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Self-Education #1: CCAN/YIMBY/CSG/WABA meet-up on August 12th, 2023

 This weekend 8/12/2023: I attended the CCAN/YIMBY/CSG/WABA meet-up. S and I biked there. We met some people who represented each organization which was good. Z.P, from CCAN - he talked about the different initiatives to rally Virginians to combat some of the things Youngkin is trying to do, various projects around policy mostly. He also runs a lot of community events, it sounds like. He had an intern this past year who was a college freshman who is hosting an event at Armistead Booth park this  I also met Alex from YIMBY- Yes In My Backyard, who talked about the efforts he and the group are doing around a BIG Alexandria policy piece relating to housing zoning. this would make affordable housing more doable in the future. I really enjoyed talking to Alex, he is a volunteer on an all-volunteer campaign and was really passionate about the subject. He organizes alongside other local groups as well. They talk to city council people who make sure that the Department of Planning hears the in
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5 Eco Things

 Every couple of weeks, I like the idea of trying to track 5 eco things I'm doing or have done. This is in line with The Frugal Girl's list of 5 Frugal Things that she publishes every week (The Frugal Girl is a blog I like).  This week, I: 1. Used a lot of "scraps" of water from water bottles and such to water my balcony plants. 2. Collected and packaged some items to send to ThredUp to be resold. This is both ecologically and financially sound, provided the clothes find their way to a home. I'm hopeful, because most of the items are name brand as they request. Separately, I also collected a bunch of clothes to take to the Be Thrifty in Annandale.  3. We ate a lot of random leftover-y food, but in good fashion. For instance, in the morning I ate some fruit that was on its last legs, something else random that needed using up, and a partial bag of chips that had been sitting around. Shantonu doesn't really eat breakfast but I know at some point in the day he at
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Introducing The Green Social Worker

Welcome to The Green Social Worker!  I'm re-upping this blog with a new mission: tracking my own sustainable social worker actions, aka environmental social work or eco social work. This has been a passion area of mine for a long time, even before I knew it was a real "thing". I want a place where I can log all of the articles and ideas I come across about this topic, interviews or conversations with people that I witness, hear, or have personally, ideas and initiatives that I might pursue or be interested, and just generally my own personal journey around sustainability and social work and how these two concepts coalesce. 
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Throwback: Truthful Observations About Returning Stateside

Truthful Observations About Returning Stateside (originally published on another blog on Sunday, August 19th, 2018, four days after returning from my year abroad) Since returning home on Wednesday night after almost 24 hours of traveling, I've noticed a few things about my home country that I failed to remember when I left. My eyes feel fresher to this country's nuances: The roads seem bigger and there is more ambient space for grass and trees amid the more-sprawling-than-England's suburbs. People are friendlier. Eye contact and lots of hellos. Cars, lots of them, along the road, startle me more, even though I noticed that overall Americans drive more cautiously than many British people. Big box stores, very few independent shops in the suburbs. But then again... I moved from a small city (York) back to a fairly large urban-suburban area (Towson/Baltimore). That's different from moving from a suburb to a suburb, or the countryside to rural America. These ob
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Light, Bright Read That I Loved - for fun

Princesses Behaving Badly , by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/227725/princesses-behaving-badly-by-linda-rodriguez-mcrobbie/9780804191098/ Penguin link so you can avoid buying it on Amazon!
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Social Work So Far, part 2

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I guess I did a post like this at the very beginning of starting this blog when I returned from my time overseas, and I wanted to do another. I did the first when I was barely into my first semester and now I am three weeks into my last. How time flies - even when it doesn't! It's been a full and wonderful year and a half since that point. My theories of why social work is different are basically that we see the whole human and we see people with unconditional positive regard. In fact, I have a list of ideas that I think are central to social work: being client led unconditional positive regard holding both - possibly the most important person-in-environment social justice at the center of our practice ethics at the center of our practice speak the truth holding presence and a whole lot more! My classes so far in social work have been, as a Clinical - children and families track: First semester: Practice with Individuals (with Dr. Saur, whom I loved for
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A Day in the West Bank, part 2

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I wrote this blog post as part of a larger series of blogs by myself and my fellow students on a study abroad trip to Israel and Palestine in January 2020, where we learned about water usage, wastewater treatment, environmental engineering and inequality, and the oppression of Palestine through the lens of environmental control.  At the second farm we visited, our bus trundled into a small village along a muddy path, and we left the vehicle we were immediately greeted by the giggles and shouts of hello from a group of children. They were so pleased to have visitors, it seemed, and followed us around in a pack during the whole of tour. First we were served tiny cups of coffee in a comfortable living room with cozy couches and a gleaming marble floor by the leaders of the village, three men who work with PWEG and Clive on water projects on their farm. Then we went to go look at the water filtration system, followed of course by the band of merry children. They were on school holiday,
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