I'm back and busy as ever!

It has been too long since my last blog entry. The last time I sat down to write one, it was full of stability and happiness. But me being Courtney, everything is always changing!

I am still HAPPY as ever!

Kendra visited from Boston this weekend 10/17/10

Funny dinner at 1300 Fillmore in SF 10/9/10

I took a trip back home two weekends ago to celebrate the homegoing of my Aunt Mary. She passed away about three weeks ago, so I went home to be with my family and make sure we were celebrating and NOT grieving. In Psalms 34:18, the Bible says, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Later in Psalms 37:39, the word says "The salvation of the righteous comes from the LORD; he is their stronghold in time of trouble." My aunt is no longer plagued with many illnesses. She is happy and doing her happy dance with my mom.

Before leaving for San Francisco, the most wonderful city in the world, I pitched my research idea to my program director. Remember the idea I was so excited about? Studying the effects of natural disasters on people of African descent in the Bronx (and in New Orleans). Yes, social justice at its best. She loved the idea and posed probing questions to me to better understand the topic and where I should go with it. As we spoke, I realized that I would be immersed in this literature and topic for 15 months. Instead of thinking of what will look good to law school, I literally handed her my bibliography to throw in recycling and told her what my urban studies heart's desire is. My masters thesis will focus on the effects of urban violence on adolescent girls in Hunter's Point, San Francisco.

I know too many people that are affected by the violence that takes place in Hunter's Point. As I matriculate further in my MA program, we are continuously reading about violence/poverty in distant developing countries on the world's periphery or American megacities like New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA. While San Francisco always invokes images of joy, hippies, fog, the Golden Gate Bridge and an overall happy atomsphere. There's a need for research on Hunter's Point to expose the serious environmental, social, economic and downright humanistic inequalities taking place there.

My number one inspiration for the thesis, as usual, is my younger sister. Before my mother passed away on November 24, 2006, Breana (then 16) had already lost four close friends to gun violence. I believe two were involved in gang violence but one girl was not. She was walking to her grandmother's house, right off 3rd Street, and was shot. This girl was an academic athlete in high school and working hard to go to college. We have read the literature on what we thinks makes these young black men enter lives of crime, but what about the young girls that are caught in gunfire while walking to school? What about the female friends of the teenage boys that are murdered? What about the girl that grows up in a single-mother household because her teenage father was murdered? Is there a connection between urban violence and young black girls in Hunter's Point's America Dream of being a baby mama and living in government housing for the rest of their lives or until the baby's father gets out of prison?

I will conduct field study, interviewing girls and women in Hunter's Point next summer.