At a loss for an idea

Well I must say, it is nice to know someone is reading! Thank you anonymous commenter that sounds a lot like my friend!

I am surviving. Having a good day today. Finally finished the class that has undoubtedly been the nemesis of my college career. 'Tis a glorious day.

So anyway I'm now on to my next paper and I'm sitting here researching ideas (aka poking around online getting absorbed in wikipedia.com and not finding anything). So, I figured maybe I'd poke around on the blogs and see if any ideas sparked.

I'm trying to find a topic for my paper on communities. I have to identify a community that I am apart of (think Gainesville, Fl; University of Florida; Student Ghetto, etc.) and then identify a problem that I would like to change in that community and then identify a solution I can actively pursue.

I'm kind of at a loss here. I've come up with pretty much the entire outline of the paper, in my head, using an idea about my neighborhood in my hometown. But I can't come up with a solution that I can actively pursue there. And plus I haven't lived there for 5 years and I'm not really in touch with it anymore. I can't even figure out where to turn on my road anymore because there's been so much damn development.

Anyway, back to the point. I'd really like to do my little neighborhood here in the student ghetto but its hard to find a problem that anyone would actually be interested in fixing. I mean yeah, there's a lot of trash everywhere all the time and it's definitely not good for the environment and it looks terrible. But if I organize a trash pick up party every week or something people are just going to get drunk that very night and throw trash everywhere again. Even I have been known to throw a few bottles over my balcony or into the bushes when intoxicated heavily. There's just no need to deal with drunk people in this community salvation paper.

The issue I identified for my neighborhood back home was the lack of community and the distance that all the neighbors keep from each other. Nobody really knows anybody and they certainly do not interact frequently. The neighborhood has a lot of good foundations to start with though. Everyone always waves when they pass each other in their cars and while they're walking. My parents actually know most of our immediate neighbors by name and they sometimes stop by with Holiday goodies or hand-me-down clothes for my brother. These are all great things that most neighborhoods don't have. But isn't that a low standard to set? We may occasionally interact with our neighbors but its never more than a brief, "Hi, How are you?" and there isn't any real relationship there.

What the neighborhood needs is a way to bond together, so that they can build relationships with each other and eventually be a support unit and an excellent little mesosystem for all the happy families in the neighborhood. My mom was telling me how she wants to have neighborhood barbecues and block parties and to be friends with the neighbors so they can hang out and whatever adults do when they aren't working or cleaning or yelling at their children. haha.

I don't know. I really wanted to think of something for Gainesville. Something specific.
there's always poverty and homelessness but that's not exactly something I can be super creative about. I have to think of something I can actually make an impact on individually. I have a really hard time with that because I've pretty much convinced myself that I have to go into public policy because its the only way to actually change anything.

But here I am, learning new things everyday. Okay well you think about it. I'm going to stew about this for a little bit longer than I'm just going to bullshit this paper if I still don't have a plan.