-wide election where one student is elected by their peers to the SF School Board . This year, 8,256 high school students completed The San Francisco Student Survey, which represents 43.3% of the 19,051 high school students enrolled at the time. You can download the complete report at www.sfgov.org/youthvote. There you will find a detailed breakdown of the report by race, school, and neighborhood. Here are some highlights from our Executive Summary:
Educational Environment Strong desire to provide teachers with feedback
Students overwhelmingly agree with having the opportunity to review their teachers, with 70.5 percent voting yes.
This support was across nearly all schools and demographic groups. Students lack close relationships with staff at school
Nearly 40 percent of students have no close adult relationships at schools. This problem is more pronounced amongst younger students, with 56.8 percent of 9th grade students having no such relationships.
Class participation varies by school, race/ethnicity Asian-American and Latino/Hispanic students reported the highest rate of not being called on in class.
Burton, Washington, and Galileo reported the highest rates of students not being called on.
Stress and Homework
Lack of quiet homework spaceOne in six students (16.2%) do not have a quiet place to do their homework. White and Asian- American students are the most likely to have such a space.
Extra-Curricular Programs Students want after-school programs located at school Over forty percent of students (40.9%) wanted programs located at school, while approximately twenty-one percent of students (21.3%) prefer neighborhood-based programming. These results differed by students' school and neighborhood.
Lack of vocational direction About thirty-six percent of students (36.2%) know which career they will go into. Students at Galileo and Lowell were the least likely to know their future career, while students at Downtown and the County Court schools were most likely to know.
Youth Employment
Skills and job training classes at school are in demand Over eight-four percent of students want some for of skills or job training classes at school, with over three-quarters of students at every school expressing support.Violence
Transportation
Nearly seventy percent of students (69.3%) use some form of public transportation to get to school. Over forty percent (44.2%) of transit riders and thirty percent (30.6%) of all overall respondents must take more than one train or bus to get to school.Gatherings for Change is Coming to you!
The San Francisco Youth Commission in partnership with youth and CBO's, are producing a series of events that promote youth-led civic engagement, provide platforms and spaces for policy discussions, and increase networking amongst youth organizations. Both neighborhood-based and citywide events are aimed at increasing youth voices to impact policy making. The source of this funding is the Youth Empowerment Fund, which is administered by the DCYF.
Excelsior Youth Summit- December 20, 2008
Know Justice Conference- February 18, 2009
Ethnic Studies Conference- March 10, 2009
Mission Youth Summit- April 25, 2009
South of Market Youth Summit- TBD
Western Addition Youth Summit- May 19, 2009
Chinatown Youth Summit -May 24, 2009
Bayview Youth Summit - TBD
Youth Fest June 20, 2009 (?)
We invite youth, CBO's, and family to come and help plan the Youth Summit in your neighborhood.
Mission - Planning meetings are on Mondays (HOMEY, PODER, IFR, CHALK)
Western Addition - Planning meetings are on Mondays (Mo Magic)
SOMA - Planning meetings are on Wednesdays (United Playaz)
Chinatown - To begin soon!
Bayview - To begin soon!
Be the Change You Want to See!
This is a great time to network with other youth organizers and make something happen for and by youth!
Aristotle's List of Emotions
Anger: An impulse to revenge that shall be evident, and caused by an obvious,
unjustified slight with respect to the individual or his friends. Slights have three
species: contempt, spite, and insolence.
Mildness: The settling down and quieting of anger.
Love: Wishing for a person those things which you consider to be good—wishing them
for his sake and not your own--and tending so far as you can to affect them.
Enmity (hatred): Whereas anger is excited by offences that concern the individual,
enmity may arise without regard to the individual as such. Anger is directed
against the individual, hatred is directed against the class as well.
Fear: A pain or disturbance arising from a mental image of impending evil of a painful
or destructive sort.
Confidence: The opposite of fear. Confidence is the hope (anticipation), accompanied
by a mental image, of things conducive to safety as being near at hand, while
causes of fear seem to be either non-existent or far away.
Shame: A pain or disturbance regarding that class of evils, in the present, past, or future,
which we think will tend to our discredit.
Shamelessness: A certain contempt or indifference regarding the said evils.
Benevolence: The emotion toward disinterested kindness in doing or returning good to
another or to all others; the same term represents the kind action as an action; or
the kind thing done considered as a result.
Pity: A sense of pain at what we take to be an evil of a destructive or painful kind, which
befalls one who does not deserve it, which we think we ourselves or some one
allied to us might likewise suffer, and when this possibility seems near at hand.
Indignation: A pain at the sight of undeserved good fortune.
Envy: A disturbing pain directed at the good fortune of an equal. The pain is felt not
because one desires something, but because the other persons have it.
Emulation: A pain at what we take to be the presence, in the case. of persons who are by
nature like us, of goods that are desirable and are possible for us to attain--a pain
felt, not because the other persons have these goods, but because we do not have them as well.
Contempt: The antithesis of emulation (Persons who are in a position to emulate or to be
emulated must tend to feel contempt for those who are subject to any evils [defects and
disadvantages] that are opposite to the goods arousing emulation, and to feel it with
respect to these evils).
a few months ago My tattoo artist Lango put me on to this fly MMA fighter, since then she has been a regular google search of mine so I could follow up and bare witness to her progression as fighter and as the peoples choice to be in the well deserved lime light of her sport.
This is a lady who is giving new meaning to what it means to fight like a women. She's well timed, well conditioned and strikes with precision, she's calm when she's in a tight spot,creates her openings for escape and is relentless once you get her going.
26 year old Mixed Martial Artist, Gina Carano holds a record of 7 wins and 0 loses, and a professional Muay Thai record of 12-1-1.
Carano fights with all heart and when asked why she does it... she responds like a true fighter, "...It's who I am..." I'm taking her with me to the history books.
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ToMyEverSoDearest Seekers:
I know I've been very inconstant in my updates and content over the past few months, and not to make excuses...but =)... I thrust myself into my young "adult" life, diving head first into my child-hood dream career; working with youth after-school. But like many great things in life, the gift is a curse. Let me say: NO ONE, could prepare you for the self-reflective mirror that magically pops up when you take on greater responsibilities, in my case it's being responsible for influencing young minds between the hours of 11am and 7pm. My God! I can only imagine what all my folks that are raising and have kids now must have went through when they assumed full responsibility all the time!
Remember what it was like? Experiencing the world for the first time? Learning that fire was hot, what things you could or couldn't get away with living under your parents roof.
What I've learned so far... is that there is no recipe, there is no order, although some cultures try to establish a tradition of the order that one passes from one stage of life to the next, but here in America, it's so mixed that the combination and factors to answer the question, "Why?" are endless.
The one thing everyone shares, is that we are all walking a path and sometimes the path is straight and narrow, sometimes it take you on a detour or two, maybe walk on someone else's path for awhile , maybe blaze a new trail, but everyone will hit
rough spots, an up hill climb, a dip off a steep cliff and continue on the other side if you can manage to climb yourself out of the ravine. (can you think of any other hiking/walking analogize...I can but I think you get the point)
But it always helps to have a person along the way that you can relate to or confide in, vent to, ask questions... what ever... So can you imagine where that magic mirror pops up? The one that I'm trying to guide the youth to find for themselves. Confronting yourself is so hard!
But that's why the first woman I would like to honor in, Woman's History Month, is Frida Kahlo. Her art is about the ultimate reflection of her core and heart. Her Story is a reflection of her passions, her pains, her triumphs, and her interpretation of the worlds around her. And if anyone can recover from a devistaing accident as she did and still carry herself with so much elegance and hunger towards life, then there is nothing in this world that I can't handle! Today I do it for Frida! Viva La Vida!
