just for a moment
Feb. 3rd, 2007 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdThere isn't all that much going on right now; I'm going to be clearing the leaves off the raised beds and prepping the soil soon, I'm looking forward to gardening again; I want to see about attending the Northwest Flower and Garden Show, probably on Thursday the 15th (anyone else interested?); Norwescon is coming up and I need daily 'zine ideas badly; I've joined the Japan Culture Club at school, but they keep scheduling meetings while I'm in class so haven't been able to go to any events yet; and I need to start talking to faculty at UW again starting right about, oh, now. But mostly, I've been doing daily life and classes.
The biggest thing bothering me this week is that I'm almost certainly going to drop to audit status in Japanese 112. Everything will be the same except that I won't get a grade or credit. The reason for that is that the expected vocabulary acquisition rate has jumped quite a bit; we're now getting about, hum, 8-10 words a day at this point - not counting things like counters which are kind of like new individual words but kind of aren't because they're in series, with regular roots and such. That rate isn't going to go down - in fact, it's expected to go up. It's a real problem, given that I was barely keeping up last quarter, when it was more like 2-4 new words a day - and that was only true because I already knew half the words from previous study. And I've forgotten half the words that were new to me then.
I kind of figured I'd hit this wall eventually, tho' I was kind of hoping that I wouldn't, or that if I did, it wouldn't be until spring quarter. But I did, and it was pretty abrupt; I was okay, okay, okay, hey wait, zomg oh crap I don't understand any of the words anybody is using in class, and then oh look I only know about 40% of the words on this test <p0wned> - all in about a week and a half.
I hate that wall.
So unless a miracle occurs, I'll be officially changing to audit late next week. It makes me sad, but it's better than adding a D or something to my GPA. I talked with the professor about it (for over an hour) on Thursday, and she thinks it's the right thing to do, given everything. I don't really like it, but I don't have any better ideas.
So here, have a picture:
Leaf on Smooth Rocks
And here, have a couple of URLs:
Bicycle Boulevards, as implemented in Berkeley, California. It's a multipronged approach, but key elements are: 1) Making openings for bikes in closed-end streets, most of which were closed for vehicle control, and 2) designating some secondary streets to be bicycle-centric, tho' not bicycle-only, and paint/mark them appropriately as such. (Cars and such are still allowed.) It seems to be a rather low-cost approach to improving bike transit.
Meanwhile, the FHA tells Oregon to stop focusing on anything but cars, and get to building more freeways, presumably like the South and midwest, where it's endless acres of parking lots and zillion-lane freeways and a walkable environment is seen as some sort of commie plot. (Courtesy Cascadia Drumbeat.)
Now, back to trying to learn these stupid words.
The biggest thing bothering me this week is that I'm almost certainly going to drop to audit status in Japanese 112. Everything will be the same except that I won't get a grade or credit. The reason for that is that the expected vocabulary acquisition rate has jumped quite a bit; we're now getting about, hum, 8-10 words a day at this point - not counting things like counters which are kind of like new individual words but kind of aren't because they're in series, with regular roots and such. That rate isn't going to go down - in fact, it's expected to go up. It's a real problem, given that I was barely keeping up last quarter, when it was more like 2-4 new words a day - and that was only true because I already knew half the words from previous study. And I've forgotten half the words that were new to me then.
I kind of figured I'd hit this wall eventually, tho' I was kind of hoping that I wouldn't, or that if I did, it wouldn't be until spring quarter. But I did, and it was pretty abrupt; I was okay, okay, okay, hey wait, zomg oh crap I don't understand any of the words anybody is using in class, and then oh look I only know about 40% of the words on this test <p0wned> - all in about a week and a half.
I hate that wall.
So unless a miracle occurs, I'll be officially changing to audit late next week. It makes me sad, but it's better than adding a D or something to my GPA. I talked with the professor about it (for over an hour) on Thursday, and she thinks it's the right thing to do, given everything. I don't really like it, but I don't have any better ideas.
So here, have a picture:
Leaf on Smooth Rocks
And here, have a couple of URLs:
Bicycle Boulevards, as implemented in Berkeley, California. It's a multipronged approach, but key elements are: 1) Making openings for bikes in closed-end streets, most of which were closed for vehicle control, and 2) designating some secondary streets to be bicycle-centric, tho' not bicycle-only, and paint/mark them appropriately as such. (Cars and such are still allowed.) It seems to be a rather low-cost approach to improving bike transit.
Meanwhile, the FHA tells Oregon to stop focusing on anything but cars, and get to building more freeways, presumably like the South and midwest, where it's endless acres of parking lots and zillion-lane freeways and a walkable environment is seen as some sort of commie plot. (Courtesy Cascadia Drumbeat.)
Now, back to trying to learn these stupid words.
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-04 07:50 pm (UTC)I've decided that the big problem with transportation in Washington state and Seattle in particular is lack of accountability, and the source isn't so much a cultural problem with "Seattle process" but the fact that too many government agencies have say in any project. That means everyone has power to propose changes but no one has the power to make a final decision.
Look at the viaduct project. The state highway administration (er, department of"transportation") wants to bulk up the roads that it controls. The two most expensive roads it owns are 99 and 520. The city wants a new waterfront. The Port of Seattle is concerned about freight. The voters want everything without having to pay for it, and insist upon a vote. If they don't get a vote, other anti-tax voters will pass an initiative or three in an attempt to get more without paying for it. Nobody has the power to say no to anyone else. There are no clear lines of authority. Who controls transportation in Seattle? Everyone, and no one.
Here's what we need, I think (feel free to suggest constructive criticism.)
1. In every area, one agency controls transportation.
2. In urban areas (say, counties over 200K or slightly smaller counties with at least one city of 50K people or more), there should be a single metro transit agency. For most urban counties, each agency would control transportation for that one county. Seattle/Tacoma/Everett would be controlled by a single metro transit agency. Basically, Sound Transit, with some modifications.
3. Metro agencies would be led by councils partially appointed from stakeholders (city, county, state) and partially by elections. That way, every goddamn group that tries to have a say now would have a say within the agency itself. That small group of people would raise revenue and plan, build, and maintain projects.
4. No other agencies would make transportation policy in urban areas.
5. Funding for urban projects would come entirely from within each metro area. The emphasis would be on tolls, congestion fees, vehicle sales and licensing fees, and other relevant user fees. A constitutional amendment would prohibit initiatives by the people on the details of taxation policy for transportation policies.
6. The state would use its revenue solely for rural road projects, and projects connecting metro areas. It would be explicitly charged with a mandate to rebuild a statewide rail network along existing interstate rights-of-way, with long-term planning for a high-speed network. Any state highways entirely within major metro areas would become the responsibility of the metro agencies. If you look at the map, that's most of the major state highways.
7. Each metro agency project would require an integrated roads + transit approach that is agnostic in principle but dedicated to moving as many people as fast as possible (favoring average transit speed over increased capacity). In practice, this would mean incentives for mass transit, investment in rail of all kinds, and a de-emphasis on highways.
8. Oh, and roll the Port of Seattle into Sound Transit, probably, or at least parts of it. It's notoriously badly managed, and there's zero effort so far to integrate freight and air travel with our rail systems. That integration should be part of their mandate. The Port is yet another redundant agency.
So, imagine having a single agency, accountable both to voters and to local and state officials, that raises all relevant money, makes all decisions, and has final responsibility for results. That would get things done.
By this plan, you'd have the following metro agencies:
Sound Transit Plus (all of King, Pierce, Snohomish)
Spokane Transit
Capital Transit (Olympia/Thurston County)
Clark County Transit (Vancouver, WA)
Tri-Cities Transit (Benton County)
Yakima Transit
Whatcom Transit (Bellingham)
Kitsap Transit
The state's transportation mandate would be connect these areas with integrated road/rail, and fund rural roads in all other counties.