Synopsis of the Ericaceae Plants

The Ericaceae plants, also known as the heath family, are part of the order Ericales, the subclass Dilleniidae, the class Magnoliopsida, the division Magnoliophyta, the superdivision Spermatophyta, the subkingdom Tracheobrionta, and the kingdom Plantae. This family has been around for many millennia, and so its origins are hard to trace. They may have arisen in North America or Eurasia, or perhaps even on the Pangean continent of Laurasia (the Americas and Eurasia combined). In the modern world, Ericaceae species can be found anywhere with a temperate climate in either hemisphere. They are most diverse in southern Africa and western China.

Morphologically, the Ericaceae are a diverse group. They do have a few distinguishing and unifying characteristics. All flowers have a fused corona, and most leaves are simple and alternate with a dark green color and a leathery texture. Many have evergreen leaves, and most are woody shrubs while a few are trees or herbs. Beyond this, the family is very diverse. The flowers, while mostly being bell- or urn-shaped, come in a vast array of shapes and sizes. The leaves may also come in a wide range of shapes and sizes depending on the climate a particular species grows in. Some of the Ericaceae are epiphytes, meaning they grow on other plants. Some don't have chlorophyll, but instead rely on other photosynthetic pigments. This family's members come in quite a wide variety of forms.

The Ericaceae family is a family of moderate size with 100 genera and approximately 3000 species. Three of the most well known genera are Rhododendron, Phyllodoce, and Vaccinium. Rhododendrons and azaleas are ornamental shrubs included in the Rhododendron genus. Heathers belong to the genus Phyllodoce. The Vaccinium genus contains berry-bearing plants such as gooseberry, cranberry, and blueberry.

Let's take some time to talk about Vaccinium cyanococcus, the blueberry. The specific epithet “cyanococcus” literally translates into “blue sphere,” an apt name for these small blue fruits. America is by far the leading exporter of blueberries. Until recently, our exports surpassed those of all other countries combined. Within the U.S., Maine is responsible for growing 25% of our blueberry crop.

Blueberry cultivation and use has been part of American life since long before the Europeans settled this continent. The Native Americans called them “star berries” and believed that they were one of The Great Spirit's greatest gifts to mankind. Culinarily, they ate them raw and used them to flavor and preserve meats. They also used them medicinally to treat coughs and other minor ailments.

Blueberries remain popular today. They are eaten fresh, dried, frozen, preserved, or cooked into a variety of delectable dishes. Plus, they're incredibly healthy. Like all fruits, they are low in calories and fat, and high in vitamins. In addition, blueberries have one of the highest concentrations of antioxidants in any food. They also reduce indigestion and constipation, help prevent some types of cancer, and slow down the loss of memory, vision, and motor skills due to old age. There is so much good-for-you packed into such a tiny, delicious snack. Vaccinium cyanococcus is quite an impressive species out of the Ericaceae plants.



References

• “Blueberry.” agriculturalproductsindia.com. Agro Products, 2008. Web. November 9, 2009.
• “Classification for Kingdom Plantae Down to Family Ericaceae.” Plants Database. United States Department of Agriculture, n.d. Web. November 9, 2009.
• Drotleff, Laura. “Blueberries For Better Health.” American Fruit Grower v. 126 no. 10 November/December 2006 p. 48-49. OmniFile FT Mega (Wilson). Web. November 9, 2009.
• “Ericaceae.” Academic.reed.edu. Reed College, n.d. Web. November 9, 2009.
• Friis, Ib; Balslev, Henrik. Plant Diversity and Complexity Patterns: Local, Regional, and Global Dimensions. Denmark: Special-Trykkeriet Viborg, 2005. Print.
• Raloff, Janet. “Berry good protection for aging brains.” Science News v. 156 no. 12, 18 September 1999, p. 180-181. Readers' Guide Full Text (Wilson). Web. November 9, 2009.
• Rose, Melody. “Blueberries: History, Culture, and Uses.” Davesgarden.com. Dave's Garden, n.d. Web. November 9, 2009.
• Rowland, L. J. “Vaccinium spp. Blueberry./ edited by Litz, R. E.; [electronic resource].” 2005. Purdue University Catalog. Web. November 9, 2009.
• “U.S. Blueberry Industry.”United States Department of Agriculture: Economics, Statistics, and Market Information System. Economic Research Service U.S. Department of Agriculture, n.d. Web. November 9, 2009.

H1Z1 Outbreak Journal: Day 3

I woke up knowing that I needed to eat soon or die. I encountered no meals on my way to class, but I heard about the desperate acts of some of my fellow zombies. They hid in the second level of the parking garage at University and Second and jumped out behind a group of humans. It was a total massacre.

After my next class I headed to the place where I knew I could find an encampment of the infected. They were indeed there, and they were more organized than before. Whenever a zombie catches a victim, he shares his feed with the two zombies closest to death. The community takes care of its brothers. The only remaining humans are all either cowards or cunning. Or both. We almost had a few of them, but they all escaped. I was going wild with the need to consume brains when a fellow patient came running carrying a fresh victim. Another famished companion and I immediately devoured any brains that remained in the human. With my stomach full, I stuck around for a while, but the corner of my brain that remained human reminded me of my school duties. I wished them all happy hunting and took my leave.

This evening I left campus to go to a debate at IU. I was concerned that I might become violent while crowded into a car, but for some reason I was fine. I sat next to Julia, who also has H1Z1, and none of the guys lived on campus. The disease is very localized. You can't contract it unless you live on campus, and those with the disease don't find the brains of those living off-campus to be very appealing. This was a great comfort to me, because I also feared that I would be hostile toward Josh and my other friends from Cincinnati. Fortunately, I felt exponentially more "human" as we left campus. By the time we reached IU, I could barely detect my unnatural urges for human brains.

Once again, I couldn't help my fellow zombie's with tonight's mission. Maybe tomorrow will be different. We'll see.

H1Z1 Outbreak Journal: Day 2

I woke up this morning hungry for brains. I wasn't craving them, they just sounded like a nice thing to eat. Once again, I saw no humans or infected on the way to my first class. After class, I stumbled upon a small group of fellow zombies. We were soon joined by another group and several other loners. We cornered some humans in Matthews, but they weren't going to budge and we were losing our patience. Some of our number were in dire need of food, and they weren't in the mood to sit around.

After a few fruitless chases after individual humans, we finally caught one. When she fell, she lost a flap of skin on her hand and was distressed. That seemed odd to me. I don't mind when my skin falls off, and neither do my fellow zombies. I declined the offer to share its brains. There were others hungrier than I, and I hadn't lost all sense of humanity yet.

The group dissipated, but I stuck with a fellow H1Z1 patient for a while. After a nice chat and a close chase after two humans in which he was stunned, we parted ways and I continued on to a meeting.

For lunch, I went to the human eating establishment to keep up appearances of normality as best as is possible, but I found that I had little appetite for the food that had once seemed so tantalizing. I soon gave up. While inside the building, I was able to think almost like any ordinary human, so I got quite a lot of school work done.

Nothing else of interest has happened today. I didn't get to feed, and I'm starting to feel the need for brain tissue. I won't be able to even feign civility for long.

H1Z1 Outbreak Journal: Day 1

I knew there were a few H1Z1 patients out there. The only question was how to recognize them. This early in the outbreak, doctors have yet to release a definitive set of symptoms. Other than the fact that they eat your brains. By that point it's too late. I had in my possession a helmet that I hoped would slow down any zombie's attempts to get to my brains. With my helmet and gun, I set out for the day.

I walked to class cautiously, checking around every corner and occasionally checking behind my back. I arrived safely without seeing any signs of the infected. In class, I found a classmate who was also prepared to deal with any of the infected. We wished each other luck and went our separate ways. Our professor must have heard about the H1Z1 outbreak, because she had us make zombie protection charms masquerading as a hands-on experience with seed germination.

The walk to my next class was uneventful. The most direct path happened to go through an area of low traffic to the ag mall, and specialists aren't predicting that the infected will be as much of a threat on the other side of State Street. They are slow-moving and easily mowed down by cars. Upon arriving, I discovered that one of my classmates had been infected. They had surrounded him, and he never had a chance. Fortunately, the infected seem to revert to their normal human state upon entering buildings. Some specialists suggest that the artificial lighting may be responsible.

I emerged from the building and continued on my way. In a safe zone, I met up with a fellow human and exchanged information. Once again, I arrived at my next destination without problems despite the fact that I had crossed back over State Street and entered high-traffic areas. Inside I found several fellow humans, and we shared our experiences and encouraged one another.

I rushed on to another meeting an hour or so later. All was going well. Too well. I had become over-confident. I didn't check around corners or glance behind my back at any point on my way to Wiley. I was almost there when a touch on my back stopped me cold. I had been infected. The zombie seemed to be new to the disease, so he wasn't as far gone as I had expected. All my protection had failed me. Before I reached my destination, I was accosted by a group of the infected, but they left me alone once they saw that I was one of them.

The effects of the disease didn't set in immediately. I saw a few of the uninfected, but I didn't feel a need to devour them. Yes, I had the feeling that their cerebrums would be quite delicious, but I merely toyed with them from a distance and made no real threats. Later in the evening, I discovered that a few of my friends had become infected. One of them shared a fresh kill with me. I tasted the brains. They were good. My appetite grew steadily. We will see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully plump and luscious neurons are involved.

An ID Oops

I was doing some reading on the Intelligent Design page for a lesson I'm giving on Tuesday about teleological arguments for the existence of God, and there seems to be a logical fallacy in part of what they say:

Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI [complex and specified information]. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.

Hopefully I'll be using all the logic symbols correctly. I'm not doing anything very complicated here, but I haven't done much with them since a one-week mini unit in geometry my freshman year of high school.

Let's break down their hypothesis: "if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI"

A = a natural object is designed
B = the object contains complex and specified information

A -> B

That part seems fair enough. At second glance, I objected to this, but at third glance I took into account the specific words used, and it worked once more. Note that it specifies design, not just creation. Design implies that there is a purpose behind the pieces. Heather is an intelligent being, but not everything she creates contains what I would call complex and specified information. On the other hand, when she purposefully designs something, CSI is present in some form or another, bizarre though it may be.

But what they say next doesn't work: "When ID researchers find irreducible complexity [an example of CSI] in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed"

B, therefore A
(I don't know how to do the dot triangle symbol for therefore)

This statement does not follow logically from the first statement. There is a fallacy lurking here.


Does this mean that the ID theory is bunk? I think not, but I do think that the website's writer needs to re-word his hypothesis. Yes, I'm being picky here, but I reckon I should be as picky as I can be, since the ID critics certainly are. Here are some possibilities that I think would work better:

Alternative Hypothesis 1: If an object contains high levels of CSI, it must be designed.
Here, we merely switch A and B from their first proposition.

A = an object contains high levels of CSI
B = an object is designed
A -> B

We know of natural objects that contain high levels of CSI, so we can assume they are designed.

A, therefore B

This is a logically sound proposition.

Alternative Hypothesis 2: Objects created by undirected processes (such as random mutation) do not exhibit high levels of CSI.

A = an object is created by an undirected process
B = an object does not exhibit high levels of CSI
A -> B

This time, we know of many natural objects for which B is not true.

~B, therefore ~A

This is also logically sound.

However, both of these hypotheses issue a new challenge outside of this sort of logic: proponents of ID must support the premises of the hypothesis/hypotheses. We know that there are naturally-existing objects that exhibit CSI (DNA, cells, etc.). However, they must also support that these cannot or do not arise from undirected processes. Fortunately, it's easy to support this empirically. If we take any object with CSI whose origin we know, such as a machine, blueprint, book, or piece of art (except maybe for some modern and postmodern art), we know that it was brought into being by design - something intelligent purposefully assembled it.

Now we have two possible hypothesis that are empirically supported, and both point to an Intelligent Designer to explain the complex and specified information we see in the world around us.

An Unorthodox Bedtime Story

A few years ago, a friend of mine asked me to text her a bedtime story. The story you will find below became my standard bedtime story (for some reason several other people asked me to text them bedtime stories in the months that followed). Last winter I turned it into an art project, and the pictures accompanying each paragraph are photos of that project. Enjoy!




Once upon a time in a cottage at the edge on a forest there lived a little girl along with her father, mother, and baby brother. The little girl liked to walk in the field of wildflowers near her house.









The little girl was frolicking merrily among the flowers one pleasant morning when a fearsome dragon swooped down and carried her off to its lair in the formidable mountains beyond the forest.








She had not been in the dragon's cave for long when a knight on horseback came galloping up the stony trail. He vanquished the dragon, but when he learned that the little girl was not of noble blood he rode off in search of other damsels in distress and left the little girl behind.






Back at the cottage, the little girl's father had seen the dragon carry his precious daughter away. He wasted no time in finding out where the dragon lived and immediately began his trek up the treacherous mountains. After a time, he found the lair of the deceased dragon.






Both the father and the little girl were overjoyed to see one another. The father swept the little girl into his arms and carried her down through the mountains and the forest. They arrived back at the cottage just in time for a delicious supper of homemade soup before bedtime.



the end.

The Importance of Extension Work in Slowing the Spread of Glyphosate Resistance

All crop farmers face the problem of weeds, and they generally take whatever course of action is cheapest and most effective in controlling weeds. While this may be the most economical solution in the short run, overuse of the herbicide glyphosate (commonly known as Round-Up) is giving rise to glyphosate-resistant weeds. One of the main foci of Dr. Bill Johnson’s work is to educate the public about the threat of increasing glyphosate resistance in hopes that by addressing the consumers of the herbicide he can reduce its use.

A farmer’s dependence on glyphosate varies from crop to crop, but up to 95% of farmers use this herbicide as their primary means of controlling weeds in soy fields (Johnson). In order to fight this problem, scientists must not only discover alternative methods of weed control, but also educate farm-owners about the importance of implementing these methods. In Facts About Glyphosate-Resistant Weeds, one of the publications from an extension group he has written for, the common man is presented with all sorts of useful information. He finds easily understood information about resistant weeds ranging from the number of resistant species to why resistance has developed. Warnings against counter-productive ways of combating resistance, such as increasing the number or concentration of glyphosate applications, are provided. Suggestions are given for effective alternative or companion weed control methods including mixing other herbicides with glyphosate or planting groundcover control crops (Boerboom). This and other publications from extension workers across the country inform glyphosate users about resistance and how to fight it.

By directly addressing the people with the power to reduce glyphosate use, Johnson and others hope to see the rise of more diverse methods of weed management and a decrease in the spread of glyphosate resistance. Studies show that many farmers are aware of glyphosate resistance, but not all of these farmers change their practices to reflect this knowledge (Johnson et al.). Johnson attributes this to the fact that today glyphosate is still largely effective and far less expensive and labor-intensive than the alternatives. Once farmers are convinced that action must be taken now if we want to be able to continue using this herbicide, dependence on glyphosate will decrease and the spread of resistance will be slowed. Glyphosate will remain a useful tool in the agricultural industry, but we will no longer be devastated if it loses effectiveness. Farmers may have to pay more in the short-term to control weeds, but in the long run they will have greater success with managing weeds and thereby increase their profit.

Resistance to glyphosate is spreading at an alarming rate. Research is being done on methods of weed control that will supplement or replace glyphosate, but the research is not very useful unless farmers are knowledgeable about how important it is to combat this problem and the methods of doing so. The work of Johnson and others strives to make research easily accessible to farmers and thus reduce glyphosate dependence. It may take time to convince growers of this, but it will be worth it in the long run to preserve the effectiveness of glyphosate even though it means combining this herbicide with other more expensive weed management methods.


Bibliography

• Boerboom, Chris, and Michael Owen. “Facts About Glysophate-Resistant Weeds.” The Glyphosate, Weeds, and Crops Series. GWC-1. Purdue Extension Knowledge To Go. December 2006. Web. 14 October 2009.
• Johnson, William G. Personal Interview. 24 September 2009.
• Johnson, William G., et al. “University Weed Scientists Report on Grower Awareness and Perceptions on Weed Resistance to Glyphosate in Roundup Ready® Crops.” Benchmark Study: Glyphosate Resistance Management. 2009 - Report #5. Web. 14 October 2009.

A Non-Thiest Inadvertently Demonstrates the Distinguishing Feature of the Christian Mindset

As I was rushing off the my horticulture lab after more than an hour of interesting debate with the non-theists who stayed to talk after round one of God vs. The Flying Spaghetti Monster, I caught a bit of a conversation Dan was having with another guy.

The other guy argued that since Christians believe that the world contains suffering but heaven doesn't and we believe we go to heaven when we die (let's just ignore misconceptions about defining heaven and where it is and all that), if we were logical we would all commit suicide (for which we would be forgiven) so we could go to heaven. And, from the self-centered perspective of a naturalist, his line of reasoning is reasonable. However, this guy was missing the central point of Christianity.

As Paul says in Philippians, for us to die would be personal gain but for us to continue to serve others would be gain for the kingdom. We have more to live for than ourselves. We know God's love, and teaching others about that is worth living for. Even at the expense of personal interest and personal gratification.

While most of us aren't having to restrain ourselves from suicide, we should be sacrificing other desires to spread God's love. I will admit that I have, overall, failed at this in the past. I'm already making progress, and I plan to work to continue this progress.

Clubbin'

Yes, I know this post title was lame and corny, but when it popped into my head I just couldn't resist. Today we're going to take a look at the churches, clubs, and societies whose call-outs I've attended. I'm only actually joining three groups that require consistent participation - church, hort club, and the medieval society. With a 19-credit hour schedule, I'm going to try to keep myself sane by minimizing extra-curricular involvement.

Grace Campus Fellowship
Grace is now my church here at Purdue. They are a house church that meets on Sunday and Thursday evenings a few miles off campus, and they're everything a church should be. They're a family that serves as a refuge, yet they emphasize sending us outside of the refuge to bring others in. Julia and I felt at home there from the second we arrived at their picnic the weekend before classes. Beyond the basics required at any church, they also value apologetics and will help me start a series of lessons on campus about the existence of God. Plus, they watch MST3K and Lord of the Rings, and some of them play DnD and Settlers of Catan. I also love the fact that about half of the congregation is international students and professors from China.

Intervarsity
We went to the Intervarsity "beach party" right before we went to the Grace picnic. I didn't like it much. It seemed like just a college version of Younglife - all fun and games and fluff.

Campus Crusaders
I wasn't against Cru, but by the time we went to their call-out Julia and I had already started attending Grace, and I was set on being involved there. I really don't have the time to do studies and such with another group in addition to Grace. It's about the quality of time spent with the church as a whole, not the quantity.

Northview
I went to Northview my first Sunday morning on campus. Julia had gone there the previous Sunday and told me it was a long walk, but I didn't know she meant three miles. I was not wearing the proper shoes for such a trek. My heels were mutilated by the time I got there. Fortunately I got a ride back to campus. I didn't really feel at home there. I don't know how else to say it, but I just didn't fit there.

Boiler Green Initiative
I thought BGI would be an environmental service club, but they're more on the side of extreme activism. I'll probably look into one of the related service-oriented groups they mentioned, but I don't know if I'll have the time to be much of an active participant.

Botany Club
I went to the Botany Club call-out to see if I would prefer it over the Horticulture Club. As much as I would like to be in the botany club, I opted for horticulture. I don't have time for both. At their call-out I created a new friend. His name is Wallace, and he's a chia head (pantyhose filled with potting soil with grass seed at one end). I'm trying to style his grass-hair into a mullet.

Horticulture Club
The hort club doubles as a fun club and a club that will benefit me in the future when I go job-searching or apply to grad school. I'm still not sure if I'm going to grad school. From their call-out I got Maggie and Nadine, a maidenhair fern and a mystery fern. The hort club has interesting speakers come to their meetings, and we do things like carving pumpkins with the botany club, ropes courses with the LA club, and all sorts of great stuff for the hort show in the spring. They also do a fall break trip every year, but I won't be doing that this year. I need my Cincinnati fix.

Outing Club
I'm still up in the air about the Outing Club. They do things like rock-climbing, back-packing, camping, kayaking, and other outdoorsy sports things. As much as I love stuff like that I'm definitely not going to be a regularly participating member. I just don't have the time. I may very well choose to go on an outing or two, but there will be no intense commitment. Maybe next year.

Medieval Society
Oh, the Medieval Society. This is my strictly-for-fun group. They're even more out there than we are at NHCC. They're almost LARPer status. The Medieval Society is part of the SCA (the Society for Creative Anachronism), and they do things like sewing, fighting, singing, and crafts from the middle ages. Although "medieval" is part of their name, they don't restrict themselves to that time period. For example, there's one guy who's a Viking. I'll be joining their singing group and learning to do some combat. They do heavy weapon fighting, "fencing" (it's more like swashbuckling, they use the same weapons, but they don't follow all the rules of fencing), archery, and mounted combat. I'm not sure which one I'll do. I'll probably try them all.

Boiler Volunteer Network
This group falls into the same category as the Outing Club. I love being involved in community service, but I don't have the time to dedicate to a hard-core service group. With the BVN, they just send out massive emails about individual service projects, and whoever wants to can go help. This way I can still help people, but I don't have to stress if I miss projects. Next semester when I have fewer credit hours I'll hopefully be able to be more heavily involved, but for this semester it will just have to fit where I have time for it.

My Schedule: This Time with Experience

Now that I've completed a full week of classes at Purdue, I'm ready to pass judgment on them.

AD113: Basic Drawing
Having a class at 7:30 AM on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays isn't ideal, but at least it's a wonderful class. The name of the course should be self-explanatory. We're drawing and reading about drawing. So far we've just been expanding on the beginning-of-the-year exercises we did back in Finneytown. Last week was contour line drawing of hands and organic objects. This week is gesture drawings of a peanut. I have a lot of homework, but it's all readings I can skim and drawings I enjoy.

AGR101 (honors) and AGR120: Introduction to the College of Agriculture and Introduction to the department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture
These two classes combined only cost one credit hour, and they only last eight weeks, but they're back-to-back across campus from one another. All we do is listen to people talk about the activities, clubs, internships, research, etc. that go in in the college of ag as well as in our departments. It's not exciting, but I've already got people I can contact about helping with research.

COM114 (honors): Presentational Speaking
This class is about learning to address groups of varying sizes effectively. We're expected to address the class every time we're there. Normally it's just some sort of little impromptu thing, but starting Wednesday we'll be giving prepared speeches. I dread speaking to small-medium sized groups, but I need to learn to. At the moment I'm still not technically re-enrolled in the class, but I'm trying to get that fixed.

ECON210: Basics of Economics
I don't much care for this class. On Mondays and Wednesdays we have boring lectures with nearly 400 students, and on Fridays we have boring recitation (which I fondly refer to as regurgitation). I'm not very excited about economics, and I don't suspect I ever shall be. Fortunately, the course is extremely easy. Today I drew the girl in front of me instead of taking notes on one of the professor's many trivial examples.

ENGL108: Accelerated Composition
This one is okay. I like the instructor, but I can't determine what exactly we'll be doing this semester. Her goal is to focus on the writing skills we'll actually use later in life, but we haven't started on that yet. Right now we're analyzing articles and video clips to see how they argue their point using ethos, logos, and pathos. However, the definitions she uses for these terms aren't their actual Greek definitions - she defines them in terms of how they relate to making an argument. This took some getting-used-to, especially since ethos in this class doesn't refer to a lifestyle, it refers to the reliability of the source.

HONR299: Insects in Literature and Art
I love this class already, and I've only been to it twice. It's an interdisciplinary honors elective with only ten students and a great professor. As the title of the course implies, we're looking at the use of insects in literature and art. The professor is an entomologist, so he has a lot to bring from the insect side of things. He expects us to all work together on the artistic applications of entomology. Last Thursday he brought in a Madagascar hissing cockroach, a millipede, and a tarantula. I got to hold the latter two, and I loved it.

HORT101: Introduction to Horticulture
There are many things I like about this class. It's the only class I actually have a friend in, it's about plants, and our lab section meets in the greenhouses. Right now we're just going over the basics of plant biology, all of which I know from AP Bio. Hopefully we'll be covering material I don't know in the near future.

That's all, folks. Ta-ta for now.

New People

Here are some of the people I've met who I have or likely will become friends with.

Julia is my roommate. She's an engineering major from Dayton, and it would have been hard to find a better roommate. She's adorable and we have a lot in common. We're both geeky, goofy, artsy, environmentally conscious Christians. We also have similar sleeping habits, which is nice when you're living with someone.

Justin was in my orientation group. He's from somewhere in Indiana, and he hasn't chosen a major yet. Whenever we got bored at the free-for-all scheduled social events during orientation we ended up talking to each other. He loves free stuff whether he'll ever use it or not. By the end of the week he had acquired fifteen cups, three water bottles (including the engineering one...even though he's not in engineering), three backpack bag things, and much more.

Aurash was also in my orientation group, and he's also an engineering major. He's from Texas and his parents are from India, but he has no accent whatsoever as far as I can tell. He wears Threadless shirts - a good way for anyone to instantly improve my impression of them. We also share music tastes and played in orchestra in high school.

Kevin went to high school with Justin who introduced us when we were sitting around at our night of fun and frivolity at the sports/recreation facility (co-rec or RSC). He is yet another engineering major from Indiana. He's sweet and nerdy and has some sort of slight to moderate physical disability that I couldn't identify. If all goes according to my plans, when I join the orchestra in the spring and he'll be there in the oboe section.

Margaret is a public horticulture major I met at the ag picnic. She seems sweet and hopes to operate a botanical garden someday. Since she's in the landscaping/horticulture department, we'll probably have some classes together.

When I met Margaret I met the guy who is the only other LAHD (landscape horticulture and design) student I found during the entire week... but I forgot his name. He was originally going to come here on a football scholarship, but then he blew out his knee and permanently ended his football career. He looked into horticulture and forestry, chose LAHD, and likes it so much that he doesn't regret that he had to give up football to find it.

I actually met Michael earlier in the week when I went to an interest session about the honors programs. When I first saw him, for some reason I sensed a "pretentious jerk vibe," but that proved to be a hasty and inaccurate judgment. He's majoring in horticultural science, so we had a nice discussion about aeroponics while we waited to go hiking on the honors retreat. We continued to talk along the way and made jokes about the designer who didn't make the canyon trail handicap accessible. He might be in the orchestra as well, so I'll be seeing a lot of him in the future.

I also met Kayleigh at the honors interest session. She's majoring in biochemistry in the college of ag. I knew the minute I saw her that we would likely become friends, but that it might take some effort for us to get to know each other. On the honors retreat we got off to a good start working on a jigsaw puzzle together.

Elizabeth and I literally ran into each other finding seats during the opening ceremonies of the honors retreat. Later we ended up sitting next to each other at dinner, and we discovered that we have a lot in common. We both like horses but not the all-too-often snobby people that ride and show english, we want to do volunteer work with the environment, we enjoy being outside, we like taking pictures, and we're awkward around people. Since the retreat we've eaten together twice, and we're bound to continue to interact. Her major is engineering, and she's from the Chicago area.

Allyson became my Facebook friend back in January, but we didn't meet each other until the honors retreat. She's from Indianapolis and is majoring in food science with a minor in dance. Since we're both in UHP and ag honors, we'll be seeing a lot of each other. She's friendly and just a bit sarcastic, and I love sarcasm in moderation.

Kilian was helping Kayleigh and Mary (she's next) with the jigsaw puzzle when I met him on the honors retreat. He's in engineering - hopefully aerospace, so he likes to call himself a future rocket scientist. Since he's in UHP and the orchestra (violin I think?) and will be attending the call-outs for the outing club and the medieval club, I predict that we will have plenty of opportunities to continue becoming friends.

Mary was the other girl who helped with the puzzles. She's going into pre-vet if I remember correctly, and that's pretty much all I know about her right now. She's very shy, but nice.

Dr. Chris is the person in charge of the UHP. He's a retired entomology professor who never misses an opportunity to encourage us to consider entomology. I instantly took a liking to him because he reminds me so much of Uncle Reggie. He's an enthusiastic, intelligent, friendly, old man of Chinese heritage. I hope to talk to him about entomology. Maybe he knows more about millipedes.

Whenever we go to a meal, Julia and I look for a lonely person and sit with them, and that's how I met the next two people. Wa is an exchange student from China who is here to study psychology education to become a professor back in China. She was so adorable! She's struggling with English and very nervous about it, so she asked us the words for a lot of thing at the table and then wrote them down in a little journal.

Just a few minutes ago we got back from lunch with Jeff. He's from Indiana and he's majoring in economics and will hopefully go on to law school afterward. It was awkward at first because it took us a while to find anything we had in common, but then we discovered that all three of us did theater in high school. The ice was finally broken and we had a nice little conversation about theater in our tiny high schools. I might try to find him later for the opening convocation I'm supposed to attend about our summer reading. Julia has an engineering honors thing, but Jeff and I are both scheduled for the same convocation and it would be nice not to go by myself.

Passing Incidents

I have a few miscellaneous items to share about Wednesday night before giving a brief account of the honors retreat. After the deluge, there were, of course, puddles. And, of course, I felt compelled to wade through all of them. I told my group I was protecting them by testing the depths of the treacherous sidewalks. I don't think they appreciated my service enough, but they were amused. I guess they're not accustomed to people who don't care whether or not their feet are wet.

The comedian for the night was actually the dating doctor played by Will Smith in "Hitch." He shared with us about relationships, and one snippet of his presentation was about something called Jahira windows. I had never heard of them before that time. For the first window, we were supposed to pick a favorite animal and tell your neighbor the first three words that came to mind related to that animal. I chose a millipede. My first three words were cute, round, and black. He proceeded to tell us that these three words describe how we think people perceive us. I think my answer breaks that.

That night we stayed up later than normal. When we finally did go to bed, we must have been asleep for only a few hours when we were awoken by the loudest crash of thunder I've ever heard in my life. There was one minuscule rumble a moment or two later, and then it left as quickly as it had come.

On Thursday afternoon I departed for an honors convocation retreat at a beautiful state park southwest of Indianapolis. The best thing about the retreat was that we didn't have to play any stupid ice-breaker games, and we weren't arbitrarily divided into small groups where we were expected to instantaneously form life-long connections. We got to choose what we did, and in choosing we found people with similar interests. I chose to go hiking. The park had some of the most beautiful trails I've ever seen, even considering the fact that we couldn't see beyond the range of our flashlights given that we chose to wait until dark to go hiking. The terrain reminded me of West Virginia, and the sky reminded me of Butler Springs. It was delightful. I would have preferred to go with a smaller group, but I ended up talking with a handful of people who I continued to talk to for the duration of the trip and beyond. After hiking, I learned a new card game and played mafia with a louder group of people. A bit later, I transitioned to a smaller group that had started a jigsaw puzzle. I showed that puzzle who was boss and proceeded to start another with the only two people who had any interest in starting another. Friday morning was spent listening, discussing, and asking questions, but for the most part it was valuable information... unlike orientation.

Soon I'll be leaving to go paint pottery with my roommate. Next time I'll introduce some of the people who have or might become my friends.

Some Adventures Thus Far

Sunday was move-in day as well as the first day of BGR (orientation). After unloading the van, semi-setting up the room, eating lunch, and saying good-bye to first my family and then Josh, I went straight to a meeting my the RA's for my building. I don't remember anything that was said, so it must not have been all that important.

After that, we were sent to go meet our BGR leaders and groups. Since my dorms are all-girls dorms, we were put into tiny groups that would pair up with a group of guys from the all-guys dorms. My group had five other girls and was led by a guy named Ryan. Julia (my roommate) was in my group. That's not supposed to happen, but I certainly didn't mind. She was the only girl of the group that I actually talked to. After dinner we met up with our male buddy group and their female leader. There were ten of them, but we rarely had more than eight attending any given session. I talked to several of them a few times and a few of them several times. We'll have to wait to see if any potential friendships stick.

There was plenty of stuff that accompanied BGR that I could have gone without. Lame music pervaded the entire experience. Each dorm was put into one of five large groups to compete in the Inter-Hall Showdown, and we had to do all sorts of cheers to gain points. I did go without a Monday interest elective and three-and-a-half hours of boring in the auditorium on Wednesday afternoon. Instead of attending these sessions, I did things like decorate my bulletin board with pictures from home, finally turn in my medical history form, call my family and Josh, organize papers, and so forth.

There were some pleasant parts of the routine. The food was good, and there were plenty of options. There were even options for when you can't choose a single option, as the monster cookie taught us. This amazing cookie had peanut butter, oatmeal, chocolate, m&m's, and probably a great deal more yummy than I could distinguish. It was amazing. I also enjoyed the slide show of rules at the beginning of all our sessions in the auditorium - and it's not just because I support the existence and knowledge of rules. They made them entertaining. For example: serious repercussions could result if any of the following is found in Elliott Hall ... El Chupacabra. I always enjoy a Chupacabra reference.

On Monday night in the Union, Julia and I decided to watch a hypnotist show. It was my intent to get called up on stage and then prove that hypnotism doesn't work on everyone, but he didn't pick me. Plus, once he had all his participants on-stage, he explained that he would dismiss to the audience any persons who didn't connect with his voice. The show wasn't what I was expecting. It was hilarious. Yes, some of them may just have been good actors, but many of them seemed "actually" hypnotized (I consider hypnotism more of an effort on the part of the hypnotee than skill on the part of the hypnotist). He had them do all sorts of things. .Once they pretended the audience members were baby animals at a petting zoo, and a guy from my group was taken up on stage as a giraffe baby while other audience members were perceived as anything from bunnies to mermaids to dinosaurs. Another time, a handful of them were supposed to sing "Happy Birthday" in a foreign language, and one guy chose Draconic (I doubt any of them were singing actual words in whatever language they chose). When they pretended to have their 200th birthday parties, one girl asked for pot, and another guy asked for a bow and arrow. When asked why he wanted a bow and arrow and why he was still active youthful, he explained that he was an elf. There was all sorts of fun, so I'm not all that concerned about whether or not they were genuinely hypnotized.

Tuesday morning I got up at the bright and early hour of 6:00 AM for breakfast at 7:00. After eating we had an hour of down time before our first session, so Julia and I decided to go in search of the hidden music practice room in the tunnels because neither of us really likes to play piano in front of other people. We quickly found that the common room under our building had a piano, but it was so poorly tuned and of such a poor timber that Julia named it the saloon piano. Our search continued. We found no practice room, but we did find adventure of a low-key variety. After searching through the open halls, we found a set of older, creepier hallways. In these hallways, there were menacing fire safe doors rigged with all sorts of pulley systems. They were begging to be opened, so we opened two of them. The first was filled with stacks of mirrors leaned against the walls. The second was a janitor closet. We didn't open the third because someone (or maybe something) was working in the room on the other side of it. When we rounded the corner, we found that we were in Shealy, the building under construction. One can't get into it from above the ground, but there was nothing stopping us from walking right in through the tunnels. So we did. For the most part, the workers ignored us. One of them said hello as he passed, but that was the only recognition we got other than a glance or two. We never did find the music room, so we went up to the main desk to ask where it was. They informed us that it used to be under Shealy, but that it was closed for construction and people weren't allowed down there (here we exchanged glances and grins that said "about that..."). Another one will be opening sometime in the nearish future. Until that point I suppose I'm stuck with the saloon piano or playing in the lobby. One of the guys in Cary can get me down to their practice rooms, but then he would have to be there the whole time since I'd be a girl in the guys' dorms. Maybe I'll check out the ones in the visual and performing arts building and see if they're open to everyone.

This post is getting pretty long, so I'll just tell one more longish tale and save the rest for my next post. Yesterday evening the tornado sirens went off. It wasn't looking too menacing outside, but one of our neighbors checked the weather channel anyway. The radar was beautiful. A nearly prefect bow arc was headed straight for us and a tornado had already been sighted. Our RA told us that she didn't think it would be all that serious, so we decided to stay upstairs. I went down to the saloon piano, but people kept on passing me and telling me to go to the deeper tunnels since there were still windows in the saloon even though they were sunk into the ground. I went back upstairs to wait for the storm there. As it drew nigh, it grew quite blustery outside. The cicadas raised a sudden and raucous cry to the wind. After a few minutes they suddenly went silent again. Not too long afterward the rain began. In seconds it was pouring and the wind had shifted to blow it straight through our window, so we had to close them a bit to protect Julia's laptop. The rain and the wind and the thunder and the lightning were exhilarating. Eventually the tornado siren sounded again and the storm had picked up so much that we decided it might be a good idea to head down to the lower tunnels. Once we got down there, we were stuck there for an uneventful half hour. The storm had already begun to calm down by the time we reached the tunnels, so we really could've stayed up in our room. Some of the Cary guys did, and they were just fine. At least we didn't miss much of the excitement since we went downstairs so late.

I'm about to leave to go on an honors retreat, so I'll say goodbye for now. Soon I'll bring you a few other points of interest from orientation along with descriptions of some of the people I've met and hopefully will continue to talk to. If anything worth reporting happens on the retreat I'll be sure to inform you all of that as well.

Living in a Castle on a Fiefdom Among Cornfields

I'm all moved in at Purdue now that I finally found out where to recycle the boxes sitting around my room. Tonight are the closing ceremonies of orientation, and then tomorrow I leave for the honors retreat in the afternoon and get back Friday afternoon. Saturday is empty (unless I attend any call-outs or events that day), Sunday I'll visit a church, and on Monday classes start. I'm looking forward to attending classes and getting into a routine instead of running around non-stop at orientation.

Later I'll type up some of my adventures, but for now I'll describe my dormitory*. I live in the all-girls dormitories, Windsor Halls. Windsor is comprised of five v-shaped beautiful old castle-like buildings. Four of them are arranged in two pairs such that the V's open to each other to enclose nice little courtyards. Two of them are updated and air-conditioned, two are not (I live in one of them), and the fifth is under construction (but I got inside anyway... I'll explain that later). The lobbies have old-timey furniture and light fixtures. Little side-rooms called courting rooms open off of the lobby and are similarly furnished. Many of the lobbies also have nice grand pianos (at least one is a Steinway in excellent condition).

One of Windsor's best feature is the underground tunnel system that connects all five buildings and a dining court. The tunnel system includes common areas, pop machines, snack machines, what Julia refers to as the "saloon piano", creepy doors, and creepy rooms (I will elaborate on the last three in a future post). If it continues to be as hot as it's been for the past few days, I'll probably be spending a lot of time down there where it's cooler.

I'm off to play the "saloon piano" during my remaining free time. Be on the lookout for pictures of the castle on Facebook.

Fall 2009 Schedule

My fall schedule will be somewhat more demanding than a typical freshman's, but given what I've done in the past it's nothing I can't handle. Thanks to the magic words "honors student" and some helpful professors in the registration lab, I have the class schedule of a dual-degree student in the liberal art college. I haven't technically even been admitted into the college of liberal arts, but the system's objections were overridden left and right. My schedule should be impossible for a first semester ag student, but I'm not complaining. I felt sort of like I was being taken care of by the mafia.

Monday

• 7:30-9:20 AM: AD113 Basic Drawing and Aesthetic Awareness
• 9:30-10:20 AM: ENGL 108 Accelerated Composition
• 11:30 AM-12:20 PM: ECON 210 Economics (Lecture)
  
• 3:30-4:20 PM: COM114 Fundamentals of Speech Communication (Honors)

Tuesday

• 9:30-10:20 AM: HORT101 Fundamentals of Horticulture (Lecture)
• 10:30-11:45 AM: HONR299 Insects in Literature and Art (Honors)
• 2:30-5:20 PM: HORT101 Fundamentals of Horticulture (Lab)

Wednesday

• 7:30-9:20 AM: 7:30-9:20 AM: AD113 Basic Drawing and Aesthetic Awareness
• 9:30-10:20 AM: ENGL 108 Accelerated Composition
• 11:30 AM-12:20 PM: ECON 210 Economics (Lecture)
  
• 3:30-4:20 PM: COM114 Fundamentals of Speech Communication (Honors)

Thursday

• 9:30-10:20 AM: HORT101 Fundamentals of Horticulture (Lecture)
• 10:30-11:45 AM: HONR299 Insects in Literature and Art (Honors)
• 12:30-1:20 PM: AGR120 (I have no idea what this is. I'll check later)
• 1:30-2:20 PM: AGR101 Into to the College of Agriculture (Honors)

Friday

• 7:30-9:20 AM: 7:30-9:20 AM: AD113 Basic Drawing and Aesthetic Awareness
• 9:30-10:20 AM: ENGL 108 Accelerated Composition
• 10:30-11:20 AM: ECON 210 Economics (Lab)
  
• 3:30-4:20 PM: COM114 Fundamentals of Speech Communication (Honors)

Midnight in Lockland

On Saturday night, I was in West Chester for a graduation party. Much to my delight and relief, I arrived without trouble. However, the ride home was a different story. As is my custom, I wound up rather lost in an unfamiliar area.

Around 11 PM I left West Chester with Amy and Joe. As you know, I absolutely despise driving on highways. Driving on highways in the dark is worse. Driving on highways in the dark on a route I've never taken is even worse. Driving on highways in the dark on a route I've never taken while wearing my glasses rather than my contacts is nearly the worst possible driving scenario I could imagine. Fortunately, I had two friends with me, and it turned out that Amy is excellent at getting un-lost and keeping me from freaking out. Joe didn't do me much good, but at least he didn't make anything worse. Before I even hit a main road, I had to pull over to calm myself down. I convinced myself that although my glasses didn't give me perfect vision, they were plenty good enough to allow to drive safely. I also called my dad to ask whether or not the headlights ever got fixed. They hadn't, which meant that my brights are the equivalent of any other car's normal headlights. I was afraid that I'd have to drive without my brights, and without them I can only see about ten feet in front of the car - and that's not an exaggeration. Amy helped with the calming down. After a few minutes and a switch of CDs (it was decided that Rimsky-Korsakov is much more calming than Apocalyptica), we were ready to go.

Merging onto 75 made me nervous, as usual, but as usual nothing bad happened. There was no cataclysmic ten-car pile-up. I'm getting more and more used to merging. The only real problem on the highway came when I couldn't find the white dashed line between my lane and the one next to me. I was not okay with that. After a moment of investigation, Amy discovered that I was still in a real lane. The dashed line had just been covered by road sealant stuff.

We were nearly home when I made a horrible mistake. I wasn't sure which exit to get off at, so when I saw the sign for the Lockland-Reading exit, I chose it. I've driven around in Reading plenty of times and Lockland a couple, so I was confident that I'd be able to find my way home. I was familiar with the intersection I found myself at, but I didn't remember exactly how to get home. I tried a couple possibilities, but I didn't seem to get closer to anywhere familiar enough that I could easily get home. We got into shadier and shadier parts of Lockland. Eventually it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to lock the car doors. When I talked to Kirby the next day, she informed that one of the streets I had spent a lot of time on was one that George had told her to never ever drive on at night under any circumstances. I thought about calling George since he lives in Lockland, but I decided against it. I'm not sure why. It would have been much wiser to call George. I suppose that my reluctance to ask for directions is part of what makes me Man-ria. I found my way back to the intersection we started at and pulled over to get out my GPS. It hadn't even occurred to me to use it until that point. We plugged it into the car and everything, but we couldn't get it to turn on. Amy and I both tried everything we could think of, but to no avail. We even looked for the instruction manual, but couldn't find it.

At Amy's insistence, we abandoned hope of finding our way through Lockland and got back on 75-south. The next exit we saw was for 562 - the Norwood Lateral. Amy and I thought that would get us back to Ronald Reagan. We were wrong. Our first mistake was that we got on going the wrong direction. We took the first exit we found to switch directions. The place where we got off was even shadier than any place we had encountered in Lockland. We spent about 100 yards on that road before getting back on 562 in the opposite direction which took us onto 75-north. Amy called her dad and was asking for him to Map-Quest the way home when I saw a sign for Ronald Reagan. The transition from 75 to Ronald Reagan to Galbraith was uneventful.

Instead of turning left on Galbraith like normal, Amy recommended that we take a short-cut to her house. So we turned right and took Congress Run. Up to this point, the inside of my windshield had gradually begun to fog up, and none of the usual methods were working to clear it off. I even tried wiping it with a towel, but that didn't help either. So I was stuck driving up Congress Run at night with a fogged-up windshield and without real brights. Congress Run is an insane street. Driving on it is an adventure - an adventure best reserved for sunny days. It's incredibly steep and narrow with hairpin turns screened by thick vegetation. It provided an entirely different sort of adventure than Lockland, although it was still an unpleasant adventure. After taking at least three times as long as it would normally take to drive down that street, we arrived at Compton and made it to her house without trouble. I dropped her off, drove Joe home, and returned to my home around 12:30 AM. What should have been a 20-30 minute drive turned into what may have been the scariest hour and a half of my life. I am now more determined than ever to learn how to get from place to place on the highways.

Clearing Up This Circadian Rhythm Business

Whenever my psychology teacher tried to explain the Circadian rhythm, he skewed one point. It's not a hugely critical point, and he wasn't too far off, but the way he skewed it irritated the living daylights out of me (which is sort of a really horrible pun because this deals with daylight)(please just ignore that - I'm tired and it's showing).

The term circadian rhythm (see if you can parse it) refers to the biological clock or daily cycle of energy levels that humans (and pretty much all surface-dwelling animals) go through. There are phases of increased wakefulness and increased drowsiness. The exact pattern varies from species to species.

Here's the interesting part and the part where Mr. Crawley goes a little bit wrong. If we were be to removed from all light and schedule cues, our circadian rhythm would follow a 25-hour pattern rather than the 24-hour pattern that most of us live by. The presence of sunlight light inhibits the production of the hormone melatonin in the pineal gland (he didn't know the name of the hormone or the gland, but I'm not very concerned about that) and resets the circadian rhythm to the usual 24-hour cycle.

Mr. Crawley went wrong on two points: one actually irritated me, and I probably wouldn't have taken note of the other if I hadn't already been irritated. He frequently attributed the 24-hour adjusted cycle to scheduling tendencies and completely ignored the extreme importance of light. One can have a completely unscheduled day, but if natural light is present, the circadian rhythm is as it should be. Gollum's circadian rhythm wouldn't have been off because he had nothing to do - it would have been off because he lived underground for years (he didn't use Smeagol as an illustration, but I like to). Mr. Crawley implied by his tone of voice and a few other clue that the 25-hour cycle was the better cycle and that we were somehow being restricted from natural life by the existence of schedules. Furthermore, one day I added that sunlight was the main factor in resetting the biological clock, and he made some absurd comment to the effect that the fact that we have to add a leap day every four years because we aren't following the 25-hour cycle. That makes no sense. The earth's rotation follows a 24-hour cycle, so it would behoove us to do the same. The earth's orbit follows a 365.25whatever day cycle, and the extra .25whatever isn't added because we ignore the 25-hour cycle that the unchecked circadian rhythm would follow.

I am completely aware that this doesn't matter at all to most people. After the few days he mentioned the circadian rhythm, it didn't even really matter to me. It's okay that he seemed to interpret the resetting of the biological clock in a slightly different fashion. He may not have intended to imply that schedules were evil, and there's a good chance that he realized pretty quickly that the whole leap day thing was unreasonable. It did matter to me on the day I started this, so I thought I'd type it all the way through anyway.

The Annual Bagworm Dilemma

I think I've already told my reader(s) about the bagworm dilemma, but I hadn't when I started this. I'll type it up anyway. Bagworm season has wrapped up for this year, thank heavens, and I can only hope that Purdue doesn't have many (or perhaps any) of the little critters.

Bagworms are little caterpillar-like bugs. I'm sure they're the larval form of some other bug, but I don't know what bug. They're kind of cute and I love the way they crawl around. Here's the source of the dilemma: they kill trees.

Do I kill them or let them kill trees? Do I let everything proceed naturally, or do I intervene? Obviously, there's no way the bagworms can eliminate huge amounts of trees. They' haven't yet. Birds eat a lot of them, and I'm sure many more die in other ways. But they attack without discrimination, and sometimes the loveliest of trees and shrubs are their victims. But I have major issues with killing things, even bugs that kill trees.

I've gone through a variety of solutions. One year, we burned the nest that attacked a tree near our house. Another year, I collected them and dropped them down into a sewer so I wouldn't be quite so directly responsible for their deaths. The next year, I mustered up the determination to actually step on some of them (with shoes on), but I felt pretty horrid about it. This year, the bagworms came during a week when I was pretty messed up physically, mentally, and emotionally, and the strain was almost unbearable. There was one day when I actually became sick to my stomach every time I saw one.

At the end of this year's season, I decided that this mental agony was a little - okay maybe a lot - dramatic, over-the-top, and unnecessary, so I set out to develop a final decision in regards to bagworms. If they decide to invade one of my trees, they're done for. If they invade a different tree and I'm called on to help eliminate them, I will lend a hand. However, I can't stand to just squish every one I see, so I'll let the other ones go. It's really rather ridiculous that this ever caused me such an issue. I'm glad it's been resolved. I hope (using the true meaning of the word) that my resolution will remain firm and I will never again be unduly troubled by the adorable but deadly bagworms.

Appalachia Part V: Thursday

I now arrive at the conclusion of the Appalachia Adventures series. Soon I will be able to move on to other topics.

On Thursday morning, according to custom, we got up at 6:00 AM. It took some of us quite a while to get going. We pranked one of the guys' vans in reaction to their pranks, but ours wasn't nearly as good as theirs. Since we didn't have much time to plan or gather materials, we (by which I merely mean two of my friends and nobody else) used what we had: feminine products.

At the work site our roofing plans were foiled again because it was raining again. I helped put in some more dead-wood and insulation and watched a few people work on the siding, but there was nothing else to be worked on in the rain. Ivan (one of the carpenters) did his best to find little odd jobs for me to do since he could see that I wasn't very happy about sitting around not helping, and I thought that was very sweet of him.

During one of the long periods of time in which we had nothing to do, Boone told the tale of the truck wreck. A semi full of coal was careening around a curve at about 80 mph - on a wet road, might I add. At the same time, another semi was coming around the bend. The coal truck swerved to avoid the other truck. It clipped the other semi and then collided with the mountainside. The other semi suffered some damage, but the driver was uninjured. The coal truck, on the other hand, didn't fare as well. The cab was completely crushed and rescue crews spent the entire day picking up pieces of the driver that had been scattered along the road. At least he would have died instantly. We drove through there only about five or ten minutes after the accident. If we had left our site exactly when we were scheduled to, we could have been part of that accident.

We bid our final farewells to the carpenters and left the site at lunch again that day to go back to the cabins and pack. Everybody was ready to leave on time, but we couldn't go until the woman in charge of the organization came by to check that we were cleaned up and give us our COAP (Christian Outreach to Appalachian People - the organization we worked with) shirts. She was running more than an hour late, but we got to leave eventually.

My van was almost empty because I chose to ride with the teacher that everyone else was fed up with. We listened to 80's music and enjoyed some gorgeous clouds all the way home. Upon arriving at school and finding my luggage just in time for the college group study, I was called and informed that I would be picked up by Josh. By this point, most of my female friends had heard about this Josh guy of whom I was (and am) rather fond, so they were pretty excited to hear that he would be picking me up and they would get to see him. When he arrived, three of them decided that they would each carry one of my belongings as an excuse to walk over to his car. Unfortunately, it did not even occur to me until much later that they were hoping to be introduced to him. I'm not very good at that sort of thing.

So there you have it, Princess Gwendolyn Maple's Appalachian Adventures in five unnecessarily lengthy episodes.

Appalachia Part IV: Wednesday

Just like on Monday and Tuesday, we got up early. Each morning there was less shine in our rise-and-shine routines. It was overcast and rainy on Wednesday, so we took even longer to get up and going.

Thanks to the rain, we couldn't work on the roof, so instead we had to find jobs inside the house for everyone. At first I got to help cut and install insulation. Fiberglass is no fun, but I managed to get far fewer fiberglass splinters than most of my comrades. After the insulation was done I got to climb up in the rafters and nail dead-wood into place. Dead-wood provides something for drywall to be anchored to.

The morning passed uneventfully. Instead of eating at the construction site and continuing work after lunch, we all headed back to the cabins to eat lunch and go sight-seeing. On the way to the cabins we passed a horrible semi truck wreck. We would learn the tale of the accident the next day.

Most us packed into the vans after lunch to visit the Coal Mine Museum. I made the mistake of riding in Ms. Owen's car. She drives like a madwoman. The museum was fascinating, but rather depressing as well. There were all sorts of stories about cave-ins and mining injuries.

One of the workers at the museum recommended that we visit Raven Rock in Kingdom Come State Park. Raven Rock was a ledge elevated a half-mile above the valley below, and the man told us that standing on the edge made you feel like you were flying. We decided that sounded like fun, so we drove off to the park. The winding roads up to the park were treacherous, and Mrs. Rivet in the front van decided that it was her turn to drive like a madwoman. Leah was about ready to puke or cry by the time we reached the parking lot up in the mountains.

From the parking lot, we hiked about a mile up steep trails (or, in the case of Maddy, me, and most of the guys, straight up the mountainsides with no interest in wimpy trails) to get to the place where the confusing signs told us we would find Raven Rock. Despite the fact that I hadn't had any sort of exercise in months, I managed to be the first girl to the top and took only one tiny break of about thirty seconds. I was breathing a little hard by the time I reached the top of the trail.

Unfortunately, we didn't see anything resembling Raven Rock. Everyone else in the first group turned around and headed back down the path, but I was determined to look around until I found this ledge. Eventually I succeeded. I shouted back to Courtney and Maddy - the only two that had stuck around from the second group - and they joined me. There was a pier-type thing with railings built onto a rocky outcropping on the side of a cliff. We walked to the railing at the end of the pier and looked out over the edge to see the half-mile drop straight down. It was breathtaking. Literally. For several seconds my head wouldn't stop spinning. It was awe-inspiring, even though the trees hadn't yet woken up from their winter slumber. Some day I'll go back when the trees are clad in summer leaves, autumn colours, or wintry snow. Near the ledge was a bench, and we decided to take Titanic pictures on it. It was a very blustery day, so the wind swept our hair back like in the movie. As we left Raven Rock we saw two ravens flying overhead. I have pictures of all these things on Facebook.

When we reached the top of the trail we realized that we were alone, we had no idea where anyone had gone, and our cell phones didn't have service. We started off down the trail in hopes of finding the others at the bottom. Partway down we heard familiar voices in the distance and followed them to discover our friends. They had apparently called our names for quite some time before giving up, and some of the girls were deeply distressed. Fortunately, Mr. Volz was able to reason that the three of us would be together and that we would take care of ourselves. In lieu of the real Raven Rock, they had found a bald mountainside. It was extremely windy up there, so much that one of my friends encouraged me to sit down because she was genuinely worried that I would fall over. I had no such worries, so I trotted on down through the rocks to where the guys were investigating a cave. Just as I got there, the clouds that had been steadily gathering took on a more menacing appearance, and we decided that the side of a mountain was not the best place to be in a storm. The guys and I decided that it would be quicker to skip the paths and take a short-cut. I know that this is generally not the best idea, but we made it through just fine with the exception of a few minor scrapes and scratches. We were back in the vans and partway down the mountain before the rain hit. I was sad not to be out in it, but I am forced to acknowledge that some things are unintelligent and unsafe and should probably not be done no matter how fun they seem or how completely unfrightened I feel.

We arrived back at the cabins without event. Here, my list of happening says "explosions." I have no idea whatsoever what that was referring to, so I'll skip to the next stuff. Several of us played cards after dinner again. First we played BS. I am atrociously horrible at that game, but my efforts provided amusement, so I consider that to be time well spent. I vanquished all challengers in a game of ERS once I was done failing at BS. When all the weaklings had given up, my friend Courtney and I decided to play a more extreme version of ERS. In our version, one must smack one's own forehead before smacking a sandwich. It added a whole new dimension to the game. We were both running on caffeine and adrenaline sans sleep by this point so we sort of frightened the few people who ventured out onto the porch where we were playing. It was great fun.

People stayed up late as usual. All but one of the guys had gone down to Sleepy Hollow and most of the girls had gone to bed when the guys played a prank on us. I must commend them for their work, because it was quite a nice series of pranks. They squirted ketchup onto pigs' feet (they found some at the local grocery store), tossed them onto the porch, knocked on the windows and the sides of the cabin, and left a ketchup handprint on the back window. Five or ten minutes later, they got into one of the vans and propped a stick between the steering wheel and the seat so that the stick was stuck pushing the horn. It was nicely done. But of course, we had to retaliate. Before going back to sleep we planned our prank for the next morning.

Appalachia Part III: Tuesday

Sorry for the long silence. I have about six posts partially finished, so I should be putting a lot more up in the near future.

Tuesday morning started at the early hour of 6:00 AM just like Monday did. It took a few more hits of the snooze button to wake everyone up, and the PBJ sandwich-making brigade was a little slow to get moving, but we were at the work site by 7:30. Once again, the natives were running a little behind schedule. It was chilly outside in the mountain morning air, so we stayed in our cozy vans until the carpenters arrived.

When the carpenters did arrive, the roofing team had to sit around doing nothing until the sun dried the dew off the roof. As the house was near the bottom of a valley, it took some time for the sun to reach us. In the meantime, I sat in the open trunk of a van and did nothing. I hate doing nothing while other people are working. It drives me insane. However, I didn't have many options so I just had to deal with it.

Once the little rays of sunshine finally hit the rooftop of our little valley house, it didn't take long for the tar paper and shingles to dry off enough for us to walk safely on them. The morning was spent nailing on more shingles, frightening 2x6 supports, and rain guards. Thanks to my perfectionism and shingling skill (it really doesn't take much to become a skilled shingler, but I'm proud of my new-found ability nonetheless), I was promoted to row-starter. The first shingle in a new row must be lined up so perfectly that it splits the one-eighth-inch mark of a chalk line in half. I've finally found the one thing that really does require absolute perfectionism.

Lunch brought a few items of interest. A wandering beagle found and befriended us, and we named him Shiloh after the books about Shiloh the beagle. Evidently it's common for Harlan dwellers to let their dogs roam the community during the day. The dogs almost always make it back home in time for dinner without trouble. Towards the end of lunch, a man a few doors down the hill from our site walked out of his house carrying a rifle. Billy voiced the opinion that the man looked to be a little messed-up, by which he seemed to mean drunk. The man proceeded to shoot the rifle at some unknown object. Nobody in the neighborhood was disturbed in the least. We found that a little odd.

The afternoon brought more shingles, bigger blisters, and little else. As the roof crew climbed back down the ladder, I realized that I hadn't used sunscreen the entire day, and to my surprise I hadn't sizzled like an egg on hot pavement. It was a pleasant surprise.

Back at the cabin, I decided against an early shower in favor of taking my camera, Orthodoxy, and The Great Omission on a hike up to the rock formation on the ridge near the cabin. This time I had the rock to myself, and it was marvelously tranquil and absolutely lovely. I benefited from the break from people and noise. Todd was right about the benefits of silence and solitude. As much as I loved many of the people I went with, I can only stand so much non-stop human contact.

I came back down to discover that my friends from the other work site and my one friend from my site were going on a walk down the mountain into Sleepy Hollow where the boys' cabins were. I think one of the girls wanted to play basketball, but I don't fully remember the reason for the trip; we never actually made it there. The road from the girls' cabin to the boys' cabin zig-zagged across the grass-covered face of the mountain. We speed-walked most of the way down the road, and then realized that we needed something back up in the cabin. Charity and I decided to hike through the grass straight up the mountainside instead of using the road. We made it, but she was on the verge of asthmatic breathing problems, and I had a hard time not slipping thanks to the fact that my foam flip-flops had gotten soaked. Once we did whatever we needed to, we speed-walked all the way down almost to the boys' cabin. Just as we started down their driveway, one of the teachers pulled up to pick up some of the guys. and he told us that it was dinner time. He offered to give us a ride, but I decided that I wanted to see if I could run up the road and beat him. After about 100 yards, I was the only person still in favor of that idea, so instead we sat in the middle of the road and waited to be picked up. We opened the trunk and all squeezed into the back and sang along to The Killers on the way up the hill/mountain.

Dinner was a delicious grill-out followed by some cards. Between cards and bedtime I sat around the fire with people I didn't normally talk to, and it was actually very nice. I heard lots of interesting stories and had some lovely conversations. It would be nice if I could remember any of them, but right now I'm proud for remembering this much (I haven't really remembered all this for this long. I made lists on the way home. If I had actually remembered this all several weeks after the fact, I'd be shocked).

Appalachia Part II: Monday

On Monday morning my side of the cabin woke up at 6 AM. We were supposed to be completely ready to meet our carpenters (our experienced leaders for the week) by 7. I was disappointed in my fellow females when I saw how many of them brought unnecessary amounts of makeup and hair products and appliances. Seriously? We were going to be doing construction. Not trying to win a beauty pageant. Nobody really cares much at all about how you look. I think it's an addiction.

We split ourselves into two groups: landscaping and roofing. Landscaping sounded more interesting, but very few people were gladly volunteering for roofing so I joined the roofing team. Our carpenters didn't arrive until 7:30. We had been warned that people in Appalachia don't operate on strict schedules. The truth of that statement quickly became apparent. It was nice to work around such laid-back people. Our carpenters were named Boone, Ivan, and Bill. Boone was the head guy, and he loved to play tricks on us. I think Ivan may have had a slight mental disability, but he was very sweet. Bill (who we later nick-named Bad-Ass Bill) was only eighteen, but he was described by the owner of our host organization as a "carpentry genius" and he deserved that title. The first thing we noticed about our job site was that there were chickens everywhere, and that they liked to call all day long. I didn't mind, thanks to my extended exposure to non-stop rooster crowing in Colombia, but some of my classmates quickly became irritated by the birds.

Our first task was to get the 60 lb. packages of shingles from the front of the house to the top of the roof via a ladder behind the house. The girls carried the shingles to the ladder - or rather Charity and I carried them to the ladder (and managed to cut ourselves on them) with occasional help from the other girls who couldn't carry the packages alone. Once we got the shingles to the ladder, the guys got them on top of the roof. A few of them took turns hoisting the shingles over their shoulders and carrying them up the ladder. At the top, another guy would drag the bag off of their shoulders (the ladder guys had scarlet, shingle-burned necks by the end) and carry it to the peak.

At one point, Boone decided it would be fun to put a rubber snake under the shingles to see if any of us girls would squeal in terror. At the time, only Charity and I were carrying shingles, and it didn't bother either of us at all. Finally some of the other girls decided to help. Sure enough, when the shingles were lifted, squeals erupted. It took one girl several seconds to realize that it wasn't real, even after it was clear that it wasn't moving anywhere. With permission from Boone, I stowed the snake in my pocket for later pranks.

When Charity cut her knee open on some shingles, we discovered that one of the vans didn't have a first aid kit and that the other did... but Mrs. Rivet had locked the keys inside. I don't know how we finally got them out, but eventually we did, and Charity got her band-aid. It was a shallow cut, but it just wouldn't stop bleeding for a while.

By this point, the prep work was over and we were ready to get up on the roof and get to work. First we had to nail 2x6 boards under the angled edges of the roof. This involved reaching over the side of the roof to hold the 2x6 perpendicular to the roof and flush with the edge. While reaching over, we had to be sure to keep our weight about 1.5 feet away from the edge because there was nothing supporting the roof until that point (if that didn't make sense, I can draw a diagram sometime). That part made even me nervous, and I have an unnatural lack of fear of heights and falling.

Next we nailed in drip guards along the edges. I got to do quite a bit of that because it didn't make me at all nervous. After that, we were ready to begin the actual shingling. Unfortunately I didn't wear gloves. The resulting blisters have been seen on Facebook. Fortunately I did remember sunscreen. I managed to avoid sunburn altogether.

Once lunch time rolled around, we realized that all our sandwiches were with the group at the other work site. I went with one of the teachers and a few others to go rescue our sandwiches and bid good-day to all my friends at the other site. I only talked to one or two people at my site, so it was nice to see the others.

After lunch we went right back to work. By the end of the afternoon, I was one of the best novice roofers. Upon our return from the sandwich site, Mrs. Rivet had given her keys to one of the girls so she wouldn't lose them. Well... the girl lost them instead. We spent several minutes looking for the keys before discovering that Boone had found them on the ground and picked them up partially as a prank and partially to make sure that they weren't truly lost.

We made our way back to the cabins. Much to our delight, we discovered that the running water had been restored! Showers for all!

Shortly after returning, I set out for the rock formation with some of the guys. I didn't know they were going. I found them there when I arrived. My hopes of peace and solitude were ruined, but at least the guys weren't at all obnoxious. I still got my peace to a certain degree. Atop the rock were all sorts of lovely lichens and mosses as well as some stubborn beech saplings growing out from between layers of the rock. The view was nice, too. When I first climbed up, I used the same method the guys had used. It didn't work to well with my über short legs. Once on top of the rock, however I found a crevice I could fit into that led to another small opening in the underside of the rock. Once I dropped through that hole, I easily walked out from beneath the rock without even having to stoop. It wasn't too hard to climb back up either. It was perfect.

That afternoon I decided to be a good student and work on some calculus. That was pretty much the only homework I did for the entire week. I probably should've done more, but it was nice to have a break from school for a few days.

We had a nice, simple spaghetti dinner outside in the cool spring evening. Following dinner, Courtney and Anna decided that yoga would be a fun idea. I reluctantly joined them. We went behind the girls' cabin to avoid awkward looks from out classmates. Unbeknownst to us, someone was washing dishes right in front of the window on the back side of the cabin. Mr. Muchmore was amused by the contrast between Courtney's yoga and the pitiful attempts of Anna and me.

We lit a campfire as the sun began to set and roasted marshmallows. Campfire + marshmallows = a delightful combination. As the fire began to die down, we headed inside for the night.

Appalachia Part I: Sunday

If I post then entire account of my Appalachia trip at once, I won't get around to finishing it until at least a few weeks from now. Instead, I'll post it in chunks - one for each day of the trip.


On Sunday Courtney picked me up from church early. When we arrived at school, I helped Leah's dad pack the vans. We make an efficient packing team. Unfortunately, the people were packed awfully close, too. My van had nine people and eight seat belts. I got to sit in the middle of the back row. Aside from a few panicky moments early on, I was surprised to find that I didn't have a serious problem with the crowdedness.

We arrived at our cabin at around 6:00 or 7:00, thanks to the unnecessarily extended stops and the late start. The girls' "cabin" was very nice (depending on your definition). It was hardly a cabin, really. It was all clean and new and polished will real mattresses and Perggo floors... but temporarily with no running water. The view out the door was absolutely gorgeous. I'll have a picture of it up on Facebook eventually. The girl's cabin was partway up a mountainside and hemmed in by ridges on three sides. On one of these ridges was an interesting rock formation that begged to be climbed. Maddy went along with me all the way to the top through thorns and brush. Thanks to my short legs, I couldn't find a way up the rock at the time, but Maddy did.

Before leaving for dinner and grocery shopping, us girls went down to the valley below our cabin to see where the guy were staying. I preferred their cabin. They stayed in a historic cabin with low ceilings, unfinished walls, and furniture from the 70s. It was rather dim and somewhat grungy, but it had a nice, homey feel full of character and warmth that the pristine girls' cabin lacked.

After we had all loaded back into the vans, we headed out to Pizza Hut for dinner. From Pizza Hut, we went to Food City to do our grocery shopping for the week. Emily and I were sent to the produce department, but we were distracted for several minutes my some delightfully scented candles. There were so many different smells to test! Later on, some of my friends and I met up in a freezer aisle and decided we were tired of shopping for the time being, so we sat down and played charades instead. It was much more fun.

When we were done at Food City, we finally returned back to the cabins at roughly 9:00 or 10:00. I could see the stars clearly. I only know two constellations, but I found them effortlessly. Ursa Major and Orion's Belt seemed huge up there! I hadn't seen them clearly since October, so I'm not sure if the perceived size discrepancy was due to season or elevation. I did not admire the stars for long because I did not want to feel obligated to pretend to associate with my more boisterous classmates who were outside at the time.

Nihilism in the Choir*

As my readers know, the Finneytown Chorale received a 1 in class AA at contest last weekend. This means that we qualified to move on to state contest. After a vote, we decided that we'd try it. Unfortunately, today we learned that scheduling conflicts would make it nearly impossible to go on any of the four possible contest days (well we could still actually fit in two places, but our teacher doesn't seem to be trying very hard). Because of this, anarchy and nihilism will reign in the choir.

Anarchy was already a problem. My teacher has never demanded much respect from the students, so he hasn't gotten nearly as much as he would like. Surprise, surprise. But I won't rail against Mr. McKee's classroom "control" at this time. I won't spend much time describing anarchy since I've given some description in person to my readers in the past. I'm just sick and tired of non-stop chatter and nonsense. People talk while other people talk about why we shouldn't be talking all the time. It's immensely aggravating. It's not like we're the concert choir, full of people who just needed another credit. We're all talented musicians, and an extremely high percentage of us are honors kids and "good students."

Now that we're not going to contest, we have nothing to work towards (as some people see it). This is where the nihilism comes in. With no purpose/goal to work towards, there's no reason for the hooligans not to cause mayhem. Some of my classmates and I would consider it a good enough goal to simply create beautiful music and to share this music with our family and friends. However, about half of the problematic people are seniors with severe cases of senioritis. They really don't care about anything school-related at this point, even if that means being inconsiderate towards others. My teacher might have us do this awesome but incredibly complicated Eric Whitaker piece, and maybe that will inspire some to actually work. I have my doubts.

A few of my friends and I are actually considering how nice it might be to have a study hall fourth bell with AP exams approaching. I probably won't switch classes, though. I've stuck with it this far, so I might as well finish strong.


*My original title for this post was "Nihilism and Anarchy in the Choir" but "Nihilism in the Choir" sounds like an awesome band name, so I had to leave it that way.

Renaming the Blog

While reading my psychology textbook, I discovered that the term "antisocial" technically refers to something far different from what I had intended to communicate in my blog's title. According to my textbook, "antisocial personality disorder [is] a personality disorder in which the person exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends and family members. May be aggressive and ruthless or a clever con artist." I don't think I want to associate myself with such a disorder. Even though the general public's definition of antisocial goes along with my former notion of the word (which was that antisocial people are uncomfortable around people or more comfortable alone), I'd rather change my blog's name now that I know the technical meaning for the term. I don't like my new title as much as I did the old one. I'll probably change it again when I find a word or phrase with a similar meaning that I like the sound of.

Tale as Old as Time

So this might sound a little sappy or whatever, but oh well. Maybe it's not as sappy as I'm thinking, since I generally put an unnecessary amount of effort into avoiding being sappy. I suppose a bit of over-sentimentality (or "spoony-ness" to use Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day from yesterday) isn't so bad every once in a while, if that's what this is. Ordinary sentimentality definitely isn't a bad thing in moderation. Now I'll stop rambling and get to the point so I can get back to work on less enjoyable things.

As my readers know, Ben's sermon this week was about God's omnitemporality. This morning during the sermon, the song "Tale as Old as Time" from Beauty and the Beast popped into my head. I thought about the song for a second and scoffed at the idea that the story of Beauty and the Beast was a "tale as old as time." But upon further reflection, I realized that the general idea of the story was in fact older than time. It was outside of time, even. God has chosen to love something decidedly unlovely: humanity (as we read in Romans 5:8). When I continued to think, I made yet another connection (well, actually I remembered a passage from Orthodoxy): not only has God chosen to love an unlovely thing, but because he loves it he's decided to make it into something lovely (as we read in Philippians 1:6). I can't help but thank God for all this. I've made my actual point in a few sentences, and yet these few facts are mind-boggling. I could (and should) spend quite a bit of time, or more appropriately all of my time, with these amazing, comforting truths in mind.

In Which The Man Tries to Prevent Me from Being True to Mine Ownself

I have a particularly low voice for a girl. My friend Mike has a particularly high voice for a guy. We've agreed that he'd do quite well as a first alto, and I'd do quite well as a first tenor, so we decided to switch voice parts for the senior ensemble song. He chickened out, but I still learned the tenor part and have been singing as a tenor for the past few weeks (and blending far more easily into the tenor section than the alto section).

On Friday, our conductor finally figured out that I've been singing with the guys. He had an issue with that, and told me to go back to the alto part. So now our formation is thrown off, I need to relearn the song (I know both parts, but I keep on finding myself singing an alto-tenor hybrid part), and I stick out. The alto part for the song is in the break in my range, which means I have to sing loudly to get a decent tone, and there are some notes on which I can't change my tone much to match my section or I'll lose the pitch (or they could just sing darker like they're supposed to).

I'm considering sticking it to the man and singing the tenor part anyway. He didn't even notice I had switched parts from listening - he noticed when I filled a tenor slot in the formation. I blend so well as a tenor that it's nearly impossible to tell by ear that there's a girl singing with them. I don't see why he's so adamantly against me being a tenor for just one song. I'll have to talk with him about it. If he's still against it, I'll just be an alto. I see no reason to pick a fight with my conductor just to prove I can.

Cheerful Childhood Delusions Dissolved

Once upon a time in a little place in southwestern Ohio, there lived a five-year-old girl. She and her family went on a vacation to Washington, DC, and she brought her baby doll along. It's name was Ria Baby. While in Washington, DC, Ria Baby was lost on the subway. The little girl was absolutely devastated. She got a cat (whom she named Ria Kitty and who would one day become her closest animal friend), but her excitement about her new companion could not efface her grief over the loss of Ria Baby.

Several months later, a package came in the mail for the little girl. Inside was her Ria Baby! Oh, the joy! Her mother told her that someone must have found it in Washington, DC, and known to send it back to her. The girl believed this wholeheartedly.

For years, the girl believed what her mother had told her. As she grew older, she began to wonder how on earth it could possibly have happened, but she retained a shred of her belief in the old story until one day when she was seventeen. On that fateful day, the conversation somehow turned to Ria Baby. The girl's mother was shocked to find that her daughter had not gotten to the bottom of the fantastic story. In reality, the mother had written to one of her cousins and asked them to send a Ria Baby. Ria Baby had merely been a McDonald's Happy Meal toy and had been replaced by an impostor for years.