Elizabeth Skene

Three things today.

1 – I brought my camera to work yesterday & took pictures of the archive. You can see them all at the RBSCL Facebook page [become a fan while you're at it!]. I’ll be taking pictures of the library & reading room soon.

Not posted is an ultra nerdy picture of me in the archive, wearing my UM archives shirt. #irule [hash tag revolution!]

2 – The band that Joel has been playing with for a few years now is releasing their new album this weekend, but you can listen to the entire thing online for free right here!

3 – I’m debating if I should read the Harry Potter series this summer. In 2003, I read book 5, but nothing since & I really don’t remember what happened in them. And I think I maybe saw the first 2 movies? Everyone seems pretty into them & it’d give me a boost in my 50 books in 2010 challenge. Thoughts??

This forth thing is a bonus, since I don’t want to un-alliterate the title of this post.

Book shelf porn! The archive view is best, for full screen action:

Now I’m going to go take a bath & continue reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Familiarity & longing:
these two themes have been rolling around in my mind a lot lately.

Does one follow the other?
Do I long for things that are familiar, or do I start longing for something else once things are familiar?

This week Andrea, a fellow Bulgaria Peace Corps Volunteer, posted a blog about following Sofia Daily Photo & the mix of feelings that surface. In many ways, I can relate – there’s something about seeing pictures of Bulgaria, reminiscing, reflecting & reliving that experience that I can’t describe. But is it only the sense of familiarity I had with the city of Sofia that makes me long for it?

Anyways, I’m learning to coexist with both feelings – the familiarity I have walking down my street, hailing a cab, buying bread, the longing I feel for green grass, swimming in a lake and laughing with my friends. I’m also learning that while I’m here I will long for home, and when I’m home I’ll long for Egypt, much the same way I find myself longing for Bulgaria.

I suppose what it comes down to is that I’m incredibly lucky to become so familiar with life in so many different places.

My apologizes for being so rambly & inarticulate today!

This week I started reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle & it’s really good! [400 pages so far in 2 days!] I recommend it to everyone, especially those who have ever shared a connection with a dog [although it’s much less recommended if you’re overseas, far, far away from your beloved pup...].

I guess I just wanted to share those thoughts.

Perhaps those of you who have lived overseas [or not] might have better descriptions/explanations/experiences you want to share?

On Sunday I took myself to the zoo & spend a lovely afternoon wandering around, looking at animals & feeling relaxed. The zoo was surprisingly large & pretty crowded, but I enjoyed watching all the families there. I didn’t see any other foreigners & I don’t think I attracted too much attention, so it was nice to feel inconspicuous for a while.

As always, many more pictures on my Flickr page.

My friends’ band, Natural Monuments, just came out with a few digital singles. Their first album, For Sanity’s Sake, quickly became one of my favorites & got a lot of play. It now brings back vivid memories of driving around Jackson, MI in the summer, windows down, singly loudly.

You can download the new songs for free from this website & check out some of their older stuff on their Myspace.

Here’s the press release they’ve written up:

On their first release since 2007′s For Sanity’s Sake EP, Natural Monuments have added a slight punk edge to their summery pop hooks. The drumming is still precise and quirky, but their guitars have upped the amount of chime and jangle ala R.E.M., The Feelies and The Byrds, creating a sound somewhere between classic Kinks and Slumberland Records bands

I’m lucky to have such talented friends!

Back in January, I made a challenge to myself – read 50 books in 2010. Excited, I made a Twitter account for reviews, complied a long “to read” list, began winter semester & promptly stopped reading.

Well, now that I’m here all alone in Egypt, I’ve started reading quite a bit – 5 books in the two & a half weeks I’ve been here so far! My total is up to 7, which is a long ways off track, but I’m hoping to have 25 books read by the end of July. It’s a lot, but I have a significant amount of time on my hands, so it shouldn’t be too hard.

Lastly, I’m not sure I ever put up pictures of my newest tattoos. A lovely birthday present from my husband, my half-sleeve is nearly complete. I added a skull, another book & some flowers. It truly has become an “information sleeve” – a card catalog representing libraries, a skull & book representing archives & birds from a book representing dissemination of information.

All of it’s been done by Frank at Depot Town Tattoo – I high recommend you check out the shop if you’re ever interested in getting tattooed, they’re all amazing artists & wonderful people!

Break time’s over – back to work!

xoxoxo

Today has been a bummer day – I didn’t get either of the funding sources I applied to, so it looks like I’ll be paying for my trip myself. I talked to the career advisor & she said that funding is very tight & extremely competitive this year & that she’ll let me know if she hears of anything, but it’s highly unlikely. I’m pretty disappointed. Oh well – I have my ticket, I’m going & it will be an amazing experience.

Last year sometime, Joel came back from walking Wes & said that someone had taken his picture. I didn’t think much of it until today when reading Mark Maynard’s update of The Ypsi Project. The project sounded interesting & I was intrigued if this had anything to do with Joel being photographed. After going through about 13 pages of really wonderful photographs of Ypsilanti and its citizens – there he [& Dan & Wes] was!

Erica [the lovely photographer behind the project], wants to have a gallery showing of about 100 of the portraits. I’m really excited about this opportunity [even though I’ll probably be out of the country for the show itself] & donated a little bit of money to help back the project. You can do the same [& even get some lovely gifts] on their Kickstarter page.

I really love this town & felt inspired to wear my Michigan necklace today. My grandmother got it for me as a Christmas gift this year from City Bird – a Detroit store that features Detroit-themed goods, as well as items from over 50 local designers and artists.

You may remember my 50 Books in 2010 project – one that I’ve fallen ridiculously behind in [the goal is pretty ambitious for a grad student], but I haven’t given up on it completely. Last week I finished reading The Little Book – an interesting time-traveling tale about family, love & Vienna. This weekend I picked up A Canticle for Leibowtiz & I’m over half finished. I also checked out some audiobooks to listen to while riding the bus & working. I’m starting with Gilead by Marilynn Robinson. My cousin-in-law Angie didn’t give it a great review, but I absolutely loved her first book Housekeeping, so I’m willing to give it a shot.

Here’s hoping the rest of the week is up hill from today. If the weather forecast is any indication, I think it will be!

Well, I’m officially famous.

Today I was reading the SI Informant – a blog dedicated to news around the School of Information. The top article is one about the ASB fundraising potluck we held on Friday night. The event was a big success [we raised over $370] & the recipe book includes almost 50 recipes.

Here’s a snapshot:

fame

While looking at the blog, I noticed that the girl in the header was wearing a shirt similar to one I have. And had long braided hair. Then I realized that it is me! The photo must have been taken at orientation last fall while we were meeting and doing activities with our 501 teams. On the left is Huang & on the right is Caitlin’s bag. I immediately emailed them to share the news!

Although I’ve probably mentioned it before, that team was the best group experience I’ve ever had. We worked together for the entire semester, consulting with a client, doing intereviews, sharing data & building models [including a 6 hour marathon session of affinity diagramming]. It was a lot of work, a lot of stress, but we worked together well and did a great job. In fact, we enjoyed working together so much that we’ve formed a trivia team this semester! One night a week we head to a local bar for trivia – last week we tied for ninth!

—————————————————————————————————-

Last summer there was a sign outside the Ladies Literary Club across our house. The sign simply said “Pie Lovers Unite” & I was so thrilled/confused by the sign that I took a picture of it with my phone.

Yesterday, while reading an article about Slow Food Huron Valley in the Ann Arbor Chronicle, I discovered that it is an event hosted by the organization. Here are the details

This year’s Pie Lovers Unite! is set for Saturday, July 24 at the Ladies’ Literary Club in Ypsilanti. Last year’s PLU featured pie prizes (including for the category of “most unusual” pie), pie haikus, pie charts and more. Admission is a pie.

Awesome!

—————————————————————————————————-

I love this picture & would love to replicate something like it in the diag tunnel where the SI entrance is. Beautiful!

photo by overthemoon

—————————————————————————————————-

The North American Bear Center has a “den cam” set up inside the den of a bear who will be giving birth very soon. A live video stream lets you peek in on Lily – so far I’ve only seen her sleep, but I can’t wait to see little baby bears! See for yourself!

—————————————————————————————————-

Today, in honor of Martin Luther King, there were no classes. This allowed by to stay home, reflect on the role of archives & records in the civil rights movement & do some programming. So far I’ve written a program that can do simple math, that can ask your name then welcomes you & another that calculates overtime pay. Before long I’ll be a computer programming whiz & be making all sorts of iPhone apps.

But really, I’m already famous, so who needs that?