Millie's Make-A-Wish Story

Millie is a four-year-old from San Antonio, Texas who was diagnosed with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis at the age of two. A few months ago she wished for a puppy she could put bows on, and today she has found a true gal pal in her puppy “Queen Esther”.

Millie went through a year long process for recovery. She underwent several chemo and steroid treatments. Till this day, Millie still goes to regular check-ups.

“Millie didn’t understand the gravity of her illness but it was intended because she was only two. My husband and I wanted to protect her from the heaviness of the situation,” said Laura, Millie’s mother. “Kids have the gift of being in the moment and not think too much in the future so I didn’t want to take away that gift.”

In August, Make-A-Wish brought a giant schnoodle puppy to Millie and her family. Queen Esther or “Queenie” is now four months old. She loves her daily walks, jumping in the bathtub with Millie, and riding to school with Millie and her siblings every morning.

“The timing with Make-A-Wish was perfect. We had a lot going on but it came at a good time for us,” said Laura. She had been through so much getting Queenie let her end her treatment on a positive note.”                              

Queenie was actually almost named Dolly Parton, but Millie sided with Queen Esther after being inspired by the biblical character in the VeggieTales movie. The idea was to name her after a strong woman, just like Millie.

This October marks one year of Millie being cancer-free. Millie met Queenie just one month after having her port removed, and Millie’s mom says the joy Queenie brings to Millie is a gift, not just for Millie, but for their whole family.

“We are extremely grateful for the wish-come-true, for making, what could have been a really dark period in our lives, positive,” said Laura. “It was a huge blessing and I don’t know that ‘thank you’ fully expresses what we feel.”

SXSW for all

      Every year, South by Southwest offers free platinum badges to 10 Austin college students. Think of the platinum badge as Willy Wonka’s golden ticket.

SXSW is a Mecca for filmmakers, musicians and fans from all around the globe. A platinum badge gives direct access to all programs at the festival, costing $1,495. For 2015, the African American Resource Advisory Commission suggests an expansion of SXSW badge opportunities for East Austin youth. SXSW organizers will consider the expansion during the next month.

SXSW is an annual interactive festival which includes presentations and panels from the leading minds in emerging technology, networking events hosted by industry leaders and a lineup of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community offers. The festival returns to Austin March 13-22.

Amin Simms, SXSW registrar, and Catlin Whitington, SXSW planner, presented an application for platinum badges at the commission meeting. Currently, SXSW focuses on reaching college students. They hope to find 10 of the best young, aspiring filmmakers with financial need. A month ago, SXSW requested time on the panel’s agenda to present its idea.

At the Nov. 5 meeting, Simms and Whitington requested help spreading information about the badge application. Simms and Whitington asked the commission to help them spread flyers around Austin college campuses because the commission focuses on providing opportunities for low-income African American students, and SXSW would like to extend this opportunity to them. But, commission member Nelson Linder questioned why college students were their only area of focus.

“What about East Austin high schoolers?” Linder asked.

The commission suggested expanding the program marketing to more students and doubling the number of passes.

According to SXSW demographics, only 1 percent of festival pass members are under 21, and 16 percent of attendees hold a household income of less than $50,000. Young, broke students make up a minority.

For more on SXSW demographics visit www.sxsw.com/marketing

Only 30 percent of East Austin residents are college graduates, and the average household income is $48,352, according to 2010 Census Data.

“Why are we focusing on college students only, when a majority of people interested in this industry don’t attend college? Entertainers and musicians are all around these areas we’re not reaching out to,” Linder said.

            According to pop culture website, Flavor Wire, several prominent film directors did not pursue a college education for film including, Quentin Tarantino and James Cameron.

Commission member Clifford Gillard urged Whitington and Simms to consider restructuring the audience for their application process. “We’re definitely open to working on something for that purpose. We currently offer multiple volunteer opportunities that are open to anyone, but we will consider expanding the platinum badge program,” Whitington said.

University of Texas freshman and East Austin native Wande Isola never attended the festival growing up. “No one from my high school even talked about badges for SXSW. It wasn’t a thing because it wasn’t really an option,” she said.

“At the end of the day, I could get at least a basic pass if I really, really wanted to, but some people in these areas really don’t have a chance to get one. These are legitimate fans and aspiring, creative people who would be greatly impacted from a firsthand experience at the festival,” Isola said.

Many previous festival attendees reap benefits from exposure to media industry workers during the festival. Texas Student Television producer Olivia Suarez attended the festival the past two years. “Going to SXSW is one of those opportunities you have to experience at least once, especially if you live in Austin,” Suarez said.

“SXSW has allowed me to meet so many other media professionals and learn more about working the field. That networking pays off so much, I think everyone that wants to go into this industry should at least get a fair opportunity to experience it,” Suarez said.

The commission did not offer Simms and Whitington a concrete restructure, but they said they do want to see change before they participate in their marketing. Simms and Whitington will return to the commission meeting with an update on possible program restructure on Dec. 3.

Crime goes off the leash

Man’s best friend can occasionally turn into man’s worst enemy. No one wants to think of the household pet as a potential aggressor, so dog attacks do not usually get classified as crimes. This crime cost one Texas official $11, 600.

In early October, the Austin-American Statesman reported Glenn Bass, Travis County Precinct 2 justice of the peace, paid $11,600 in settlements to two Travis County workers after they said his dog, Justice, bit them. A Travis County police record included four statements from other constable’s office employees saying Justice bit their pants, shoes or socks. Two employees said Justice nearly broke skin. The media brought this incident to light, but many dog attacks continue under the radar.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that dogs bite nearly 4.5 million Americans each year. Austin classifies dogs as dangerous if the dog attack occurs unprovoked and takes place outside of the dog’s enclosure. The Dangerous and Vicious Dogs list in Austin includes 44 dogs. Some dogs made the list for minor bites to a human. Some dogs made the list for inflicting more serious damage- one dog’s attack sent a boy to the hospital with multiple bites and lacerations to his face and arms in 2012. There are approximately 193,600 dogs in Austin; 2 percent of these dogs classified as vicious or dangerous, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.

While dog attacks occur every week, not all of them make the police record. In the past week, two attacks were filed with Austin police. However, the number of registered dangerous dogs has remained between 40-45 for three years. Reported dog attacks, like the case of Glenn Bass, do not occur often.

“It’s a public safety issue and we take that very seriously,” Animal Services Center Director Abigail Smith said about dog attacks. The Animal Services office relies on the public to alert them about aggressive dogs. “When there is seriously a dangerous dog in the area and you’re a victim, it’s your responsibility to make sure there’s not another victim,” Smith said.

The Austin-American Statesman reported on Glenn Bass’ dog attack case twice in one week, but other local dog attacks do not usually make the paper. The last local dog attack reported in the paper occurred eight months ago.

Victims of dog attacks are often reluctant to report the dog attack for a variety of reasons. One year ago, University of Texas sophomore Eugenio Duron, walked out of his apartment at 4600 West Guadalupe Street, saw a woman drop her dog’s leash and bent over to help her retrieve it. As he knelt down, the woman’s dog bit his thigh. It was a large enough bite to extract blood. However, the woman did not stay to aid him.

Duron did not feel pain in his thigh at the time, so he did not feel the need to report the incident. “I am not afraid of dogs. I grew up around Rottweilers, but I’m definitely more cautious now around other people’s dogs,” Duron said. He later consulted family doctor friends for information on how to clean the bite to prevent infection. “I did not want to make it a big deal, and I didn’t know the lady, so I couldn’t get a hold of her anyway,” Duron said.

University of Texas junior, Jonathan Harper did know the owner of the dog that attacked him. In early August, a dog attacked Harper at his friend’s home. Harper petted his friend’s miniature schnauzer in his own lap when the dog unexpectedly began growling at him and then bit his hand. The bite drew blood, so Harper had to wear a bandage around his hand for a week.

“I never reported anything, but went to the doctor a week later and got antibiotics. [My friend] was extremely apologetic, so I know he felt really bad because his dog had never bitten anyone,” Harper said.

Dog attacks do not only involve the dog and the person attacked. Those on the other end of the leash experience something entirely different. Kristina Martin owns a dog on the dangerous dogs list. Her dog, Nibbles, is a red and tan golden retriever/ chow mix. Last year, Nibbles bit Martin’s mom’s neighbor. Nibbles bit the neighbor’s arm but did not severely break skin. The neighbor immediately reported the incident to the authorities. Nibbles must now wear a large tag, labeling her “Dangerous Dog” and stay on a chain link throughout the day.

“Everyone that comes over to my house asks, ‘How is this a dangerous dog?’ She’ll lick you; she doesn’t bite you. She hasn’t done it since then…it’s just not fair to her,” Martin said.

Martin also must keep up with the financial consequences of the dog bite. According to Animal Services, an animal bite can cost the pet’s owner up to $100,000. If a dog is registered as dangerous or vicious, the owner must pay $50 per year for a license, allowing him or her to keep the dog. Dangerous dogs must restrained at all times and have to wear a large tag stating they are dangerous dogs.

            Previously mentioned Eugenio Duron did not make headlines. His attack did not make police records. Like Duron, there are many that don’t report the crime. If they do report it to the police, the media keeps it under the radar, leaving dog attacks in a cycle of underreported crime.  “I have a dog, and I know accidents happen. That’s why I didn’t report it. I don’t want anything bad to happen to that dog, but I also don’t want someone else to get bitten…I had no idea that dog attacks were considered a crime,” Duron said.

Inside interior design

Sheridan Treadwell spends her time in a studio full of sketches, scales, and overly exhausted college students. She works strenuously, gluing together the pieces of her project. With each hour that goes on, she feels the coffee wearing off and the exhaustion pulling heavily on her eyelids.

6:57 a.m.: Sheridan heads home after a long night of laser cutting, wood shaving, and model building, hoping to finally get some sleep.

10:20 a.m.: Sheridan makes her way back to the studio to do it all over again.

Sheridan is a third-year interior design major at the University of Texas School of Architecture. When most people think of interior design, they think: HGTV, color palettes, and decorative pillows. They don’t realize that interior design is a whole lot more like architecture and a whole lot less like decorating. The National Council for Interior Design Qualification acknowledges that many people use the terms “interior design” and “interior decorating” interchangeably, but these professions differ in critical ways. “Interior design is the art and science of understanding people’s behavior to create functional spaces within a building. Decoration is the furnishing or adorning of a space with fashionable or beautiful things. In short, interior designers may decorate, but decorators do not design,” the Council says.

The University of Texas at Austin houses one of the most prestigious interior design programs in the nation. The description of the program states, “Curriculum courses tie together history, theory, construction, and computer applications in a way that parallels the architecture studio education while retaining a clear viewpoint on interior architecture and the other design arts.” However, the university should probably incorporate “little-to-no sleep” somewhere in that description. 

The average interior design student is scheduled for 15 hours of classes and 12 hours in the architecture studio. Aside from that, students spend every moment they can in the studio on campus. The design process involves several steps that require a vast attention to detail; it ends up consuming all of their time.

Kristin Miller, Sheridan’s roommate and fellow interior design major, can attest to the tiring hours of life as an interior design major. “I don’t know how to estimate how many hours we spend in studio because if I did, it would just be really sad,” Kristin says. They spend hours sketching and building physical, wooden models of their designs. They fight the drowsiness that comes in the late hours of the night, but sometimes they leave the studio with little progress on their designs.

“Time spent does not directly relate to design outcomes. Design is dependent on testing and iterations, and this takes longer than one might expect. As a result, time management is a constant battle for students and professionals alike,” Interior Design professor Tamie Glass says.

Pulling all-nighters comes around every once in a while for college students, but it is not an uncommon sleep schedule for Sheridan and Kristin. “The hours are really terrible. There was one week where I pulled three all-nighters in a row,” Sheridan recalls about the week of final review last semester. She designed the interior of a clothing store for a renowned fashion designer. The process leading up to final review involved several different levels of work. First, she graphically designed a wallpaper to put inside the store. Then, she had to design a pop-up shop for the designer. Finally, she had to incorporate the two into a small-scale model of an entire store for the fashion designer to display her work. During final review week, students must prepare a presentation that explains their design in detail, and they must present it before their class and professor. In that week, Sheridan says stress levels were high, and coffee runs were even higher.

Both Sheridan and Kristin’s sleep gets haunted by architecture. Kristin recently developed a habit of yelling in her sleep,

At 3:04 a.m. on a recent Thursday, Sheridan heard Kristin yelling about her deeply established fear of their professor and her elevated stress about their latest project. Kristin tousled in bed and cried out her professor’s name in aguish as she complained about how much work she had left on her design. Sheridan tried to fall back asleep, but was overcome with her bond in Kristin’s panic. Both of them still had many pieces left to laser cut and glue to their design before the end of the next day.

The typical interior design project requires intensive research on professional interior designers’ work. Students produce floor plans and elevation drawings on their sketchpads. Then, they take their ideas to the computer, where they develop 3-D digital models through software that allows them to virtually develop the design into a building in order to get the proper, real-life measurements. They create a few, simple physical models out of wood, Styrofoam, glass, or whatever they are choosing as their building element. These small models could be a staircase, a doorway, or any small scene from the inside of a building. From there it only gets more complex. They begin to put all of their ideas together into one large interior design; this could be in the form of something like a corporate building, a school building, or a clothing store. The process is extensive, so Sheridan spends her days in the studio where there are moments of mass chaos, but there are also moments of mass laughter with close friends. Students are able to laugh at each other’s design mishaps along the way; they know they share the same struggles. Sometimes walls end up lopsided or staircases crumble, but they are able to find humor amidst the panic. Because it is such a small program, the students get to know each other tremendously well. While Sheridan may spend countless hours in one room, she enjoys her time because she enjoys the people she gets to endure it with.  This program is where she found her best friends.

         It is September and the interior design crew works while singing along to Michael Buble’s Christmas album. There is something about the classic swing singer that brings motivation to the students. A piece of wood gets stuck to Kristin’s hand, and as she slowly lifts it, the entire model comes with it. The interior designers stare in disbelief. The lack of sleep makes moments like this hysterical for them. They all pause their own work to laugh at Kristin’s mishap. The ten minutes it takes for them to stop laughing is just the comic relief they needed from hours of design. They get the minute wood pieces glued to their designs, and they make sure to incorporate numerous snack breaks in between. The Chick-fil-A across the street gets most of their money, and the studio is full of empty fruit snack wrappers. Sheridan and Kristin leave the studio with innumerable stories to laugh about on their way home- from Kristin gluing her model to her hand to Sheridan tripping over her own computer cord. Regardless of the late nights spent in the studio, they must return to the classroom early the next day and sit through class like any other college student.

            Sheridan did not always believe interior design was the route she wanted to take. “I decided to apply to the UT School of Architecture because it was really hard to get in, and I just wanted to prove that I could get in,” Sheridan confesses. After an intensively, emerged learning experience her freshman year, Sheridan learned that interior design requires an entirely new level of dedication. Professor Glass says that there is a sharp learning curve for students at the beginning of the program. The interior design program, like the architecture program, is rigorous and demanding and may involve breaking down preconceived notions about the profession. Sheridan was involved in rigorous coursework in high school, but nothing came close to the hands-on, project-based workload she experienced her freshman year. She had to develop an entirely new set of skills, which involved learning accessibility, environmental, and sustainability guidelines for design concepts. She had to learn elements of construction because students must build their own models out of the building material they would use to actually construct it if they were to present it before a company. She had to learn how to use computer software to create diagrams and layouts, and there is still more to learn.

            While it is sleep depriving, life-consuming work, Sheridan believes interior design is the perfect path for her, and her mom could not agree more. “From a very young age, she was always very artistic and creative, so a career where she gets to utilize those gifts is perfect for her,” her mom says.

10:30 p.m.: Sheridan’s life is full of research, design, and building. It is not what people think when they hear “interior design”. She adds, “the stereotype we have to overcome is a big challenge because people assume we do really girly things, and people’s reaction is always that my major must be so fun. While it is really fun, I think it’s really difficult to get people to see this side of what we do…. Interior design is by far the hardest thing that I have ever done, but I wouldn’t change my major for anything in the world because there’s nothing I love more.”