2013-05-22T06:12:12-04:00 Jasmeet Sidhu http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=jasmeet-sidhu Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Jasmeet Sidhu Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1883586 2012-09-14T18:23:00-04:00 2012-11-14T05:12:01-05:00

Jasmeet Sidhu http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jasmeet-sidhu/
I investigated this new reality in a piece published a week ago in Slate, a culmination of five months of reporting looking into the shocking, surprising, and controversial practice of prenatal sex selection in the United States. According to my report, which was supported by the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University, sex selection -- or gender selection, as it is sometimes called -- rakes in revenues of at least $100 million year, and doctors say that the growth could explode in the next decade.

But is this new reality, the ability to choose the sex of our babies, one that Americans feel comfortable with? Is there a line when it comes to the use of reproductive technologies, and does sex selection cross it?

Boisterous and bold fertility doctors I interviewed, from New York to California, say no. Families have the right to "balance" the genders of their children, they argued. Ethicists and some scientists say yes, likening the practice to "high-tech eugenics," as Marcy Darnovsky, the director for the Center for Genetics and Society, called it.

But this black-and-white view became a little grey when I spoke to mothers who desperately turn to sex selection. Nearly all the women encountered on sites like in-gender.com and genderdreaming.com -- sites geared toward helping women choose the sex of their babies, whether through natural or high-tech methods -- are seeking girls.

These mothers spoke of understanding the ethical controversies with using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), the technology used to screen embryos for their chromosomes before being implanted into the uterus, for sex selection. In fact, the fear of stigma for themselves and their children (both current and unborn) led nearly all of them to request that their names be changed when I interviewed them for the Slate story.

Yet these mothers often spoke calmly and sincerely about what having a daughter, in an existing family of boys, would mean to them personally. They did not seem to want to use the technology in response to a hatred toward their sons but out of a yearning and a love for daughters. And they spoke of feeling empowered in being able to make this choice and create their families, supported by the possibilities of science and a lack of regulations in the use of reproductive technologies that has come to define America.

"Some people say that this is playing God," wrote one of these women, a 32-year-old mother of three children who used sex selection to create her youngest and only daughter, in an email to me. "I am a Christian and believe that if God did not want me to have a daughter, then there is nothing I could have done to have one. I believe it's all up to Him anyway. Other than that, I am not sure what my critics would say."

A lack of regulation in the U.S. allows prenatal sex selection to be left to the market. In contrast, Canada's Assisted Human Reproduction Act states that no person shall "for the purpose of creating a human being, perform any procedure or provide, prescribe or administer any thing that would ensure or increase the probability that an embryo will be of a particular sex." Similar restrictions on sex selection also exist in Australia and Britain.

Besides the "slippery slope toward eugenics" fear, medical ethicists worry that if the number of consumers seeking gender selection becomes significant, the demand may one day displace resources for those actually experiencing infertility in the country.

"There is a reluctance among Americans to think about these issues as a business. As a result, no one is minding the store," said Darnovsky. "The response, then, is to look for more revenue, more customers. But how much can we leave to the market?"

Many of the recent efforts to regulate sex selection in the United States have focused on the other end of the human reproduction spectrum. This past May a Republican-sponsored bill aiming to ban sex-selective abortions failed to pass in Congress. The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) would have made it illegal to perform an abortion on a woman if the reason for the abortion was because of the gender of the fetus.

But many argue that sex-selective abortion is not the same as prenatal sex selection. Weeding out the "boy embryos" from the "girl embryos" in a petri dish in a laboratory seems a far cry from the seemingly ruthless sex-selective abortion phenomenon that has haunted India and China and has been blamed for millions of "missing girls" in the region.

And it would seem that in America, at least, there are some who are all too willing to limit women's access to reproductive technologies in the name of political or partisan goals.

In the meantime, however, women will continue to turn to doctors who enthusiastically advertise the practice within their fertility clinics. It is yet to be seen whether this will lead to a world where wondering about the gender of a prospective child will be a thing of the past.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1751362 2012-08-07T11:16:44-04:00 2012-10-07T05:12:03-04:00

Jasmeet Sidhu http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jasmeet-sidhu/
The men and women in the kitchens will be preparing roti, dahl and other traditional Indian dishes to serve for lunch (or langar, the free community meal) to the temple's congregation.

Children will be running and playing barefoot up and down the temple's corridors. Inside the main prayer hall, early recitations of prayer and singing will be beginning.

However, for congregation members of the Sikh temple in Milwaukee, this peaceful and reassuring routine of worship was horribly disrupted by the arrival of a gunman, whose spatter of bullets left six dead in his wake.

Milwaukee police are now calling the shooting a "domestic terrorist-type incident."

The news of the shooting has shocked the nation and an entire global community of Sikhs, only weeks after the bloodshed in Aurora, Colo.

Though the police have not confirmed a motive for Sunday's attacks, for many grief-stricken American Sikhs there is a certain ripple of downhearted inevitably that came with news of the tragedy.

Since Sept. 11, Sikhs living in the U.S. have a reported a rise in attacks, both verbal as well as physical. These attacks have included the deaths of many turban-wearing Sikh men, who are often mistaken as Muslim.

In fact, the first hate-crime death connected with Sept. 11 was that committed against a Sikh, not a Muslim, with the death of Balbir Singh Sodhi just four days after Sept. 11.

On Sept. 15, Sodhi, a turban-wearing Sikh was shot and killed in his Arizona gas station. Sodhi's death began a decade of hate-crimes committed against Sikhs -
- around 700 cases of violence and discrimination against Sikhs to be exact, according to the Sikh Coalition, the nation's largest Sikh American civil rights organization.

In April, Representative Joseph Crowley, D-NY, co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Indians and Indian-Americans, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., urging the F.B.I. to collect data on hate crimes committed against the Sikh-Americans.

In the letter, Crowley cited that in the previous year alone, two Sikh men in Sacramento were slain, a Sikh temple in Michigan was vandalized and a Sikh man was beaten in New York.

His website says Sikh Americans are members of a community "that is acutely susceptible to violence because of their appearance."

So when the news came early Sunday morning of the events that transpired in Milwaukee, Wis., horror from the tragedy intermingled with resigned defeat among many Sikhs -- that a decade's worth of education on who the Sikhs and Muslims were and on their respective peaceful religions could not stave off another tragedy.

There are approximately 300,000 Sikhs living in the U.S. Is it the fifth-largest religion in the world, with more than 30 million followers. It is a monotheistic religion believing in one God, with its roots in the province of Punjab, India, where 500 years ago Guru Nanak first preached its message of social justice, charity, equality between all human beings, and emphatically denouncing superstitions and blind rituals.

It were these messages of the faith, that members of the Milkwaukee Sikh congregation were preparing to pray and meditate on, before a mad gunman entered the hallways of their Gurudwara, the most holy and welcoming place for Sikhs.

While the community in Milwaukee and the global community of Sikhs mourn for those that passed that fateful morning, the persisting questions of the safety of Sikhs and Muslims in America will and should remain.

And just with the conversations that need to be occurring around gun control that were sparked again in the days following the shooting in Aurora, Colo., unless an effective solution is recognized, there is a certain breath-holding among all of us, waiting to see if and when, the next incident occurs.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.916654 2011-08-04T14:00:18-04:00 2011-10-04T05:12:02-04:00

Jasmeet Sidhu http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jasmeet-sidhu/ Dharmic Seva: Catalyst to Strengthening and Building Pluralistic Communities".

Hosted by the not-for-profit organization "Hindu American Seva Charities," whose mission is to mobilize the Hindu American community around seva (public service), the weekend's panels and speakers were filled with multi-religious perspectives discussing and trying to understand the role faith and religion can play in community development, health promotion and immigrant and refugee support in the country.

A question however, struck me as I listened to these discussions in the elegant meeting rooms of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building of the White House: do faith-based groups still have a relevant role to play in developing the future of this country?

Perhaps my initial skepticism comes from my own background as a newly transplanted Canadian in the United States. Though religious extremism and accommodation for religious minorities is certainly a topic of sometimes heated discussion in Canada, religious life and religious figures have never quite permeated the public consciousness the way it has in the United States. It is this reason perhaps, religious groups have never been allowed to assume the same level of public space and seats at the table when it comes to policy decisions and shaping the future of the country.

The United States on the other hand is certainly a different ballgame, both when it comes to the role religious groups play in public and political life in the country, but also in the way the political leadership in the country has sought actively to create interfaith dialogue in particular.

Take for example, the remarkable creation and effort of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, or even the explicit acknowledgement by President Barack Obama to recognize faith-groups in his inaugural address in 2009: "for we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers," he declared.

It seems to me, that though this country has its fair share of heated debates around religion (the ground zero mosque controversy comes to find), there are also seems to be a yearning and a willingness by policy makers, community groups and other stakeholders to publicly engage and bring into the fold Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh groups and tap into their ready-made networks and organizational capacity to solve some of this country's most dire social issues.

For example, at the conference I heard different religious groups speak of using religion and religious networks to tackle nutrition and healthy eating, climate change, women's equality and empowerment, and to promote cultural understanding and harmony between different diverse groups. Hearing these ideas on the same weekend where the debt crisis was being fought just down the road at Capitol Hill with the looming reality of spending cuts and decreased support for social programs, it seemed more pertinent than ever to me that these religious groups become more empowered to step into the public space where the government can no longer.

Certainly, there are those that will continue to decry religious groups and religious peoples as insular or clinging to irrelevant ideas and beliefs that can not tangible positive impact on society. However, as the work of Hindu American Seva Charities and the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships demonstrate, I have great faith (pardon the pun) that religious groups and religious persons in our society can have a positive impact, and interfaith dialogue in particular can cultivate a certain level of peace and understanding that we so desperately need.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.841876 2011-03-29T11:48:47-04:00 2011-05-29T05:12:01-04:00

Jasmeet Sidhu http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jasmeet-sidhu/ Extraordinary Women TV," where I got to meet fellow guest Devyani Saltzman, author and daughter of Oscar-nominated filmmaker, Deepa Mehta. In the interview, Devyani described how she once read the now well-known book by The New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch titled We Wish to Inform You and was so determined to meet with him, that she cold-called him at his New York offices. She left a message on his voicemail, and amazingly, he called her back and they ended up having a three-hour coffee chat.

This anecdote brilliantly illustrates the power of cold-calling: calling up someone that you would love to meet for coffee out of the blue to gain advice, develop a contact, and possibly lay the groundwork for a job or future opportunities.

It's common knowledge these days the power networking can have for your career, especially for those just graduating and looking for advice on how to get established. However, what's not so common are strategies to go about doing it. Cold-calling, as terrifying as it can be (especially for a shy person like me!), can be your ticket to opening doors and meeting some really interesting, successful people.

Why is cold-calling effective? It's simple: not enough people to do it. If you're like the great majority of people, you've probably sent emails to many people you were hoping to get in contact with, and disappointed when days, weeks have gone by with no reply. Heck, you're not even sure you had the right email to begin with.

The growing problem with email is simply overload: hundreds of emails can reach a person a day, and individually, they just do not carry enough weight and impetus for the recipient to respond, especially if they are from a stranger.

This is where you can differentiate yourself from the hundreds of emails and try cold-calling. The trick with cold-calling (if the person you are trying to reach works at an established company), is to locate the correct company phone number, and be able to access their company directory. Other times, a helpful receptionist might be able to redirect you to the person's extension.

Whether you do get the person you're after or you get their voicemail, the crucial part here is to be extremely brief. Your pitch (whether for coffee, advice etc.) should be a couple of sentences max: your name, where you are from, who referred you (if any), something to connect you with the person (you read their last book, article etc.), and a request to meet for coffee in a specific time frame (next week, mornings). That's it. If it's a voicemail, clearly and slowly spell out your phone number, and be on your way.

Another method that has worked quite effectively for me is sending out a physical letter. This method involves typing out a letter to the person, printing it out, signing it, and mailing it out. This is slightly more time consuming and costs money (all those stamps can add up!) but the pay off can be tremendous.

Think about what happens when you receive a letter, especially a handwritten one addressed to you by name. Your curiosity is piqued, and you spend the time to open the letter and read the contents. A letter can garner more attention than an email can, simply because personal letters are few and far between. As well, if your intended recipient doesn't choose to answer the letter right away, but doesn't trash it, the letter sitting on their desk is a constant reminder that it should at least be replied to, more so than an email sitting in an inbox.

By writing and sending letters, I was able to have coffee with a prominent author that I admired, settle a wrong charge on my cell phone bill (you can use this method for other purposes!), and got in contact with the executive producer of a television show that I was interested in interning at.

In terms of finding out where to mail your letter, a great resource are the 'Who's Who' reference books available in most libraries -- they surprisingly contain a lot of information (including sometimes email addresses and phone numbers) of many prominent people in society.

A lot of times we forget that Internet can't do everything for us and find every piece of information. Especially in a tough job market where building connections is the key to getting ahead, doing it the old-fashioned way via telephone or letter can be just the difference you need to stand out from the pack.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.813767 2011-01-25T15:00:33-05:00 2011-05-25T18:25:24-04:00

Jasmeet Sidhu http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jasmeet-sidhu/ The Gap Year: A Post-Graduation Exploration" for The Huffington Post. I was in the middle of finishing my senior year at the University of Toronto, and had begun pondering the very scary scenario of taking a "year off" between my undergraduate and graduate degrees. This would mean that for the first time in sixteen years, I would not be returning to school come September, and would be dipping my toe into the much anticipated "real world," free from semesters, exams and being graded at every point.

My reasons for taking a year off were more than just having a little fun before completing a grueling graduate degree. I was genuinely confused about the next stage of my life, whether doing graduate school at all was indeed right for me, and whether the path and interests that I was pursuing up until this point were really what I wanted to pursue for the rest of my life, or if something better was waiting out there for me and I just needed the breathing room to find it.

Now, nearly a year later and halfway through my so-called year off and seemingly no closer to figuring out what I want to do with my life, I've learned that the real world is pretty damn scary. I always suspected as much even before I collected my diploma and was let loose last June, but the reality hit me harder than I could ever have imagined while safe and warm in the university bubble.

Some things were jarring but quick to get used to, such as losing those valuable student discounts (and in the process going through the epiphany of oh-my-god-I'm-a-real-adult-now), while others I am still struggling with: losing an immediate purpose in course work and essays, and redesigning my life to fit a reality that isn't defined by four-month time chunks like semesters and summer holidays.

To try to make sense of the smorgasbord of feelings that overcome any student when they eventually face this reality, I've tried to weave out three things that I have found the most challenging to deal with since saying goodbye to the classroom:

1) Transitioning from a 'student' to a 'fill in the bank': Losing the student discounts was one thing. But what was more traumatizing was losing the ability to call myself a "student," and being suddenly viewed the same as the 49-year-old marketing executive sitting next to me on public transit, both as adults. The fact was, being a student was so wrapped up into my identity for sixteen years that without it, I didn't really know who I was. Being a student came with clearly defined social scripts and expectations, and simply declaring, "I'm a student" brought understanding and told most of your story to the outside world. The second I received my diploma on graduation day, I had suddenly transformed from a "student" to 20-something unemployed adult in search of a new identity while mourning the loss of an old one. Which brings me to the next scary truth about the real world...

2) Finding a job is actually really hard. Big spoiler alert, right? It really should be no surprise that new graduates are facing one of the toughest job markets in recent decades, especially those with non-technical, artsy degrees like mine. But I figured that I had done well enough in university in setting the groundwork for a job, that I would send out a few emails and BAM! I was on to the career of my dreams.

Hint -- it didn't quite turn out like that.

What I originally thought would be an easy foray into the work world after taking a couple of weeks off suddenly became a bittering reality of simply just how hard it is to find a full time, paying job out there, even something to just hold me over until graduate school. Probably one of the best things that I'm learning during this grueling and sometimes depressing job search is to never take success as an easy expectation. Just like writing a paper in college required intensive research, casting a wide net for resources, and several focused hours, so does finding a job, and to be truthful, I hadn't been approaching it like that before.

So now I'm a bit wiser. I'm visiting my alma mater's career centre for advice and seminars, checking out career strategy books from the public library, and having coffee with old mentors. And even if I go back to graduate school and don't need a job for the long-term yet, I'll never underestimate the exhausting, confidence-defeating job search process again. Because with every job rejection and ever step sinking into directionless abyss, you're constantly reminded that...

3) There's no report card on life.

Perhaps the hardest and scariest part of real life is that you'll never know if you are doing the right thing. For all of your existence up until now, you were aware of the minimum passing mark to move on to the next grade, received progress reports, marks on a transcript that told you exactly how you were doing, and it felt good to meet and exceed those benchmarks.
When you're on your own, you only have your own benchmarks to pass, if that at all, and that can lead to some scary thoughts.

"Am I doing the right thing? Am I on the right path? Are my own standards too high? Too low? What is everyone else doing? What if I don't end up being successful?"

It's moments like those that make you wish you can somehow see into the future, be assured and guaranteed that everything turns out okay, and work backwards from that.

Unfortunately, life is not like that.

And that's what makes it scary, exhilarating, anxious and wonderful all at the same time.
So as I move on forward in my year off that might very well lead to me never returning to school, I'm learning to deal with these fears, insecurities, and realities of what it means to exist without school. And all I can really do is learn from my mistakes, remain optimistic, and feel comforted by the fact that I'm not alone and eventually, everyone gets through it.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.417431 2010-01-11T11:37:46-05:00 2011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00

Jasmeet Sidhu http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jasmeet-sidhu/
Even as I write this, I'm stifling back a yawn, holding a mug of coffee, and indulging in thoughts of my warm bed waiting not too far away.

I really shouldn't be this tired. Having yet to graduate college, I don't have a full time career or a family yet to worry about. But despite this, I have gradually cut my sleeping hours over the years and I know I'm not the only one.

My own continuous state of fatigue along with HuffPost's Sleep Challenge 2010 with Ariana Huffington and Glamour's editor-in-chief Cindi Leive has inspired me to take a look at my own cohort of 20-something college women, and whether we're avoiding the sleep deprivation trap of our older, much busier counterparts.

The truth? We're just as tired.

Despite most of us being husbandless and childless with still fledging careers, it seems that single moms and working women are not the only ones guilty of skimping on sleep.

Amongst my own friends? 6 hours. 5 hours. For one of my friends, a shocking 4 hours a night.

Indeed, though our age suggests that we're supposed to be in the prime of our vitality and free thus far from the many other stresses of life, young "fresh-faced" college women are now hurriedly filling their purses with under-eye concealer, sneaking yawns, sipping coffee throughout the day, and operating on a perpetual state of tiredness.

What's the deal? Why are we so sleepless that by the time we pick up our diplomas on graduation day, we're well primed to join the ranks of the nation's tired working women right from the get-go?

Ariana and Cindi have called the lack of a sleep a feminist issue, attributed to women working harder and longer to compensate for feelings of not belonging to a boys-club atmosphere that dominates the workplace.

Though women populate college campuses in record numbers, with some even outnumbering men at certain colleges, the same mentality may haunt us as students well before we reach the workplace -- especially for those women majoring in traditionally male-dominated fields like engineering and the sciences. Staying up late to perfect work or to go the extra mile in an assignment may be fueled by desires to be viewed as competent, and to be taken just as seriously in classes surrounded by male students.

Even still no matter the academic program, I've seen through my four years at college a gradual and subtle conditioning of women that almost encourages less sleep in the name of being more productive and getting ahead.

I can't count the number of times I've seen my friends run into class minutes before the deadline brandishing their just-completed essays and declaring that they hadn't slept all night. Or in some instances, watching conversations between students trying to one-up the other in how few hours of sleep they're getting as a badge of honor and a sign of how hard they're working, despite the health consequences. One night of skimped sleep turns into another, until it becomes a habit as we transition into the workplace.

In a way, we can't be blamed, especially during these precarious economic times that see record unemployment for those under 30. Whether it is staying up to finish that 10-page essay, priming for a highly competitive internship, a spot at a prestigious grad school or maintaining a vibrant social life in the aim of 'having it all' (something working moms know well), getting 8 hours of sleep just might not be cutting it anymore in the college version of the rat race, and never ceases as we graduate.

On top of that, watching our own stressed and sleepless working mothers attempting to achieve so-called-balance may have influenced us as well. Growing up watching our mothers come home from work spent and exhausted, and then gearing up for the 'second shift' in cooking dinner and taking care of the household may have conditioned us into think long and harried schedules for women that run late into the night is the norm.

Sleep is not generally seen as "something to work on", not like other typical health-based resolutions like eating well or exercising. Though we all claim we need more sleep, there's never really a concerted effort to achieve it -- the mentality is that we will either have the time or not to sleep, depending on our never-ending to do lists and schedules.

This needs to change. Like the Sleep Challenge 2010, we need to make sleep just as much as a priority for young women as the grades, internships and applications, and actively focus on inching our way to the recommended 7.5-8 hours a night.

With the prospect that our hectic lives are only going to become busier and complicated with the acquirement of husbands, mortgages and children in the future, there's never been a better moment to reach for the pajamas, and get some good ol' fashioned sleep.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.388631 2009-12-14T14:57:48-05:00 2011-05-25T14:55:21-04:00

Jasmeet Sidhu http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jasmeet-sidhu/
Oh, how short that brief window of optimism lasted.

On just the second day of the negotiations, enraged African negotiators yelled and chanted "two degrees is suicide," after the leaking of the so-called Danish 'text' that was immediately rejected by many of the world's poorer countries.

On Wednesday, Tuvalu walked out of the plenary session and sparked protesters to push into the plenary room in support, leading to the temporary ban of civil society members into the negotiations.

On Thursday, negotiations were suspended once more after a proposal by Tuvalu to continue on a two-track agreement did not reach consensus. Earlier on a Canadian youth broke down and personally reprimanded her country's lead negotiator in a video quickly circulated throughout the international climate movement.

And on Friday, 40 protesters were detained on the streets of Copenhagen as a 'precautionary' measure by Danish police, no doubt just a taste of the level and size of demonstrations to erupt both inside and outside the conference centre next week.

What's gone wrong? It's halfway through the conference, negotiations have barely moved an inch, and climate advocates (and some negotiators) are enraged at the lack of progress. How and why did we quickly lose the dream of Hopenhagen?

It may have started from the fact that expectations were drastically downplayed even before the Copenhagen negotiations were to begin. A global legally binding treaty quickly transformed into a vague "political agreement" by parties as the goal of the conference, once again pushing the hard decisions to be hashed out at interim meetings and the next COP to be held in Mexico City.

Or it may even be that the whole idea of "Hopenhagen" the feel-good branding of the conference that could have sparked a drinking game over how many times the term was mentioned in the opening ceremonies of the conference. Indeed it's hard to miss the several Hopenhagen billboards sponsored by Coca Cola and other corporations plastered throughout the city and the airport.

No one could possibly argue being against the idea of "hope" and wanting to believe that Copenhagen can produce a climate treaty that will limit global warming to 2 degrees and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. However, this mass-marketing of hope seems to have injected a sense of passivity amongst the delegates at the negotiations, a sense of waiting for the magic to happen with the arrival of the biggest man of "hope" to the conference next week.

I have no doubt that President Barack Obama's presence at Copenhagen negotiations will be marvelous, and that even his mere presence could surge the world into a new era of climate consciousness. However, his and the hundreds of other world leaders' presence in the name of Hopenhagen almost guarantees the creation of a substandard "political agreement".

This would accomplish the goal of Hopenhagen. This will make many leaving the conference with a little bit of the feel-good sentiment that the branding intended. However, it must not make the world blind to the fact that what is being proposed in the Bella Centre and will come out of Copenhagen in these two weeks, does not even come close to addressing the climate crisis.

The time for naivety and everything that Hopenhagen represents is over, and the right kind of proposals need to begin to be debated in Copenhagen. Just this morning, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) introduced a new text recommending the Kyoto Protocol to continue into the second commitment period, and that a separate, legally binding treaty be signed on forests and finance to help vulnerable states adapt to climate change, as well as reduce their emissions and pursue low-carbon growth. It's a start, and we need more of it.

So next week, as the protests get bigger, the frustrations run higher, and the world is seemingly calmed and inspired by the assurances of Barack Obama when he arrives, we should keep in mind what Hopenhagen really means.

We need something more than a weak political agreement that provides a satisfying ending to Hopenhagen and allows world leaders to say that they did not leave the summit empty-handed. We need the momentum into 2010 to see the talks through instead of settling into Hopenhagen fatigue

There's one week left of the conference. Let's demand what really needs to be happening from our world leaders, for a real, legally binding and equitable global climate treaty.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.348852 2009-11-06T16:53:38-05:00 2011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00

Jasmeet Sidhu http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jasmeet-sidhu/
With a little hesitation, and more amusement at how simple the search words were, I typed in "Harvard grad school."

I quickly bookmarked the school's website, and proceeded to do the same for other schools, exchanging Harvard with "Northwestern, Yale, Cambridge, Berkley" and so on.

With every school's web page that I perused, seeing the long list of grad programs and requirements, I felt a slight unnerving dread that I couldn't really place at the time.

It was the summer before my senior year of college. After three years of lectures and spending several hours and nights churning out essays, it was finally time to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

A couple of weeks later at the first "Life after Undergrad" seminar of the frenzied fall application season, it was more of the same - half-heartedly picking up some brochures, quickly glancing at excited faces on a campus far, far away, and feeling none of the same excited energy I did four years ago in high school in the same position.

Was this how I was supposed to be feeling? I had seemingly done everything right - sailing from high school, I succeeded (though not without difficulty) in getting good grades in my classes, I participated in extracurricular activities, I traveled abroad - naturally, the next step in my education was to move on to graduate programs, the new 'standard' I was told by many professors and professionals in the field, "if you wanted to be taken seriously".

But put simply, it just didn't feel right.

I wasn't feeling the particular draw to a program or school and soon I realized, not very attracted to the idea of doing another couple years of school itself.

That's when an idea that always existed in the back of my mind came right to the forefront.

A year off. Those three words not only held so much possibility, but so much terror as well.

Would it be smart? Would it ruin my momentum? What if I never came back? What would I do? How would it affect me personally? Would I regret it?

It was a little comforting to know at least that I wasn't alone in these questions.

As their last September of undergrad rolls around, many college seniors in campuses around the world are finally faced with decisions about their life, their interests, and ultimately who they aspire to be.

The question becomes more difficult for college grads today as graduate degrees are no longer reserved just for those aspiring to live, learn and teach in the ivory tower.

Graduate degrees have now become the norm for undergrad students to act as a base to launch their careers, with universities branching beyond traditional graduate degrees in eclectic and hot topics that involve a substantial practical component along with the traditional thesis requirement. To illustrate the point, it wasn't so long ago that journalism school wasn't even considered an option - now, many aspiring journalists look to a Masters in Journalism to shore up their skills and job prospects.

However, more and more students amongst Generation Y are opting to take gap years between an undergraduate degree and a graduate degree, and using the time off as an opportunity to explore interests, get job experience, and perhaps realize that the life and career plan that they originally set out for themselves was simply not for them.

After initially being very scared about the idea - after all, I had spent the last sixteen years in school, and school was all I knew - I began to warm up to the idea of beginning a life without the boundaries and comfort of school, at least for a little while.

Though I was perplexed at what I would do for twelve months, the answers soon came very quickly and vividly in my mind - I could travel, I could read, I could write. I could begin a company or take on an odd, quirky job.

Perhaps the root of the problem - that I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life - could be clarified and the experiences in my year off could help begin to develop a clearer conception of my future.

So as of right now, while some of my other friends frantically write their MCATs, wait anxiously in the mail for their LSAT scores and attend graduate fairs, I'm quietly taking a step back and seizing this fresh start before diving into grad school.

It can be scary to know I can end up anywhere, but I think that's also the part that makes this whole journey exciting.

And that's why this blog is here - I hope that you can share in my adventures (and misadventures) as I try to navigate the murky waters of life after undergrad, through job applications, resolving my feelings about the end of my formal education, figuring out my career, life and everything in between. ]]>