Ode to the Artichoke

This is a translation of a poem written by Pablo Neruda from my Spanish class, Intro. to Hispanic Texts. It made me smile, and I hope it does the same for you.

Ode to the Artichoke

The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which the wine will rise,
The cabbage
Dedicated itself
To trying on skirts,
The oregano
To perfuming the world,
And the sweet
Artichoke
There in the garden,
Dressed like a warrior,
Burnished
Like a proud
Pomegrante.

And one day
Side by side
In big wicker baskets
Walking through the market
To realize their dream
The artichoke army
In formation.
Never was it so military
Like on parade.
The men
In their white shirts
Among the vegetables
Were
The Marshals
Of the artichokes
Lines in close order
Command voices,
And the bang
Of a falling box.

But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She's not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observes it
Up against the light like it was an egg,
She buys it,
She mixes it up
In her handbag
With a pair of shoes
With a cabbage head and a
Bottle
Of vinegar
Until
She enters the kitchen
And submerges it in a pot.

Thus ends
In peace
This career
Of the armed vegetable
Which is called an artichoke,
Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.

Halloween!

To celebrate Halloween and a chance for pumpkin pie, I, along with the help of my fellow social chair, hosted a Halloween party for the Barton Residence Hall. We served homemade pumpkin pie and cider, played some Halloween games, and watched Hitchcock's classic, Psycho. I have to say, my favorite part of the evening was seeing the costumes people came up with! Most people created their own and were really creative.

I went as Nancy Drew- classy, smart, intuitive. . .
It was Halloween, so I could pretend to be whatever I wanted, ok?

Argh!

Pirates, DNA Translation, and Space Crunch

Last weekend, I organized a dual, surprise, pirate-themed birthday party for two of my friends from Anders. We had newspaper pirate hats, Capn' Crunch, pirate decorations and games like pin the eye patch on the pirate, a pirate ship cake, and music from Pirates of the Caribbean. The two friends were really surprised- especially Robert who we surprised as he was coming out of the shower. Don't worry- he was in a towel!

This has definitely been a stressful semester for me with at least one, usually two, tests each week and projects and papers scattered here and there. I guess that is college. Unfortunately, I am now sick. Last night we had our honors retreat so with four hours of sleep after a week of not much sleep, I'm a little worn out. We had dinner at the campground, fun and games (I learned how to do the Thriller dance), geam olympics where I was in charge of space crunch (teams have to fit inside a very small space that is taped off and hold the position for 60 seconds), and late night (a dance, bon fire, bingo, rock band. . . ) Lucky for me, I am able to now rest on my lovely futon, wrapped up in a blanket and watching Gilmore Girls with a kleenix box on my left, a bottle of water on my right, and the chance to just be a bum for one sweet night. Reading about DNA translation? That can wait until tomorrow.

School

I am about to start my 6th week of classes this semester- crazy! The past couple of weeks have been full of tests, presentations, and all of the other stuff that comes along with school. To lower stress levels, I like to do some fun things, too: ultimate frisbee, dancing, crumpets, broomball. . . hmm, crumpets and broomball both include hitting things. Like I said, it is good to find stress relievers. Hopefully once things settle down, I'll be able to make more regular posts.

Fireflies

You should check out this link. I love this song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI4JLa0hbUw

Sorry- I can't really make the pictures bigger because they were off of a website, but if you are interested in viewing them or more pictures from the event, you can go to the Iowa State website and look for D.I.S. under the D's on the search engine. From there you can click on the photo album. It was actually a lot of fun being a leader, and I won some free stuff- gotta love it!

You can kind of see part of my forehead and bangs in the back row of the people in the blue shirts. We were the D.I.S. leaders for the Old Richardson Court residents.

ISU

After a quick change-over from corn pollinator to Destination Iowa State (orientation program for new students) team leader to student, I completed my first week back at Iowa State. It has been great to see so many people back and a full campus. Classes have been alright, but it has mostly been reading through syllabuses and getting introduced to the topics. I'll post more later when I have time- and pictures, too!

Corn

Wow. I has been a really long time since I've updated my blog. Well, for the past few weeks I have been working with Ag Reliant as a seasonal corn pollinator. A crew of about 34 of us would leave the station at 7:30 a.m. and come back sometimes at 6:00 p.m. and other times at 8:45 p.m. It was hard to get used to being on my feet and outside all day for six days a week, but I was able to meet some interesting people. One guy I worked with used to work with a carnival show while another one just finished his masters in political science. There were high school kids and workers in their 50s so there was a wide range of topics to discuss on our breaks. The job did give me a chance to listen to lots of pod casts like Social Entrepreneurs, Fresh Air, This American Life, and NPR.

I've moved out of Frederiksen Ct. Apts. and am back in my dorm room with my roommate Claire from last year. It is nice to be back, and we both are looking forward to seeing our old friends and meeting the new people in our house. They should be moving in within the next few days, and because we are both Destination Iowa State Leaders for the orientation this Thursday through Saturday for freshman and transfer students, we were able to move in early before the rush and get everything settled. We are so excited to have a futon this year! Whoo! We can actually sit somewhere besides our desk chairs and invite people into our room to hang out. As my parents can tell you, it was a really tight squeeze, but we managed to get it in. I also made an effort to make the room have a little more personality with some art work and plants so it doesn't just feel like a regular dorm room.

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with my family before summer comes to an end. We went on a two and a half hour canoe trip out of Boone and I was able to spend some girl time with my sister and some family. Just so you know, 500 Days of Summer is pretty amazing! Good choice, Sarah!

Anyway, savor the last bit of summer the best you can. Enjoy the beautiful weather, eat some water melon or sweet corn, finish that book you have been meaning to read, call up a friend to go for a walk, and take some time to just daydream a bit.

Summer!

I am done with my class and have been enjoying my time off before I start my pollination job, and I am loving my summer- that carefree time with fireflies and laughter carried on the breeze, picnics on the beach, birdies flying across a badminton net. . . ahhh, I could go on and on.

To celebrate the end of the summer semester, my roomies and I had a James Bond-themed party with decorations, costumes, and hors d'oeuvres including swan puff pastries. We had a whole flock of them! Today a group of us enjoyed a picnic on the beach of one of the local lakes, and this coming weekend I will be meeting up with some friends from the previous year at college to go camping at exotic Nebraska! Whoo! Hey, although it isn't incredibly majestic like the Grand Tetons or Glacier National Park, at least I'll be getting out of Iowa for a bit, and who can pass down camping?

I have the feeling the rest of summer is going to fly past before I can truly enjoy it all, but that is life. Have a great weekend!

Camping Adventure #1

Soap- It's Amazing! no joke

After a frustrating few weeks with no luck on the job front -despite close to 20 applications- I finally might have a possible summer job as a pollinator for corn research through Ag. Reliant. Although working outside in a field six days a week in July and August isn't necessarily going to be fun or easy, at least it is better than nothing, and I'll be busy instead of dusting shelves or waiting to assist customers- hey, and I can't forget mentioning the farmer tan! Looking at it now, I am actually really lucky that I didn't get a job while in my organic chem. class. Although it is elementary organic chemistry instead of regular organic chem., it has been a challenge especially since it is only an eight-week summer and at a faster speed with four to five chapters in two weeks. Today we had our second test, and there are only four more weeks to go. To celebrate, I am going camping this weekend with one of my roommates and her material engineer friends.

In the chem. lab we have twice a week, I think I am holding the record for the most breaks and spills, but there might be one other guy who is trying to catch up. I sure do write and awesome lab report, though! Some of the labs we have included isolating caffeine from beverages to see which one had the most per volume, hydrogenating vegetable oil into margarine, and turning corn oil into soap. I guess our soap was pretty basic on the pH level, so washing with it could have been a little painful for the skin. Hey, who said beauty was pain free? Anyway, I think I'll leave saponification up to the professional soap makers, but I did find the chemistry behind making soap and how it works to be really interesting. Who knew so much happened with that little bar of soap?

If you are interested, here are some links about soap that we used to aid our lab reports. I know some of you are teachers or interested in science and might find it helpful.

www.cleaning101.com/cleaning/history
www.pharmj.com/editorial/19991218/articles/soap.html

VERB: It's What You Do!

This was my first Dam to Dam race. Nicole, Robert, and I headed down to Des Moines Friday for registration. To tell you the truth, I was more worried about driving downtown with a manual transmission than running the 20K, but luckily the "Ladybug" didn't have any problems- or I should say me, the driver, didn't have any problems and we made it successfully to Robert and Lori Cramer's place for the night. The next morning, Mom drove us up to Saylorville Dam at 5:30. There were almost 7000 runners total just for the 20K with ages from 11 to over 70. This isn't including the several thousand runners for the 5K later that day. During the race, I felt like a lot of people were passing me which is true- several hundred women alone. However, there were quite a few behind me, too. I was 644th out of 3167 women and 26th in my age group.

I recently joined VERB, a community organization to help tweens get involved in physical activities, and went to the first event of the summer. It isn't very organized right now because there is a transition between the previous head of the program and the new one. Because of this, there is a lot of mis-communication, and I was the only one able to actually go to the hiking event even though I had never gone before and had never been to the park. After a dash to get the paperwork and supplies I would need along with driving out to the park after getting a little lost, it turned out that none of the 300 registered kids had shown up. Since I was already there and it was really nice out, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and went hiking with the two hiking guides from the Story County Conservation Board and enjoyed a nice traipse through the trees and mud. If VERB doesn't work out, at least I was able to get a cool shirt through the deal and was put into contact with Story County Conservation.

Pictures below are from the 30th Des Moines 20K Dam to Dam with Nicole and Robert, friends from Anders House this past year. There are also some pics. from one of our cooking adventures in our apartment. Jealous? You should be. They were the most gourmet tacos I've ever had.

Apartment

A year ago I was graduating, and now I am living in my first apartment. I feel like a grown up- crazy! I am staying in Frederikson Court Apartments just north of campus with Katherine Frels from Guthrie Center and two of her college friends. We each have our own room and share a bathroom, kitchen, and living room which are furnished. The room is a little small since it is on the end of the building but perfectly fine with me, and I like all of the roommates. My summer classes start tomorrow. I'm not quite ready for the whole class and homework thing to start again, but it wont be too bad- I hope ;-)

Yesterday I went with some friends to the wedding of my connection group leader from the past school year, and on the ride back, we discussed all of the things we wanted to do this summer since we were all going to be here in Ames. We probably wont be able to get them all completed, but we plan on having a wall of sticky notes with our goals and another wall which we will use to move the sticky note along with a picture after completing the activity. One of these is to go camping- possibly on Central Campus if we can get away with it.

Yay, yay, yay, whoohoo!

My finals are complete, and although you are not here right now, I am doing a happy dance. To some societies, this is the crazy woman dance, but luckily my friends were not too alarmed since they have seen it throughout the year. Anyway, I have gone from a pitiful, stressed-out, jobless, sun-burnt, sick girlie to a care-free, still jobless, kind of tan, not so sick girlie.

The job area for this summer has been kind of rough. Since I am living in Ames and taking classes this summer, I have been searching for a part-time job.

I was not selected to be a guinea pig in a vitamin study to see if there is a correlation between carotene absorption and the amount of soy bean oil(kind of bummed but also a little relieved), and the two cafe jobs, Stomping Grounds and The Cafe, didn't work out were worth a try. The experience was also good because it forced me to finally put together a resume, and the manager from The Cafe with whom I had the interview with said to try again in a month or so to see if anything opened up. The Cafe is a really sweet restaurant, and it was cool just to talk to the manager about the business. He and the other owners really emphasize good quality food that is in season. They buy milk and meat from the Sheeder farms in Guthrie, change up their menu every couple of weeks, everything is made from scratch, and they specifically designed the restaurant to give the customers a sense of privacy to actually talk to the people they are with without being distracted by others.

Yesterday I applied to Panera Bread and JC Penny. Hopefully something works out, but for right now, I'm going to enjoy the time off and start packing up the stuff in my dorm.

Have a great weekend!

VEISHA

Beautiful weather, no homework, concerts, regurgitators, lumberjack shows. . . it was an awesome VEISHA. For those of you who don't know, VEISHA is a celebration of Iowa State University. From 1922 to today, it has become one of the biggest student-run events in the country with traditions and a events as diverse as the university itself. Unfortunately, a lot of these events and the food do cost money, but there was a lot of free stuff and my friends and I had fun just walking around campus- something that was a little difficult last year due to snow.

The concerts were pretty sweet. Friday night was battle of the bands and Saturday was Cartel, Jamey Johnson, Straylight Run, and Ludo. They were held out in the molecular biology parking lot, and despite a bunch of warnings about thunderstorms, it only rained for a little bit during the parade- and that was no biggy because my friends and I left after an hour and a half. Parades are nice, but the parade wasn't even half way done, and there are only so many trucks or cars with signs and waving people I don't know that I can take.

We also went to a talent show and saw a comedian, fire pixies, lumberjack show, and regurgiator. Ugh that was kind of gross! He swallowed goldfish, rings, a lightbulb. . . the weirdest thing was smoke which he then puffed into a soap bubble five minutes after he swallowed it. It was kind of cool, but gross at the same time. The lumberjacks had wood chopping contests, pole climbing contests, and all sorts of stuff crazy manly men like to do in plaid and suspenders. My friend Julia and I agreed they probably live in the mountains somewhere and come down during VEISHA each year in the spring to look for women folk to take back with them. very "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" without the ballet scene.

At midnight on Sat., some of us partook in a mad run from the steps of Beardshear to the Four Seasons Fountain. The first five people won t-shirts so the beginning was a little violent with people getting run into and knocked down. I was told there were some naked guys in the back of the pack, but I never saw them. My grandpa always asked if I was running after boys or I was running away from them in xc; I guess, this was one of those times I was running away from them- fast! The fire pixies were these four girls and this guy that kind of looked like a pirate that danced around with fire. It was entrancing for a while- probably because it was after 2:00 in the morning, and then I just got nervous because the crazy pirate guy kept running into the audience waving around his fire chain. Ahh. .. I just did not trust him.

So in conclusion, VEISHA was fun. I didn't get to do everything, but I'll know a little better what to expect for next year. The best part was just being able to hang out with friends and take a break from school. Oh, and I also learned that I do not want to be a traveling entertainer. But if my plans of becoming a biological illustrator don't turn out as expected, I always have the option to marry one of the lumberjack guys.

Last weekend was busy with a FHP leadership retreat, Anders Formal, Global Gala, oh, and a drawing project. For my birthday, I was awoken at midnight from a bunch of friends to a cake and "Happy Birthday," and on Thursday night, Ryan showed up with flowers to surprise me since he has a track meet this weekend. I thought it was Claire so when I turned around I was so surprised that I stood up and hit my head on my lofted bed! I guess Claire and several others had known about it for several days and made sure I didn't go to dinner early or do something else. It was a nice birthday.

Below is the ink drawing I spent so much time on. It wasn't accepted into the Focus art show, but there will be plenty of other shows. For the next project, we are researching artists and then picking one to use their style and context to create something different. I chose Arthur Rackham, the illustrator of the original Peter Pan, second edition of Alice in Wonderland, Midsummer Night's Dream. . . An author described the illustrations as slightly grotesque but beautiful, creating a captivating visual for children and adults. I also found out that he influenced the characters from Pan's Labyrinth.

Spring Break

The pictures below are from Kalidaquiz- a 26 hour radio contest that is a BIG deal for Anders. A new question is given every six minutes (an example would be, "What was the sign outside of the hotel after Penelope escaped"), and there are various challenges (like crocheting a cat sweater in two hours), scavenger hunts (like finding a wedding dress and wearing it to the radio station), traveling scavenger hunts (this time it was to Chicago), and various other activities that brought our house closer together and realize sleep is for people that don't want to win. An example of this would be getting up at 4:30 in the morning to help put together a choreographed dance that we had to perform in front of the radio station judges. Ours turned out pretty sweet. I definitely incorporated some show choir stuff!

Whoo. . . it is spring break. Yay! And, no, I am not sitting on a warm, sandy beach right now, nor am I doing something really charitable like building houses with Habitat for Humanity. I am in Guthrie Center, and despite the fact that it is not one of the more exotic places to go during this time of year, it is nonetheless where I want to be. After half a semester of classes, tests, and art projects, I am ready for a break- even if this break includes studying for three exams and a Spanish presentation when I return to school. Oh, well. I just won't think about that right now as I enjoy this moment of being able to sit on a couch. A couch- not a desk chair, not a fold-up lawn chair- but a real couch. I have missed comfortable couches that don't smell like college boys. I've also missed beds that don't require a ladder and don't have a ceiling so close to my head that I have to hunch over when I wake up in the morning. There have been tons of little things I've missed from home. However, by the end of the break, I know there will be lots of little things from my life in Ames I will start to miss, and I will be ready to return, carrying with me with clean sheets and new socks.

Since I don't have a job to worry about this week, I've been helping out my parents, seeing some high school friends, and planning a birthday for someone turning 50 (don't worry, Mom; you don't look over 40.) This week, I also plan on going to some track practices to get ready for the Dam to Dam 20K in Des Moines this summer, and on Wednesday, I will be talking to the Spanish 3 class at GCHS about taking Spanish courses in college and give my presentation about Spanish cinema in preparation for when I go back to school.

Spring is in the air! I hope you can go out sometime and enjoy it.