In my opinion, the most wonderful time of the year starts at Thanksgiving and reaches all the way through Christmas. Things changed a little bit since I've gone off to college, but a lot has remained the same.
Tradition starts the day before Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Preparation Day, on which we do most of out cooking and cleaning on that day. As of four years ago, it is tradition that I prepare the turkey. This often involves doing strange things with it to make my mom cringe. It started when I discovered that the liver has a fun consistency. Now in addition to playing with the liver, we investigate the kidneys and heart, wiggle the neck around, massage the turkey's skin, and tickle its armpits.
Thanksgiving Day itself probably has more traditions than any other day in the Gast house. I get up at 7:00 or 8:00 am to start the Thanksgiving puzzle. More people trickle out of bed as the morning goes on. By 9:00 when the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade starts, pretty much everyone is awake. My dad or Rachel starts making cinnamon rolls, and we watch the parade and work on the puzzle. After the parade, sometimes we leave the TV on to make fun of the dog show. Ronda usually arrives around noon to help us finish the cooking. I always take care of the green bean casserole, and usually forget to add seasonings unless my mom reminds me. Uncle Andy along with Abby and Theresa get there sometime in the early afternoon and bring with them cocktail shrimp to snack on alongside Ronda's famous chip dip. At 4:00 we start dinner. Around 4:30 Uncle Mike arrives and we subtly make fun of him until he leaves. Things die down over the evening as friends and relatives leave one-by-one. Once it's dark, the Christmas lights come on for the first night of the season.
The next day is Christmas decoration day. We leave the house sometime in the late morning and head out to a tree farm in Morrow to pick out the perfect Christmas tree. It used to take us hours. Now we're becoming more and more efficient. I think we had our tree in 10 minutes last year. This year it took about 20 if you count cutting it down, but that's still not too shabby. After we've picked the tree we each get a new ornament to put on it. For a while we went to Elder Beerman's, then switched to Delhi Garden Center, and now we just get them at the tree farm. Many of us have gradually drifted from picking ornaments we actually like to picking the strangest ones we can find. The tree is weirder and weirder every year. As we drive home with the tree inside the van, we listen to Christmas music stations. Once we get home, Mom puts in the Oakridge Boys or the Partridge Family Christmas CDs. The day usually ends with watching the first Christmas movie of the season.
Christmas traditions are much more varied and have changed quite a lot over the past decade or so, so I'll just describe what we do now. On and off we participate in Advent, whether it's on our own or with the whole church. The weekend before Christmas my mom's side of the family gets together. We have a four-year location rotation between my mom, her sister in southern Michigan, her brother in Indianapolis, and her parents in northern Michigan. This year we'll be at Aunt Wendy's house. Every year we do something different together and then eat and open gifts. Christmas Eve we go to church, and Rachel and I usually play in an orchestral ensemble.
Christmas day, nobody is allowed to leave their room until 6:00 am. At that time, we can open our stockings. Everyone has to be awake by 8:00 am for official gift opening. When Cathy and Chris Gowen are in town, they join us. After we open gifts, we eat Panera bagels or cinnamon rolls for breakfast and hang out around the house until lunch time. Around 1:00 in the afternoon we head over to my dad's parents' house in Kenwood and repeat the process with his side of the family. When we get back home in the evening, we often watch a Christmas movie together.
I like tradition. I'm no Reb Tevia, but I like knowing that certain things will be roughly the same every year. I don't mind adding new things, but I am not a huge fan of taking away old traditions. I guess it goes along with being a person of habit. I wonder how things will grow and change as our family grows and changes. One day all seven of us kids will be out of the house. Will we live close enough to get together? Will we have our own kids to add to the mix? Will we still get up to do puzzles on Thanksgiving or open Christmas stockings at 6:00 am? Who knows. Only time will tell.
Showing posts with label trips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trips. Show all posts
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Colombia: Cultural Tidbits
This will be the final post in my Colombia series. There will be no real connection between all these little blurbs, and it will irritate me that I can’t organize it, but I’ll have to get over that. These facts I’ll be sharing are relevant only to the areas we worked in, unless noted otherwise.
Ice cream is huge there. Almost every little store that sells food (and some that don’t) sells ice cream. In the mall, you can stand in any given place and spot at least one ice cream place. At the bigger mall, you can always spot at least two. And it’s good ice cream, too.
The garbage trucks and not the ice cream trucks play the music we associate with ice cream here in the U.S.
There are two ways to rank the affluence of a person by their home: their roof and their walls. Very well-off people have concrete roofs. Everyone else has corrugated metal. Fiberglass panels with the metal serve as sky lights in nicer houses. Bolts hold the roof tight in better houses, while bricks and rocks serve the purpose in worse houses. The best houses are made of bricks covered in concrete and painted bright colors. Minus colors is worse, then minus the concrete layer, and the worst is a house made of boards or corrugated metal tacked and tied together with tarps over the gaps.
Black coffee is sometimes referred to as “la tinta,” which literally means ink.
The most commonly eaten meats are chicken and beef.
Complex carbs are responsible for most of their diet. Potatoes, plantains, yucca, and rice are the most common, but pasta can also be found.
Fruit typically comes from street vendors who bring in their goods from their farms every day in trucks that we would consider valuable antiques.
Their hot chocolate is stronger and a touch more bitter than ours. I like it a lot more.
When they make fruit juice, they take the fruit, remove leaves or stems, stick it in a blender, add a bit of water, and blend it all up. It adds a whole new dimension of texture to your juice experience.
There are stray dogs all over the place. You can walk one block and see a dozen. They ignore you if you ignore them. From what I can tell, they live off of garbage and the occasional rat. At night they like to bark endlessly.
At church they have a few customary question and response things they use at the beginning of a service or whenever they need to get people's attention. It goes like this: "Que vive?" "Christo!" "Y su nombre es?" "Gloria!" It translates to this: "Who lives?" "Christ!" "And what is his name?" "Glorious!" It's neat to hear everyone shout the answers.
The day starts when the sun comes up. At 5:30 am there are already people up and about, mariachi music playing from windows, and stores open.
Few people have cars, but the ones who do drive aggressively. As do the motorcycles, taxis, buses, and trucks. Traffic is insane down there. Only the brave can manage to get anywhere.
Nobody has room for a garden, but house plants are popular, especially geraniums.
When someone can afford to paint their house, they use bright colors and patterns. Most of the patterns feature diamonds, sometimes with circles.
All doors and windows have metal gratings to reduce theft. These gratings come in all sort of designs and patterns from rectangles to rays to flowers. They add charm to any home.
Their Coke is made with cane sugar and is therefore superior in taste to American Coke. Even I, who am not well acquainted with any sort of pop, recognized this.
Chickens roam the city, like the dogs, but in lesser quantities. They can be found on roofs, unlike the dogs, and are noisy in the morning rather than at night.
It is common for friends, especially females, to greet each other with a kiss on the cheek.
When you say hello at church, "Dios bendiga" is the key phrase. It means "God bless you."
Ice cream is huge there. Almost every little store that sells food (and some that don’t) sells ice cream. In the mall, you can stand in any given place and spot at least one ice cream place. At the bigger mall, you can always spot at least two. And it’s good ice cream, too.
The garbage trucks and not the ice cream trucks play the music we associate with ice cream here in the U.S.
There are two ways to rank the affluence of a person by their home: their roof and their walls. Very well-off people have concrete roofs. Everyone else has corrugated metal. Fiberglass panels with the metal serve as sky lights in nicer houses. Bolts hold the roof tight in better houses, while bricks and rocks serve the purpose in worse houses. The best houses are made of bricks covered in concrete and painted bright colors. Minus colors is worse, then minus the concrete layer, and the worst is a house made of boards or corrugated metal tacked and tied together with tarps over the gaps.
Black coffee is sometimes referred to as “la tinta,” which literally means ink.
The most commonly eaten meats are chicken and beef.
Complex carbs are responsible for most of their diet. Potatoes, plantains, yucca, and rice are the most common, but pasta can also be found.
Fruit typically comes from street vendors who bring in their goods from their farms every day in trucks that we would consider valuable antiques.
Their hot chocolate is stronger and a touch more bitter than ours. I like it a lot more.
When they make fruit juice, they take the fruit, remove leaves or stems, stick it in a blender, add a bit of water, and blend it all up. It adds a whole new dimension of texture to your juice experience.
There are stray dogs all over the place. You can walk one block and see a dozen. They ignore you if you ignore them. From what I can tell, they live off of garbage and the occasional rat. At night they like to bark endlessly.
At church they have a few customary question and response things they use at the beginning of a service or whenever they need to get people's attention. It goes like this: "Que vive?" "Christo!" "Y su nombre es?" "Gloria!" It translates to this: "Who lives?" "Christ!" "And what is his name?" "Glorious!" It's neat to hear everyone shout the answers.
The day starts when the sun comes up. At 5:30 am there are already people up and about, mariachi music playing from windows, and stores open.
Few people have cars, but the ones who do drive aggressively. As do the motorcycles, taxis, buses, and trucks. Traffic is insane down there. Only the brave can manage to get anywhere.
Nobody has room for a garden, but house plants are popular, especially geraniums.
When someone can afford to paint their house, they use bright colors and patterns. Most of the patterns feature diamonds, sometimes with circles.
All doors and windows have metal gratings to reduce theft. These gratings come in all sort of designs and patterns from rectangles to rays to flowers. They add charm to any home.
Their Coke is made with cane sugar and is therefore superior in taste to American Coke. Even I, who am not well acquainted with any sort of pop, recognized this.
Chickens roam the city, like the dogs, but in lesser quantities. They can be found on roofs, unlike the dogs, and are noisy in the morning rather than at night.
It is common for friends, especially females, to greet each other with a kiss on the cheek.
When you say hello at church, "Dios bendiga" is the key phrase. It means "God bless you."
Friday, July 30, 2010
Colombia: Tourist Days
Our three VBS and construction days were flanked by two days of touristy stuff. On Monday we visited Monserrate and the largest mall and South America, and on Friday we went to the Salt Cathedral and a smaller mall.
For those of us who went on the trip two years ago, this was our second time at Monserrate. Monserrate is a chapel perched atop the highest point in Bogota. It has beautiful gardens, charming architecture, and a spectacular view of the massive city of Bogota. I loved it last time, and it was no less exciting to me this time around. To get up to the chapel, you ride the Funicular, a cable car sort of thing that you stand in as you head up the steep mountainside. At the top, we were given free rein to wander as we wished. I looked around at the scenery for a while and then headed to the alley full of vendors. I bought three pairs of earrings and a purse. I’ve decided to downgrade purse sizes. My old purse consistently weighed about ten pounds. I couldn’t carry it at Purdue along with my book-bag, or it would give me back and shoulder problems. My new purse is less than half the capacity. It holds the bare necessities (from my point of view) from my old purse. I still have the other one, and thanks to the fact that I kept its contents compartmentalized into pouches I can quickly switch back to it if the occasion calls for my characteristic Mary Poppins purse. We got a group picture, rode back down in the Funicular, and waited for our bus. We were waiting next to a man with a saddled llama. He could tell that we were amused by his llama, so he let all of us who were interested take turns sitting on the llama. We finished right about when the bus arrived.
The mall wasn’t terribly exciting to me. I don’t much care for malls in the U.S., and this one wasn’t much different. It was well-designed and decorated though, I must say. My dad and brother weren’t too excited by it either, so after I helped Bill and Keri order from Dunkin’ Donuts and ordered ice cream for the three of us, we went back outside and sat near a fountain until it was time to go.
After our three days of work, we took another day off to leave the city and visit El Cathedral de Sal in the neighboring city of Zipaquira. The Salt Cathedral is built into a salt mine. Everything is carved into the salt and is completely made of salt (except for a few places where granite or marble were used to reinforce the floor). It is comprised of fourteen “chapels” representing the fourteen stages of the cross, according to Catholic tradition. At each stage is a sculpture involving a cross and the surrounding salt symbolizing the events of that stage. We were led through the cathedral by an English-speaking Colombian man who seemed to have learned his English from someone from Australia. He was not only informative, but also incredibly entertaining - even more entertaining than he intended to be. It was a beautiful place. While some stopped at the coffee shop at the end of the tour (after all, there is no other coffee shop in the world farther beneath the surface than the one there), I set off to take pictures.
After the Salt Cathedral, we drove to another mall smaller than the first. We ate lunch there, and then I sat down and read. I had become very dehydrated and was starting to feel dizzy with an insanely fast pulse. Fortunately I had brought both a book and a water bottle in my purse, so once I sat down and drank some I started to feel better. The drive back was long, but we passed through some beautiful countryside areas and colorful urban regions. Colombia is a beautiful country.
For those of us who went on the trip two years ago, this was our second time at Monserrate. Monserrate is a chapel perched atop the highest point in Bogota. It has beautiful gardens, charming architecture, and a spectacular view of the massive city of Bogota. I loved it last time, and it was no less exciting to me this time around. To get up to the chapel, you ride the Funicular, a cable car sort of thing that you stand in as you head up the steep mountainside. At the top, we were given free rein to wander as we wished. I looked around at the scenery for a while and then headed to the alley full of vendors. I bought three pairs of earrings and a purse. I’ve decided to downgrade purse sizes. My old purse consistently weighed about ten pounds. I couldn’t carry it at Purdue along with my book-bag, or it would give me back and shoulder problems. My new purse is less than half the capacity. It holds the bare necessities (from my point of view) from my old purse. I still have the other one, and thanks to the fact that I kept its contents compartmentalized into pouches I can quickly switch back to it if the occasion calls for my characteristic Mary Poppins purse. We got a group picture, rode back down in the Funicular, and waited for our bus. We were waiting next to a man with a saddled llama. He could tell that we were amused by his llama, so he let all of us who were interested take turns sitting on the llama. We finished right about when the bus arrived.
The mall wasn’t terribly exciting to me. I don’t much care for malls in the U.S., and this one wasn’t much different. It was well-designed and decorated though, I must say. My dad and brother weren’t too excited by it either, so after I helped Bill and Keri order from Dunkin’ Donuts and ordered ice cream for the three of us, we went back outside and sat near a fountain until it was time to go.
After our three days of work, we took another day off to leave the city and visit El Cathedral de Sal in the neighboring city of Zipaquira. The Salt Cathedral is built into a salt mine. Everything is carved into the salt and is completely made of salt (except for a few places where granite or marble were used to reinforce the floor). It is comprised of fourteen “chapels” representing the fourteen stages of the cross, according to Catholic tradition. At each stage is a sculpture involving a cross and the surrounding salt symbolizing the events of that stage. We were led through the cathedral by an English-speaking Colombian man who seemed to have learned his English from someone from Australia. He was not only informative, but also incredibly entertaining - even more entertaining than he intended to be. It was a beautiful place. While some stopped at the coffee shop at the end of the tour (after all, there is no other coffee shop in the world farther beneath the surface than the one there), I set off to take pictures.
After the Salt Cathedral, we drove to another mall smaller than the first. We ate lunch there, and then I sat down and read. I had become very dehydrated and was starting to feel dizzy with an insanely fast pulse. Fortunately I had brought both a book and a water bottle in my purse, so once I sat down and drank some I started to feel better. The drive back was long, but we passed through some beautiful countryside areas and colorful urban regions. Colombia is a beautiful country.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Colombia: Vacation Bible School
We did three days of vacation Bible school, one in each of the churches we helped at. The fun would commence around 9:00 AM and go until noon when we would send them off with a lunch of noodles with chicken, and then pick back up at 2:00 and go to 5:00 when we sent them off with some sort of snack. All of these times are very approximate, of course. We would start with singing, move to the lesson, disperse for crafts, games, and face-painting, and then reconvene to close and give out food.
El Paraiso
Day one was at El Paraiso. A woman named Vivian sang some songs with them, and then my dad and I taught them the Hallelu song. Jonathon taught the parable of the lost sheep, and then Raqchell helped them memorize a verse from the relevant scripture passage in Spanish. Then they split off to go play games outside or do crafts or face-painting inside. The craft for the morning was making sheep with paper, cotton balls, and googly eyes. We only had six bottles of glue, so getting glue to everyone was a challenge. Eventually Angela (July and Didier’s mom) went upstairs and got some communion cups to put glue in. Then the kids just spread it around with their fingers. It was messy, but it worked. Everyone came back together around 11:30 to close out the morning session. We sang some more songs, did the memory verse a few more times, and then fed the kids lunch.
A few hours later we repeated the process, except that the lesson was about storing your treasures in heaven and the craft was decorating treasure chests and the snack was ice cream. It took a while to track down all the markers and glue, but the craft seemed less chaotic than in the morning.
Overall, this was our most hectic day. It was at the biggest church of the three and the kids didn’t have school that day (it was Colombia’s independence day), so we had a lot a lot of kids. This group also had a wider and older range of ages than any of the other churches. Combine older kids with relatively good living conditions, and you have more energy than you know what to do with. Since there were older kids there, we got to interact with them on more of an individual basis. I sat with some of the 8-10 year old range girls and learned a hand game and got to know a good number of them well enough to know their names and personalities.
Los Alpes
The activities of the day were much the same on the first and second days. Again we started with songs, a story, and a Bible verse and then split off for games, crafts, and face painting. There were a lot of younger kids, so we had to help more directly with the crafts. We only gave glue to the school age kids. We went around with the other bottles to add glue for the preschoolers. We added bubbles to the mix for kids who weren’t big enough to go around the corner to the playground where the other games were happening. After sending them off with lunch, a handful of the oldest kids stuck around for a chalk war. The boys were sort of vicious, especially the one who claimed to know karate, but it was good fun.
After lunch was the second session about treasures in heaven. I added “Yo Tengo Gozo” to my repertoire of Spanish VBS songs. They didn’t need nearly as much help decorating their treasure chests as they did making their sheep, so I got to roam with my camera. Fredo was present this time and sat himself over by the face painters to irritate Rachel. She and Brooke got pretty good at disappearing without him noticing. At the end we sent them off with some juice and a slice of pound cake for each.
VBS at Los Alpes was relatively calm but busy. It was calm because about half of our attendees were preschool-age daycare kids from around the corner, and a lot of those little kids were malnourished and lacked energy. They were adorable and easy to work with, but it was very sad to see how lethargic they were. They didn’t even make much of a sound (except for the few that cried), let alone move often.
Luciera
And now for something completely different. At Luciera, we only had VBS in the morning, but we still did both lessons. We did the lessons and crafts in a room with little plastic tables and chairs. First we sang and learned about the lost sheep. Then everyone did the craft all at once. Once they finished their craft, they could go out in the hallway and get their face painted. When everyone had finished, we all walked to the playground a block away to play for a little bit. We had bubbles, chalk, frisbees, and beach balls. When we came back inside we sang some more songs and did the second lesson and craft. We fed them lunch, and that was all.
At Luciera it felt like we were running a pre-school for the morning. All but one of the children were in the three-six year age range. We all sat at colorful plastic chairs at colorful plastic tables while each adult worked with a small table of cheerful, chatty little children. We held hands in long chains on the way to the playground and giggled and laughed at bubbles and beach balls. It was a relaxing way to end our VBS week. In the afternoon, I got to wind down even more sitting around reading and playing cards.
El Paraiso
Day one was at El Paraiso. A woman named Vivian sang some songs with them, and then my dad and I taught them the Hallelu song. Jonathon taught the parable of the lost sheep, and then Raqchell helped them memorize a verse from the relevant scripture passage in Spanish. Then they split off to go play games outside or do crafts or face-painting inside. The craft for the morning was making sheep with paper, cotton balls, and googly eyes. We only had six bottles of glue, so getting glue to everyone was a challenge. Eventually Angela (July and Didier’s mom) went upstairs and got some communion cups to put glue in. Then the kids just spread it around with their fingers. It was messy, but it worked. Everyone came back together around 11:30 to close out the morning session. We sang some more songs, did the memory verse a few more times, and then fed the kids lunch.
A few hours later we repeated the process, except that the lesson was about storing your treasures in heaven and the craft was decorating treasure chests and the snack was ice cream. It took a while to track down all the markers and glue, but the craft seemed less chaotic than in the morning.
Overall, this was our most hectic day. It was at the biggest church of the three and the kids didn’t have school that day (it was Colombia’s independence day), so we had a lot a lot of kids. This group also had a wider and older range of ages than any of the other churches. Combine older kids with relatively good living conditions, and you have more energy than you know what to do with. Since there were older kids there, we got to interact with them on more of an individual basis. I sat with some of the 8-10 year old range girls and learned a hand game and got to know a good number of them well enough to know their names and personalities.
Los Alpes
The activities of the day were much the same on the first and second days. Again we started with songs, a story, and a Bible verse and then split off for games, crafts, and face painting. There were a lot of younger kids, so we had to help more directly with the crafts. We only gave glue to the school age kids. We went around with the other bottles to add glue for the preschoolers. We added bubbles to the mix for kids who weren’t big enough to go around the corner to the playground where the other games were happening. After sending them off with lunch, a handful of the oldest kids stuck around for a chalk war. The boys were sort of vicious, especially the one who claimed to know karate, but it was good fun.
After lunch was the second session about treasures in heaven. I added “Yo Tengo Gozo” to my repertoire of Spanish VBS songs. They didn’t need nearly as much help decorating their treasure chests as they did making their sheep, so I got to roam with my camera. Fredo was present this time and sat himself over by the face painters to irritate Rachel. She and Brooke got pretty good at disappearing without him noticing. At the end we sent them off with some juice and a slice of pound cake for each.
VBS at Los Alpes was relatively calm but busy. It was calm because about half of our attendees were preschool-age daycare kids from around the corner, and a lot of those little kids were malnourished and lacked energy. They were adorable and easy to work with, but it was very sad to see how lethargic they were. They didn’t even make much of a sound (except for the few that cried), let alone move often.
Luciera
And now for something completely different. At Luciera, we only had VBS in the morning, but we still did both lessons. We did the lessons and crafts in a room with little plastic tables and chairs. First we sang and learned about the lost sheep. Then everyone did the craft all at once. Once they finished their craft, they could go out in the hallway and get their face painted. When everyone had finished, we all walked to the playground a block away to play for a little bit. We had bubbles, chalk, frisbees, and beach balls. When we came back inside we sang some more songs and did the second lesson and craft. We fed them lunch, and that was all.
At Luciera it felt like we were running a pre-school for the morning. All but one of the children were in the three-six year age range. We all sat at colorful plastic chairs at colorful plastic tables while each adult worked with a small table of cheerful, chatty little children. We held hands in long chains on the way to the playground and giggled and laughed at bubbles and beach balls. It was a relaxing way to end our VBS week. In the afternoon, I got to wind down even more sitting around reading and playing cards.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Colombia: a Few Key People
I didn’t know whether to group Mark and Theresa with the team or with Colombia people, but I’ve decided to put them here. Theresa is a Colombian, so that works, and Mark lived there for a while, and they weren’t exactly part of our NHCC team, so I think they fit here better. Without further ado, here are some of the people we were around the most. They are listed in alphabetical order by first name.
Alejandra is the middle daughter in the preacher’s family. She is reserved, and polite, unlike her younger sister. Her goal is to learn English well enough to move to America. She hopes to go to school here at the very least, and hopefully find a job and live here permanently.
Andrew is an interesting character. He’s 27 (not 22, like he told us on the shuttle ride away from the airport) and is well-versed in American music. It seems that every time we go, he will pick a new American girl to be attracted to. Last time it was Katie Zalar (who he called Jessica). This time, once he realized “Jessica” wouldn’t be there, I was chosen. That was rather awkward.
Ashlee the red is a little girl with bright red hair. Her mom helps with the kids at church, so she was around us a lot. She is adorable and she knows it. She knows exactly how to act to catch and keep attention. She’s a lot of fun.
Ashlee the not so red is a girl from El Paraiso who does not have red hair, but she is friends with Ashlee the red. Her mom sings at church. Last time we were in Colombia, I sat next to Ashlee during one of the church services, and she taught me some words in Spanish and laughed at me for not being able to roll by rr's.
Didier is quite the little stinker. He is 12 years old, I believe, but he acts like he's eight or nine. He likes to annoy people. He called us fat, ugly, and stupid in English and Spanish, and added a gwop every now and again. I got to drop an insect on his head and make him squeal. That was pretty fun.
Francisco mostly worked with the guys at the construction site, so I didn’t get to know him well. He took a while to get comfortable with us, but by the end of the week he was laughing and joking with us. He constantly helps at the church. Part of his motivation is the fact that his wife had left him without explanation a few months before, and he is trying to keep himself occupied to avoid going insane.
Fredo is a kid we spent a lot of time around last time we were in Colombia. He asked us to call him Freddie. He was a sort of shy, active kid, probably 11 or 12 years old. Now he has grown up, and asks people to call him Sebastien. Who knows why. He took a liking to Rachel, much to her embarrassment. Instead of running around playing games with us like last time, he had his hair constantly slicked back and avoided getting dirty.
Gloria was one of our returning cooks. She’s a sweet, emotional, older woman with a huge family. And she cooks fantastically. It was a joy to be around her all week again.
Joanna is one of the moms in the church. She helped cook for the kids and VBS and organized almost all of our basketball games. Despite the fact she is only about 4’ 5”, she is quite skilled at basketball. She has an adorable little daughter named Valentina who we called Luna.
July is a girl at El Paraiso. She’s probably 15 or 16 years old. Last time we became very close friends, but we didn’t see each other often enough this time to get far past the awkward getting-used-to-one-another-again stage. She made the two bracelets I always wear now. Last time she gave me a ring, but this year I passed it on to another girl, much to my immediate regret.
Liana is close to my age. She mostly sticks around Los Alpes, but is sometimes found at El Paraiso. She sings and plays guitar and piano at church. She is learning English and likes to try to talk to me in English. She was the first of the Colombian girls to find me on Facebook, so I’ve been in touch with her since this past winter.
Mark is a CCU graduate who was a missionary in Bogota for fifteen or twenty years. NHCC was one of his sponsor churches, and that’s how we got the link to Colombia. When he worked in Bogota, he helped plant and preach at two churches, but his goal was to eventually put them in the hands of the native Colombians. Five years ago he and his family went moved back to the U.S. and he has visited a few times.
Martha was another returning cook from last time. She’s younger and full of vigor. Her kids are Fredo, no-nonsense Paula, and the energetic but shy twins Brandon and Johann. She’s a fun person to have around.
Oscar is the preacher at all three churches we worked with. He is extremely tall for a Colombian, or for an American, even. He is not incredibly talkative until you get to know him, but from what I can tell he leads his congregations superbly. He is also the head of a wonderful family.
Patricia is Oscar’s wife. She teaches the women and children at church. She also does lots of crafts and sewing to sell and give to others. She is trying to learn English along with Alejandra. She is a lively, loving, and enthusiastic woman, and I love being around her.
The other Particia was the new cook on the team. She is quiet, but always in a good mood. At the end of the week, we learned that she was born with Down Syndrome, but had been cured. Given that Down Syndrome is a genetic anomaly, I can see no explanation for this short of a miracle. She still has some problems and will probably never learn to read, but looking at her you would never guess she had had this disease.
Samuel is Oscar’s grandson. His mom is Yennifer, Oscar's oldest daughter, but we didn’t see her enough for her to get her own blurb. Sammy is one-and-a-half, and he’s one of the most adorable kids ever. He even blows kisses when he says good-bye. He had us all wrapped around his finger for the entire week.
Teresa is Mark’s wife and a native Colombian. When she left Colombia, her goal was to avoid going back, but you see how that worked out. She helped Mark with the churches and led the women down in Bogota. As our only team member who speaks Spanish as her native language, she was an invaluable help, especially at VBS.
Valentina is Oscar’s youngest daughter. She’s Allison’s age and causes a good deal of mischief. We taught her enough English to insult people, and she’s an expert tickler. She and Luke picked on one another quite a lot, but it was in a friendly way. She hasn’t learned much English at all, so even though we spent the entire week around this crazy kid we did very little talking with her, and yet we had no trouble communicating.
Alejandra is the middle daughter in the preacher’s family. She is reserved, and polite, unlike her younger sister. Her goal is to learn English well enough to move to America. She hopes to go to school here at the very least, and hopefully find a job and live here permanently.
Andrew is an interesting character. He’s 27 (not 22, like he told us on the shuttle ride away from the airport) and is well-versed in American music. It seems that every time we go, he will pick a new American girl to be attracted to. Last time it was Katie Zalar (who he called Jessica). This time, once he realized “Jessica” wouldn’t be there, I was chosen. That was rather awkward.
Ashlee the red is a little girl with bright red hair. Her mom helps with the kids at church, so she was around us a lot. She is adorable and she knows it. She knows exactly how to act to catch and keep attention. She’s a lot of fun.
Ashlee the not so red is a girl from El Paraiso who does not have red hair, but she is friends with Ashlee the red. Her mom sings at church. Last time we were in Colombia, I sat next to Ashlee during one of the church services, and she taught me some words in Spanish and laughed at me for not being able to roll by rr's.
Didier is quite the little stinker. He is 12 years old, I believe, but he acts like he's eight or nine. He likes to annoy people. He called us fat, ugly, and stupid in English and Spanish, and added a gwop every now and again. I got to drop an insect on his head and make him squeal. That was pretty fun.
Francisco mostly worked with the guys at the construction site, so I didn’t get to know him well. He took a while to get comfortable with us, but by the end of the week he was laughing and joking with us. He constantly helps at the church. Part of his motivation is the fact that his wife had left him without explanation a few months before, and he is trying to keep himself occupied to avoid going insane.
Fredo is a kid we spent a lot of time around last time we were in Colombia. He asked us to call him Freddie. He was a sort of shy, active kid, probably 11 or 12 years old. Now he has grown up, and asks people to call him Sebastien. Who knows why. He took a liking to Rachel, much to her embarrassment. Instead of running around playing games with us like last time, he had his hair constantly slicked back and avoided getting dirty.
Gloria was one of our returning cooks. She’s a sweet, emotional, older woman with a huge family. And she cooks fantastically. It was a joy to be around her all week again.
Joanna is one of the moms in the church. She helped cook for the kids and VBS and organized almost all of our basketball games. Despite the fact she is only about 4’ 5”, she is quite skilled at basketball. She has an adorable little daughter named Valentina who we called Luna.
July is a girl at El Paraiso. She’s probably 15 or 16 years old. Last time we became very close friends, but we didn’t see each other often enough this time to get far past the awkward getting-used-to-one-another-again stage. She made the two bracelets I always wear now. Last time she gave me a ring, but this year I passed it on to another girl, much to my immediate regret.
Liana is close to my age. She mostly sticks around Los Alpes, but is sometimes found at El Paraiso. She sings and plays guitar and piano at church. She is learning English and likes to try to talk to me in English. She was the first of the Colombian girls to find me on Facebook, so I’ve been in touch with her since this past winter.
Mark is a CCU graduate who was a missionary in Bogota for fifteen or twenty years. NHCC was one of his sponsor churches, and that’s how we got the link to Colombia. When he worked in Bogota, he helped plant and preach at two churches, but his goal was to eventually put them in the hands of the native Colombians. Five years ago he and his family went moved back to the U.S. and he has visited a few times.
Martha was another returning cook from last time. She’s younger and full of vigor. Her kids are Fredo, no-nonsense Paula, and the energetic but shy twins Brandon and Johann. She’s a fun person to have around.
Oscar is the preacher at all three churches we worked with. He is extremely tall for a Colombian, or for an American, even. He is not incredibly talkative until you get to know him, but from what I can tell he leads his congregations superbly. He is also the head of a wonderful family.
Patricia is Oscar’s wife. She teaches the women and children at church. She also does lots of crafts and sewing to sell and give to others. She is trying to learn English along with Alejandra. She is a lively, loving, and enthusiastic woman, and I love being around her.
The other Particia was the new cook on the team. She is quiet, but always in a good mood. At the end of the week, we learned that she was born with Down Syndrome, but had been cured. Given that Down Syndrome is a genetic anomaly, I can see no explanation for this short of a miracle. She still has some problems and will probably never learn to read, but looking at her you would never guess she had had this disease.
Samuel is Oscar’s grandson. His mom is Yennifer, Oscar's oldest daughter, but we didn’t see her enough for her to get her own blurb. Sammy is one-and-a-half, and he’s one of the most adorable kids ever. He even blows kisses when he says good-bye. He had us all wrapped around his finger for the entire week.
Teresa is Mark’s wife and a native Colombian. When she left Colombia, her goal was to avoid going back, but you see how that worked out. She helped Mark with the churches and led the women down in Bogota. As our only team member who speaks Spanish as her native language, she was an invaluable help, especially at VBS.
Valentina is Oscar’s youngest daughter. She’s Allison’s age and causes a good deal of mischief. We taught her enough English to insult people, and she’s an expert tickler. She and Luke picked on one another quite a lot, but it was in a friendly way. She hasn’t learned much English at all, so even though we spent the entire week around this crazy kid we did very little talking with her, and yet we had no trouble communicating.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Colombia: The Churches
We worked at three churches down in Bogota: El Paraiso, Los Alpes, and Luciera. Each church was named after the barrio in which it was located.
El Paraiso
El Paraiso was our home base both this time and two years ago. We lived in its upper rooms all week, and we had more services there than at the other two churches. El Paraiso is at Bogota’s second lowest poverty level. The main room on the ground floor was nicer than most other structures in the area. It had a red tile floor, blue walls and structural pillars, and a bas relief painting sort of thing behind the stage area. It could seat over 100 in plastic lawn chairs and was approximately the size of NHCC’s fellowship hall. Upstairs was a kitchen area connected to a sitting area, two rooms with beds for us (one for guys and one for girls), a storage room, a room we used as VBS headquarters, an office, and two bathrooms with showers. Aside from the main meeting area on the first floor, the rooms were walled and floored in concrete and roofed with corrugated metal and fiberglass panels. The interior was painted bright colors.
Los Alpes
For both trips, Los Alpes has been our secondary church. They no longer have their own Sunday service, but they get bussed down to El Paraiso on Sunday mornings for a larger service. This was where the women’s group met while the men met at El Paraiso. The neighborhood of Los Alpes is at Bogota’s lowest level of poverty, and it’s easy to tell. While the Los Alpes church is smaller and not quite as nice as El Paraiso, it’s still nice compared to the surrounding structures with its well-made brick walls and a tiled meeting room. It’s one of the few two-story structures in the area. Upstairs is an office, a kitchen, a bathroom, and two rooms for general purposes.
Luciera
I’m not at all confident that I’ve gotten the exact name of this church/barrio. This church was established within the past two years in an area two affluence levels above El Paraiso. Compared to what we were used to in Bogota, it was a pretty nice area. We were only at Luciera for a Sunday morning service, one day of VBS, and an evening service, but with its much smaller congregation we were able to get to know people a little better. There were some adults there who were learning English, so we got to help them with that while they helped us with our Spanish. The building we were in had two levels, but the upper level had private apartments. The church “building” itself had a small meeting room, a craft/sewing room, a classroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen area.
El Paraiso
El Paraiso was our home base both this time and two years ago. We lived in its upper rooms all week, and we had more services there than at the other two churches. El Paraiso is at Bogota’s second lowest poverty level. The main room on the ground floor was nicer than most other structures in the area. It had a red tile floor, blue walls and structural pillars, and a bas relief painting sort of thing behind the stage area. It could seat over 100 in plastic lawn chairs and was approximately the size of NHCC’s fellowship hall. Upstairs was a kitchen area connected to a sitting area, two rooms with beds for us (one for guys and one for girls), a storage room, a room we used as VBS headquarters, an office, and two bathrooms with showers. Aside from the main meeting area on the first floor, the rooms were walled and floored in concrete and roofed with corrugated metal and fiberglass panels. The interior was painted bright colors.
Los Alpes
For both trips, Los Alpes has been our secondary church. They no longer have their own Sunday service, but they get bussed down to El Paraiso on Sunday mornings for a larger service. This was where the women’s group met while the men met at El Paraiso. The neighborhood of Los Alpes is at Bogota’s lowest level of poverty, and it’s easy to tell. While the Los Alpes church is smaller and not quite as nice as El Paraiso, it’s still nice compared to the surrounding structures with its well-made brick walls and a tiled meeting room. It’s one of the few two-story structures in the area. Upstairs is an office, a kitchen, a bathroom, and two rooms for general purposes.
Luciera
I’m not at all confident that I’ve gotten the exact name of this church/barrio. This church was established within the past two years in an area two affluence levels above El Paraiso. Compared to what we were used to in Bogota, it was a pretty nice area. We were only at Luciera for a Sunday morning service, one day of VBS, and an evening service, but with its much smaller congregation we were able to get to know people a little better. There were some adults there who were learning English, so we got to help them with that while they helped us with our Spanish. The building we were in had two levels, but the upper level had private apartments. The church “building” itself had a small meeting room, a craft/sewing room, a classroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen area.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Colombia: The Team
I’m not very good at relating events in chronological order without forgetting countless details, so I’m going to try reporting on Colombia in a different format. I will describe our trip by describing related chunks of people and places interspersed with anecdotes. First I will introduce the team. There were twelve of us in all: six teens and six adults, seven returning members and five new members, eleven NHCC members and one brave friend from another church. They will, of course, be introduced in alphabetical order by last name.
Jim Chandler: Jim joined us in Colombia for the first time this week, but he was by no means new to missionary work. He spent a good portion his adult life on the mission field in Spanish-speaking places. He was therefore fluent in Spanish and did all the sermons for the week in Spanish. Surprisingly, I understood pretty much everything he said, but I think he spoke with a bit of an American accent. He left a day early due to the death of his father. He knew when he came that his dad may very well die while he was in Bogota, but he came anyway. That takes a lot of strength.
Allison Gast: This was Allison’s first time on a plane or in a different country. She is the second of my four younger sisters. Despite the fact that she knew maybe five words in Spanish and has a tendency to be a very picky eater, she did very well. She was active in VBS, tried most of the food, and didn’t complain. She also integrated well into the team, despite my fears that she would fade into the background.
Jonathon Gast: Jonathon is my younger brother (I’m going to pretend that more than one person reads this and that they might possibly not know my family). He was another second-time team member. He returned to the VBS side of things and helped run the outdoor games.
Maria Gast: Hey, it’s me. I was returning for the second time. I was in charge of planning VBS and teaching at the women’s group. All went smoothly, thanks to plenty of prayers and reminders to chill and not stress over little things.
Raqchell Gast: Rachel is the oldest of my younger sisters and is also a returning team member. She once again oversaw the face-painting at VBS with the help of Brooke. She and Valentina were attached at the hip for most of the week.
Tony Gast: Tony is my dad, and he, too, was a returning team member. He ran the outdoor games for VBS and was always present when basketball was played. He helped Bob get all the travel plans coordinated.
Bob Kline: Bob (also a returning team member) was in charge of coordinating travel plans with the help of my dad and was our primary communication link to Mark. He was also the head of the construction team. He worked with the preacher's wife and daughter to improve their English, and in the process he learned a little more Spanish.
Brooke Nichols: Brooke is the NHCC preacher’s daughter, and was yet another team member who was there in 2008. She did face-painting with Rachel during VBS and was a constant source of comic relief throughout the trip. We may never know how much of her cluelessness was genuine and how much of it was calculated, but it brought smiles to our faces in either case.
Luke Nichols: Luke is Brooke’s older brother. He was also a returning team member. He worked at the construction site and made very little effort at all to learn proper Spanish. He liked to pick on other team members in a good-natured way, and got at least as much teasing as he gave. He brought “$w@ggg” to Colombia and left with the nick-name El Caballo.
Brit Royse: Brit was our brave non-NHCC team member. He knows Jim from work and decided to come along with us despite the fact that Jim was the only one of us he had ever seen until a few weeks before we left. He was quickly accepted into the team-family. He worked at the construction site and was one of our better-learned Spanish speakers. He chose the name “Flava-Craze” and may be teaming up with El Caballo to bring $w@gg and jerk dancing to Bogota.
Bill Sporing: Bill wanted to come last time, but that didn’t work out. This time he was determined to join us, and I’m glad he did. I didn’t get to know him all that well since he worked at the construction site, but from what I saw he was a great asset to the team and he thoroughly enjoyed the experience. With the hat he bought at Monserrate, he could have passed as a Colombian native if you looked past the fact that he could scarcely speak a word of Spanish.
Keri Sporing: Keri is Bill’s wife, and I’m so very happy that she got to come this time around. She did crafts with me at VBS, and she was great with the kids. Not everyone who came last time worked well with the cross-cultural aspect of VBS, but Keri was very well suited to the task. She overflowed with compassion for the kids.
Jim Chandler: Jim joined us in Colombia for the first time this week, but he was by no means new to missionary work. He spent a good portion his adult life on the mission field in Spanish-speaking places. He was therefore fluent in Spanish and did all the sermons for the week in Spanish. Surprisingly, I understood pretty much everything he said, but I think he spoke with a bit of an American accent. He left a day early due to the death of his father. He knew when he came that his dad may very well die while he was in Bogota, but he came anyway. That takes a lot of strength.
Allison Gast: This was Allison’s first time on a plane or in a different country. She is the second of my four younger sisters. Despite the fact that she knew maybe five words in Spanish and has a tendency to be a very picky eater, she did very well. She was active in VBS, tried most of the food, and didn’t complain. She also integrated well into the team, despite my fears that she would fade into the background.
Jonathon Gast: Jonathon is my younger brother (I’m going to pretend that more than one person reads this and that they might possibly not know my family). He was another second-time team member. He returned to the VBS side of things and helped run the outdoor games.
Maria Gast: Hey, it’s me. I was returning for the second time. I was in charge of planning VBS and teaching at the women’s group. All went smoothly, thanks to plenty of prayers and reminders to chill and not stress over little things.
Raqchell Gast: Rachel is the oldest of my younger sisters and is also a returning team member. She once again oversaw the face-painting at VBS with the help of Brooke. She and Valentina were attached at the hip for most of the week.
Tony Gast: Tony is my dad, and he, too, was a returning team member. He ran the outdoor games for VBS and was always present when basketball was played. He helped Bob get all the travel plans coordinated.
Bob Kline: Bob (also a returning team member) was in charge of coordinating travel plans with the help of my dad and was our primary communication link to Mark. He was also the head of the construction team. He worked with the preacher's wife and daughter to improve their English, and in the process he learned a little more Spanish.
Brooke Nichols: Brooke is the NHCC preacher’s daughter, and was yet another team member who was there in 2008. She did face-painting with Rachel during VBS and was a constant source of comic relief throughout the trip. We may never know how much of her cluelessness was genuine and how much of it was calculated, but it brought smiles to our faces in either case.
Luke Nichols: Luke is Brooke’s older brother. He was also a returning team member. He worked at the construction site and made very little effort at all to learn proper Spanish. He liked to pick on other team members in a good-natured way, and got at least as much teasing as he gave. He brought “$w@ggg” to Colombia and left with the nick-name El Caballo.
Brit Royse: Brit was our brave non-NHCC team member. He knows Jim from work and decided to come along with us despite the fact that Jim was the only one of us he had ever seen until a few weeks before we left. He was quickly accepted into the team-family. He worked at the construction site and was one of our better-learned Spanish speakers. He chose the name “Flava-Craze” and may be teaming up with El Caballo to bring $w@gg and jerk dancing to Bogota.
Bill Sporing: Bill wanted to come last time, but that didn’t work out. This time he was determined to join us, and I’m glad he did. I didn’t get to know him all that well since he worked at the construction site, but from what I saw he was a great asset to the team and he thoroughly enjoyed the experience. With the hat he bought at Monserrate, he could have passed as a Colombian native if you looked past the fact that he could scarcely speak a word of Spanish.
Keri Sporing: Keri is Bill’s wife, and I’m so very happy that she got to come this time around. She did crafts with me at VBS, and she was great with the kids. Not everyone who came last time worked well with the cross-cultural aspect of VBS, but Keri was very well suited to the task. She overflowed with compassion for the kids.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Pennsylvania
I’ve already enumerated most of my Pennsylvania adventures to my only consistent reader, so I won’t go into great detail here. Plus, I’m sure I've already forgotten countless little events. I’ll just give a generalized account of my attitude going into the trip and the turn-around that had occurred by the time I headed home.
The Thursday before I left I considered calling Adrianne and canceling my plans. I was insanely stressed out. Traveling always stresses me out, plus I was driving eight hours by myself to a place I had never been before to spend a week with a family (at this time I still thought that just meant immediate family) I barely knew (except for Adrianne). Plus I was still pulling together last-minute preparations for teaching VBS and the women’s group, NHCC’s VBS was lurking around the corner, I would soon need to put together a lesson for all of Joshua for the high school girls, etc. And then there was the whole wheelbarrow injury. I was just way too stressed out and terrified of driving alone for eight hours. But I decided to go anyway.
I arrived almost uneventfully. I started driving at the secondary dip in my Circadian rhythm, which was a horrible idea. I had to stop three times in the first two or three hours because I had a hard time staying awake. Once I came back to my normal self, the driving went smoothly. The toll road confusion worked itself out just fine, and I only sort of got lost. When Adrianne took me to the cottage I was in for another surprise. I had expected to spend the weekend with her immediate family, but it was actually an extended family get-together with her dad’s side of the family. I don’t have the most pleasant, close-knit extended family, so I was a tad bit nervous about hers.
Within less than a day, my opinion of the trip had been turned on its head. Adrianne’s family were some of the nicest, most welcoming people I’ve ever met in my life. By the end of the weekend I was completely at ease. They made me feel like I was just another cousin. They were different from my dad’s family by how they interacted pleasantly with one another rather than everyone retreating to their own interests and picking on one another at every opportunity. They were different from my mom’s side of the family in their ability to completely relax without an itinerary or competition. I spent the weekend eating, chatting, playing cards (without keeping score), and enjoying the company of enjoyable people.
I headed back home from Adrianne’s house (I unexpectedly got to see her house and hometown after all) a refreshed and relaxed person. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a more relaxing weekend in my life. Not only did I get to be lazy, but I got to be lazy socially or non-socially as needed. I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend in the midst of an incredibly stressful few weeks.
The Thursday before I left I considered calling Adrianne and canceling my plans. I was insanely stressed out. Traveling always stresses me out, plus I was driving eight hours by myself to a place I had never been before to spend a week with a family (at this time I still thought that just meant immediate family) I barely knew (except for Adrianne). Plus I was still pulling together last-minute preparations for teaching VBS and the women’s group, NHCC’s VBS was lurking around the corner, I would soon need to put together a lesson for all of Joshua for the high school girls, etc. And then there was the whole wheelbarrow injury. I was just way too stressed out and terrified of driving alone for eight hours. But I decided to go anyway.
I arrived almost uneventfully. I started driving at the secondary dip in my Circadian rhythm, which was a horrible idea. I had to stop three times in the first two or three hours because I had a hard time staying awake. Once I came back to my normal self, the driving went smoothly. The toll road confusion worked itself out just fine, and I only sort of got lost. When Adrianne took me to the cottage I was in for another surprise. I had expected to spend the weekend with her immediate family, but it was actually an extended family get-together with her dad’s side of the family. I don’t have the most pleasant, close-knit extended family, so I was a tad bit nervous about hers.
Within less than a day, my opinion of the trip had been turned on its head. Adrianne’s family were some of the nicest, most welcoming people I’ve ever met in my life. By the end of the weekend I was completely at ease. They made me feel like I was just another cousin. They were different from my dad’s family by how they interacted pleasantly with one another rather than everyone retreating to their own interests and picking on one another at every opportunity. They were different from my mom’s side of the family in their ability to completely relax without an itinerary or competition. I spent the weekend eating, chatting, playing cards (without keeping score), and enjoying the company of enjoyable people.
I headed back home from Adrianne’s house (I unexpectedly got to see her house and hometown after all) a refreshed and relaxed person. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a more relaxing weekend in my life. Not only did I get to be lazy, but I got to be lazy socially or non-socially as needed. I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend in the midst of an incredibly stressful few weeks.
Friday, August 21, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
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).
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).
Thursday, April 9, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, April 6, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Adventures in Rural Indiana
Once upon a time (by which I mean more than a month ago by now), four brave adventurers set out on what was destined to become a memorable journey filled with curious sights and experiences...
After we picked up Seth and Anna/Betsy, we left UC and got on the highway. The grass beside one of the earlier highways was strewn with garbage galore. It was depressing. I avoided looking at it. We passed one of those houses with horrible kitschy lawn ornaments covering the front yard. At one point, Seth spotted what appeared to be a real monkey sitting on a picnic table. Throughout the trip we played roadkill bingo. Or at least I did. I saw (and circled in red pen, incidentally) a squirrel, a rabbit, a tire, a groundhog, a dog, a raccoon, a cat, and several mysterious masses of mangled flesh in addition to smelling a dead skunk.
Here's what I remember about the Indiana trip that Anna/Betsy, Seth, Josh, and I took a few weeks ago. The events within each paragraph are probably not in the proper order, but all the events in one paragraph followed those in the preceding paragraph and came before the ones in the next.
After we picked up Seth and Anna/Betsy, we left UC and got on the highway. The grass beside one of the earlier highways was strewn with garbage galore. It was depressing. I avoided looking at it. We passed one of those houses with horrible kitschy lawn ornaments covering the front yard. At one point, Seth spotted what appeared to be a real monkey sitting on a picnic table. Throughout the trip we played roadkill bingo. Or at least I did. I saw (and circled in red pen, incidentally) a squirrel, a rabbit, a tire, a groundhog, a dog, a raccoon, a cat, and several mysterious masses of mangled flesh in addition to smelling a dead skunk.
Once we got to downtown Anderson, the real adventures started. Downtown Anderson was a very shady place. It even has a Shadyside Memorial Park, which I will get to in a moment. The GPS led us astray, and told us to turn onto this ultra shady back street. It was mildly frightening. When we tried to get off of that street, we nearly had a nasty run-in with a huge pick-up truck. Apparently he didn't have a stop sign. We decided to stop to ask for directions, so we pulled into Shadyside Memorial Park. At the entrance there were these horrid little stone pillar things. They tried to look nice, but they failed miserably. It made me sad to look at them, so I turned away. Nobody was in the park... except for some guy sitting in his car in the parking lot near the playground. Drug dealer? Pedophile? Who knows. All I know is that he fit very well into the general mood of downtown Anderson. We were supposed to be going north, but evidently we were going south. I didn't know that. Normally, the GPS shows the car driving towards to top of the screen. At the top of the screen was North Anderson, so I assumed that we were going north. However, if I had looked at the little car, I would have realized that it was driving towards the bottom of the screen, meaning that we were going south. It took me a while to notice that, so I kept objecting every time Josh tried to turn around. I'm not sure how much time my confusion added to the trip. We didn't reset the GPS with the new directions, so it kept on telling us to make a u-turn.
The return trip provided even more excitement. We became lost again. The GPS's directions had us driving in the middle of nowhere for quite some time. Maybe it wanted revenge for all the times we refused to make a u-turn, despite its protests. Most of the time, we were on hilly roads barely wide enough for two cars to pass abreast. As we crested each hill, we feared that we would find another car about to collide with us. Fortunately, there were no accidents. In fact, we rarely saw any signs of real civilization whatsoever. It was kind of creepy. Due to excessive exhaustion combined with the most caffeine I've ever consumed in a day, I was slap-happy the entire time. It made the drive even more interesting for me. At one point, I burst out laughing and finally managed to communicate that I was amused by the fact that we hadn't driven on a lined road in a long time. Normally, that wouldn't have been that funny, but caffeine + fatigue = all sorts of interesting thoughts. Throughout the landscape dotted with lonely buildings and grotesque, leafless trees were little cement monoliths of mystery. They were all over the place, and we couldn't figure out what on earth they might be. There was also an old, mostly destroyed tower-ish structure. I don't remember what it was, or if we found out what it was at all. For part of the countryside ride, we listened to Captain Beefheart. I tried brainstorming for an essay while it was playing. That didn't go as well as it could have. Thank goodness Josh stopped it somewhere near track 13. I can only take so much Beefheart. We stopped for a bathroom break as soon as we saw signs of civilization. Raleigh, IN, was hardly civilization, but it was something. The greasy diner place we stopped at was interesting. They sold cans of beans. They sold other things too, but I only remember the cans of beans. There was a layer of grease on the countertop. Betsy/Anna was the only one brave enough to use the bathroom hidden away in the furnace room. As we left, we heard the locals chuckling. They were probably laughing at us city folk, and I don't blame them. We stopped again later in Metamora at the Hav-A-Bite, and that was a much nicer experience. Well, maybe not for Seth, but he said he felt much better after throwing up. Next to the bathrooms was a poster of the "little houses of Metamora." The distinguishing feature of the town was Mt. Metamora. Mt. Metamora was a large hill with a small building of mystery perching atop it. The building had a cross on the side, so maybe it was a church or a monastery of some sort. The hill was covered in dead grass with a few gnarled trees. Someone suggested that it may have been a landfill at one point. Relatively close to the time we finally made it back to the highway, there was a railroad along the road and a canal next to that. It made me smile. We were driving alongside the evolution of technology. After a while, we got on the highway. At some point during the trip back home, we saw a yard with live llamas in it. I have no idea where this fits in with the chronology of events. That's all.
Monday, April 7, 2008
College Visits
Today marked marked my third college trip out of the three I had been considering. Unfortunately, only five schools in the area even have a general botany major. Four of those have environmental majors (I would prefer that to just plain botany), and three also have horticultural science (which is actually my first choice). All had art programs of some sort, and since I plan on minoring in studio art, that was a must. Each visit was a very different experience from the last.
First came Rio Grande. I'm not going there, end of story. They just had an environmental major, but in order to be in that program I would first have to get an associate's degree from a local technical institute. Their campus was in a shady neighborhood (not as in shaded by trees, but as in it looked as though it housed some unwholesome fellows). It was actually a community college, which is not exactly what I was looking for. They barely have an honors program, and when my mom asked about AP credits, the guy gave a blank stare and said he had no idea what their policy was on AP credits. I don't know if he had ever heard of an AP class. They also had no orchestra and no low-commitment choir, both of which I would be interested. In addition, the only way to help with technical theater was to major in it. On the aesthetic side of things, the architecture was horrible, and of the few students we saw, at least half were smoking.
Over spring break I visited University of Kentucky. It was much, much better than Rio Grande. The major I would go into there would set me up for careers in both plant conservation and landscape design. I haven't quite decided which of those two I'd like to do. When I went, it was raining steadily for most of the time with the occasional rumble of thunder and flash of lightning. Ca me fait heureuse. I have to say it was the prettiest of the three campuses as far as landscaping goes (perhaps architecture-wise, too). There are plenty of large trees well-suited to climbing, so I could shimmy up a tree and escape the world for a while if necessary. The library was pretty swell. It has more books than any other public library in the country, and Harvard is the only private college with more books. To maximize storage space, the shelves are packed close together, and to go between them you push a button that makes the shelves move to allow you to fit in between. I didn't like the dorm that we toured, but the guide said it was the worst they had. The biggest down-side of UK was bad enough that I might choose not to consider it solely for this reason: everything about the art program was dark and creepy. The program is housed in an old, graffitied tobacco warehouse on the bad side of town. Nothing grows anywhere near it. The student artwork on display was almost all dark and disturbing, and the few people in there were also disconcerting. I was extremely nervous and uncomfortable in that place. Unlike Rio Grande, they do have an honors program, they give AP credit, and they have an orchestra. They also have these things called learning communities within the dorms, and they sound interesting.
Yesterday I visited Purdue, the place where my parents, my dad's parents, his dad's dad, my mom's dad, my dad's brother, and several of my mom's cousins all attended college. It went swimmingly well. The weather was gorgeous, the dorms and food were nice, they have a specific Ag major for both fields I'm interested in, and the art department had happy art. It wasn't as pretty as UK, but the all-girls dorms are castle-esque, which fills me with glee. I've always wanted to live in a castle-esque place (but trust me, I'm not making my choice solely based on architecture). They, too have an honors program, fledgling learning communities, and an orchestra. Purdue is currently my first choice. If it weren't for their creepy art, UK would be tied with Purdue.
There were two others that I considered. Ohio State has the majors and minor I want, and based on all the nice mail they've been sending me, I could get quite the handsome scholarship out of them without much trouble. Unfortunately, the crime rate makes my parents nervous. They also don't have nearly enough green space for my emotional well-being. I'm exponentially more stressed out when I'm isolated from plants than when I'm with them. Miami has a botany major (I know a woman who got her degree in botany from Miami and now runs a greenhouse of indigenous species), but it has its negative points. My parents are very concerned about the alcohol consumption on campus. I personally know way too many people there for my comfort. I would enjoy being around a few of them, but I would rather not encounter the majority of the people I know there.
First came Rio Grande. I'm not going there, end of story. They just had an environmental major, but in order to be in that program I would first have to get an associate's degree from a local technical institute. Their campus was in a shady neighborhood (not as in shaded by trees, but as in it looked as though it housed some unwholesome fellows). It was actually a community college, which is not exactly what I was looking for. They barely have an honors program, and when my mom asked about AP credits, the guy gave a blank stare and said he had no idea what their policy was on AP credits. I don't know if he had ever heard of an AP class. They also had no orchestra and no low-commitment choir, both of which I would be interested. In addition, the only way to help with technical theater was to major in it. On the aesthetic side of things, the architecture was horrible, and of the few students we saw, at least half were smoking.
Over spring break I visited University of Kentucky. It was much, much better than Rio Grande. The major I would go into there would set me up for careers in both plant conservation and landscape design. I haven't quite decided which of those two I'd like to do. When I went, it was raining steadily for most of the time with the occasional rumble of thunder and flash of lightning. Ca me fait heureuse. I have to say it was the prettiest of the three campuses as far as landscaping goes (perhaps architecture-wise, too). There are plenty of large trees well-suited to climbing, so I could shimmy up a tree and escape the world for a while if necessary. The library was pretty swell. It has more books than any other public library in the country, and Harvard is the only private college with more books. To maximize storage space, the shelves are packed close together, and to go between them you push a button that makes the shelves move to allow you to fit in between. I didn't like the dorm that we toured, but the guide said it was the worst they had. The biggest down-side of UK was bad enough that I might choose not to consider it solely for this reason: everything about the art program was dark and creepy. The program is housed in an old, graffitied tobacco warehouse on the bad side of town. Nothing grows anywhere near it. The student artwork on display was almost all dark and disturbing, and the few people in there were also disconcerting. I was extremely nervous and uncomfortable in that place. Unlike Rio Grande, they do have an honors program, they give AP credit, and they have an orchestra. They also have these things called learning communities within the dorms, and they sound interesting.
Yesterday I visited Purdue, the place where my parents, my dad's parents, his dad's dad, my mom's dad, my dad's brother, and several of my mom's cousins all attended college. It went swimmingly well. The weather was gorgeous, the dorms and food were nice, they have a specific Ag major for both fields I'm interested in, and the art department had happy art. It wasn't as pretty as UK, but the all-girls dorms are castle-esque, which fills me with glee. I've always wanted to live in a castle-esque place (but trust me, I'm not making my choice solely based on architecture). They, too have an honors program, fledgling learning communities, and an orchestra. Purdue is currently my first choice. If it weren't for their creepy art, UK would be tied with Purdue.
There were two others that I considered. Ohio State has the majors and minor I want, and based on all the nice mail they've been sending me, I could get quite the handsome scholarship out of them without much trouble. Unfortunately, the crime rate makes my parents nervous. They also don't have nearly enough green space for my emotional well-being. I'm exponentially more stressed out when I'm isolated from plants than when I'm with them. Miami has a botany major (I know a woman who got her degree in botany from Miami and now runs a greenhouse of indigenous species), but it has its negative points. My parents are very concerned about the alcohol consumption on campus. I personally know way too many people there for my comfort. I would enjoy being around a few of them, but I would rather not encounter the majority of the people I know there.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Yet another reason why being a nature freak is awesome
God's creation constantly amazes me and leaves me awestruck by his creativity and the beauty of what he's made. My family just returned from a trip to Richmond, VA and Virginia Beach, and I had plenty of opportunities to be in wonder over how gorgeous nature is.
We left at 6 a.m. on Saturday, meaning I woke up at 5:30, and that's early even for me. Despite the fact that I was awake far earlier than I would have liked, leaving at 6 meant we were out in the country to see the sunrise, and that was worth it. It wasn't a typical sunrise full of pink, purple, yellow, orange, gold, and all those purty colors; it had a unique beauty. The morning was very foggy and cloudy and the sky was a dull grey monotone when a clearly defined crimson disc rose above the tree line. The fog and clouds that shrouded the fields and forests took on a very slight rose tinge. The world was bathed in a pinkish-red mist as the blood-hued circle climbed up into the sky. It was amazing. I just stared at it for easily 40 minutes, thanking God for such a sight.
We were driving through the Appalachian mountains during late morning so there was still some fog up there and driving past the mist filled valleys, and seeing the huge tree-covered mountains instigated some more spontaneous prayer.
Two of the places we visited were the James River in Richmond and the Atlantic Ocean at Virginia Beach. Both were demonstrations of the incredible power of water. The part of the river that we were in was filled with boulders and rock formations formed by water wearing away at granite for thousands of years to form these strange shapes and mounds of rock. It was cool to think how much power it had taken for a river to carve such a landscape. I saw this power at work when Amanda decided she was going to ride down some risky rapids solo in only a life jacket, but thank goodness my dad got to her before she got seriously injured. At the ocean, my siblings and I would stand near the shore where most of the waves ended up cresting and crashing back down and the water had the most force. Several times we were knocked over and dragged under by the strength of the waves (don't worry, it was too shallow and the waves were too small to actually hold us under long enough to drown us or cause serious injury or anything). And God can hold all these waters in his hand. That takes a mighty being. It definitely put into perspective how small humans are and how big God is.
Nature lovers never run out of delight over even the most minuscule things in creation. I also discovered a type of shrub I had never seen before on the trip that I thought was pretty neat, even though my brother poked fun at me for getting excited over a bush.
We left at 6 a.m. on Saturday, meaning I woke up at 5:30, and that's early even for me. Despite the fact that I was awake far earlier than I would have liked, leaving at 6 meant we were out in the country to see the sunrise, and that was worth it. It wasn't a typical sunrise full of pink, purple, yellow, orange, gold, and all those purty colors; it had a unique beauty. The morning was very foggy and cloudy and the sky was a dull grey monotone when a clearly defined crimson disc rose above the tree line. The fog and clouds that shrouded the fields and forests took on a very slight rose tinge. The world was bathed in a pinkish-red mist as the blood-hued circle climbed up into the sky. It was amazing. I just stared at it for easily 40 minutes, thanking God for such a sight.
We were driving through the Appalachian mountains during late morning so there was still some fog up there and driving past the mist filled valleys, and seeing the huge tree-covered mountains instigated some more spontaneous prayer.
Two of the places we visited were the James River in Richmond and the Atlantic Ocean at Virginia Beach. Both were demonstrations of the incredible power of water. The part of the river that we were in was filled with boulders and rock formations formed by water wearing away at granite for thousands of years to form these strange shapes and mounds of rock. It was cool to think how much power it had taken for a river to carve such a landscape. I saw this power at work when Amanda decided she was going to ride down some risky rapids solo in only a life jacket, but thank goodness my dad got to her before she got seriously injured. At the ocean, my siblings and I would stand near the shore where most of the waves ended up cresting and crashing back down and the water had the most force. Several times we were knocked over and dragged under by the strength of the waves (don't worry, it was too shallow and the waves were too small to actually hold us under long enough to drown us or cause serious injury or anything). And God can hold all these waters in his hand. That takes a mighty being. It definitely put into perspective how small humans are and how big God is.
Nature lovers never run out of delight over even the most minuscule things in creation. I also discovered a type of shrub I had never seen before on the trip that I thought was pretty neat, even though my brother poked fun at me for getting excited over a bush.
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