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As a native New Yorker, I have taken the city for granted, but this program has made me see New York City in a different light.  I have been able to visit places that I never knew existed before (like the exhibit Tribute in the Standard Oil Building), and our academic classes have forced me to think about the details of NYC in new ways.  For example, this week we read about the transformation of Times Square. Kenneth Jackson argues that "what is being played out in Times Square is the tension between commerce and culture."  Even as people flock to The Lion King, Jackson argues, they are contributing to the diminishing of culture on 42nd street.  This argument interested me. New York City will always have struggles between culture and commerce, assimilation and diversity, and public and private.  Yet, these tensions are healthy.  In Times Square, for example, commerce may have diminished its traditional "culture," but that culture was characterized by crime and the degrading of women. Maybe, the commercialization of Broadway isn't such a bad thing.

On Friday at 4 p.m., I boarded the bus to Manchester with other staff from the NYC headquarters. ...We arrived after midnight, so we went straight to the YMCA in Manchester. I slept on a gym mat made for a six-year-old. We woke up at 6:30 the next morning and got a head start on our first day volunteering. I spent the morning canvassing and then worked until 11 p.m. answering phones at the headquarters.

Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, participated in a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace conference, "The Future of Political Reform in China." Li gave a talk as part of a session on the changing communist party titled "Is the CCP Getting More Institutionalized?"

Upon arriving in New York, I had no idea what to expect from this program, the people in it, or my professor. I was very nervous, coming from a small New Hampshire town, about living in a city and probability of getting myself lost. So along with clothes and other provisions, I was given about a half dozen maps to aid me in my adventure through the city this semester. These maps, ranging in helpfulness, describe the locations of subway stations throughout the city's many precincts or the exact addresses of every FedEx or UPS shipping site in Manhattan or the names and locals of Manhattan's best restaurants and bars. I think my mother's reasoning behind purchasing these maps was that if I was ever to get lost then I could at least find my way to the closest FedEx or restaurant/bar and ask for directions. So far, life in the city has not been too bad. In fact it has been exciting! We have gone on a bunch of great field trips, and I met Diane Sawyer on Friday.

Everywhere you look in America there is a push to live together harmoniously, to respect and embrace differences, a push for greater and better things, progress in action and in thought. In New York City you live and are defined by this every single day. The America we all want is reflected in its five boroughs. Diversity on an unimaginable and beautifully immense scale. It is the vanguard of a future America that is seen both within and outside the nation and it leads by example.

What amazed me the most about the city is the fact that most people just mind their own business and do not really pay attention or react to anything that is going around them.  Everyone is in his own private world, just as E.B. White wrote in his article, "Here is New York." When I first arrived in New York, this turned me off from the city, making me feel like I just did not belong.  People never made eye contact with each other or tried to make small talk on the subway.  Since I am not from a large city, I got the impression that most New Yorkers were just not very nice.

Ellis Island is a place everyone should visit.  Visiting this historical site, seeing the Statue of Liberty reminded me to value being an American citizen in a free nation.   Standing more than 100 ft. tall, Lady Liberty is the most impressive sight to see in the middle of the Hudson River.

Assistant Professor of Government Yael Aronoff participated in the governing council meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology. The conference took place January 16-18, in Claremont, Calif.  Aronoff also served as a discussant for a panel entitled “Intergroup Conflict” at the conference meeting. According to the organization’s website, the ISPP, or the International Society of Political Psychology, represents “all fields of inquiry concerned with exploring the relationships between political and psychological processes,” including members from various academic fields and all regions of the world. The group historically has “offered encouragement to those who actively engaged in a wide spectrum of disciplinary approaches to political psychology” (www.ispp.org).

Mark Masterson, visiting assistant professor of classics, led a one-day colloquium at The Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis. This colloquium is an offering by the school for the continuing education of practicing psychoanalysts. He made a presentation of the sexual systems in the ancient world and the ways in which modern knowledge of them is limited by preconceptions and the nature of the evidence.

Thus far, my impression of New York City is one of socioeconomic polarization. Walking down 5th Avenue, you see stores with expensive merchandise and on the corner a homeless person begging for money. Part of the city seems to have more money than it can spend and others not enough to survive. The wealthy have managed to construct walls so that they need not interact with the poor. And even when the poor attempt to attract attention, they seem to be ignored. Where is the middle class in New York City? As I explore the city, I hope to find a bridge between the extremes.