the weekend before is a lot

Whew. I’ve had quite the weekend! As usual with my life, I do not feel rested at all before heading back into classes. I’ll be hosting two friends from California for a few days and then my father for another few days. Next week I continue working at the Archives Research Room, but I’m also starting a Digitization class. Days will be full, nights will be fuller.

My weekend began with meeting my mother’s very-long-time best friend, Joyce! She’s from Ann Arbor and everyone really wanted me to attend Ann Arbor for library school, but I didn’t feel like studying the GREs when I was working 5 part-time jobs in 2011. Joyce and her partner, TJ, drove from Ann Arbor to Madison whilst on vacation. They went to Ian’s Pizza because they love it and it was a happy support during the protests here.  In the evening, after we went to rent a car, they met us at the Old Fashioned — which is the first place Derek and I visited when we got here and the first place we had cheese curds.

Joyce and me at the Old Fashioned

The next day, we woke up at 4am and left around 5:30am for East Lansing, Michigan, where MSU is located; the wedding was in MSU’s Horticulture Gardens (beautiful!) and the ceremony was in the MSU Union (really cool). I didn’t have a great car ride; they make me anxious. There were some absolutely beautiful and huge and menacing thunderstorms, though! We arrived later than we wanted to, so we didn’t get to take a nap. Our nap was a shower to wake us up and a 5 hour energy drink. It mostly felt wonderful to be out of the car! And then we were off to my good friend’s peaceful and lovely wedding.

Green Cab was too busy to drive us to the wedding. We showed up in a Shaggin’ Wagon. Seriously.

Chrissy and Derrick — married!

Dinner and dancing, followed by a cupcake.

Me and the beautiful bride :)

We left around 9pm, we were so tired. Chrissy and Derrick had a lot of great friends and family there, so understandably didn’t get  a lot of time to chat with us. (the last 3 weddings I’ve been to were exactly the same in that regard!) It was really just a gift to be able to witness their marriage and then celebrate it afterwards. They did a great job with planning — it really seemed and looked effortless, and for that I commend them! I’ve known Chrissy for over a decade and I’m so happy to see her happy. Derrick is a great guy, too!

We passed out in our hotel room, woke up just in time for a free breakfast, and then headed back out to go all the way home again.

Moar driving!

I was supposed to switch with Derek right before Chicago because I did not feel like dealing with annoying Illinois tolls, but drove us all the way past O’Hare. We went to an “Oasis” to eat and walked around to stretch our legs. It was over 102 degrees in Chicago! I was not jealous of living there in summer. We got back in town by 6 or so, and decided to treat ourselves to a movie, so we saw the Avengers. (I liked it just fine, but don’t really get why it was so big to so many people. Comics just aren’t for me, I guess) We exchanged our rental car for our old P.O.S. car and drove home. SLEEP.

Today has been fairly relaxing. We tried out a new place to us called Monty’s Blue Plate Diner. My french toast was okay, but not as good as I thought it’d be! I loved the atmosphere there though and want to try a lot of new things on the menu. It’s in the Atwood area, which seems a lot more spread out and not as busy as I thought, but it’s a nice area. If we ever move, I think I’d like to move to that part of town. Today I also uploaded a lot of videos, including old ones. Another big, but quick, storm came in, and I watched it while on our porch for a long time. I love Midwestern spring/summer storms. (I could do without the humidity though!)

Well, that’s my long 3-day weekend. I’m very tired, but I really loved being “unplugged.” It’s something I wish I could feel I could do while in my own home, but when I’m in my apartment, it means there’s always things to do, and they almost always require my computer’s internet connection. Le sigh.

How was your three-day weekend?

a subject for a beloved place

I am one of those adaptable people, which I am grateful to be, and not just because I can put it on my resume (truthfully). It is also something to be grateful for when I have moved over 2000 miles to a place I have never been. And I have been riding on the excitement and general momentum of the entire program, of my peers, of being in a new place.

But, homesickness is settling in, just a tad bit.

Both Derek and I could feel it silently creeping in on us when we saw pictures and videos of Sproul Plaza and the Occupy Wall Street protests in Berkeley. One video of a boy named Honest (really!) explained how all of the protesters were looking after each other, and in the background was one of those wandering, slightly odd ladies of Berkeley. I’ve never actually heard her talk and I can’t say she’s homeless or crazy, but she is everywhere, and wears a variety of brightly colored clothes layered on top of each other. She’s a staple. Every city has those, but oh, Berkeley has so many.

By this morning, I knew homesickness had come because I looked down at just a pen I had from the famous restaurant, La Note, and I missed it so much. La Note probably gave me a lifelong love for brunch (mimosas) — and roasted tomato & brie sandwiches! My friend Sarah and I started to text each other about missing it, and missing Berkeley, and protests, and that culminated in the chant, “Whose brie? Our brie! I said whose brie? Our brie!”

Well, it made us giggle. And probably miss each other more now. (Sarah was the first person I met and befriended as a freshman)

I like Madison, but I am not in love with it yet. There is a lot to do here, a lot to explore, many good-sounding places to eat and nice people, but we have been too broke to experience most of those things. Nice people are free, at least!

I don’t think Madison will ever mean to me what Berkeley does. Berkeley was the first place I was forced to make a home for myself (or be miserable). At first, I missed home terribly. And then it got bearable. And then I just didn’t miss anything outside of my parents’ home. And then once I even got my parents to spend Christmas with me in Berkeley, because after spending years building a life there, the only thing I needed to make it complete was my parents (my cat would’ve nice too). I did have a few months of disdain for the city, but that was when I had come back from London and pretty much hated being in California at all. But I still remember the summer of 2008 when I was walking back from the farmer’s market, eating a sweet and juicy peach along Shattuck, the street my feet most often pounded — and I knew I was walking home.
I still think I made the right choice. I am very happy I am not in an all-online program. I’m very happy to always be around so many people. I’m learning a lot about myself. I’m learning a lot about the profession, and even write today after coming from a Wisconsin Historical Society tour in the morning and a LIS Professional Panel in the evening (morning = free donuts, evening = free pizza).

But I can’t wait for the day I will step out of Downtown Berkeley BART and onto Shattuck, with no idea where to go first.

What Silence Means

Two Saturdays ago now, I took the step towards TLAM, or Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums. We visited the Wisconsin Dells to see H.H. Bennett’s studio, who is possibly one of the first modern “photojournalists.” After lunch, we took a boat tour to the Upper Dells.

The reasons were going were, of course, tied to tribal communities. Bennett, for example, took many photographs (probably embellished though) of Native Americans, specifically the Ho-Chunk tribe. Most of his studio, and our tour guide, did not focus on this relationship. It was actually the very first thing to see in the exhibit, but after that it became a history of Bennett’s photography and inventions. Fair enough, right? Because it’s a museum of his studio, and one can presume that he did not spend his entire life photographing Native Americans. And he didn’t spend most of his life doing that — most of his life was taken by the landscape of the Dells and actually inventing new camera technology.

Our tour guide barely knew anything about the Ho-Chunk or his relationship. The tour guide was a nice man and interested in Dells history, in the past 100 years, at least. The museum was nicely done and also interested in history, but mainly the past 100 years.

When the tour guide and the museum got to the Ho-Chunk, there were pictures from Bennett, a tale of how the Dells were created (a serpent winding its way through the land to create the unique landscape) and not much else. The tour guide barely knew anything — but he also humbly stated that we did probably know a lot more, and warmly welcomed us to share what we knew. One member’s girlfriend who came along for the day told us a lot about the reciprocal relationship between Bennett taking photos of the Ho-Chunk for his own fame and the Ho-Chunk letting him for their own advocacy. Meanwhile, the guide to the museum says they lived in the Dells for a very long time, hunting and gathering. This is history to many people: a vague concept of hunting and gathering until, at last, civilization with its records arrives.

The Upper Dells boat tour was extremely pretty — the perfect time to take it was now, right as autumn is settling in, and the leaves were still turning. It was not too cold and not too hot. The boat tour, of course, grabs hold of the beauty and makes it accessible with a lovely $25 fee. We walked through an extremely interesting set of — caves? I am not sure what it was! They called it the Witches’ Gulf. We wound through the features on a wooden walkway, and oddly passed by people with loads of popcorn and nachos. Oh, right, … there’s an entire concession stand in the middle of this landscape, complete with something probably called blue razzmatazz.

The tour guide on the boat was a sweet kid named Madison (and the captain was named Dane — coincidence? [FYI to non-Madisonians: Madison the city is in Dane the county]) who was fed his script. The only times Native Americans were mentioned was when he pointed out a rock that looks like a generic Indian Chief and generalized folklore about natives stealing something or other. Native Americans, in this tour, did not even exist as hunters and gatherers — they only existed in their relationship to the white folk.

Is the history of a tribe inherently silent to what we conceptualize as our modern society? One member of TLAM, after seeing the exhibit and then the tour, was exceptionally cheerful and optimistic, and did not walk away complaining and huffing about the injustice of the representation. She smiled and said, “Well, now we know what we need to do! We just have to let more people know about the history.”

The archives can seem like a majestic place where scholars can come to find the secrets of every society to ultimately expose. In the stacks of boxes upon boxes, you must be able to find anything. To many, the archives can be a place of power — the information is sitting there, waiting to be found, for justice to be complete. But, just as much as there are letters revealing the true plan of the president, there can be silence. The power is in the information that is not sitting there, waiting to be found. In our archives, the history of a people passed down through speech, not records, can sometimes be the same as silence.

 

The posed image we took for Dells Boat Tour. And then bought. :)

Part of the H.H. Bennett Exhibit

Part of the H.H. Bennett exhibit: the Ho-Chunk Story of the Dells.

Posing in Bennett’s very own studio, the students of TLAM.

The Dells is full of interesting, strange formations!

The part of the Dells I can’t describe very well.

One of Bennett’s inventions was the “snapper,” which could take photos of one moment. He proved it by having his son jump across that gap. Now the boat tour has a cute dog do it.

Road Trip Sights

Since we were not always fast enough to whip out my camera when we saw something, we developed this list format.

Road Trip Sights that made us smile most of the time:

• Secret Town Road (in Colfax)
• Blue Canyon Road (near Truckee)
• Toulon, Nevada … Abandoned structures? Airport? (I looked it up later: abandoned mill)
• love locks! (Nevada)
• near a prison: No Hitchhiking signs
• Rye Patch Dam
• A dust tornado on a dirt road! The way it lingered above the road …
• As SOON as we entered Oregon, there were so many reminder/nanny signs about how to drive safely.
• Lone tree on top of a hill — 3 miles from Oregon/Idaho border.
• Chicken Dinner Road (near Nampa, Idaho)
• Big ole red barn on Cherry Lane, Nampa, Idaho
• Primary color trucks: red, then yellow, then blue. 5 miles from Burley.
• LARGE white “windmills” on I-86 for clean energy.
• Big white church with quite tall steeple – Rexburg
• Giant spinning root beer mug. Ashford?
• “New Trees 1992″ in Yellowstone. (this was actually all over Yellowstone)
• LIBRARY ROAD, near Macks Inn, 20 miles from West Yellowstone.
• Beryl Spring in Yellowstone going off (this became a common thing)
• servicemen in Yellowstone doing native seed collection
• Black bear cub playing with/on a tree!
• Tower Junction, Yellowstone
• Clay, red pond — Wyoming
• Sinister clouds, smell of rain — Wyoming/Colorado border
• Old “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.” billboard on the 76 in Colorado
• T-Rex made of wheat on 80 near Nebraska
• Lincoln, Nebraska state capitol building
• the flag of a bio-engineering company along a crop of GMO corn :(
• MISSISSIPPI RIVER!!

The last one we did in all caps and with exclamation points because it truly was amazing to drive across. It was dark and a little scary to be so suddenly out in the open above so much water. But it also meant a lot as the river is such an American icon, and now, we are on the other side of the river.

3000 miles, check.

Warning: This is a long post, but it is picture heavy, so those of you with adult onset ADD due to too much Internet and technology should be okay.

I am very happy to report that we made it all the way across the country (and not straight across, since we made some weird dips) without dying. Or, for that matter, injuring ourselves anywhere beyond more than a few VERY ANNOYING mosquito bites. The only problem with our rental car was this malfunction indicator light that came on while we were in the winding mountain roads of Yellowstone … We called Hertz, they said it’s basically nothing. So, we ignored it! It’s a fine coping mechanism.

For those who don’t know, our trip was our way of getting from Point A (California) to Point B (Wisconsin). I am attending school in Madison for Library Science, and Derek is the brave soul who is following me. He left his job, his family, and his life just to come with me. That is dedication. We make a pretty good team.

Our first part of the trip, once I left my parents’ home town, was to go to the wedding of two dear friends, Nicole and Daniel. Nicole’s blog is here: The Princess Bride. And she really was a princess, and Daniel her handsome prince! It was a gorgeous ceremony that actually made me cry followed by a loud, good time under the full moon.

I gave a speech!

The next day, August 14th — which feels like a century ago now — was our last day in California. We saw the newlyweds off at a brunch.

It is a difficult moment to realize, Yes, this is it — so long for now.

We did get to see one more couple before we left California, Heather and Harrison. They took us out to a great place that was full of lots of different kinds of cuisine, which is a PERFECT way to say goodbye to California. However, I got a veggie burger, and while it was the best veggie burger I had on our 10-day journey, I wish I had started off with something other than a veggie burger. It is the only thing the middle of the country knows to do with vegetarians.

The biggest thing that surprised us about this trip was the distinct lack of kitsch. It was actually a bit disappointing. I never saw a sign for the world’s biggest ball of yarn or the largest frying pan, and these are important Americana artifacts, are they not?

However, we did arrive in Lovelock, Nevada on our first day, and found a sweet little park that had a place for lovers to put a lock on the chain. They said that it was a Chinese custom adopted in Nevada, but I’ve also heard it done in parts of Russia.

From Lovelock, we went to Winnemucca, which has a W for itself on the mountainside. Classy. The most difficult part of the drive was through Oregon, because it went from reckless 80 mph Nevada to safe, caring 55 mph Oregon. 55 mpg in the middle of nothing. We got out on the highway just because we were able to hear what true silence sounds like.

From there, we went on to Nampa, Idaho, of all places. Reason? Derek’s wonderful aunt and uncle live there, plus some other family. Derek met one of his favorite kind of family members.

Nampa to Yellowstone was a very long drive. But oh, Yellowstone is worth it! We stayed the night in West Yellowstone, had delicious pizza, a bottle of wine to relax, and got to try huckleberries for the very first time. It was a good season this year.

One of the best barns we saw. ;)

Yellowstone's canyon. Breathtaking!

From Yellowstone, we visited my aunt, new uncle, and cousin. It had been especially a long time I saw my cousin! We met them in Bozeman, Montana. My aunt manages Squaw Creek Cabins up in a beautiful part of the state. They ominously call it the canyon. We spent the night, without cell phone service, or electricity, and only the sound of the creek and the bells on the horses, for a mere $40. It was the best $40 we spent the whole trip, I think! The stars were astounding. Derek, who has never been camping or anywhere so remotely, could not stop looking up. We also tried out archery for a while. It was such great fun. Stay at Squaw Creek!

Squaw Creek Cabins, Montana

A natural! Anyone know of archery clubs in Madison ...?

We rode out on an ATV to capture this shot.

The stars, bells, and s’mores tried to entice us to stay forever, but after a day with the mosquitos, we were ready for a little less wilderness. We really have to get over that.

Then we went to go see Old Faithful. I didn’t want just another picture of the same geyser, so I went 8 seconds of licking an ice cream cone in front of it as it spouted. Since I am too poor right now to afford the video upgrade, please imagine.

Then we got to see the sun behind the clouds, a scary pool of unknown things, and an elk! We stayed at Flagg Ranch Resort, which is an overpriced hotel room posing as a cabin — and we are experts on cabins now. The night also included more veggie burgers and generalized bland food masking itself as good ole’ country fare.

DON'T JUMP IN

So many cars were stopped on the road to see an animal eating.

After our night in Flagg Ranch, we were worried that the Grand Tetons (which according to my mother means something like “grand breasts” in French. True or false? Internet users, I rely on you.) would be not as wonderful as Yellowstone.

WRONG.

I will grace you with some images of the beauty that big pieces of dirt and stuff do when they run into each other.

We thought these were the Hidden Falls. They weren't.

What can beat that? Certainly not Jackson Hole, which has strange arches made out of elk antlers and Mexican restaurants that don’t know what “horchata” is. So, let’s move on to Pinedale, Wyoming, where the B&B Pole Creek Ranch is located. We had a very strange time arriving because the only directions we were given for the long rural road is on were to look for the “log cabin surrounded by trees.” We saw like six. Finally, we found the one that did, in fact, title itself. When we drove up to the cabins, though, our car was attacked by three German Shepherds — one which lacked a leg! No one came out to greet us. We used the power of technology to call my parents and ask, WHAT IS GOING ON IS THERE ANYWHERE ELSE NEARBY TO STAY?, and then finally a woman came back from mowing the lawn to show us to our cabin. We spent a lovely night. The next morning, we ate homemade cinnamon buns for breakfast.

The Sunset in Wyoming

From there, we battled rain and scary looking tornado-perhaps sky to make our long journey to Boulder, Colorado. After a spirited and fantastic night with family friends and wine, we spent a HOT, cloudless day in downtown Boulder. Great town you got there!

After California fig and toasted almond gelato (mmmmmmmmm), we embarked onto … CELESTIAL SEASONINGS FACTORY. The place where most tea that Americans drink comes from. They did not allow pictures, but let us recommend the mint room: it is a trip!

Boulder marked the end of our planned trip. Boulder to Madison is around 1000 miles. We left Boulder the afternoon of the 23rd and had to be in Madison by at least August 25th at 10am to return our rental car, Krasnyka. We made it with time to spare and numb behinds!

The main thing was we stopped in Dubuque, Iowa, which was a must for me, an avid New Yorker reader who wrote her senior thesis on how the New Yorker captured the Soviet Union during the Stagnation Period. Nerd.

"THE NEW YORKER will be the magazine which is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque." - Harold Ross

Why is that quote not on the welcome sign to such a magical city?

Finally, after 3000 miles, and a lot of night driving on the creepy 151, we arrived to our new home.

Hello, Madison.

Tell me about your roadtrip adventures!

Onward, Madison!

I nearly named this blog “Onward, Madison!” which was the name of the email Derek and I made up to have people RSVP to our going away party. The reason I decided NOT to name it was mostly because … soon I would simply be in Madison, and probably moving on somewhere else after that. If all goes well, I will still be writing after that!

Tonight is my last night in my parents’ home until … well, probably Christmas. In the morning, it is onward to the wedding of two good friends, and then! … Onward, Madison!

My heart’s going quickly. I am so happy to see my friends wed on Saturday. Nicole has been wonderful support to me, and Daniel has been such a good friend to Derek in such a short time. (Derek is really going to miss him) … I am currently writing the toast to these two great friends; right now, it feels very stiff, so I had a lot of rum to loosen that tongue up. ;)

I hope mere logistical issues do not get in the way of our roadtrip, on the way to Madison.

We will be visiting: Winnemucca, Nevada (rest stop); Nampa, Idaho (family); Bozeman, Montana (family); Grand Teton National Forest; Pinedale, Wyoming (staying at a family farm!); Boulder, Colorado (family friend); after Boulder, we will simply drive on through Nebraska and such until we reach Madison. We need to go that last 1000 miles in less than two days. The only place I really want to visit is Dubuque, because of the New Yorker magazine.

I hope I will be able to update, with some photos, from the road.

Here we go!

the first

My father has just told me, again, as he saw me playing with this, that he still believes my first talent was (and is) writing. That may have been so once, but as I completed my undergraduate years, my writing talents transferred away from personal into the academic, and I’m hoping I can gain the personal ones back through this blog.

There are so many new, exciting, and absolutely anxiety-inducing things happening to me in the next month. I left Berkeley, where I went to school and lived for 6 years. I fell in love there in more ways than one … with the city, with my friends, with myself, with my life, and with Derek. I learned more than Russian history — though that is what I studied the most! Now I am staying with my parents on the central coast, in a small town that’s expanded its borders whilst the buildings keep emptying out. The town I grew up in is not the same anymore. In a little more than a week, I’m on my way to Madison.

So, this is what I want this blog for: to document the changes. To organize my thoughts. To form better-crafted opinions. And most of all, to connect. I want to stay connected with my friends and family back in California, hopefully make lots of new friends in Madison (and I found out I have family in Madison too!), and make new friends in the blogosphere.

I plan to write more about my library studies in a thoughtful way, examining my assignments and the future of the libraries. In that way, this blog is a professional one. Some folks I spoke to recommended keeping professional and personal extremely separated. I understand that very well, but after a long think, decided that I can’t just separate my personal life from my professional one. I do not take off a Work Costume when I enter my house. I do not put on a mask when I enter the workplace. They are completely intertwined. If I hated my field and wasn’t passionate about it, then yes, I could separate the two, but I cannot with something like archives and libraries.

And so, in that way, this blog is also a personal one. Learning about Madison is going to be as thrilling of a process as learning about librarianship. I’m at a point in my life when I can gather all I’ve known and done, and evaluate it, and see a future that I can shape. Being an undergraduate in college was great, and fun, and stressful, but it was also one of those steps in my life I just knew I’d do since I was very young (thanks to my parents high expectations). Moving forward with Derek to Madison for library school is something I determined myself, and want to keep up with that.

I hope you’ll join me!