|
June!
2005-06-08 - 10:58 a.m. Actually, now that it's over and handed in, this is what I think. She did find some very good sites on the web -- the Amnesty International site and the Death Penalty Information Center -- and she found them by herself. I guess she probably should have tried to look for sites on the other side of the issue (I'm just thinking about this now), but I think we assumed those sites would be run by crackpots. These sites had lots of facts, all well cited. But still, it probably wouldn't have hurt to have some "victims want death now!" site or something. She went to the BPL all by herself and although most of the books just on the death penalty were checked out, she did find some good ones -- including one written by a warden at San Quentin in 1962 and another one with opposing viewpoints. These were quite helpful. I brought her books from here (since we had them), plus helped her find articles from the historical LA times (but she knew she wanted them -- although I don't think she would actually on her own have gone to a librarian to get them, and she would have needed to.) I helped her decipher some of the legal jargon, and I think I helped her look up a few cases, including one that was just decided this year. (That would all have been hard for her.) I also did help with some of the editing, and I offered lots of advice on things like "what should I say next?" For the research paper I think she actually took my advice. For the biography part she really didn't need to. I helped with the typing. She wrote a really great personal statement, and included a picture of her that Maddy had taken last summer on the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. She picked out all the images and put it together. Maddy colored in the front cover, but Nora drew it. It looked beautiful in the end, and that was all her doing. "It," in case I've never specified, was a "zine" about capital punishment in America. She selected photos and cartoons from books (good ones, too). We drove by San Quentin and she took pictures. It was pretty sad, actually. She had written poems, and drawn drawings, and part of the assignment was to get contributions from other classmembers, and also to make contributions to other zines. She finished the mock-up last night at about 1:20, and we took it to the copy center this morning and copied it. It was done by 9:00. Two sided color copiers are a modern wonder. It was a good end to a somewhat rocky and eventful year. I was glad to see her working really hard on something. It took her a while to get engaged, but she realized herself that it would have been better if she had gotten more of the work done earlier, and in fact, it was done on time -- although at some cost to a latin final, I'm afraid. It was good work, and she seemed cheery about it. She seems cheery in general. I think we may have made it through -- The girls are getting along well, too, and K. is happier, too. How I love June. Trees leafing out; town emptying out. A world of possibilities stretching before us. In other news, K's mother has bought a house (not an apartment) in Pittsburgh. She likes it. It's close, but not too close to K's brother. It's close to old friends. It's in a friendly part of town with shops, etc. There's room for us to visit -- It's exciting! Okay -- got to go.
find me! - 2008-02-12 |
design by simplify.