Teach Me How to Bucky

So I'm still in Madison and still pretty sure I'll be going to Milwaukee sometime in the near future.  Americorp, as nice as it is to provide incentives for volunteerism and civic engagement, is a mess of red tape.  Because of PIRG's reputation as a political advocacy organization (which didn't seem to be a problem last year for myself and others I knew who worked at strongly religiously affiliated organizations), PIRG has to jump through extra hoops that are making getting started more difficult.  So I'm still in the same limbo.


In the meantime, I'm greatly enjoying my temporary identity as a Madisonian.  Jordan and Sarah, the two organizers I live with, are quite busy, but Madison's a pretty social sort of town so it doesn't get in the way too much.  WISPIRG is a pretty young organization, and there's always a game on or happy hour special or restaurant with the best cheese curds or whatever to gather around for a little while.  Or another petition to work on.  On 10/10/10 we went to a rally held in conjunction with 350.org's international celebration of what can be done to reduce greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, which was partly hosted by the WISPIRG chapter that Sarah organizes for.  On the way, we wandered through the capitol building a bit, watched the parade from the dome's observation balcony, stopped in some shops in between the capitol steps where we had watched speakers and the city park where some tables were set up, and then grabbed some food afterwards.  Everything flows together pretty seamlessly here.


I've also watched the two games the Badgers have played since I've been here.  I've never actually lived in the same town as a big team; it's a little different to walk down the street after a game and know that almost everyone watched it on TV and was cheering for the same side.  This year, some students got together and made a music video that plays off a popular song (that I had never heard before, but that would go for most popular songs) to build up some school pride for UW-M.  I noticed some Iowa fans wearing 'Teach Me How to Herky' shirts, a pretty lame rip-off.  Here's the video:




I'll try to get another update in soon, maybe about the issue we've been working on (high-speed rail and transportation in Wisconsin) and what I've been doing with it.