A Home Vacation

Tomorrow I leave for New York to begin my two-month internship with the American Museum of Natural History. I have prepared as much as I can, and now I am ready to just go for it, knowing very well that all of my preparations will not be able to shield me from some bumps in the road and a few wrong turns. But I am OK knowing this. I read somewhere that there is a fine line between living comfortably and living in a cage created by oneself. Fearing the unknown only creates more self-inflicted limitations and missed opportunities, and at this point in my life, I am ready to test the boundaries. Besides, if my sister can go to Afghanistan, I can go to New York.

May has been a great month to finish up some artwork for Engineers Without Borders and relax at home with my parents. We have gone on several bike rides, camped at Ledges State Park, and played Badminton and Mexican Train Dominoes on many nights. I've also kept busy with jury duty, painting projects and mowing, grocery shopping with my mom (a favorite past-time of mine), visiting some friends and grandparents, and tying up loose strings from the spring semester and preparing for New York. Last week I made yogurt and cheese and organized a small softball game with people from our church. It has been a great vacation, but I am ready for the next adventure.

Blue Heron; summer plans

Well, I really let the ball drop when it came to updating my blog every week. I don't feel like describing everything that happened in my life since spring break, and I'm sure you don't really want to read about it so I'll just fill you in on the last week.

At ISU, dead week is over and finals start tomorrow. It's a stressful time but at least I will be finished by Wednesday. This past Wednesday, I attended the Board of Reagent's open forum to discuss qualities the Ames community and University staff and faculty believe to be important when selecting the next ISU president. There was a large group of us from ActivUs (a club on campus) to express the necessity of an ISU president that will take sustainability seriously and work towards green energy. As a school of science and technology, we should be the forerunners of sustainable action. We have the resources. And yet, Ames still uses a coal burning plant. Hopefully the board will take us seriously when they decide this summer.

I also attended a John Mellencamp concert this week (someone gave me a free ticket) and last night was the Collegiate Presbyterian Church's 100th anniversary Gala event with a really nice dinner and dance to follow. It was fantastic, and I'm still humming "Brick House." A few weeks ago I was inducted into Cardinal Key Society, an honorary group at ISU based off of the Blue Key at Yale, and today I have another induction ceremony for Phi Beta Kappa. My parents and grandparents have been attending to make sure I don't cause problems.

One of the reasons I waited so long to create a new post was that I was waiting to hear back about summer internships/employment. My contact at the Smithsonian told me to contact him in April as did an exhibit design and fabrication company in Minneapolis. I also applied for a position down at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico and another internship in Illinois. Well, I am not going to any of them. However, I am going to New York City for an internship with the American Museum of Natural History! After several weeks trying to contact the director of exhibits at the Smithsonian, he finally responded and referred me to the director at AMNH. I had a phone interview on Tuesday and after looking at my portfolio, he offered me a position. It will not be paid, but it will be an amazing experience. We will be working on the new space exploration exhibit, creating dioramas and models, etc.

A week ago today I had no idea where I would be this summer. I always like to have a plan so this has been a challenge for me. A while back I went for a run through a park here in Ames. The snow had finally melted, and I discovered a dirt path twisting through the woods along a stream. As I ran up a small hill, I looked over to my left and watched a beautiful blue heron fly up only a few yards away. It was a good reminder of something Robert Frost once said about a road less traveled.

Spring Break at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico

I had a wonderful spring break down in New Mexico at Ghost Ranch, an education and retreat center an hour northwest of Santa Fe. It is full of hiking trails, ranch lands for 400 head of cattle, and 30 acres for produce that is donated to those in need in surrounding communities. It is also home to several archeological sites and an anthropology museum. Georgia O'Keeffe lived there for a time and painted many of the landscapes, and movies like City Slickers and parts of Lonesome Dove were shot on the ranch, too. Throughout the year, Ghost Ranch also offers a variety of art classes, seminars about sustainable agricultural practices, and farmers' markets.

I left with the CPC (Collegiate Presbyterian Church) college ministry group on Saturday, March 12th, in the afternoon. We drove all night and arrived at Ghost Ranch the next morning. Since it is difficult to sleep well in a packed 15-passenger van, we mostly spent the day resting and becoming familiar with the ranch. We stayed in adobe bunkhouses and ate our meals at the cafeteria- really good food, by the way, and lots of vegetables!

For the rest of the week, we worked on projects around Ghost Ranch for the morning and part of the afternoon. I helped with fence maintenance, irrigation canal digging, trench digging for underground electrical wires, and house priming and painting. After we were done working each day, we usually went for a hike up to Chimney Rock or Kitchen Mesa. The hike to the top of Kitchen Mesa was amazing, and some parts of the "path" definitely required free (no rope) rock climbing. Someone died a few years ago, but he was hiking alone and after dark.

After dinner, we had a few hours of free time (I spent them working on watercolor paintings due after spring break) followed by a casual worship service/discussion. Then it was shower time and off to bed. We were usually so worn out from the day that we were in bed by 10:00 pm.

The weather was very sunny and cold in the mornings and evenings but warm in the afternoon. I would start off the day with a t-shirt, long-sleeved shirt, and two sweatshirts, but by 2:00, I was down to a t-shirt and shorts.

On Wednesday, we did drive to Santa Fe to look at the shops and cathedral before going out to eat. Unfortunately, I started to feel sick upon arrival and spent the majority of the afternoon lying down on a park bench. I am not sure what passersby were thinking. At that point I didn't care. After a couple hours, I felt completely fine and was able to join the rest of the group.

We headed back to Iowa on Friday, stopping at the giant sand dunes in Colorado. I felt like I was walking in a Salvador Dali painting. The dunes were huge and seemed so out of place. It took me about 45 minutes just to reach the peak, and let me tell you, hiking uphill in sand is definitely hard work. We drove through the night and arrived back in Ames at 7:00 am on Saturday, the 19th, tired but incredibly thankful we were able to go on the trip. I spent yesterday and today with my Mom since my dad took a trip to Virgina and prepared for the next 7 weeks of the semester.

Happy Spring!

Mayo Field Trip

Correction on my last blog: it was the 8th week of classes. Tomorrow, the 7th of March, will start the 9th week.

This past Friday, I traveled with the BPMI club up to Rochester, MN, to visit Mayo Clinic and Minneapolis, MN, to the Belle Museum. I left my place at 5:00 am, and after our professor arrived about 10 minutes past the scheduled leaving time, we hit the road in a 15 passenger van and a car. At Mayo Clinic, we met with the medical illustration staff, toured some of the facilities, and had an artwork show-and-tell amongst the illustrators and us. It was interesting and I definitely understand the importance of medical illustration, but I don't want to be a medical illustrator or animator.

Another couple hours of driving and getting lost (those in charge printed off Google directions but did not bring a map of Minnesota so we ran into some problems when we missed the exit), we arrived at the Belle Museum, a natural history museum with lots of dioramas which I really enjoyed. Some of them were a little outdated, but the excitement I felt when looking at the moose standing mid-step in a muddy bank vs. the the "meh" attitude at Mayo shows that a job as a museum exhibit fabricator would be a much better fit for me. I love how dioramas create these little worlds with an overall visual impact, and then once you get closer, you start to notice all of the tiny details- the grasshopper at the base of the prairie grass, the colors of the leaves painted on the background.

Any way, after that, we went to a restaurant near there for dinner before arriving back in Iowa around 11:00. It was a long day with over 8 hours of driving. I guess it was good practice for my spring break trip down to New Mexico. Our college church group leaves early Saturday afternoon, and we will drive until the next morning so we do not have to stay overnight somewhere.

A Break from Beans

Beans are great. They're cheap; they're protein-rich; you can put them in just about anything, and you don't have to worry about them spoiling in their Tupperware container during a chordate anatomy lecture. However, this past weekend I reached my limit. I decided I needed a little pizazz, something out of the ordinary. So last night at the grocery store, I discovered salmon fillets were on sale, and as I sat eating my dinner of grilled salmon, broccoli, and bread (a $2 meal that would have cost at least $10 at a restaurant), I was able to reflect about this semester.

We have already entered week 7 of the 16-week semester, and spring break is less than two weeks away. Classes and school work have become comfortable, settling into the ruts of routine. Although this is nice and less stressful, I was feeling a little bit like my weeks were imitating my diet of beans, beans, and more beans- good, but a little monotonous.

Luckily, the past few days helped add a little "salmon" to my week. On Friday, I hosted a long-overdue dinner party for some BPMI friends. Saturday night, I attended a Honors broomball event, and for my GIRLS Power mentee weekly meeting, we went bowling. Originally we were going to volunteer to make dresses from old pillowcases that would be sent to orphanages in Africa, but I wrote down the wrong date. Woops. This past Monday, I also attended an ISU fencing club practice with my friend Robert, and realized fencing is much more difficult and tiring than it looks! I haven't decided if I want to join yet, but I doubt my slight lull in homework, projects, and studying is going to last much longer so I do not want to make any commitments yet.

So, basically my advice to you if you are feeling like a hamster in a hamster wheel or sick of beans, go explore an unfamiliar section of the grocery store. Or try fencing. Just make sure to wear a breast plate, ladies.

No coat! No coat! No coat!

For the first time since October, I walked across campus without a coat, and- dare I say it- slight perspiration! Ok, I had just finished my ballet class and was wearing a sweater, but it was warm! For those of you in Iowa, you probably know that last week was amazingly different from the sub zero temperatures not too long before. Everyone's spirits improved, and I didn't have to cut through engineering buildings just to prevent frostbite; my classes happen to be on opposite ends of campus.

Well, besides the weather, my Chordate Anatomy class is going really well. I have to review every day, but I like how the tests are set up. Instead of tricky multiple choice or true false, our professor gives us a list of essay questions and we get to pick 8 out of the 12 to answer. Ballet is still my favorite class, and I think Robin Hood would be up there too if it weren't from 7 to 9pm. Since I have my first class at 9am, 9:00 to 9:00 on campus makes for a long day, but the Robin Hood class is worth it. This past week, I co-led the class with two classmates. We started things off with two guests from the ISU fencing club. They talked about the history of fencing (noblemen dueling in the back alleys of Paris) and showed us some of the techniques. Then we got to practice the footwork. We weren't quite ready for swords. We also gave a presentation about Technicolor and led a discussion about the importance of Technicolor and the dueling match in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) which we watched the week before as a class.

This Friday, I talked to high school students and parents about the Honors program through Explore Iowa State, and attended the GIRLS Power slumber party. The theme was "movies" so my mentee and I dressed up as Harry Potter characters. She was Bellatrix, and I went as Professor Trelawney. Sadly, I do not have any photos. The evening included all things slumber party-ish: pizza, the game sardines, nail polish, a dance party with glow sticks, a terrible night's sleep, etc. The following evening with some friends did include glow sticks, sadly, but the hosts cooked up some pretty delicious food and I was able to talk to some people I had not seen for a while.

I have also been keeping busy with a semester-long research project for my Globalization and Human Condition Anthropology class. My topic: How Globalization Created Apple Pie as an American Icon and is Now Causing its Demise. Whenever I finally finish it, I think I will have to celebrate by actually making apple pie.

Have a good one.

Dog Cranium Project for BPMI Illustration Class