Just a quick note to announce that I have indeed completely and utterly finished my Master's in Library Science degree. Last class was over at 12:15 pm today, when I'd given my presentation and handed in my last paper.
Yay!
And my car is hopefully gonna be fixed by noon Friday so that means I get to lug up a bunch of stuff to Highland Park, help Colin seal the windows against the cold, and attend Tom's party Saturday. Oh, and rent Julie and Julia :) Colin's company party is Thursday night then I'll head down early Friday to finish packing, greet arriving family members, wait for Colin to show up, and then graduation is Saturday morning. And no, I'm not driving to Charlevoix directly after that but taking the rest of my stuff to fully move in the apartment in HP. *Then* I'll be in Charlevoix for Christmas.
So all in all, both cheerful and kind of blank. Stay tuned for what happens in the next episode ...
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
it's not a rose ... SLA needs a new name
Tomorrow, the vote for whether to change the name of Special Library Association to Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals ends. And I have yet to decide whether to vote yes or no. In attempts to find out and hope that I could find someone whose words would make me jump up and down shouting "That's it! That's what I mean! Exactly!" I am perhaps even further from a decision. Many times I did indeed find myself nodding in agreement but it was only sections of both pro and con blogposts which I've posted below to hopefully consolidate my thoughts.
Why do I even care? Someone mentioned that it's not going to change what they do and what the organization means to them, and I agree with that. But that's not really the point of a name change - it's about image, both the self and the projected. I may be a quite new member (renewing for my second year in January) but I went to the conference this summer and I plan on only increasing my involvement and passion in the organization.
I never really liked the name SLA - I don't like being egotistic and saying "well those are the regular librarians - I'm studying to be a *special* librarian" - but I understood what it meant. It made sense when I knew the history of the association, how it grew out of a combination of many smaller library organizations that didn't quite fit in with the general ALA.
But, come on - ASKPro? First, I thought it was the name of a program or some online reference librarian thing. Then I thought about how it actually sounds to me, a hearing impaired person who frequently, well, mishears things.
I'm all for trying to change and more accurately reflect the organization's membership, but I agree with naysayers so much on this choice. I don't mind that it doesn't say "library" but it will mean it's less likely to be grouped together with the other library organizations. Even if my job title neglects to have the word "librarian" in it, I'm still going to consider myself a librarian, just like many other SLA members.
The big question to me: if I was looking at professional organizations to join, would I have joined "ASKPro?" I probably would have been even more confused what the name meant than with SLA. Honestly, I don't think I would have thought it was a relevant organization. But others have probably been dissuaded from joining SLA because they thought "oh I'm not a special librarian" when in fact they may very well be just that but aren't aware of it because the term is so vague.
So why am I spending the time reading other thoughts and mulling over the issue in the middle of one of the craziest weeks which include the last bit of grad school work, getting my car fixed, first snow, dealing with family drama, and lots of planning (holidays and moving - don't get me started on job searching and applying)? Because the vote deadline is less than 24 hours away. I think I'll sleep on it, but I'm leaning towards "no." Meanwhile, time to get cracking on my very last SLIS project due Thursday.
Quotes:
"As was pointed out in the email announcing the proposed name, John Cotton Dana (founder of SLA, as if you didn’t know!) said in the first place that “The name Special Libraries was chosen with some hesitation, or rather in default of a better…”. The name doesn’t really mean much to me, and certainly means far less to non-librarians."
http://woodsiegirl.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/am-i-a-strategic-knowledge-professional/
"What I keep coming back to though is this: simply, it is time for a change. ... Maybe “Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals” will require as much explanation to non-members and non-information professionals as SLA did, but at least they won’t have to work their way past a set of inaccurate assumptions to begin with. ASKP is a blank slate."
"If the new name stops people from thinking “well I can’t join that association, it’s only for special librarians” – isn’t that a good thing?"
http://woodsiegirl.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/sla-vote-yea-or-nay/
"As others have suggested, if the SLA has to explain to its own *members* what the term means, there is a problem.
I think the SLA executive have to go back to the drawing board on this one."
http://www.coolweblog.com/bilodeau/archives/005164.html
"I have queried several non-librarian friends, including attorneys at my firm. So far, I have not had one positive response. Replies have included:
* “What does that even mean?”
* “Sounds pompous as hell.”
* “What are you, the CIA?”
The most positive response I have received was simply that it was too vague and the individual had no idea what it meant or who the association would include.
I grant that everyone I have queried thus far has preferred the proposed name to “Special Libraries Association”. But what does that really mean? They find the proposed name pretentious, unspecific, and challenging to say, but it’s better than what we have so we should go for it? No. It means what so many of us have been saying for years. “Special Libraries Association” is confusing and unclear and should be changed. That is all."
"I do not support the proposed name, but I think “Special Libraries Association” is no longer sufficient. I worry that we will miss this opportunity because so many of those that strongly back a name change can not support the proposed name. "
http://midwesterngirl.com/2009/10/23/my-lengthy-thoughts-on-the-sla-proposed-name-change/
Why do I even care? Someone mentioned that it's not going to change what they do and what the organization means to them, and I agree with that. But that's not really the point of a name change - it's about image, both the self and the projected. I may be a quite new member (renewing for my second year in January) but I went to the conference this summer and I plan on only increasing my involvement and passion in the organization.
I never really liked the name SLA - I don't like being egotistic and saying "well those are the regular librarians - I'm studying to be a *special* librarian" - but I understood what it meant. It made sense when I knew the history of the association, how it grew out of a combination of many smaller library organizations that didn't quite fit in with the general ALA.
But, come on - ASKPro? First, I thought it was the name of a program or some online reference librarian thing. Then I thought about how it actually sounds to me, a hearing impaired person who frequently, well, mishears things.
I'm all for trying to change and more accurately reflect the organization's membership, but I agree with naysayers so much on this choice. I don't mind that it doesn't say "library" but it will mean it's less likely to be grouped together with the other library organizations. Even if my job title neglects to have the word "librarian" in it, I'm still going to consider myself a librarian, just like many other SLA members.
The big question to me: if I was looking at professional organizations to join, would I have joined "ASKPro?" I probably would have been even more confused what the name meant than with SLA. Honestly, I don't think I would have thought it was a relevant organization. But others have probably been dissuaded from joining SLA because they thought "oh I'm not a special librarian" when in fact they may very well be just that but aren't aware of it because the term is so vague.
So why am I spending the time reading other thoughts and mulling over the issue in the middle of one of the craziest weeks which include the last bit of grad school work, getting my car fixed, first snow, dealing with family drama, and lots of planning (holidays and moving - don't get me started on job searching and applying)? Because the vote deadline is less than 24 hours away. I think I'll sleep on it, but I'm leaning towards "no." Meanwhile, time to get cracking on my very last SLIS project due Thursday.
Quotes:
"As was pointed out in the email announcing the proposed name, John Cotton Dana (founder of SLA, as if you didn’t know!) said in the first place that “The name Special Libraries was chosen with some hesitation, or rather in default of a better…”. The name doesn’t really mean much to me, and certainly means far less to non-librarians."
http://woodsiegirl.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/am-i-a-strategic-knowledge-professional/
"What I keep coming back to though is this: simply, it is time for a change. ... Maybe “Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals” will require as much explanation to non-members and non-information professionals as SLA did, but at least they won’t have to work their way past a set of inaccurate assumptions to begin with. ASKP is a blank slate."
"If the new name stops people from thinking “well I can’t join that association, it’s only for special librarians” – isn’t that a good thing?"
http://woodsiegirl.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/sla-vote-yea-or-nay/
"As others have suggested, if the SLA has to explain to its own *members* what the term means, there is a problem.
I think the SLA executive have to go back to the drawing board on this one."
http://www.coolweblog.com/bilodeau/archives/005164.html
"I have queried several non-librarian friends, including attorneys at my firm. So far, I have not had one positive response. Replies have included:
* “What does that even mean?”
* “Sounds pompous as hell.”
* “What are you, the CIA?”
The most positive response I have received was simply that it was too vague and the individual had no idea what it meant or who the association would include.
I grant that everyone I have queried thus far has preferred the proposed name to “Special Libraries Association”. But what does that really mean? They find the proposed name pretentious, unspecific, and challenging to say, but it’s better than what we have so we should go for it? No. It means what so many of us have been saying for years. “Special Libraries Association” is confusing and unclear and should be changed. That is all."
"I do not support the proposed name, but I think “Special Libraries Association” is no longer sufficient. I worry that we will miss this opportunity because so many of those that strongly back a name change can not support the proposed name. "
http://midwesterngirl.com/2009/10/23/my-lengthy-thoughts-on-the-sla-proposed-name-change/
Friday, December 4, 2009
Present grumblings, past fun, and future plans
The inner corner of my right eye itches and burns but I can't find anything causing this. But I keep trying to ease this really annoying problem which in turn makes my eye all watery. Also, I have lots of congestion running down my throat which made my pill stick in my throat and I hate it when that happens. I don't think the whole thing lodges in there but it takes its sweet time making its way down and leaves residue. It feels uncomfortable and makes me cringe when it burns sometimes like when I burp or when I'm trying to flush it with water, tea, and chicken noodle soup.
I also keep trying to work on my last two projects (each include paper and presentation due next week) which by K standards are very manageable but things just keep popping up that need to be dealt with. Like my car. It's been a month since it broke down but it is very probable that someone will come tow it back to their shop and fix it by next weekend. So Colin's driving down for the weekend and I really hope to make it to Tom Beck's party next Saturday.
So yeah, graduation is the 19th and I'll be moved out on the 20th. The trips made by both me and Colin will be how stuff gets moved, and my parents are taking big items back that we won't need, like my twin bed and desk table. Then there's the matter of finding a job. I've done searching but I think other than sending a resume to the most interesting ones I've found so far, I'm not going to focus so much on it until I've moved, at least.
Plans for post-holidays so far include possibly going to ALA's midwinter conference in Boston mid-January, having Becca visit in February for a couple days (yay!), going on a cruise with family early March, going to Becca's wedding late March and Ashley's in June. Also, Laura and Emily plan on study abroad in Europe next fall and Colin just might have to go back to India for a period. Regardless of all that, I'm gonna be bored on the normal days unless I can find at least some temp/part-time/unpaid/whatever library-related thing I want to do.
Thanksgiving in Charlevoix was nice. A bit different without my mom's parents, but still nice. I got really full and was wearing pants that I'd made the mistake of putting through the dryer so I had to excuse myself to go change into pajama pants. The next day, while Laura and I are trying on clothes in JC Penny, she said Mom and she had been wondering if I was pregnant. Um, no. Now, I don't know where they got the idea or if the pants were at all a "clue" but, seriously? Colin made me laugh when after I told him this he said that he was first thinking they were worried but then remembered who my mom and sister are and realized they were probably hoping. All in all, weird.
It was really good to spend time with William though. Hadn't seen him since the funeral in March; it's the first time I hadn't gone home during the summer. We had a great time watching Ice Age 3 - even my dad watched it! There were games of Up the River (Colin finally properly learned how to play) and Scrabble, a walk down the road, playing with the puppies, and just general good family time. Also got to meet Laura's boyfriend Nathan (yet another correlation between Emily and Laura - both their boyfriends are named Nathan) and Weston's (a cousin of mine) friend P.J. who's living with him at Brooks Hill and has a job at Applebee's.
On the drive up and down Michigan we stopped both times to visit Emily who had to stay for an exam the next week and couldn't make it to Duluth for Thanksgiving. I also had the ingenious idea of reading Sherlock Holmes stories to Colin while he drove. That's how drives usually work out - since I can't have a conversation with him while I'm driving without apparently making him nervous he does the driving while I do the entertaining such as reading or crossword puzzles. Oh and trying to navigate (we always end up taking detours but neither of us mind too much).
I suppose you might be wondering why I used the time to write an entry instead of a paper - mostly, it's because I felt like I needed to get a bunch of the thoughts swirling in my head not paper-related out of the way. I had to write a packing list with what goes on the first, second, or third trips just to stop gazing around the room wondering. I think I"ll aim for a chunk of paper writing and then a walk in the sunshine, but it depends on when and if they're towing the car today. Meanwhile, send me some academic focusing power, if you've got any to spare.
I also keep trying to work on my last two projects (each include paper and presentation due next week) which by K standards are very manageable but things just keep popping up that need to be dealt with. Like my car. It's been a month since it broke down but it is very probable that someone will come tow it back to their shop and fix it by next weekend. So Colin's driving down for the weekend and I really hope to make it to Tom Beck's party next Saturday.
So yeah, graduation is the 19th and I'll be moved out on the 20th. The trips made by both me and Colin will be how stuff gets moved, and my parents are taking big items back that we won't need, like my twin bed and desk table. Then there's the matter of finding a job. I've done searching but I think other than sending a resume to the most interesting ones I've found so far, I'm not going to focus so much on it until I've moved, at least.
Plans for post-holidays so far include possibly going to ALA's midwinter conference in Boston mid-January, having Becca visit in February for a couple days (yay!), going on a cruise with family early March, going to Becca's wedding late March and Ashley's in June. Also, Laura and Emily plan on study abroad in Europe next fall and Colin just might have to go back to India for a period. Regardless of all that, I'm gonna be bored on the normal days unless I can find at least some temp/part-time/unpaid/whatever library-related thing I want to do.
Thanksgiving in Charlevoix was nice. A bit different without my mom's parents, but still nice. I got really full and was wearing pants that I'd made the mistake of putting through the dryer so I had to excuse myself to go change into pajama pants. The next day, while Laura and I are trying on clothes in JC Penny, she said Mom and she had been wondering if I was pregnant. Um, no. Now, I don't know where they got the idea or if the pants were at all a "clue" but, seriously? Colin made me laugh when after I told him this he said that he was first thinking they were worried but then remembered who my mom and sister are and realized they were probably hoping. All in all, weird.
It was really good to spend time with William though. Hadn't seen him since the funeral in March; it's the first time I hadn't gone home during the summer. We had a great time watching Ice Age 3 - even my dad watched it! There were games of Up the River (Colin finally properly learned how to play) and Scrabble, a walk down the road, playing with the puppies, and just general good family time. Also got to meet Laura's boyfriend Nathan (yet another correlation between Emily and Laura - both their boyfriends are named Nathan) and Weston's (a cousin of mine) friend P.J. who's living with him at Brooks Hill and has a job at Applebee's.
On the drive up and down Michigan we stopped both times to visit Emily who had to stay for an exam the next week and couldn't make it to Duluth for Thanksgiving. I also had the ingenious idea of reading Sherlock Holmes stories to Colin while he drove. That's how drives usually work out - since I can't have a conversation with him while I'm driving without apparently making him nervous he does the driving while I do the entertaining such as reading or crossword puzzles. Oh and trying to navigate (we always end up taking detours but neither of us mind too much).
I suppose you might be wondering why I used the time to write an entry instead of a paper - mostly, it's because I felt like I needed to get a bunch of the thoughts swirling in my head not paper-related out of the way. I had to write a packing list with what goes on the first, second, or third trips just to stop gazing around the room wondering. I think I"ll aim for a chunk of paper writing and then a walk in the sunshine, but it depends on when and if they're towing the car today. Meanwhile, send me some academic focusing power, if you've got any to spare.
Monday, November 23, 2009
It's all part of a big circle
Random thought: I was taking a pill from the bottle when I remembered dreaming about doing that very thing a few nights ago, but in the dream there were a lot less pills in the bottle. So I wondered: "Was I dreaming of the past or the future if it's a cyclical action?"
After posting that last entry, I went over to LJ, which I hardly ever do since I have linked to my blogger account in a way that whatever I post in blogger will show up in LJ. I was curious to see just how much posting the LJ friends still did and I found that Joanne was easily the most frequent blogger. I don't miss much though, since I have her blog as a subscription in Google Reader along with other blogs that don't consistently mark their entries as private (I hope that doesn't creep you out, Joanne).
Then I learned a couple of surprising bits of information, namely that the feeling that I've had an LJ account forever is proved by the date of my first entry: January 12, 2004. That's a really long time ago, people. Since then, I might not have been the most consistent blogger, but I still managed to write 264 journal entries - this will be my 265th.
I also noticed that I'd updated my location to Bloomington, but my bio is still original, as evidenced by this section: "Yes, I like to hike. I also like many other things but I can't think of them right now ... oh there's something about being a K College sophomore history major somewhere in there ..." I clicked on the "edit" button, then realized I really didn't care what it said and who would read it anyway?
Watching the NASA Atlantis shuttle launch about two weeks ago was pretty neat. I saw a news article via google news about it last night and decided to check out the twitter activity. NASA allowed 101 twitterers to have special access near the base, to interview and be interviewed, and they even got a wave from the astronauts as they drove past in the van on the way to the shuttle. I started getting ready for the launch soon after I got up around 10, intending to make sure I had a good video feed that'd work for linux and to have the right websites to bounce back and forth on, but then it was addicting watching the pre-launch and before I knew it, four hours flew by and the shuttle was in space. Whoops. I guess there are worse addictions ... (While it was nice of Chris to not mind changing the channel downstairs to NASA minutes before the launch, it was annoying that he interrupted my moment of awe by shouting "I didn't know it was going to launch NOW! You said pre-launch! I thought you meant like an hour more!")
Two weekends ago was the house party. I wasn't really looking forward to it but I was very relieved that Colin managed to be down here that weekend otherwise I probably would've caved into the temptation just to hole back up in my room and watch movies instead. I'm not anti-social; spending hours in a dimly lit rooms reeking of alcohol and beer and filled with mostly people I don't know just doesn't appeal to me. But it turned out to be fun, especially when we burned all the crappy deck chairs and table in the fire pit, even with the really rude guy who kept saying and doing things that made me just downright despise him. I *will* take offense when you purposely knock the cup of water out of my hand that I'd gotten for someone I care about who had just been throwing up. That's all I'm saying on that subject.
So since my car is still out of commission (yes, at least partly my fault there but I can only pester someone so much if they're doing me a favor), I had to determine how I was going to get to Charlevoix for Thanksgiving. I hadn't been to my hometown or seen my brother since the funeral in March - this year was the first time I had not made it home during the summer. As long as I made it to Chicago, Colin and I would drive the rest of the way in his car.
I hadn't missed any classes this semester except the first one (was still en route from India) so I was perfectly okay with missing one class (tomorrow) especially since I honestly find that course boring. Also, the last couple of weeks I've been on-and-off sick with viruses so even when I wished for nothing more but to stay in bed, I always dragged myself to class after deeming myself not that sick after all. It's unusual for me to do that, believe it or not. Last Wednesday night I registered a fever on the thermometer but mostly just felt really tired the next morning and did just fine. I think being stuck at the house except for classes was huge motivator.
So I looked up flights and found that if Chris was willing to drive me to the Memorial Union on campus, I could get shuttle bus and roundtrip flights for just about 200. So I did. Now I find myself sitting on Colin's couch, waiting to pick him up from work and watch Heroes during a spaghetti dinner. When we were out for lunch, we both noticed we felt like I had to leave to head south soon, which has always been the case. Ok, so technically I could have left this afternoon, gone to class, and then driven back before leaving for a night in Kalamazoo on Wednesday but it sure wasn't worth it.
This entry's been slowly written ever since I posted the last one. I just need to realize short entries are not only just fine but in fact preferred ...
After posting that last entry, I went over to LJ, which I hardly ever do since I have linked to my blogger account in a way that whatever I post in blogger will show up in LJ. I was curious to see just how much posting the LJ friends still did and I found that Joanne was easily the most frequent blogger. I don't miss much though, since I have her blog as a subscription in Google Reader along with other blogs that don't consistently mark their entries as private (I hope that doesn't creep you out, Joanne).
Then I learned a couple of surprising bits of information, namely that the feeling that I've had an LJ account forever is proved by the date of my first entry: January 12, 2004. That's a really long time ago, people. Since then, I might not have been the most consistent blogger, but I still managed to write 264 journal entries - this will be my 265th.
I also noticed that I'd updated my location to Bloomington, but my bio is still original, as evidenced by this section: "Yes, I like to hike. I also like many other things but I can't think of them right now ... oh there's something about being a K College sophomore history major somewhere in there ..." I clicked on the "edit" button, then realized I really didn't care what it said and who would read it anyway?
Watching the NASA Atlantis shuttle launch about two weeks ago was pretty neat. I saw a news article via google news about it last night and decided to check out the twitter activity. NASA allowed 101 twitterers to have special access near the base, to interview and be interviewed, and they even got a wave from the astronauts as they drove past in the van on the way to the shuttle. I started getting ready for the launch soon after I got up around 10, intending to make sure I had a good video feed that'd work for linux and to have the right websites to bounce back and forth on, but then it was addicting watching the pre-launch and before I knew it, four hours flew by and the shuttle was in space. Whoops. I guess there are worse addictions ... (While it was nice of Chris to not mind changing the channel downstairs to NASA minutes before the launch, it was annoying that he interrupted my moment of awe by shouting "I didn't know it was going to launch NOW! You said pre-launch! I thought you meant like an hour more!")
Two weekends ago was the house party. I wasn't really looking forward to it but I was very relieved that Colin managed to be down here that weekend otherwise I probably would've caved into the temptation just to hole back up in my room and watch movies instead. I'm not anti-social; spending hours in a dimly lit rooms reeking of alcohol and beer and filled with mostly people I don't know just doesn't appeal to me. But it turned out to be fun, especially when we burned all the crappy deck chairs and table in the fire pit, even with the really rude guy who kept saying and doing things that made me just downright despise him. I *will* take offense when you purposely knock the cup of water out of my hand that I'd gotten for someone I care about who had just been throwing up. That's all I'm saying on that subject.
So since my car is still out of commission (yes, at least partly my fault there but I can only pester someone so much if they're doing me a favor), I had to determine how I was going to get to Charlevoix for Thanksgiving. I hadn't been to my hometown or seen my brother since the funeral in March - this year was the first time I had not made it home during the summer. As long as I made it to Chicago, Colin and I would drive the rest of the way in his car.
I hadn't missed any classes this semester except the first one (was still en route from India) so I was perfectly okay with missing one class (tomorrow) especially since I honestly find that course boring. Also, the last couple of weeks I've been on-and-off sick with viruses so even when I wished for nothing more but to stay in bed, I always dragged myself to class after deeming myself not that sick after all. It's unusual for me to do that, believe it or not. Last Wednesday night I registered a fever on the thermometer but mostly just felt really tired the next morning and did just fine. I think being stuck at the house except for classes was huge motivator.
So I looked up flights and found that if Chris was willing to drive me to the Memorial Union on campus, I could get shuttle bus and roundtrip flights for just about 200. So I did. Now I find myself sitting on Colin's couch, waiting to pick him up from work and watch Heroes during a spaghetti dinner. When we were out for lunch, we both noticed we felt like I had to leave to head south soon, which has always been the case. Ok, so technically I could have left this afternoon, gone to class, and then driven back before leaving for a night in Kalamazoo on Wednesday but it sure wasn't worth it.
This entry's been slowly written ever since I posted the last one. I just need to realize short entries are not only just fine but in fact preferred ...
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The short version of the story of the last 2.5 months
Lately, I've been feeling a strange disconnect between what I do and think and what the reality is. Every time I've felt the urge to blog about something, I start thinking about all the other things I haven't and/or should write about. Not that there's any real rules to blogging. I spend a lot of time on my computer and then forcing myself to avoid it as long as possible, which is not very long usually since almost everything in my life is to some extent online now: friends, Colin, school, entertainment, boring things like paying bills. It's kind of scary, actually. Oh, and yes - I have finally given in and joined Twitter, as part of this crazy idea I got last week to start using Remember the Milk. You can find me as "deafelephant" although (at least for now) you'll have to subscribe to me (or whatever the action's called) to see my tweets because I'm keeping things private.
-- A couple technological "side" notes --
1) Remember the Milk is actually kind of hard to describe; calling it an online to do list doesn't do it justice. You can have it send you reminders daily and/or at "deadlines" via SMS, email, or IM what you should be doing (I have it set to send a reminder 15 mins before anything with a deadline so I know when a show will be on TV). You can send items too - I find this very useful. You make multiples lists, such as by project or place to do them. And these are just the basics. Other than keeping track of school projects, books and movies to read and see, creative ideas, and everything else I can think of that I have to do or keep track of, my Big Idea is to set up an efficient food system, including what I have, links to recipes, and what I need to buy. Since I intend to avoid real meal planning and still have the flexibility to decide what I really feel like eating, this is going to be even more challenging. However, I think this will actually pay off in the end; I hate being hungry and wracking my brain trying to think what food I have all the way down in the kitchen. Go ahead and call me a cataloguing geek. Overall, I've decided to use RTM because I don't want to always carry my notebook (especially into a store), I need a place to also store links with notes I make, this will be incentive to carry my phone and keep it charged, and like I said, everything I do is pretty much online that paper to-do lists and schedules don't make much sense, no matter how much they've saved me in the past.
2) I've also moved a bit more into cloud computing, even as the general tech world is increasingly ignoring it. This is not because I have a netbook or that I use linux (although the characteristics of someone with these might carry over). I just need an easier way to backup stuff and to get at it, especially since I've found myself both copying a document to my thumbdrive *and* emailing it to myself so I can print it off at school. One acronym librarians like is LOCKSS (lots of copies keeps stuff safe). Thus, I've started using pote.com as an insanely simple online word processor (two drawbacks: no footnotes and no straightforward downloading and saving as word). I've got about a gazillion documents in Google Docs, but have been moving away from it more and more because I don't like the interface. Heck, I hate using most word processors, online or offline, especially the Windows Vista MS Word. My problem is probably that I'm just too picky.
2b) I have an external hard drive (quite old in hard drive time) but I rarely use it for backups. I make a valiant effort to backup periodically which usually is every 3 to 6 months but this is not enough for safe keeping. I'm always nervous about losing the stuff I'm currently working on. After countless Blue Screens of Death and complete failure then total wipe or even complete physical replacement of the hard drive in my ThinkPad, I can't think why I despise Windows and am paranoid of having only one copy of something accessible. In any case, I've tried online storage options, never liked any of them, and since I'm trying to keep from giving *everything* to Google, I've kept looking. Solution: dropbox.com - I love it so far. There is no need to manually check to make sure that the most current versions of files are there or insert new ones; it automatically syncs when you connect to the internet. You can also access and edit things from any computer with internet access. It Just Works.
-- end side notes --
I also feel like not much actually happens in my day-to-day life but when I look back over recent weeks I realize it'd take hours just to tell you what's happened. And I don't mean "well, this day I took a shower and didn't used conditioner and this day I did use conditioner" but the more (hopefully) interesting tidbits, like how my car broke down on my way back to B-town the Monday night before last and the future of my car is looking quite bleak. I made it back safely, even if it was after midnight and my housemate came and picked me up in Martinsville, with only 25 miles further to go. This weekend Colin was a big help when we towed my car back to the house. If you ever need to do non-local car-towing, definitely check out U-Haul. From extensive online research, I knew it was going to be just over 100 dollars for self-towing as opposed to easily 250 to 300 with a towing company.
Since then, I've been more housebound than ever, unable to hop in my car and drive to the coffee shop or the grocery store. I had been making a point to try to get out every day, which doesn't always happen but it was a good thing for me to do. I'm trying to limit how much I depend on my housemates for rides and fortunately I only have the two class periods per week, although I did need to get prescriptions filled last Wednesday.
As for groceries, I've been doing perfectly fine without having to go to the store, apart from picking up milk when getting prescriptions and when Colin and I went shopping for the hors d'ouevres smorgasbord impromptu party. I tend to get more than I immediately need of any food I buy, usually sticking to a rule of "need one, get two." I'm really quite bad at making decisions sometimes; I'm the girl you see standing forever in front of a section because she can't figure out if she should get the cheapest, the bulk, or the quality (bulk isn't always the cheapest in pennies per ounce and sometimes I only want a little so it would actually be overall price that I'm looking at). So if I'm getting one of something, I save myself from twice the grief by getting two. Anyway, I've got quite a strange stockpile and although I've run out of eggs (some things I don't buy two of: eggs and milk), I'm using this as a good kick in the pants to finally use some of this stuff up, especially things I remember migrating from my apartment in May.
Currently, it's sunny and gorgeous out but I've got this sniffly sickness being nursed by a pot of cooling tea and a box of kleenex. It's one of those times when I feel driven to be uber-productive while I'm sick and I'm trying to rein it in so I don't keep wearing myself out. I might have to take a short slow walk outside just for sanity's sake though. But as for the dishwasher, maybe someone else will unload it after I started it and did the overflow of dishes by hand last night but I'm not overly optimistic nor does it bother me too much. Not even finding really old leftovers in tupperware with thriving colonies in the fridge bothers me much. Now, someone stealing and drinking my big bottle of pepsi for what is very clearly my part of the pantry, that annoys me, but I keep in mind it had been open for a couple days before it went missing so they got flat warm pepsi.
Okay, that's enough talking for now. Guess I'll have to actually get to what I was going to say in another post.
-- A couple technological "side" notes --
1) Remember the Milk is actually kind of hard to describe; calling it an online to do list doesn't do it justice. You can have it send you reminders daily and/or at "deadlines" via SMS, email, or IM what you should be doing (I have it set to send a reminder 15 mins before anything with a deadline so I know when a show will be on TV). You can send items too - I find this very useful. You make multiples lists, such as by project or place to do them. And these are just the basics. Other than keeping track of school projects, books and movies to read and see, creative ideas, and everything else I can think of that I have to do or keep track of, my Big Idea is to set up an efficient food system, including what I have, links to recipes, and what I need to buy. Since I intend to avoid real meal planning and still have the flexibility to decide what I really feel like eating, this is going to be even more challenging. However, I think this will actually pay off in the end; I hate being hungry and wracking my brain trying to think what food I have all the way down in the kitchen. Go ahead and call me a cataloguing geek. Overall, I've decided to use RTM because I don't want to always carry my notebook (especially into a store), I need a place to also store links with notes I make, this will be incentive to carry my phone and keep it charged, and like I said, everything I do is pretty much online that paper to-do lists and schedules don't make much sense, no matter how much they've saved me in the past.
2) I've also moved a bit more into cloud computing, even as the general tech world is increasingly ignoring it. This is not because I have a netbook or that I use linux (although the characteristics of someone with these might carry over). I just need an easier way to backup stuff and to get at it, especially since I've found myself both copying a document to my thumbdrive *and* emailing it to myself so I can print it off at school. One acronym librarians like is LOCKSS (lots of copies keeps stuff safe). Thus, I've started using pote.com as an insanely simple online word processor (two drawbacks: no footnotes and no straightforward downloading and saving as word). I've got about a gazillion documents in Google Docs, but have been moving away from it more and more because I don't like the interface. Heck, I hate using most word processors, online or offline, especially the Windows Vista MS Word. My problem is probably that I'm just too picky.
2b) I have an external hard drive (quite old in hard drive time) but I rarely use it for backups. I make a valiant effort to backup periodically which usually is every 3 to 6 months but this is not enough for safe keeping. I'm always nervous about losing the stuff I'm currently working on. After countless Blue Screens of Death and complete failure then total wipe or even complete physical replacement of the hard drive in my ThinkPad, I can't think why I despise Windows and am paranoid of having only one copy of something accessible. In any case, I've tried online storage options, never liked any of them, and since I'm trying to keep from giving *everything* to Google, I've kept looking. Solution: dropbox.com - I love it so far. There is no need to manually check to make sure that the most current versions of files are there or insert new ones; it automatically syncs when you connect to the internet. You can also access and edit things from any computer with internet access. It Just Works.
-- end side notes --
I also feel like not much actually happens in my day-to-day life but when I look back over recent weeks I realize it'd take hours just to tell you what's happened. And I don't mean "well, this day I took a shower and didn't used conditioner and this day I did use conditioner" but the more (hopefully) interesting tidbits, like how my car broke down on my way back to B-town the Monday night before last and the future of my car is looking quite bleak. I made it back safely, even if it was after midnight and my housemate came and picked me up in Martinsville, with only 25 miles further to go. This weekend Colin was a big help when we towed my car back to the house. If you ever need to do non-local car-towing, definitely check out U-Haul. From extensive online research, I knew it was going to be just over 100 dollars for self-towing as opposed to easily 250 to 300 with a towing company.
Since then, I've been more housebound than ever, unable to hop in my car and drive to the coffee shop or the grocery store. I had been making a point to try to get out every day, which doesn't always happen but it was a good thing for me to do. I'm trying to limit how much I depend on my housemates for rides and fortunately I only have the two class periods per week, although I did need to get prescriptions filled last Wednesday.
As for groceries, I've been doing perfectly fine without having to go to the store, apart from picking up milk when getting prescriptions and when Colin and I went shopping for the hors d'ouevres smorgasbord impromptu party. I tend to get more than I immediately need of any food I buy, usually sticking to a rule of "need one, get two." I'm really quite bad at making decisions sometimes; I'm the girl you see standing forever in front of a section because she can't figure out if she should get the cheapest, the bulk, or the quality (bulk isn't always the cheapest in pennies per ounce and sometimes I only want a little so it would actually be overall price that I'm looking at). So if I'm getting one of something, I save myself from twice the grief by getting two. Anyway, I've got quite a strange stockpile and although I've run out of eggs (some things I don't buy two of: eggs and milk), I'm using this as a good kick in the pants to finally use some of this stuff up, especially things I remember migrating from my apartment in May.
Currently, it's sunny and gorgeous out but I've got this sniffly sickness being nursed by a pot of cooling tea and a box of kleenex. It's one of those times when I feel driven to be uber-productive while I'm sick and I'm trying to rein it in so I don't keep wearing myself out. I might have to take a short slow walk outside just for sanity's sake though. But as for the dishwasher, maybe someone else will unload it after I started it and did the overflow of dishes by hand last night but I'm not overly optimistic nor does it bother me too much. Not even finding really old leftovers in tupperware with thriving colonies in the fridge bothers me much. Now, someone stealing and drinking my big bottle of pepsi for what is very clearly my part of the pantry, that annoys me, but I keep in mind it had been open for a couple days before it went missing so they got flat warm pepsi.
Okay, that's enough talking for now. Guess I'll have to actually get to what I was going to say in another post.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Golconda and Delhi
I've been typing up my journal most of the day and have found that it is very long, even for just the four busy days, one spent at Golconda Fort and three in Delhi/Agra. I've doubled my journal up to 17 single-spaced pages. I certainly wouldn't want any of you to ever feel obligated to read it all, so I'm going to do the best I can to copy/paste just enough and not too much. Also, I've posted some pictures on my photobucket account which can be found here http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y46/deafelephant/India/.
Friday 21 August 2009
Today I finally felt up for a solo adventure beyond the half hour walk around the hotel and not so tethered to the hotel bathroom. Early afternoon, I struck out for Golconda Fort which is southwest of the city and on the highest hill in the area. The fort has lots of interesting history, which I read about in “Hyderabad: A Biography” but I won't go too much into that. It was initially the place the king of the area lived before he moved into Hyderabad. It was a very safe place where the natives were able to hold out against the Moghals, led by Aurangazeb, for eight months until someone within the fort betrayed them.
The ride to the fort was somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes and quite bumpy; my lower back hurt the next day. While walking up to the ticket counter, a man approached and helped me without asking then walked me past the gate towards the fort entrance. He gave me some of the history and interesting details of the fort, while I was asking “What?” the whole time. Finally, he said he'd give me a tour for Rs 600 (which is way more than the guidebook said) and when I pointed out I have trouble understanding him he said he would speak louder. He then proceeded to speak quite loud at the sign with a map of the interior, pointing out the different things. Then we proceeded to just inside the gate where there was a 2 meter square area where you could clap and hear the multiple sudden vibration from the specially designed ceiling. There used to be eight gates at the fort and this clapping could be heard at any of them from any of them which was a crucial part of the fort's effectiveness – the ability to instantly alert for intruders. Then he asked again if I wanted the tour and I tried to decline as politely as I could.
I noticed another potential guide walking towards us just as the first guy was walking away and I pretended not to notice him while I continued to walk at a moderate pace away. He finally caught up to me after calling “Madam!” a few times but not loud enough that it seemed rude that I didn't “notice.” He then started giving me a tour and led me to this stone weighing 500 pounds and kept insisting “You want to try lifting it?” I kept saying “Uh no, I know I can't budge it. What's the point?” Finally, I gave in and gave it a tug. I actually felt some movement but I could tell the guy got a kick out of seeing a skinny white woman trying to move it. He said that it used to be required to lift it in order to join the army.
We slowly made out way towards the other end of the lower part of the fort. I kept insisting I only had Rs 100 (I did have 500 more but it was for emergencies) and I didn't really want a tour anyway. I tried to exhibit that I knew the history of the fort and I was unimpressed that it was three whole kilometres to walk the main trail inside of the fort but he wasn't dissuaded. He seemed to think that he could speak perfect English and that I was the one who had trouble understanding and speaking it which was both annoying and humorous to me. I kept trying to mention that I was hearing impaired, hard of hearing, but he simply refused to believe me even when I was totally lost at what words he was trying to use. Yet he stuck to me like a tick and I finally agreed I'd give him the 100 if he gave me a partial tour which included the Princess's palace.
He took my picture a few times in different places, showed me where you could flick at taut clothing and hear it amplified, where the room under the king's bedroom which was the guest room had special acoustics so you could hear a whisper from the opposite corner and the king could hear every word said in the room from his room. He also pointed out a shelf-like second floor where the scribes would write the official business down and store the writing - “They had to be short!” to be able to fit comfortably up there. It was the only time I made a successful comment “Oh the library!” He of course didn't know I was a librarian but he responded humorously.
Finally, we were done with the palace and he mentioned that the path to the top started just ahead, after the entrance to the tunnel leading to Charminar, and I was to come down the other way. I gave him the 100 and he gave me back my pen (he used to write numbers down on his hand so I could understand them) but not without acting ripped off and indignant. He had offered to do the whole tour for Rs 200 but I sternly reminded him I only had 100. There was even a whole “well, there's an atm, well, you could take me back to the hotel and pay me, well, the driver would certainly have money you could give me” but I was just like “No.” Finally, I struck out for the top without him, fully expecting to be bombarded by yet another hopeful guide.
Surprisingly, no one approached me after that to offer me their services. A teenaged girl asked me if her friend could take a picture of me and her. I was confused but deciding there was no harm in it, went along with it. They giggled after taking it and then another friend asked for the same which I again obliged before continuing upwards. Everyone stared at me, even more so than I'd noticed within the city. I wasn't wearing anything provocative, just long pants and loose short-sleeved shirt. I did see two white men who were with guides. One of them was quite out of shape and wore shorts yet for some reason seemed to think I was the one deserving the stares. There were at least half a dozen other instances of people taking my picture. I didn't really mind; they did ask and were polite about it. Between the stares and the pictures I did start to internally grumble and wonder if they had come to see me or the fort.
I kept snapping pictures as I went up – I had to stop often anyway to rest, drink water, and make sure I didn't overheat. The view at the top was spectacular. I had no idea where and what things I was seeing but I had a vague idea of where the center of Hyderabad was. On the way down, I walked behind a little girl who went down every step by herself. She was very cute and I managed to take a candid shot of her and her mother. I saw the building where Ramdas was held (that did have walls and doors) and the Qutub Shahi Mosque (name of the rulers who created and resided in Golconda).
When I reached the entrance at the bottom of the hill again, I saw a man who looked familiar and who seemed to recognize me. I was planning on calling the driver from my cellphone but then I realized this just might be him. After following him (he was going my way anyway) and he mentioned that would bring the car around, I figured out that it was the driver. Indians don't exactly all look alike, but there's so many of them they tend to run together in my mind. He asked where I wanted to go next and I wearily said “Back to the hotel.” I was relieved to make it back and just be able to sit and rest with no one staring at me.
Saturday 22 August 2009
Colin came home later than usual Friday night. We were planning on taking a 5 am flight to Delhi with Prashant. However, we ran into a lot of hurdles, which I don't want to recount here. There were times when both of us, already tired from very little sleep during the night, almost decided to call the whole thing off. But we slept uncomfortably on the two hour flight and landed in Delhi with no further mishaps. Saturday we drove around seeing the highlights of the city with Prashant narrating. I caught a glimpse of a monkey sitting on top of the fence on the way into the city. There was also a parade of statues depicting Mahatma Gandhi and some of his prominent followers walking in a line.
The first stop was near the President's Estate and Secretariat buildings. It was hot and everything was blocked off so we didn't linger long and just took some pictures in front of the gate. Clearly visible was the India Gate with Rajpath, which reminds me of DC's Mall, in between. We drove over to India Gate and had a longer time standing around it and taking pictures. The gate is a tribute to the Indian soldiers who died in World War I. Next, we stopped at Humayun's Tomb. The tombs are strange here – there's a wall surrounding gardens and waterways that are symmetrical and in the center is a big structure which is open-air and contains the tombs. I really didn't like figuring out that a dark slab hanging from one of the archways was a huge bee's nest. Colin took pictures of it and said he could hear the faint humming from way down (thankfully) to where we stood.
Prashant had a relative who owned a clothing shop so we visited it. “Visiting” is a much more appropriate word for what one does when they go to a higher end shop or bazaar in India than most shops in the U.S. They always greet you, show you around, and incessantly suggest what you should buy. They will ask if you want a drink for free (with the expectation that you will be spending a lot anyway) and will bring you tea or coffee. Needless to say, this can be really stressful especially if you're not that into shopping for clothes, which neither of us are. They tried to find something for Colin but not for long before they asked me what pretty things I wanted. As for fabric and colors, I've always known what I like and don't like so it didn't take long to pick out a red and blue fabric with gold patterned border. When asking how much a shirt would be, Prashant decided that it was ridiculously priced and then there was a long discussion between him and the shop owner while Colin and I sat there nervously drinking our coffee. The price remained and Prashant was still skeptical but he and Colin both agreed I had picked out something that was very nice for me so in the end we ordered the shirt which was promised to be at the hotel that night.
We hadn't had breakfast, so Prashant took us to lunch in Connaught Place, which is the central hub of the city before we made our last tourist stop of the day at Sadfarjang's Tomb. Prashant voted to stay in the air conditioned car while we went into the nearly isolated tombs. It wasn't as big and impressive as Humayun's but it was still nice and had been modeled after Humayun's with the same Mughal garden layout.
The hotel was more extravagant than we'd expected. I really liked the shower which was roomy and the water drizzled down from the center. We slept like logs for about three hours before the person with the shirt rang our bell. I tried it on – it was very hard to get over my head and shoulders because it wasn't roomy nor did it stretch at all. It looked very nice but I determined I wouldn't be able to wear it for long periods of time because arm movement was quite restricted.
We went downstairs for dinner at a restaurant called 24/7. I had lasagna which actually came with real beef. It tasted different but the fact that there was any was astounding. We also shared a glass of wine which we hadn't had in India yet and it was a pretty good merlot. Then we went back up to the room, showered, and fell into bed.
Sunday 23 August 2009
We were so tired and weren't looking forward to the long bus ride to Agra when we woke up. Again, we went through the same process of wondering if it was worth it. And yes, it turned out just like Saturday had; the trip to Agra was worth it. In the hotel lobby we were given our breakfast boxes and then introduced to a fellow traveler, Almira. She was from NYC and it was so nice to be able to have a real conversation with someone without straining to understand and be understood but on the other hand, I'm not a morning person so it was a struggle to keep up with the peppy Almira. She was in India doing research for a book and had spent the past week riding in ambulances in Mumbai. She would be going to Hyd Monday but we didn't see any chance that she'd have time to meet up with me or both of us while she was there.
The bus was really a van with 11 seats. We were the first ones on, along with an elderly white man from our hotel who turned out to be Bolivian. We picked up other tourist (all white) from various high-end hotels – one more man and four other women. The third man who was Israeli named Rudy. The other tourists were characters and created continuous exasperating amusement for Colin and me (you know the type - tourists who think they are better than anyone else).
On the six-hour bus ride to Agra, we stopped at the Jaigurudey Temple. It wasn't immediately clear what it was and I admit to wondering if it was the Taj Mahal (it was white and had domes!), but realized it couldn't be since it was right next to the road (I had read there was a perimeter around the Taj Mahal where no motorized vehicles were allowed) and didn't strike me as overly big. We didn't go inside, only stopped to take pictures from the side of the road.
When we finally reached Agra, we picked up our tour guide before reaching the Taj Mahal. I'm not sure what I can say about it – the best writers in the world have tried and failed, so who am I kidding? It was big. It was white. It was hot. It was fairly crowded. I did like the idea that the entrance was known as “the lady's burqa” since the Taj Mahal is the mausoleum of a queen. An interesting connection – the king which was very in love with his queen had the Taj Mahal built for her when she died. His son was Aurangazeb, who wasn't a very nice guy. He imprisoned his father in the more loved daughter's quarters in Agra Fort, from which he could see Taj Mahal until he died. Aurangazeb was the Mughal who took Golconda Fort.
One of the more unique experiences was that Colin noticed some markings on many of the stones. Though we never found out for sure, we suspect they were the marks people put on them when they moved them to build the Taj Mahal so that it was clear which ones were theirs and how much was owed them (similar to cattle branding).
Throughout Delhi, we'd noticed creatures that look like chipmunks but are distinctly different especially the flat striped bushy tail. Their body build is different as are the stripes on their backs.
Lunch was at a hotel. Almira couldn't eat because she was fasting for Ramadan which had started the night before. Her parents are Muslims who immigrated from Turkey. She made up some food to eat after the sun went down on our busride back to Delhi. Next we were taken to a marble place, where they inlay colorful stone patterns into marble. Afterwards we were ushered (herded) into the showcase rooms. The first had these huge elephants and I said to Colin - in jest, mind you "Wanna take a baby elephant home?" He mentioned something else about them and then we were stuck in one of the shopkeepers' snares - "Oh you want elephant! Follow me! Come! Come!" And we get dragged through a series of rooms to one where there are much smaller elephants. I don't remember their price but it was certainly higher than we wanted to spend anyway. The shopkeeper played with the elephants, moving them and making soft trumpeting noises. "No, sorry," we repeated many times. Then we got pushed to other things and almost had to go to the second level where they had textiles but then - oh darn! Look at that, a power out! and we skedaddled away back to the bus as fast as we could. We wondered where the other people were and then finally they came back on the bus, saying they had been waiting for us and thinking we were still inside somewhere. Only one person got something.
Next, we made our way to Agra Fort. It was red and nice - and there were monkeys! You could see the Taj Mahal from where the builder viewed it while he was imprisoned in one of his daughter's quarters by his son Aurangazeb. The king had two princesses with different quarters – one marble, one plaster. It was an unmistakable way to show that he liked one more than another. The girl who had bought something from the marble place had it in her backpack which accidentally opened up and dropped the marble on the stone floor. It had been package in bubblewrap and they had promised us that it would be safe. Well, oops - part of it chipped despite the wrapping. On our way back to the bus, we were mobbed by very pushy people trying to sell us souvenirs. Rudy did buy something from one of them and ran onto the bus but the rest of them weren't dissuaded and kept trying to sell him more things even after the bus started moving, sticking their hands through the door. Colin had some fun with them while we walked to the bus. To some game: "Sorry I don't know how to play that game." To the weird wooden snake: "I don't have an enemy I hate that much." but the best was Rudy who yelled "I don't know how to read!" to one of them as we were trying to drive away. After we went back to the marble place so the girl could get her item replaced, we dropped off the guide and headed back to Delhi. The ride back was shorter, less than five hours, and we had a nice dinner with Almira before heading off to bed.
Monday 24 August 2009
If any of you know much about Delhi and are wondering if we made it to the Red Fort, we weren't able to, unfortunately. It was closed for some reason during the time we were there but we did get to see it from the outside while whizzing by in the car. However, I confess that I have already fused the memories of Red Fort and Agra Fort (they're both forts and they're both red) in my mind so there's nothing I can say about it except that if I ever do go back to Delhi, it will be at the top of my list of places to visit.
What we did do today was go shopping. Colin had stomach trouble in the morning so we took our time before heading out. We knew that the shopping areas were not very far from the Lalit Hotel (the francophones among you will know that means “the bed”) so we had planned to walk there. Just outside the hotel gate, a man walked up to us and offered us a ride to the Central Cottage Industry Symposium for a low price. We agreed and I got my first autorickshaw ride. Shopping here made the first shopping experience with Prashant seem easy – we ended up getting a bit more than we would have liked and by the end I was so tired of making decisions but we were mostly satisfied with what we got. I can't really say what we got because that would spoil the surprise of many Christmas presents!
Colin and I decided to dump our driver and walk the rest of the day. He insisted that it was dangerous to walk in the city (not during the daytime) and that people would put poop on our shoes and then demand a ridiculous amount of money to clean it off (which didn't happen). This was dramatic; we asked to be dropped off at a corner which turned out to be further north (further from the hotel) than he told us it was and he acted ... well, I don't know how to describe it but Colin suggested that he seemed “ sad that he didn't completely fleece us like the silly tourists we are?” But we wouldn't have any of it; he had repeatedly said “Pay me whatever you like at the end of the trip – 100, 200, whatever.” Colin way overpaid him with 200 and the driver hadn't even taken us to the hotel and since Colin had used the auto rickshaws in Hyd, he knew the driver had no right to even pretend to be ripped off.
After that, people started coming up to us appearing friendly and wanting to help. We quickly learned that they lied to us and gave us the wrong directions to the circle. While we were walking, I kept feeling like we were going the opposite direction and that the Connaught Place circle was behind us. Turned out I was right and we warded off all other attempts to “help” us. I had really wanted to go to a handmade paper store and we got close then asked a guard where it was. I zeroed in on picking things out quickly while Colin diverted the shopkeepers. When they asked what he wanted he said “Oh, no, this is her domain. She knows what she's doing. She's a librarian, after all.” I got my journal to put with my Italian one. The Indian one is covered in dry grass and the Italian one is leather and I have no idea if I'll ever use either - I think it's a way to tell myself there are more memories to be made if I ever revisit the countries. I got another one because I really liked the cover but I'll probably use it. The walk back was extremely hot and it turned out that we hadn't had enough water so I was very glad to sit in the cool lobby and drink water until we had to make our way to the airport.
The flight back was late but never listed as "delayed." They switched terminals but right when we were supposed to be boarding they were boarding people for a different flight and the previously assigned gate started boarding for somewhere else too. There were actually a lot of white people on our flight, including a guy that I commented looked like was from Kansas. He was taller than Colin and younger with blonde hair, cargo shorts, and converse sneakers. And he looked lost and more worried than we were. Finally, we got on our plane and made it back to Hyd an hour late. I couldn't sleep on the plane so I finished "Eat, Love, Pray" (which is a great book). We had some trouble finding our driver. There was some stormy weather while we were flying and it was raining on the drive to the hotel. It was good to finally be back and catch up on some sleep.
Friday 21 August 2009
Today I finally felt up for a solo adventure beyond the half hour walk around the hotel and not so tethered to the hotel bathroom. Early afternoon, I struck out for Golconda Fort which is southwest of the city and on the highest hill in the area. The fort has lots of interesting history, which I read about in “Hyderabad: A Biography” but I won't go too much into that. It was initially the place the king of the area lived before he moved into Hyderabad. It was a very safe place where the natives were able to hold out against the Moghals, led by Aurangazeb, for eight months until someone within the fort betrayed them.
The ride to the fort was somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes and quite bumpy; my lower back hurt the next day. While walking up to the ticket counter, a man approached and helped me without asking then walked me past the gate towards the fort entrance. He gave me some of the history and interesting details of the fort, while I was asking “What?” the whole time. Finally, he said he'd give me a tour for Rs 600 (which is way more than the guidebook said) and when I pointed out I have trouble understanding him he said he would speak louder. He then proceeded to speak quite loud at the sign with a map of the interior, pointing out the different things. Then we proceeded to just inside the gate where there was a 2 meter square area where you could clap and hear the multiple sudden vibration from the specially designed ceiling. There used to be eight gates at the fort and this clapping could be heard at any of them from any of them which was a crucial part of the fort's effectiveness – the ability to instantly alert for intruders. Then he asked again if I wanted the tour and I tried to decline as politely as I could.
I noticed another potential guide walking towards us just as the first guy was walking away and I pretended not to notice him while I continued to walk at a moderate pace away. He finally caught up to me after calling “Madam!” a few times but not loud enough that it seemed rude that I didn't “notice.” He then started giving me a tour and led me to this stone weighing 500 pounds and kept insisting “You want to try lifting it?” I kept saying “Uh no, I know I can't budge it. What's the point?” Finally, I gave in and gave it a tug. I actually felt some movement but I could tell the guy got a kick out of seeing a skinny white woman trying to move it. He said that it used to be required to lift it in order to join the army.
We slowly made out way towards the other end of the lower part of the fort. I kept insisting I only had Rs 100 (I did have 500 more but it was for emergencies) and I didn't really want a tour anyway. I tried to exhibit that I knew the history of the fort and I was unimpressed that it was three whole kilometres to walk the main trail inside of the fort but he wasn't dissuaded. He seemed to think that he could speak perfect English and that I was the one who had trouble understanding and speaking it which was both annoying and humorous to me. I kept trying to mention that I was hearing impaired, hard of hearing, but he simply refused to believe me even when I was totally lost at what words he was trying to use. Yet he stuck to me like a tick and I finally agreed I'd give him the 100 if he gave me a partial tour which included the Princess's palace.
He took my picture a few times in different places, showed me where you could flick at taut clothing and hear it amplified, where the room under the king's bedroom which was the guest room had special acoustics so you could hear a whisper from the opposite corner and the king could hear every word said in the room from his room. He also pointed out a shelf-like second floor where the scribes would write the official business down and store the writing - “They had to be short!” to be able to fit comfortably up there. It was the only time I made a successful comment “Oh the library!” He of course didn't know I was a librarian but he responded humorously.
Finally, we were done with the palace and he mentioned that the path to the top started just ahead, after the entrance to the tunnel leading to Charminar, and I was to come down the other way. I gave him the 100 and he gave me back my pen (he used to write numbers down on his hand so I could understand them) but not without acting ripped off and indignant. He had offered to do the whole tour for Rs 200 but I sternly reminded him I only had 100. There was even a whole “well, there's an atm, well, you could take me back to the hotel and pay me, well, the driver would certainly have money you could give me” but I was just like “No.” Finally, I struck out for the top without him, fully expecting to be bombarded by yet another hopeful guide.
Surprisingly, no one approached me after that to offer me their services. A teenaged girl asked me if her friend could take a picture of me and her. I was confused but deciding there was no harm in it, went along with it. They giggled after taking it and then another friend asked for the same which I again obliged before continuing upwards. Everyone stared at me, even more so than I'd noticed within the city. I wasn't wearing anything provocative, just long pants and loose short-sleeved shirt. I did see two white men who were with guides. One of them was quite out of shape and wore shorts yet for some reason seemed to think I was the one deserving the stares. There were at least half a dozen other instances of people taking my picture. I didn't really mind; they did ask and were polite about it. Between the stares and the pictures I did start to internally grumble and wonder if they had come to see me or the fort.
I kept snapping pictures as I went up – I had to stop often anyway to rest, drink water, and make sure I didn't overheat. The view at the top was spectacular. I had no idea where and what things I was seeing but I had a vague idea of where the center of Hyderabad was. On the way down, I walked behind a little girl who went down every step by herself. She was very cute and I managed to take a candid shot of her and her mother. I saw the building where Ramdas was held (that did have walls and doors) and the Qutub Shahi Mosque (name of the rulers who created and resided in Golconda).
When I reached the entrance at the bottom of the hill again, I saw a man who looked familiar and who seemed to recognize me. I was planning on calling the driver from my cellphone but then I realized this just might be him. After following him (he was going my way anyway) and he mentioned that would bring the car around, I figured out that it was the driver. Indians don't exactly all look alike, but there's so many of them they tend to run together in my mind. He asked where I wanted to go next and I wearily said “Back to the hotel.” I was relieved to make it back and just be able to sit and rest with no one staring at me.
Saturday 22 August 2009
Colin came home later than usual Friday night. We were planning on taking a 5 am flight to Delhi with Prashant. However, we ran into a lot of hurdles, which I don't want to recount here. There were times when both of us, already tired from very little sleep during the night, almost decided to call the whole thing off. But we slept uncomfortably on the two hour flight and landed in Delhi with no further mishaps. Saturday we drove around seeing the highlights of the city with Prashant narrating. I caught a glimpse of a monkey sitting on top of the fence on the way into the city. There was also a parade of statues depicting Mahatma Gandhi and some of his prominent followers walking in a line.
The first stop was near the President's Estate and Secretariat buildings. It was hot and everything was blocked off so we didn't linger long and just took some pictures in front of the gate. Clearly visible was the India Gate with Rajpath, which reminds me of DC's Mall, in between. We drove over to India Gate and had a longer time standing around it and taking pictures. The gate is a tribute to the Indian soldiers who died in World War I. Next, we stopped at Humayun's Tomb. The tombs are strange here – there's a wall surrounding gardens and waterways that are symmetrical and in the center is a big structure which is open-air and contains the tombs. I really didn't like figuring out that a dark slab hanging from one of the archways was a huge bee's nest. Colin took pictures of it and said he could hear the faint humming from way down (thankfully) to where we stood.
Prashant had a relative who owned a clothing shop so we visited it. “Visiting” is a much more appropriate word for what one does when they go to a higher end shop or bazaar in India than most shops in the U.S. They always greet you, show you around, and incessantly suggest what you should buy. They will ask if you want a drink for free (with the expectation that you will be spending a lot anyway) and will bring you tea or coffee. Needless to say, this can be really stressful especially if you're not that into shopping for clothes, which neither of us are. They tried to find something for Colin but not for long before they asked me what pretty things I wanted. As for fabric and colors, I've always known what I like and don't like so it didn't take long to pick out a red and blue fabric with gold patterned border. When asking how much a shirt would be, Prashant decided that it was ridiculously priced and then there was a long discussion between him and the shop owner while Colin and I sat there nervously drinking our coffee. The price remained and Prashant was still skeptical but he and Colin both agreed I had picked out something that was very nice for me so in the end we ordered the shirt which was promised to be at the hotel that night.
We hadn't had breakfast, so Prashant took us to lunch in Connaught Place, which is the central hub of the city before we made our last tourist stop of the day at Sadfarjang's Tomb. Prashant voted to stay in the air conditioned car while we went into the nearly isolated tombs. It wasn't as big and impressive as Humayun's but it was still nice and had been modeled after Humayun's with the same Mughal garden layout.
The hotel was more extravagant than we'd expected. I really liked the shower which was roomy and the water drizzled down from the center. We slept like logs for about three hours before the person with the shirt rang our bell. I tried it on – it was very hard to get over my head and shoulders because it wasn't roomy nor did it stretch at all. It looked very nice but I determined I wouldn't be able to wear it for long periods of time because arm movement was quite restricted.
We went downstairs for dinner at a restaurant called 24/7. I had lasagna which actually came with real beef. It tasted different but the fact that there was any was astounding. We also shared a glass of wine which we hadn't had in India yet and it was a pretty good merlot. Then we went back up to the room, showered, and fell into bed.
Sunday 23 August 2009
We were so tired and weren't looking forward to the long bus ride to Agra when we woke up. Again, we went through the same process of wondering if it was worth it. And yes, it turned out just like Saturday had; the trip to Agra was worth it. In the hotel lobby we were given our breakfast boxes and then introduced to a fellow traveler, Almira. She was from NYC and it was so nice to be able to have a real conversation with someone without straining to understand and be understood but on the other hand, I'm not a morning person so it was a struggle to keep up with the peppy Almira. She was in India doing research for a book and had spent the past week riding in ambulances in Mumbai. She would be going to Hyd Monday but we didn't see any chance that she'd have time to meet up with me or both of us while she was there.
The bus was really a van with 11 seats. We were the first ones on, along with an elderly white man from our hotel who turned out to be Bolivian. We picked up other tourist (all white) from various high-end hotels – one more man and four other women. The third man who was Israeli named Rudy. The other tourists were characters and created continuous exasperating amusement for Colin and me (you know the type - tourists who think they are better than anyone else).
On the six-hour bus ride to Agra, we stopped at the Jaigurudey Temple. It wasn't immediately clear what it was and I admit to wondering if it was the Taj Mahal (it was white and had domes!), but realized it couldn't be since it was right next to the road (I had read there was a perimeter around the Taj Mahal where no motorized vehicles were allowed) and didn't strike me as overly big. We didn't go inside, only stopped to take pictures from the side of the road.
When we finally reached Agra, we picked up our tour guide before reaching the Taj Mahal. I'm not sure what I can say about it – the best writers in the world have tried and failed, so who am I kidding? It was big. It was white. It was hot. It was fairly crowded. I did like the idea that the entrance was known as “the lady's burqa” since the Taj Mahal is the mausoleum of a queen. An interesting connection – the king which was very in love with his queen had the Taj Mahal built for her when she died. His son was Aurangazeb, who wasn't a very nice guy. He imprisoned his father in the more loved daughter's quarters in Agra Fort, from which he could see Taj Mahal until he died. Aurangazeb was the Mughal who took Golconda Fort.
One of the more unique experiences was that Colin noticed some markings on many of the stones. Though we never found out for sure, we suspect they were the marks people put on them when they moved them to build the Taj Mahal so that it was clear which ones were theirs and how much was owed them (similar to cattle branding).
Throughout Delhi, we'd noticed creatures that look like chipmunks but are distinctly different especially the flat striped bushy tail. Their body build is different as are the stripes on their backs.
Lunch was at a hotel. Almira couldn't eat because she was fasting for Ramadan which had started the night before. Her parents are Muslims who immigrated from Turkey. She made up some food to eat after the sun went down on our busride back to Delhi. Next we were taken to a marble place, where they inlay colorful stone patterns into marble. Afterwards we were ushered (herded) into the showcase rooms. The first had these huge elephants and I said to Colin - in jest, mind you "Wanna take a baby elephant home?" He mentioned something else about them and then we were stuck in one of the shopkeepers' snares - "Oh you want elephant! Follow me! Come! Come!" And we get dragged through a series of rooms to one where there are much smaller elephants. I don't remember their price but it was certainly higher than we wanted to spend anyway. The shopkeeper played with the elephants, moving them and making soft trumpeting noises. "No, sorry," we repeated many times. Then we got pushed to other things and almost had to go to the second level where they had textiles but then - oh darn! Look at that, a power out! and we skedaddled away back to the bus as fast as we could. We wondered where the other people were and then finally they came back on the bus, saying they had been waiting for us and thinking we were still inside somewhere. Only one person got something.
Next, we made our way to Agra Fort. It was red and nice - and there were monkeys! You could see the Taj Mahal from where the builder viewed it while he was imprisoned in one of his daughter's quarters by his son Aurangazeb. The king had two princesses with different quarters – one marble, one plaster. It was an unmistakable way to show that he liked one more than another. The girl who had bought something from the marble place had it in her backpack which accidentally opened up and dropped the marble on the stone floor. It had been package in bubblewrap and they had promised us that it would be safe. Well, oops - part of it chipped despite the wrapping. On our way back to the bus, we were mobbed by very pushy people trying to sell us souvenirs. Rudy did buy something from one of them and ran onto the bus but the rest of them weren't dissuaded and kept trying to sell him more things even after the bus started moving, sticking their hands through the door. Colin had some fun with them while we walked to the bus. To some game: "Sorry I don't know how to play that game." To the weird wooden snake: "I don't have an enemy I hate that much." but the best was Rudy who yelled "I don't know how to read!" to one of them as we were trying to drive away. After we went back to the marble place so the girl could get her item replaced, we dropped off the guide and headed back to Delhi. The ride back was shorter, less than five hours, and we had a nice dinner with Almira before heading off to bed.
Monday 24 August 2009
If any of you know much about Delhi and are wondering if we made it to the Red Fort, we weren't able to, unfortunately. It was closed for some reason during the time we were there but we did get to see it from the outside while whizzing by in the car. However, I confess that I have already fused the memories of Red Fort and Agra Fort (they're both forts and they're both red) in my mind so there's nothing I can say about it except that if I ever do go back to Delhi, it will be at the top of my list of places to visit.
What we did do today was go shopping. Colin had stomach trouble in the morning so we took our time before heading out. We knew that the shopping areas were not very far from the Lalit Hotel (the francophones among you will know that means “the bed”) so we had planned to walk there. Just outside the hotel gate, a man walked up to us and offered us a ride to the Central Cottage Industry Symposium for a low price. We agreed and I got my first autorickshaw ride. Shopping here made the first shopping experience with Prashant seem easy – we ended up getting a bit more than we would have liked and by the end I was so tired of making decisions but we were mostly satisfied with what we got. I can't really say what we got because that would spoil the surprise of many Christmas presents!
Colin and I decided to dump our driver and walk the rest of the day. He insisted that it was dangerous to walk in the city (not during the daytime) and that people would put poop on our shoes and then demand a ridiculous amount of money to clean it off (which didn't happen). This was dramatic; we asked to be dropped off at a corner which turned out to be further north (further from the hotel) than he told us it was and he acted ... well, I don't know how to describe it but Colin suggested that he seemed “ sad that he didn't completely fleece us like the silly tourists we are?” But we wouldn't have any of it; he had repeatedly said “Pay me whatever you like at the end of the trip – 100, 200, whatever.” Colin way overpaid him with 200 and the driver hadn't even taken us to the hotel and since Colin had used the auto rickshaws in Hyd, he knew the driver had no right to even pretend to be ripped off.
After that, people started coming up to us appearing friendly and wanting to help. We quickly learned that they lied to us and gave us the wrong directions to the circle. While we were walking, I kept feeling like we were going the opposite direction and that the Connaught Place circle was behind us. Turned out I was right and we warded off all other attempts to “help” us. I had really wanted to go to a handmade paper store and we got close then asked a guard where it was. I zeroed in on picking things out quickly while Colin diverted the shopkeepers. When they asked what he wanted he said “Oh, no, this is her domain. She knows what she's doing. She's a librarian, after all.” I got my journal to put with my Italian one. The Indian one is covered in dry grass and the Italian one is leather and I have no idea if I'll ever use either - I think it's a way to tell myself there are more memories to be made if I ever revisit the countries. I got another one because I really liked the cover but I'll probably use it. The walk back was extremely hot and it turned out that we hadn't had enough water so I was very glad to sit in the cool lobby and drink water until we had to make our way to the airport.
The flight back was late but never listed as "delayed." They switched terminals but right when we were supposed to be boarding they were boarding people for a different flight and the previously assigned gate started boarding for somewhere else too. There were actually a lot of white people on our flight, including a guy that I commented looked like was from Kansas. He was taller than Colin and younger with blonde hair, cargo shorts, and converse sneakers. And he looked lost and more worried than we were. Finally, we got on our plane and made it back to Hyd an hour late. I couldn't sleep on the plane so I finished "Eat, Love, Pray" (which is a great book). We had some trouble finding our driver. There was some stormy weather while we were flying and it was raining on the drive to the hotel. It was good to finally be back and catch up on some sleep.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Nothing terribly exciting, but an update nonetheless
I haven't written lately because there hasn't been a lot to say; I've spent most of the past week dealing with stomach problems. Sometimes I felt okay for a few hours but I never trusted myself to stray too far from the hotel bathroom. Toilets here are interesting; the one in the hotel is “European style,” which means a regular kind of flush toilet we're used to. “Indian toilets,” which I haven't actually seen or used yet, are much more primitive and require you to squat. There is also either toilet paper which you use and put in a separate place (not in the toilet) or a way to use your hand and water. I haven't been eager to experience using these bathrooms with the diarrhea I've had.
This past weekend, after spending nearly all of the week in the hotel, we had planned to go out and do something, but once again, we weren't able to. It seemed that we were rotating who was feeling sick and who was just fine. We did manage to have dinner on Sunday night with Fazal (Colin's coworker who had previously been working in Chicago and will come back in October when his visa is valid again). It was nice to see a somewhat familiar face, even though I'd only met him once while he was in Chicago.
I spend most of the time reading; my . It's great that the TV stations already has captions put on Western movies in English since the TV does not have a way to turn on the captions, but I don't watch much; it's usually the same movies repeatedly such as “Fantastic Four: The Silver Surfer.” We have watched “Bee Movie,” “
We've ordered room service a few times. It is actually much cheaper than eating in the restaurant downstairs. There is continental breakfast buffet in the morning and I always get a hardboiled egg as part of my meal. The coffee is interesting; it appears to be very strong coffee which is brewed and then when someone orders it, they put some in a cup with steamed milk. It is very different but definitely tasty.
Most food is traditional Indian food, but they do attempt to make American or European cuisine. “French toast” is bizarre – it is two slim pieces of slightly toasted bread with a thin layer of red jelly in between them. The pasta is okay, but just don't expect it to be great. On the room service menu there are choices for hamburgers but they never eat beef here so the choices are vegetarian and turkey. I've eaten these before the trip and am not a big fan of them, but might get one just to try it.
I've been slowly feeling better, so hopefully, at the very least I will be able to enjoy the weekend in Delhi and at the Taj Mahal. We plan to fly there Saturday morning with Prashant (Colin's boss) to see some of Delhi. On Sunday, after Prashant leaves to go back to Chicago, we'll make our way to the Taj Mahal before flying back that night to Hyderabad.
Yesterday it rained constantly. There has been very little rain during this monsoon season in the area, which they heavily depend upon for their crops, so the rain was definitely welcome. I tried to take pictures of the rain but if you've ever tried to do that, you'll know that it's hard to do. I noticed a small boy run out onto the balcony in one of the apartments across from us when it first started raining midday. He stuck his hand out between the bars, trying to feel the drops. Soon his mother followed him, holding a bowl and a spoonful of food, coaxing him back inside to continue eating lunch.
The rain did cause problems though; Colin wasn't able to get home until about 10 pm last night. The roads and traffic were disastrous. Colin usually doesn't get home until sometime after eight but the car leaves the hotel no earlier than 9:30 in the morning. It was expected that he would have long hours but it should be easier to get home when Prashant leaves because then Colin can come back without waiting for him. Even then, he'll most likely spend most of the evening working, but I've told him that's much better than him coming back so late.
Tonight we're going out with Prashant to a Chinese restaurant. I'm eager to have non-Indian food, see what Chinese food is like here, but most of all get the chance to leave the hotel.
This past weekend, after spending nearly all of the week in the hotel, we had planned to go out and do something, but once again, we weren't able to. It seemed that we were rotating who was feeling sick and who was just fine. We did manage to have dinner on Sunday night with Fazal (Colin's coworker who had previously been working in Chicago and will come back in October when his visa is valid again). It was nice to see a somewhat familiar face, even though I'd only met him once while he was in Chicago.
I spend most of the time reading; my . It's great that the TV stations already has captions put on Western movies in English since the TV does not have a way to turn on the captions, but I don't watch much; it's usually the same movies repeatedly such as “Fantastic Four: The Silver Surfer.” We have watched “Bee Movie,” “
We've ordered room service a few times. It is actually much cheaper than eating in the restaurant downstairs. There is continental breakfast buffet in the morning and I always get a hardboiled egg as part of my meal. The coffee is interesting; it appears to be very strong coffee which is brewed and then when someone orders it, they put some in a cup with steamed milk. It is very different but definitely tasty.
Most food is traditional Indian food, but they do attempt to make American or European cuisine. “French toast” is bizarre – it is two slim pieces of slightly toasted bread with a thin layer of red jelly in between them. The pasta is okay, but just don't expect it to be great. On the room service menu there are choices for hamburgers but they never eat beef here so the choices are vegetarian and turkey. I've eaten these before the trip and am not a big fan of them, but might get one just to try it.
I've been slowly feeling better, so hopefully, at the very least I will be able to enjoy the weekend in Delhi and at the Taj Mahal. We plan to fly there Saturday morning with Prashant (Colin's boss) to see some of Delhi. On Sunday, after Prashant leaves to go back to Chicago, we'll make our way to the Taj Mahal before flying back that night to Hyderabad.
Yesterday it rained constantly. There has been very little rain during this monsoon season in the area, which they heavily depend upon for their crops, so the rain was definitely welcome. I tried to take pictures of the rain but if you've ever tried to do that, you'll know that it's hard to do. I noticed a small boy run out onto the balcony in one of the apartments across from us when it first started raining midday. He stuck his hand out between the bars, trying to feel the drops. Soon his mother followed him, holding a bowl and a spoonful of food, coaxing him back inside to continue eating lunch.
The rain did cause problems though; Colin wasn't able to get home until about 10 pm last night. The roads and traffic were disastrous. Colin usually doesn't get home until sometime after eight but the car leaves the hotel no earlier than 9:30 in the morning. It was expected that he would have long hours but it should be easier to get home when Prashant leaves because then Colin can come back without waiting for him. Even then, he'll most likely spend most of the evening working, but I've told him that's much better than him coming back so late.
Tonight we're going out with Prashant to a Chinese restaurant. I'm eager to have non-Indian food, see what Chinese food is like here, but most of all get the chance to leave the hotel.
Monday, August 10, 2009
First Indian Experiences
4-6 August 2009 Tuesday-Thursday
Traveling to Hyderabad, India
The trip has been an overwhelming experience. I feel like I am still arriving. Our 777 took off from O'Hare at 7:20 pm on Tuesday (August 4) night and lasted 14 hours and 40 minutes. We were lucky and got to change our seats to window and aisle in the back (Section 3) of the plane instead of seats which would have let Colin have an aisle and me one of the middle seats.
We were able to see many places on our flight despite sleeping, it being dark, or having the window closed most of the time. The sun was just barely set when we started our mostly northward journey over Wisconsin, Lake Michigan, Traverse City, Charlevoix, Mackinac Island, the Soo, and onwards through the vast Canadian wilderness, peering down at the landscape of lights shimmering in the enveloping darkness. I was so excited to be able to spot what was below us by the shape of the land defined by the lakes. "Lake Ann, where Aunt Bobbie has a cabin, is one of those itty bitty lakes right there." "I can see Becca's house! Well, not really, but I know it's right in there." I was worried I wouldn't be able to see Charlevoix, but sure enough, there was the tell-tale cluster of Round Lake and Lake Charlevoix, with Beaver Island and its necklace of smaller islands nearby. I couldn't exactly pick out where Burnett Road was; the trees seem to block almost all the light in that area, but I figured out a pretty good approximation of where it, or at least Brooks Hill, was.
We were still awake a couple hours or so later, when we looked out and tried to make sense of what we saw. Colin kept wanting to open the window to see if he could catch a glimpse of the Aurora Borealis (northern lights) as he had on this trip to Spain, but there were no mystical dancing colors to be seen. However, there was clouds/water/ice below us - what it was I could never quite decide, especially since the texture would change and the flight status map wouldn't show us near Greenland yet. I took some Benadryl and by the time we got to Iceland, I was so out of it that when Colin tried to wake me up, excitedly pointing out Rejkjavik, it was all I could do to say "mmph" and promptly go back to sleep without looking out the window. Sometime while we slept the sun "rose" in the west and we flew straight over Moscow. I woke up a bit before Colin and sometime after Colin woke up, I was able to crack open the window to see desert below. Soon we came to the Himalayas which were, of course, awesome. Just as we were about to hit the tarmac in New Delhi the sun was setting again.
Delhi
The first encounter on Indian soil was a mostly stressful experience but not overly negative. We were made to fill out a form declaring that yes, we were coming from a country where there were cases of the H1N1 flu and no, we hadn't had a fever in the last few days. There was a queue where they checked with an infrared camera for anyone who might be feverish before we went through the normal checkpoint. The bored guy who scanned my passport and visa didn't say a word to me, merely stamping it before shooing me on. Colin had a different story; his passport was a couple years older than mine and showed a picture and signature from high school. His signature on the entrance form was very different from the one on the passport and the guard didn't think the picture resembled Colin enough to be authentic. It took a long time, in which I started to slightly panic and try to figure out what I'd do if he wasn't let through. But thankfully, he was. Otherwise this would be a very different story.
The bus ride took us right on the runways themselves to cross and get to the domestic air terminal. When we stepped out, the heat, humidity, and smells hit us full on. The limited experience I've had with India so far involves very distinct spicy smells. I don't know how else to describe them. To add to the sense of bizarreness, our soap reminds us of green jello in look and smell.
That night, Wednesday night, was spent in the domestic terminal in New Delhi. It was unwise to go out after the sun had set and our flight was really early so trying to find a hotel room didn't make much sense anyway. The security was different; there was no one else there at the time so the guards were all clustered in groups. They ushered me to a screening room for females where I was checked by a female guard who I managed to understand when she asked "5:50 flight??" like "You're seriously staying here until then?" We had 7 and a half hours to go.
The night was spent mostly staring into space or reading. Colin managed an hour of sleep and I laid down for fifteen minutes with no success. There was wireless and it was even free, but we didn't have the right power adaptors and couldn't access the internet anyway; we had to have a code sent as a text message to a cellphone. We did try sending it to my US phone but it never came. The airport filled up with people as the night wore on, but at first it was almost barren except for the employees.
When the time finally dwindled down to less than two hours before boarding time, we walked over to a sort of cafe and got coffees and pastries for about 5 USD total. While it wasn't a full breakfast and my paper cup leaked, it was delicious. I decided ahead of time I wasn't going to even pretend to try to understand what exactly I ate here. We got a fuller breakfast on the two-hour flight and one of the ladies sitting near us was from Michigan and was visiting extended family near Hyderabad with her husband who was also Indian and their two young sons. The flight was largely uneventful which tends to be a good thing for flights. We were served breakfast and I picked the omelet again.
Hyderabad
The first thing I noticed was that Hyderabad seemed significantly cooler than Delhi at 6 in the morning had been. This is only relative though; the humidity is quite high and it's usually in the 80s during the day.
After disembarking, we really didn't have a clue how we were going to get to the hotel. Magically, there was a sign saying “Mr. Colin Alworth” and the guy led us to a car from the hotel. The ride into the city was overwhelming (I can't think of any other word to describe these first Indian encounters). Honking seems to be the way to alert other drivers. I don't think they even have turn signals – they certainly never use them. Some of the buses have “Please honk” written on the back of them. When Colin asked a coworker what this really meant (was it to be funny or was it serious?), the coworker didn't know. I don't remember much of the rest of Thursday; jet lag had taken over by then. I know there was some napping, Colin went to the office for a couple of hours, and then it was bedtime.
7 August 2009 Friday
Today was Colin's first full day at work. Both of us were dealing with stomach issues, mostly gas, all day. The power adaptor I had at the hotel for my computer failed to work. The older, British version of “Death at a Funeral” was on TV after dinner so we watched it. We weren't very tired so we fell asleep around 2 am.
8 August 2009 Saturday
We slept in and missed the breakfast hours. I was feeling “cabin fever” and finally got Colin to go with me outside. It was just a walk around the block but for a first taste of being within the city it was overwhelming. We didn't stop anywhere and no one grabbed at us. Later, I didn't feel good so we stayed in the rest of the day. We also asked for a new adaptor but didn't get it probably because they forgot about it.
9 August 2009 Sunday
We went out to lunch across the street (the first time I'd eaten outside of the hotel since we'd arrived) at a place that was called a coffee shop. The two dishes were really spicy, but one more so than the other. They were both different types of flat breads with different sauces to dip into. Our mouths were on fire, our eyes were red, and I was constantly blowing my nose. The price was roughly a third of what lunch at the hotel would have been. There was some drizzle while we were out and quite a bit of lightning at one point, but it never really rained. When we came back in, it was Colin's turn to feel bad and we ended up not going back out that day. I finally got a plug adaptor that works!
10 August 2009 Today
Colin's boss had flown in during the night from visiting his family elsewhere in India and he joined us for breakfast. I had my first excursion out of the hotel without Colin. It was only two hours, at a bookstore, but when the driver asked if I wanted to go back to the hotel I said “yes” with relief. It's not that I don't like being out there (haven't made up my mind yet), but it's just so overwhelming. Everything here is overwhelming. I thought I'd have lots to write about while being here but it turns out the problem is I simply can't seem to make much sense of it myself, let alone come up with conclusions and witty insights.
I spent more at the bookstore than I had intended to; I had told myself to get only two or three books and then other things I liked. No one thing was overly expensive to me and the books had prices that were really attractive for an American bookworm. For 1822 rupees, or 38 dollars, I got six books, two notebooks, four pens, and nailclippers. The most expensive book was 295 rupees, or just over 6 dollars and it's the Hyderabad history book (“Hyderabad: A Biography” by Narendra Luther). There's also an English-Hindi phrase book and a small travel book on Hyderabad. I made sure not to get just non-fiction books related to India; I got “Eat, Pray, Love” (Elizabeth Gilbert), “Setting Free the Bears” (John Irving), and “Freakonomics” (Levitt and Dubner).
While normally I would have probably put back at least half the books, the prices weren't the only reason I got so many; Colin insisted that this is my vacation and I don't have to go and have a hair-raising adventure every day. After all, I am traveling for four weeks and I intend to do lots of reading during the much-needed downtime. I brought very little but I did bring, along with the thick India travel guide, three reading books and I'm almost done with the second one.
When I was back at the hotel room, someone dropped off an elaborate flower basket that contains 13 roses and a cluster of white flowers. They still had droplets clinging to their petals and there was no indication of where they came from so I assumed it was normal hotel business.
For lunch, I went back to the coffee shop and ordered one of the same things we'd had yesterday – but asked for “not too spicy.” I was surprised to find how quickly I've adapted to spice because I dipped almost every piece in the sauces. It was very good. Along with a liter of mineral water and a cup of coffee, the lunch was about 125 rupees – a grand total of $2.50. When I walked back to the hotel, I realized I had metal coins in the money belt. I had to pull it out of my pants and fish them out, putting them in the basket before walking through the metal detector. I smiled, showing that I realized the comic scene I just gave them and they certainly acknowledged that yes, that was rather silly. From now on, I'm putting the coins in my pocket. Coins are worth no more than ten cents a piece, after all.
Traveling to Hyderabad, India
The trip has been an overwhelming experience. I feel like I am still arriving. Our 777 took off from O'Hare at 7:20 pm on Tuesday (August 4) night and lasted 14 hours and 40 minutes. We were lucky and got to change our seats to window and aisle in the back (Section 3) of the plane instead of seats which would have let Colin have an aisle and me one of the middle seats.
We were able to see many places on our flight despite sleeping, it being dark, or having the window closed most of the time. The sun was just barely set when we started our mostly northward journey over Wisconsin, Lake Michigan, Traverse City, Charlevoix, Mackinac Island, the Soo, and onwards through the vast Canadian wilderness, peering down at the landscape of lights shimmering in the enveloping darkness. I was so excited to be able to spot what was below us by the shape of the land defined by the lakes. "Lake Ann, where Aunt Bobbie has a cabin, is one of those itty bitty lakes right there." "I can see Becca's house! Well, not really, but I know it's right in there." I was worried I wouldn't be able to see Charlevoix, but sure enough, there was the tell-tale cluster of Round Lake and Lake Charlevoix, with Beaver Island and its necklace of smaller islands nearby. I couldn't exactly pick out where Burnett Road was; the trees seem to block almost all the light in that area, but I figured out a pretty good approximation of where it, or at least Brooks Hill, was.
We were still awake a couple hours or so later, when we looked out and tried to make sense of what we saw. Colin kept wanting to open the window to see if he could catch a glimpse of the Aurora Borealis (northern lights) as he had on this trip to Spain, but there were no mystical dancing colors to be seen. However, there was clouds/water/ice below us - what it was I could never quite decide, especially since the texture would change and the flight status map wouldn't show us near Greenland yet. I took some Benadryl and by the time we got to Iceland, I was so out of it that when Colin tried to wake me up, excitedly pointing out Rejkjavik, it was all I could do to say "mmph" and promptly go back to sleep without looking out the window. Sometime while we slept the sun "rose" in the west and we flew straight over Moscow. I woke up a bit before Colin and sometime after Colin woke up, I was able to crack open the window to see desert below. Soon we came to the Himalayas which were, of course, awesome. Just as we were about to hit the tarmac in New Delhi the sun was setting again.
Delhi
The first encounter on Indian soil was a mostly stressful experience but not overly negative. We were made to fill out a form declaring that yes, we were coming from a country where there were cases of the H1N1 flu and no, we hadn't had a fever in the last few days. There was a queue where they checked with an infrared camera for anyone who might be feverish before we went through the normal checkpoint. The bored guy who scanned my passport and visa didn't say a word to me, merely stamping it before shooing me on. Colin had a different story; his passport was a couple years older than mine and showed a picture and signature from high school. His signature on the entrance form was very different from the one on the passport and the guard didn't think the picture resembled Colin enough to be authentic. It took a long time, in which I started to slightly panic and try to figure out what I'd do if he wasn't let through. But thankfully, he was. Otherwise this would be a very different story.
The bus ride took us right on the runways themselves to cross and get to the domestic air terminal. When we stepped out, the heat, humidity, and smells hit us full on. The limited experience I've had with India so far involves very distinct spicy smells. I don't know how else to describe them. To add to the sense of bizarreness, our soap reminds us of green jello in look and smell.
That night, Wednesday night, was spent in the domestic terminal in New Delhi. It was unwise to go out after the sun had set and our flight was really early so trying to find a hotel room didn't make much sense anyway. The security was different; there was no one else there at the time so the guards were all clustered in groups. They ushered me to a screening room for females where I was checked by a female guard who I managed to understand when she asked "5:50 flight??" like "You're seriously staying here until then?" We had 7 and a half hours to go.
The night was spent mostly staring into space or reading. Colin managed an hour of sleep and I laid down for fifteen minutes with no success. There was wireless and it was even free, but we didn't have the right power adaptors and couldn't access the internet anyway; we had to have a code sent as a text message to a cellphone. We did try sending it to my US phone but it never came. The airport filled up with people as the night wore on, but at first it was almost barren except for the employees.
When the time finally dwindled down to less than two hours before boarding time, we walked over to a sort of cafe and got coffees and pastries for about 5 USD total. While it wasn't a full breakfast and my paper cup leaked, it was delicious. I decided ahead of time I wasn't going to even pretend to try to understand what exactly I ate here. We got a fuller breakfast on the two-hour flight and one of the ladies sitting near us was from Michigan and was visiting extended family near Hyderabad with her husband who was also Indian and their two young sons. The flight was largely uneventful which tends to be a good thing for flights. We were served breakfast and I picked the omelet again.
Hyderabad
The first thing I noticed was that Hyderabad seemed significantly cooler than Delhi at 6 in the morning had been. This is only relative though; the humidity is quite high and it's usually in the 80s during the day.
After disembarking, we really didn't have a clue how we were going to get to the hotel. Magically, there was a sign saying “Mr. Colin Alworth” and the guy led us to a car from the hotel. The ride into the city was overwhelming (I can't think of any other word to describe these first Indian encounters). Honking seems to be the way to alert other drivers. I don't think they even have turn signals – they certainly never use them. Some of the buses have “Please honk” written on the back of them. When Colin asked a coworker what this really meant (was it to be funny or was it serious?), the coworker didn't know. I don't remember much of the rest of Thursday; jet lag had taken over by then. I know there was some napping, Colin went to the office for a couple of hours, and then it was bedtime.
7 August 2009 Friday
Today was Colin's first full day at work. Both of us were dealing with stomach issues, mostly gas, all day. The power adaptor I had at the hotel for my computer failed to work. The older, British version of “Death at a Funeral” was on TV after dinner so we watched it. We weren't very tired so we fell asleep around 2 am.
8 August 2009 Saturday
We slept in and missed the breakfast hours. I was feeling “cabin fever” and finally got Colin to go with me outside. It was just a walk around the block but for a first taste of being within the city it was overwhelming. We didn't stop anywhere and no one grabbed at us. Later, I didn't feel good so we stayed in the rest of the day. We also asked for a new adaptor but didn't get it probably because they forgot about it.
9 August 2009 Sunday
We went out to lunch across the street (the first time I'd eaten outside of the hotel since we'd arrived) at a place that was called a coffee shop. The two dishes were really spicy, but one more so than the other. They were both different types of flat breads with different sauces to dip into. Our mouths were on fire, our eyes were red, and I was constantly blowing my nose. The price was roughly a third of what lunch at the hotel would have been. There was some drizzle while we were out and quite a bit of lightning at one point, but it never really rained. When we came back in, it was Colin's turn to feel bad and we ended up not going back out that day. I finally got a plug adaptor that works!
10 August 2009 Today
Colin's boss had flown in during the night from visiting his family elsewhere in India and he joined us for breakfast. I had my first excursion out of the hotel without Colin. It was only two hours, at a bookstore, but when the driver asked if I wanted to go back to the hotel I said “yes” with relief. It's not that I don't like being out there (haven't made up my mind yet), but it's just so overwhelming. Everything here is overwhelming. I thought I'd have lots to write about while being here but it turns out the problem is I simply can't seem to make much sense of it myself, let alone come up with conclusions and witty insights.
I spent more at the bookstore than I had intended to; I had told myself to get only two or three books and then other things I liked. No one thing was overly expensive to me and the books had prices that were really attractive for an American bookworm. For 1822 rupees, or 38 dollars, I got six books, two notebooks, four pens, and nailclippers. The most expensive book was 295 rupees, or just over 6 dollars and it's the Hyderabad history book (“Hyderabad: A Biography” by Narendra Luther). There's also an English-Hindi phrase book and a small travel book on Hyderabad. I made sure not to get just non-fiction books related to India; I got “Eat, Pray, Love” (Elizabeth Gilbert), “Setting Free the Bears” (John Irving), and “Freakonomics” (Levitt and Dubner).
While normally I would have probably put back at least half the books, the prices weren't the only reason I got so many; Colin insisted that this is my vacation and I don't have to go and have a hair-raising adventure every day. After all, I am traveling for four weeks and I intend to do lots of reading during the much-needed downtime. I brought very little but I did bring, along with the thick India travel guide, three reading books and I'm almost done with the second one.
When I was back at the hotel room, someone dropped off an elaborate flower basket that contains 13 roses and a cluster of white flowers. They still had droplets clinging to their petals and there was no indication of where they came from so I assumed it was normal hotel business.
For lunch, I went back to the coffee shop and ordered one of the same things we'd had yesterday – but asked for “not too spicy.” I was surprised to find how quickly I've adapted to spice because I dipped almost every piece in the sauces. It was very good. Along with a liter of mineral water and a cup of coffee, the lunch was about 125 rupees – a grand total of $2.50. When I walked back to the hotel, I realized I had metal coins in the money belt. I had to pull it out of my pants and fish them out, putting them in the basket before walking through the metal detector. I smiled, showing that I realized the comic scene I just gave them and they certainly acknowledged that yes, that was rather silly. From now on, I'm putting the coins in my pocket. Coins are worth no more than ten cents a piece, after all.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Ohmygosh I'm going to India
For those who don't already know, Colin and I are going to India. Tomorrow night. There's general excitement, stress, and "what the heck are we doing??" which Colin can easily answer "Work, work, work." Me? I'm mostly just tagging along, having no real commitments until school starts Wednesday, September 2nd. So yes, nearly a solid month of India is quickly approaching.
It wasn't until less than a week ago we knew for certain we were going. I'm already a bit hazy on exactly when the suggestion was made, but it was roughly a week before that that Colin's bosses asked "Is your passport up to date?" This resulted in a scramble to find it. That weekend we made a trip south to Bloomington (I really needed more clothes anyway) where we hung out with Susan, did tons of laundry, and I grabbed whatever I thought might be needed.
We'd spent the following Tuesday getting the visas. Colin and I drove downtown to drop off the forms and passports and had to scramble when we found we went to the wrong address listed on the application ten minutes before our appointment. Since he was the one who had to go, I drove around in circles - downtown Chicago (first time actually) - while he went in. Later that day I took the train and picked them up. Apparently, a generic name like "Karen Larsen" takes longer to check than a unique one like "Colin Alworth" because my email notifying the visa was ready to be picked up came quite a bit later than Colin, much to his nervousness. I hadn't taken my cellphone since you can't take electronic devices and only a small lady's handbag is permitted. I scribbled down some sudoku puzzles for the rides and only carried a bright yellow folder in my hands. On the way back, I was hot and thirsty so I grabbed a strange but tasty drink called Strawberry Pom Smootea at an Argo Tea.
Wednesday night we went to the airport to get the tickets; the website wouldn't deal with the travel vouchers Colin had gotten last December from agreeing to wait for later flights from San Mateo. They needed to be used soon before they expired. Thursday I got a camera at a local store called Wolf Camera. I'd done some research and decided a Canon point-and-shoot (SD1200 IS) would fit the bill. Initially, I was quite happy with just ordering another Minolta Dimage X (or any of the newer versions in that series) but Colin pointed out that there's been a lot of development in digital cameras since I got my first one in 2003. I could have ordered it online and fretted about when it'd get here, but I wanted to test and play with it, especially since we were spending the weekend in Duluth. I'm quite happy with it, don't have any complaints so far and I've taken about 200 pictures.
Duluth was a whirlwind but, as always, it was great to see Colin's family. Sure, there's the drama of the extended family but I knew the "battlefield" and wasn't too affected. Finally got to meet Nina! She's quite the energetic tomboy and I got lots of shots of her goofing around with Colin. We had a boat tour along the shore Saturday. The weekend was cool and cloudy, with some short thunderstorms and rainshowers. Since India is going to be really hot and humid, Duluth wasn't helping us prepare for it. But then again, what the heck would? I spent a lot of time wrapped up in blankets and never took my sweatshirt off except when we were at Nana's in the tropical heat. I even slept with the bed electrically heated.
Most of my spare time has been spent reading, either online or print books, about India. We will be mostly in Hyderabad, which is not touted as a tourist city. It is also known as Cyberabad (cyber city); Colin will be working in an area where there are 80,000 other programmers. However, there are things to see and places to go in the area, it is known for its fabulous food, and we know we are going to spend time in at least Delhi and at the Taj Mahal on the weekends. I've skimmed a few guidebooks (Lonely Planet's is by far the best) and other non-fiction. I really enjoy reading "A Traveler's History of India" by Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda but it's a library book and I'm planning on taking very little and mostly stuff I can leave behind. After all, stuff is cheap there and I have only clothes appropriate for northern US colder climate and society (shorts aren't worn in India). So my backpack is all I'm carrying. To India. For a month.
I'm constantly wondering, "What the heck am I doing?" The answer: Going off on an adventure (with the love of my life during monsoon season to the most foreign land I've been to yet that had never really been on my list of places to visit).
It wasn't until less than a week ago we knew for certain we were going. I'm already a bit hazy on exactly when the suggestion was made, but it was roughly a week before that that Colin's bosses asked "Is your passport up to date?" This resulted in a scramble to find it. That weekend we made a trip south to Bloomington (I really needed more clothes anyway) where we hung out with Susan, did tons of laundry, and I grabbed whatever I thought might be needed.
We'd spent the following Tuesday getting the visas. Colin and I drove downtown to drop off the forms and passports and had to scramble when we found we went to the wrong address listed on the application ten minutes before our appointment. Since he was the one who had to go, I drove around in circles - downtown Chicago (first time actually) - while he went in. Later that day I took the train and picked them up. Apparently, a generic name like "Karen Larsen" takes longer to check than a unique one like "Colin Alworth" because my email notifying the visa was ready to be picked up came quite a bit later than Colin, much to his nervousness. I hadn't taken my cellphone since you can't take electronic devices and only a small lady's handbag is permitted. I scribbled down some sudoku puzzles for the rides and only carried a bright yellow folder in my hands. On the way back, I was hot and thirsty so I grabbed a strange but tasty drink called Strawberry Pom Smootea at an Argo Tea.
Wednesday night we went to the airport to get the tickets; the website wouldn't deal with the travel vouchers Colin had gotten last December from agreeing to wait for later flights from San Mateo. They needed to be used soon before they expired. Thursday I got a camera at a local store called Wolf Camera. I'd done some research and decided a Canon point-and-shoot (SD1200 IS) would fit the bill. Initially, I was quite happy with just ordering another Minolta Dimage X (or any of the newer versions in that series) but Colin pointed out that there's been a lot of development in digital cameras since I got my first one in 2003. I could have ordered it online and fretted about when it'd get here, but I wanted to test and play with it, especially since we were spending the weekend in Duluth. I'm quite happy with it, don't have any complaints so far and I've taken about 200 pictures.
Duluth was a whirlwind but, as always, it was great to see Colin's family. Sure, there's the drama of the extended family but I knew the "battlefield" and wasn't too affected. Finally got to meet Nina! She's quite the energetic tomboy and I got lots of shots of her goofing around with Colin. We had a boat tour along the shore Saturday. The weekend was cool and cloudy, with some short thunderstorms and rainshowers. Since India is going to be really hot and humid, Duluth wasn't helping us prepare for it. But then again, what the heck would? I spent a lot of time wrapped up in blankets and never took my sweatshirt off except when we were at Nana's in the tropical heat. I even slept with the bed electrically heated.
Most of my spare time has been spent reading, either online or print books, about India. We will be mostly in Hyderabad, which is not touted as a tourist city. It is also known as Cyberabad (cyber city); Colin will be working in an area where there are 80,000 other programmers. However, there are things to see and places to go in the area, it is known for its fabulous food, and we know we are going to spend time in at least Delhi and at the Taj Mahal on the weekends. I've skimmed a few guidebooks (Lonely Planet's is by far the best) and other non-fiction. I really enjoy reading "A Traveler's History of India" by Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda but it's a library book and I'm planning on taking very little and mostly stuff I can leave behind. After all, stuff is cheap there and I have only clothes appropriate for northern US colder climate and society (shorts aren't worn in India). So my backpack is all I'm carrying. To India. For a month.
I'm constantly wondering, "What the heck am I doing?" The answer: Going off on an adventure (with the love of my life during monsoon season to the most foreign land I've been to yet that had never really been on my list of places to visit).
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Crap versus Quality
I just came home from the local library where I got to check things out for the first time! Quite excited to enjoy the books, with the topics being India and the origin of American English language (not in the same book). I had also picked up some DVDs which I hope Colin will like. Burn After Reading definitely, Pursuit of Happyness maybe, and The Darjeeling Limited? Probably not, but who knows? I seem to have a soft spot for picking up those movies with skeptical quality ...
I was catching up on my feeds, mostly of the library flavor, when I suddenly felt the urge to click on the tvguide.com browser tab. Now, why? Why, in the face of such treasures I'd been so excited about just moments before? Why, in the face of intriguing, career-related posts including news of the LOC trying out cloud storage?
So the fact that I'd been sitting reading for two hours about North Korea and then sampling a bunch of books could have something to do with it. Perhaps my mind desired some wandering and easy entertainment. Junk food instead of whole grains. No matter how yummy and good for me the grains are ... sometimes I just gotta have the stuff that is pretty much worthless for me.
This laziness, opting for the easier path with more immediate reward, is both beneficial and detrimental for humankind as evidenced by our ability to use brains to make tools and tasks easier and faster, and the abundance of quick-fix, get-rich, etc. promises. My philosophy for most things in life is simple: balance. This means watching an irresistable episode of NCIS (with a blurb mentioning a frozen guy coming back to life, could you resist?) while looking to do some dishes, read "Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States" ... that is, depending on when Colin is done at work for the day and I pick him up.
I was catching up on my feeds, mostly of the library flavor, when I suddenly felt the urge to click on the tvguide.com browser tab. Now, why? Why, in the face of such treasures I'd been so excited about just moments before? Why, in the face of intriguing, career-related posts including news of the LOC trying out cloud storage?
So the fact that I'd been sitting reading for two hours about North Korea and then sampling a bunch of books could have something to do with it. Perhaps my mind desired some wandering and easy entertainment. Junk food instead of whole grains. No matter how yummy and good for me the grains are ... sometimes I just gotta have the stuff that is pretty much worthless for me.
This laziness, opting for the easier path with more immediate reward, is both beneficial and detrimental for humankind as evidenced by our ability to use brains to make tools and tasks easier and faster, and the abundance of quick-fix, get-rich, etc. promises. My philosophy for most things in life is simple: balance. This means watching an irresistable episode of NCIS (with a blurb mentioning a frozen guy coming back to life, could you resist?) while looking to do some dishes, read "Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States" ... that is, depending on when Colin is done at work for the day and I pick him up.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Tales of Worms, Tadpoles, and a Rabbit
This is an extremely large post, and for that I apologize. I hope that the clean breaks help. I wrote two-thirds one day and then the remaining didn't get finished until six days later. I'm quickly (hopefully) relearning how to plan blogposts again. Of course, read any/all/none of wildlife stories as you wish, but my personal favorite is the bunny. I came across a cute overload today that makes me believe the bunny was much less than a week old.
Bucket of worms:
Among the crazy things that have happened over the last year, there have been a series of not-so-hidden attempts at keeping pets, starting with last year's tadpoles who had a happy ending. In August I decided to do more green things, so when I visited the Alworth family, they happily gave me a bucket of redworms for vermicomposting. I've grown up used to recycling and composting, but composting in a small apartment with no yard was a challenge I waited to tackle until I had some time to do research in the summer. I have always been amazed at how much "garbage" I manage to prevent from ending up in the trashcan. Still, I continue to be baffled at how to best take care of worms but since they've managed to live quite happily so far, I'm not too worried.
When I had to move out of my apartment, I tackled my worm bin, which had occupied space under the kitchen island for ten months. This turned out to be much harder and took longer than I'd anticipated, because it was more mud than dirt. I'd noticed the wet problem a couple weeks earlier but hadn't done anything with it (both because I was busy and didn't know quite what I was supposed to do). It was actually fun to spread it out on a plastic sheet on the kitchen floor and pick up clumps, finding a mass of squirming worms on the bottom (they get away from any light as fast as they can since it can kill them). These worms did just fine of a diet consisting mainly of eggshells (which you could still see chunks of) and coffee grounds. The mostly worm-free mud (it was impossible to get them all) I gave to Susan, who was happy to have it for her garden. The worms went north to Colin's new apartment in the bucket they came in many generations earlier.
Orphaned bunny:
Laura and Mom came to pick me up right after winter semester classes ended and we took a car trip to Georgia (this itself should be a separate post). They dropped me off in Bloomington the Sunday before my birthday. The next day, I decided to walk to campus. My internet wasn't working that day and I'd left my netbook cord in the last hotel we'd stayed at, so I was carrying my heavy laptop and it was hot. When I was almost to campus, I noticed something alive, pink, and squirming on the sidewalk. It took me awhile to figure out what it was; I realized it wouldn't survive if I left it, so I picked it up and a closer look at its ears confirmed that it was a very young bunny rabbit. It was less than a week old and I still can't fathom how it got where it was; there were no bushes or covering anywhere near it. Since I didn't have internet at home, I decided to try my luck at the library and pressed on, cupping the bunny in my hands to keep it as warm as I could. No one really seemed to have more than a passing interest in why I was holding my hands like that in front of me.
One of the benefits of being a library student, you get to know the people who work in the university libraries. So I walked up to the main desk and said to a classmate I'd had "Okay, don't freak out, but I have a baby bunny and I have no clue what to do with it." He and another guy cooed over it before suggesting I take it to the zoology department. I walked there but they weren't able to help at all (in fact, the guy who I ultimately talked to that was supposed to help said "oh we can't have those in here, get out" and wouldn't even give any suggestions).
Back at the main library, I looked online (while I hid the bunny in the roll of my shirt on my belly) and found out it's illegal to care for wild animals and very very hard to raise wild baby rabbits. There was an address and phone number for a wildlife rehabilitator so I went home and put the bunny in a box with a warm water bottle and a t-shirt, called the place, and then drove over to drop it off. They said it would have my name (they don't name their animals but distinguish them by the names of the people who bring them) yet it was too early to tell how it was doing. Online, I found out if it squirms, it is not too stressed but it is very easy for them to be stressed and they are very sensitive to it. Sometimes it just rested but many times it would wiggle to get closer to my hand for warmth or to just plain wiggle, especially when I had it in the box. I also know it wasn't severely dehydrated. So I was optimistic. However, I never did call to visit or find out about it; I want to think happy endings.
It was strange; I had very strong desire to protect it when I saw it. I vaguely thought about diseases and whatnot when I picked it up, but they were overwhelmed with what probably is a mothering instinct. And usually I don't find myself overly fond of rabbits. Young ones, like most furry babies, are really cute, but I never thought rabbits were nice and never wanted one as a pet. Also, I'm quite familiar with their notorious ability to breed plenty of offsprings. Even though not all of them make it to adulthood, they still manage to run rampant quite easily. So, while my reactions were not entirely surprising, their intensity was.
Tadpoles, version 2009:
Colin was visiting me the weekend before I went to Georgia and we decided to try our luck at raising tadpoles again. We went back to the same puddle and collected about 12 small ones. It seems really strange that they would be planted there; it's a very barren mud puddle is in a "parking lot" that gets a lot of traffic. We didn't collect any big ones because last year the biggest died very quickly and we figured if we can catch them when they're little we can make sure they're better nourished. Again, we had no clue what species they were; they could have been salamanders, even (http://thelivingclassroom.wordpress.com/2007/10/23/tadpoles-salamanders-tomato-tamato/). Since we (or rather, I) had named most of the ones last year after the seven dwarfs, this year I named them after Disney princesses. It was a fun challenge trying to come up with a dozen princesses, including Mulan and Pocahontas.
Since I was heading on a road trip, Colin took them home for the first couple of weeks. And the results were making him believe he was a horrible tadparent; they kept dying. I still suspect that there was some disease or other uncontrollable factor in play. Colin said, "Maybe we weeded out all the good tadpoles last year." Some of them were still alive when I visited him and took them home, but by Memorial Day weekend, we had one. In fact, there were two when I started north to get Colin on our way to Michigan City but the smaller one died in transit. The last one was the biggest, bigger than any of last year's, earning her the title "Princess Fiona." Her size is the leading clue that they were probably toads instead of treefrogs. But we'll never know because she died while we were at the McBrides' beach condo. Although somewhat discouraged, the emotions weren't as bad as when they first started dying. The whole story and how much was our "fault" will never be known but I, at least, am not completely discouraged from trying it again. I say "fault" because, remember, they were in a very poor location and had an extremely low chance of making it to healthy adulthood in the first place.
Bucket of worms:
Among the crazy things that have happened over the last year, there have been a series of not-so-hidden attempts at keeping pets, starting with last year's tadpoles who had a happy ending. In August I decided to do more green things, so when I visited the Alworth family, they happily gave me a bucket of redworms for vermicomposting. I've grown up used to recycling and composting, but composting in a small apartment with no yard was a challenge I waited to tackle until I had some time to do research in the summer. I have always been amazed at how much "garbage" I manage to prevent from ending up in the trashcan. Still, I continue to be baffled at how to best take care of worms but since they've managed to live quite happily so far, I'm not too worried.
When I had to move out of my apartment, I tackled my worm bin, which had occupied space under the kitchen island for ten months. This turned out to be much harder and took longer than I'd anticipated, because it was more mud than dirt. I'd noticed the wet problem a couple weeks earlier but hadn't done anything with it (both because I was busy and didn't know quite what I was supposed to do). It was actually fun to spread it out on a plastic sheet on the kitchen floor and pick up clumps, finding a mass of squirming worms on the bottom (they get away from any light as fast as they can since it can kill them). These worms did just fine of a diet consisting mainly of eggshells (which you could still see chunks of) and coffee grounds. The mostly worm-free mud (it was impossible to get them all) I gave to Susan, who was happy to have it for her garden. The worms went north to Colin's new apartment in the bucket they came in many generations earlier.
Orphaned bunny:
Laura and Mom came to pick me up right after winter semester classes ended and we took a car trip to Georgia (this itself should be a separate post). They dropped me off in Bloomington the Sunday before my birthday. The next day, I decided to walk to campus. My internet wasn't working that day and I'd left my netbook cord in the last hotel we'd stayed at, so I was carrying my heavy laptop and it was hot. When I was almost to campus, I noticed something alive, pink, and squirming on the sidewalk. It took me awhile to figure out what it was; I realized it wouldn't survive if I left it, so I picked it up and a closer look at its ears confirmed that it was a very young bunny rabbit. It was less than a week old and I still can't fathom how it got where it was; there were no bushes or covering anywhere near it. Since I didn't have internet at home, I decided to try my luck at the library and pressed on, cupping the bunny in my hands to keep it as warm as I could. No one really seemed to have more than a passing interest in why I was holding my hands like that in front of me.
One of the benefits of being a library student, you get to know the people who work in the university libraries. So I walked up to the main desk and said to a classmate I'd had "Okay, don't freak out, but I have a baby bunny and I have no clue what to do with it." He and another guy cooed over it before suggesting I take it to the zoology department. I walked there but they weren't able to help at all (in fact, the guy who I ultimately talked to that was supposed to help said "oh we can't have those in here, get out" and wouldn't even give any suggestions).
Back at the main library, I looked online (while I hid the bunny in the roll of my shirt on my belly) and found out it's illegal to care for wild animals and very very hard to raise wild baby rabbits. There was an address and phone number for a wildlife rehabilitator so I went home and put the bunny in a box with a warm water bottle and a t-shirt, called the place, and then drove over to drop it off. They said it would have my name (they don't name their animals but distinguish them by the names of the people who bring them) yet it was too early to tell how it was doing. Online, I found out if it squirms, it is not too stressed but it is very easy for them to be stressed and they are very sensitive to it. Sometimes it just rested but many times it would wiggle to get closer to my hand for warmth or to just plain wiggle, especially when I had it in the box. I also know it wasn't severely dehydrated. So I was optimistic. However, I never did call to visit or find out about it; I want to think happy endings.
It was strange; I had very strong desire to protect it when I saw it. I vaguely thought about diseases and whatnot when I picked it up, but they were overwhelmed with what probably is a mothering instinct. And usually I don't find myself overly fond of rabbits. Young ones, like most furry babies, are really cute, but I never thought rabbits were nice and never wanted one as a pet. Also, I'm quite familiar with their notorious ability to breed plenty of offsprings. Even though not all of them make it to adulthood, they still manage to run rampant quite easily. So, while my reactions were not entirely surprising, their intensity was.
Tadpoles, version 2009:
Colin was visiting me the weekend before I went to Georgia and we decided to try our luck at raising tadpoles again. We went back to the same puddle and collected about 12 small ones. It seems really strange that they would be planted there; it's a very barren mud puddle is in a "parking lot" that gets a lot of traffic. We didn't collect any big ones because last year the biggest died very quickly and we figured if we can catch them when they're little we can make sure they're better nourished. Again, we had no clue what species they were; they could have been salamanders, even (http://thelivingclassroom.wordpress.com/2007/10/23/tadpoles-salamanders-tomato-tamato/). Since we (or rather, I) had named most of the ones last year after the seven dwarfs, this year I named them after Disney princesses. It was a fun challenge trying to come up with a dozen princesses, including Mulan and Pocahontas.
Since I was heading on a road trip, Colin took them home for the first couple of weeks. And the results were making him believe he was a horrible tadparent; they kept dying. I still suspect that there was some disease or other uncontrollable factor in play. Colin said, "Maybe we weeded out all the good tadpoles last year." Some of them were still alive when I visited him and took them home, but by Memorial Day weekend, we had one. In fact, there were two when I started north to get Colin on our way to Michigan City but the smaller one died in transit. The last one was the biggest, bigger than any of last year's, earning her the title "Princess Fiona." Her size is the leading clue that they were probably toads instead of treefrogs. But we'll never know because she died while we were at the McBrides' beach condo. Although somewhat discouraged, the emotions weren't as bad as when they first started dying. The whole story and how much was our "fault" will never be known but I, at least, am not completely discouraged from trying it again. I say "fault" because, remember, they were in a very poor location and had an extremely low chance of making it to healthy adulthood in the first place.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Marmots of an undetermined species
Warning: I wrote this about three weeks ago but found it dry and long even for me, so I didn't want to feel guilty posting and boring people just when they are like "whoa! post from karen! finally!" So since I just posted a better first finally post, I don't feel as bad.
For those who decide TLDR: Basically I am talking about weird mammals I saw a year ago near my old apartment and how I couldn't figure out what they were. Probably marmots. There's also lots of librarian thoughts about trying to find out what it was.
Last summer was the first time I noticed a pair of strange furry creatures at a heritage farm called Hinkle-Garton Farm near my apartment complex. I saw them multiple times on my walk to and from school but never got a close-up view. I was surprised that any mammals larger than a rat would be living there; there are very busy roads, train tracks, and many buildings in the immediate vicinity. For me, it's similar to seeing a turkey downtown. Colin joked I that I must be making them up, until he saw them himself.
I wasn't sure what they were - pictures online of woodchucks and prairie dogs didn't look right. I'm familiar with beavers and felt certain they were not those; this was confirmed when I spotted the decidedly skinny furry tail. I was fairly confident they wasn't any other aquatic mammal such as muskrats. Further Google image searching led me astray to wild ideas such as the nutria (eradicated a few decades ago from Indiana) and capybara (found only in Central and South Americas).
The one trait that was unique was the shape of their heads. It's not at all like the round ones found in the pictures of woodchucks but much more like the angular ones of the capybara. I discovered the woodchuck is a type of marmot and felt like I was getting somewhere when I saw pictures of other marmot species with the right head shapes. However, I only found instances of high mountain-dwelling types.
There is a library-related tangent to this post topic beyond mapping a research attempt: the value of niceness. One surprisingly helpful resource was Yahoo answers, which I've bumped into many times in other research. The particular page was started with a person who seems dumb since he/she was wondering if it was a capybara and hadn't been able to find information online. This earned him/her ridicule from some people who answered but the best answer gave conducive guidance. I wouldn't be surprised if this person was a public librarian; no matter what you think of the person asking you the question or the question itself, your goal is always to give them the answers they're looking for (which is commonly not the direct answer to their question, but found through what librarians call "reference interviews" since people frequently don't know exactly what they're looking for, even if they think they do). Being nice and helping people who ask for your help is not only common courtesy but a habit that benefits everyone. Seth Godin (who writes blog posts much more frequently than I do) stresses the value of niceness:
If I'm arguing only for my personal gain, I would have had a harder time searching for the answer to my very similar inquiry if the person hadn't answered.
The search of the elusive furry neighbors remains inconclusive, but I'm happy (for now) to call them "marmots of an undetermined species".
For those who decide TLDR: Basically I am talking about weird mammals I saw a year ago near my old apartment and how I couldn't figure out what they were. Probably marmots. There's also lots of librarian thoughts about trying to find out what it was.
Last summer was the first time I noticed a pair of strange furry creatures at a heritage farm called Hinkle-Garton Farm near my apartment complex. I saw them multiple times on my walk to and from school but never got a close-up view. I was surprised that any mammals larger than a rat would be living there; there are very busy roads, train tracks, and many buildings in the immediate vicinity. For me, it's similar to seeing a turkey downtown. Colin joked I that I must be making them up, until he saw them himself.
I wasn't sure what they were - pictures online of woodchucks and prairie dogs didn't look right. I'm familiar with beavers and felt certain they were not those; this was confirmed when I spotted the decidedly skinny furry tail. I was fairly confident they wasn't any other aquatic mammal such as muskrats. Further Google image searching led me astray to wild ideas such as the nutria (eradicated a few decades ago from Indiana) and capybara (found only in Central and South Americas).
The one trait that was unique was the shape of their heads. It's not at all like the round ones found in the pictures of woodchucks but much more like the angular ones of the capybara. I discovered the woodchuck is a type of marmot and felt like I was getting somewhere when I saw pictures of other marmot species with the right head shapes. However, I only found instances of high mountain-dwelling types.
There is a library-related tangent to this post topic beyond mapping a research attempt: the value of niceness. One surprisingly helpful resource was Yahoo answers, which I've bumped into many times in other research. The particular page was started with a person who seems dumb since he/she was wondering if it was a capybara and hadn't been able to find information online. This earned him/her ridicule from some people who answered but the best answer gave conducive guidance. I wouldn't be surprised if this person was a public librarian; no matter what you think of the person asking you the question or the question itself, your goal is always to give them the answers they're looking for (which is commonly not the direct answer to their question, but found through what librarians call "reference interviews" since people frequently don't know exactly what they're looking for, even if they think they do). Being nice and helping people who ask for your help is not only common courtesy but a habit that benefits everyone. Seth Godin (who writes blog posts much more frequently than I do) stresses the value of niceness:
it doesn't matter who's "right". What matters is that giving people the benefit of the doubt and treating them with respect is not only more fun, it works better too.
If I'm arguing only for my personal gain, I would have had a harder time searching for the answer to my very similar inquiry if the person hadn't answered.
The search of the elusive furry neighbors remains inconclusive, but I'm happy (for now) to call them "marmots of an undetermined species".
New places, new dramas
So finally summer vacation is here! I just finished the final project for my summer class this afternoon. Scary to think it's the last, but I think it's mainly because change of any kind tends to be at least a little scary. And it's gonna be short - 7 weeks left, I read in the Indiana Daily Student this week.
Lots of changes have been happening, including officially moving into my new room across town yesterday (I actually first slept here two days before that). Fountain Park, the big ginornous apartment complex, told me I couldn't live there for only six months. Twelve, maybe ten, but not six! Even though they happily let me move in with a signed six-months' lease in the first place. So started a long arduous journey to find another place to set up my stuff for the last semester of grad school. Lots of trawling through ads, craigslist, and campus site for housing. It'd be fun to count all the emails I sent and either didn't get a response or they replied with a "no." Not really.
There was a house with a room for only the fall semester. Perfect, even very close to campus. I even went to check it out. Problem was that right then I was waiting to hear if I had landed a dream summer internship at Yellowstone NP (I didn't get it). I was told I'd be called if the other person moved forward on the offer. The next week, when I finally got the Yellowstone response, I emailed back and found out that the other person had grabbed it up the day after I was there. I did have misgivings about the extremely small kitchen for five girls (most undergrads), but I was gonna take anything except frat/sorority crap at this point.
Another offer was a guy who was looking for roommates but he didn't currently live in Bloomington. I still don't know where he actually was living, but his job was going to relocate him here and he was always running around on business trips and it was hard to get ahold of him. I did meet up with him and liked him but the house was not a done deal; it turned out the people who lived there (and owned the house) didn't actually know if they were going to rent it out. In the end, they didn't and I wished the guy good luck.
At the same time, I was juggling an offer from a recent SLIS alumnus, Duane. Turned out we had been there together last winter before he graduated but apparently never really met. He was info sci not library sci, so really not a surprise. His house was outside of the city limits, about five miles from campus, but the price was right and he was willing to let me stay there for just six months (after I offered to pay two extra months' rent, which is a deal at this point). The previous roomie had moved out abruptly and he wanted to keep up with his mortgage payments. So here I am, living with two guys.
Oh, and neither are Duane. I have yet to meet him in person; he's got a job in England. The two others are Robbie and Chris, both journalism majors (Chris undergrad, Robbie is working on his master's). Robbie also has a teenaged son, Tim, who is hanging around for the summer. The two of them plus Duane's ten-year-old dog Hank spend most of the time on a boat. I still think it's weird, being so into sailing and living here. All the lakes bigger than a pond are man-made and are or were the city's reservoirs. Lake Monroe, the biggest, is fairly large but it's still smaller than Lake Charlevoix. There's another unofficial housemate, Ray, who acts like he owns the place ... I don't understand the whole situation, but Robbie allowed sailing people to stay in his master bedroom and Ray just hasn't exactly left since he was first here two months ago. He isn't here every night but I don't really care for him. Apparently he has a girlfriend that I know was here last night but I only saw her car and flip flops as evidence.
I bump into Chris the most. He likes to talk and although he has very different views and opinions, I certainly don't mind listening. He usually sits in the middle of the big couch with his laptop and tv on. Since he saw the new Star Trek movie, he's been watching a lot of episodes. Between Whitney, Colin, and Chris, I'm feeling my disinterest (not dislike) won't survive much longer...
I don't plan on staying away as long this time, but things never go according to plans. (Do you ever wonder if we just planned for the opposite of what we want to happen, things would end up going the way we want?)
Lots of changes have been happening, including officially moving into my new room across town yesterday (I actually first slept here two days before that). Fountain Park, the big ginornous apartment complex, told me I couldn't live there for only six months. Twelve, maybe ten, but not six! Even though they happily let me move in with a signed six-months' lease in the first place. So started a long arduous journey to find another place to set up my stuff for the last semester of grad school. Lots of trawling through ads, craigslist, and campus site for housing. It'd be fun to count all the emails I sent and either didn't get a response or they replied with a "no." Not really.
There was a house with a room for only the fall semester. Perfect, even very close to campus. I even went to check it out. Problem was that right then I was waiting to hear if I had landed a dream summer internship at Yellowstone NP (I didn't get it). I was told I'd be called if the other person moved forward on the offer. The next week, when I finally got the Yellowstone response, I emailed back and found out that the other person had grabbed it up the day after I was there. I did have misgivings about the extremely small kitchen for five girls (most undergrads), but I was gonna take anything except frat/sorority crap at this point.
Another offer was a guy who was looking for roommates but he didn't currently live in Bloomington. I still don't know where he actually was living, but his job was going to relocate him here and he was always running around on business trips and it was hard to get ahold of him. I did meet up with him and liked him but the house was not a done deal; it turned out the people who lived there (and owned the house) didn't actually know if they were going to rent it out. In the end, they didn't and I wished the guy good luck.
At the same time, I was juggling an offer from a recent SLIS alumnus, Duane. Turned out we had been there together last winter before he graduated but apparently never really met. He was info sci not library sci, so really not a surprise. His house was outside of the city limits, about five miles from campus, but the price was right and he was willing to let me stay there for just six months (after I offered to pay two extra months' rent, which is a deal at this point). The previous roomie had moved out abruptly and he wanted to keep up with his mortgage payments. So here I am, living with two guys.
Oh, and neither are Duane. I have yet to meet him in person; he's got a job in England. The two others are Robbie and Chris, both journalism majors (Chris undergrad, Robbie is working on his master's). Robbie also has a teenaged son, Tim, who is hanging around for the summer. The two of them plus Duane's ten-year-old dog Hank spend most of the time on a boat. I still think it's weird, being so into sailing and living here. All the lakes bigger than a pond are man-made and are or were the city's reservoirs. Lake Monroe, the biggest, is fairly large but it's still smaller than Lake Charlevoix. There's another unofficial housemate, Ray, who acts like he owns the place ... I don't understand the whole situation, but Robbie allowed sailing people to stay in his master bedroom and Ray just hasn't exactly left since he was first here two months ago. He isn't here every night but I don't really care for him. Apparently he has a girlfriend that I know was here last night but I only saw her car and flip flops as evidence.
I bump into Chris the most. He likes to talk and although he has very different views and opinions, I certainly don't mind listening. He usually sits in the middle of the big couch with his laptop and tv on. Since he saw the new Star Trek movie, he's been watching a lot of episodes. Between Whitney, Colin, and Chris, I'm feeling my disinterest (not dislike) won't survive much longer...
I don't plan on staying away as long this time, but things never go according to plans. (Do you ever wonder if we just planned for the opposite of what we want to happen, things would end up going the way we want?)
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