Karen Wilson, Montana State Junior

Spring Semester!

2011-01-09T18:43:00.000-08:00

2011 is flying by already, and it's almost time to go back to school! My first day of the spring semester is in four days, on Thursday. As nerdy as this sounds, I'm pretty excited to go back to MSU. Because I studied abroad in Argentina for the fall semester, I haven't spent much time on campus in Bozeman since last May. Also because I studied abroad, I've been done with my fall semester since November 4, which has been awesome, I'm not going to lie. Sacrificing half of my summer to go to Argentina in June was definitely worth it, and I have been able to fulfill my lifelong dream of being a ski bum (although to clarify, I snowboard).

Now that school is starting again, I won't be able to be as much of a bum. I'm taking 15 credits this semester with a Tuesday/Thursday schedule and working at Big Sky four days a week, every Friday—Monday. This means my Tuesdays and Thursdays consist of four classes in a row from 8 am to 2 pm, and on Tuesdays I have a bonus night class from 5-8 pm. Wednesday will be my only precious free day, and I will of course go snowboarding.

Despite my intense schedule, I'm glad I'm going back to school. I love learning, and I like reading, but I have a tendency to not read unless I have to for school, and the teachers I have had at MSU have provided me with wisdom and insight I could not get anywhere else. Also, let's not forget the social aspect of school. Big Sky is small, and having a reason to go to Bozeman and see different people will be refreshing, especially all of my awesome friends who will let me sleep on their couches whenever I need to.

Enjoy the rest of the winter break! Happy New Year!

Skiing at Big Sky!

2010-12-01T18:56:00.000-08:00

Big Sky opened on Thanksgiving and life up here has been amazing ever since! I got to snowboard opening day, then I had to work the next 4 days, and now it's my second day in a row off. My work schedule as a lifty is Friday-Monday, so I get to snowboard on my days off when nobody is here during the week, which is so nice! Here are some pictures.

Lone Mountain Trail, the road to Big Sky, as viewed from Andesite Mountain.

The view from my bedroom window on a clear day - Lone Peak.

Riding up Swiftcurrent (aka "Swifty"), the main high-speed quad that takes you up Lone Mountain.

Riding up Swifty with Lone Peak in the background.

I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving break and got to play in the snow! I'm super excited for the rest of the winter, it's been an awesome start!

Life in Big Sky

2010-11-21T13:56:00.000-08:00

I've been in Montana for a week now, and I'm still trying to get my life together. I have an apartment in Big Sky where I live with my sister, but the vast majority of my household possessions are in a storage unit halfway between Bozeman and Four Corners. Furthermore, my car is being shipped from Alaska and hasn't arrived yet, so I am constricted to bumming rides and the Skyline bus, which would be great if it wasn't in the off-season schedule, meaning there are only two buses a day and it doesn't stop on campus, only at the mall and Wal-mart in Bozeman.

However, life couldn't be better considering the situation. I have awesome friends here who have helped me out with rides, places to stay, food, and fun times. I started work training as a Lift Operator at Big Sky on Monday, and have met some cool people doing that. The mountain officially opens Thursday, on Thanksgiving, and I have the day off! I am so excited to get a full day of snowboarding in!!! Plus, the Skyline bus will have a better schedule at that point, meaning I might be able to catch it to go to my friends' house in Bozeman for Thanksgiving dinner. If not, I've already been invited by a co-worker to come to their place in Big Sky if I have nowhere to go.

Big Sky in the off-season is, to say the least, very relaxed. There is literally nothing to do, especially when you don't have a car. I live in the mountain village, which is nice because I can walk to work, but other than that I am basically stranded there. The shuttle bus that goes around the Big Sky area isn't running because it's the off-season, so I can't even go to the Meadow, where there is a little more infrastructure. So, I'm going to have to make some good friends or come up with a hobby that I can do after the mountain closes, neither of which will be a problem I'm sure.

Life will be amazing when the mountain opens! I will keep you posted as often as my internet access allows.

Hello Montana!

2010-11-14T01:46:00.000-08:00

In approximately five hours, I will be on a plane. My brief "vacation" to my hometown of Anchorage, Alaska, is about to come to an end, and I will be on my way to Montana once again!

I haven't been in Montana since I left at the end of May, so I'm really excited to return! It is always nice to come back to friends and familiar places, and of course the natural beauty of Montana. Even better, I don't have to worry about school until spring semester, so I have a good two months to get settled in to my new apartment and new job. I start training as a lifty at Big Sky on Monday, and the season starts the following Thursday (Thanksgiving). As most of my life (aka all of my snowboarding gear) is in a 5 x 10 storage unit somewhere between Bozeman and Four Corners right now, I'm going to have to figure my life out pretty quickly. But, I am excited to have my own place once again, and to live with my sister, who graduated from Colorado State last year and decided being a ski bum in Montana for a winter didn't sound like such a bad idea (it was my idea, of course).

So tomorrow I will be in Bozeman once again. If I don't update for a while, you know where I am. That is, Bozeman or Big Sky or somewhere in between frantically trying to get my life together.

What I am going to miss about Buenos Aires.

2010-11-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

Today was my last day of class! I have officially survived Study Abroad. I got good grades in all of my classes and now I am done!

I am leaving BA tomorrow night and going home to Alaska to visit my family for a week before I return to Montana. I have a job at Big Sky for the winter, and my sister has a job at Moonlight Basin, so we are going to live in a two bedroom apartment in Big Sky starting November 15. I'm excited!!!

Naturally, all transitional times have pros and cons. I can't say I'm sad to miss the hottest time of year in Buenos Aires (it's already been super hot and humid for several weeks, I'm surprised I'm still alive), but there are some cultural differences that I have come to appreciate, people I have met, and places I have gone that I am going to miss.

Things I'll miss about BA:

1. Agua con gas [addicting!!]

2. Liria Evangelista, my Latin American Literature teacher...she inspired me in so many ways!

3. "El Boulder," the climbing gym I started going to last week (better late than never!)

4. The people at El Boulder who have taught me more about climbing, helped me, and shared their snacks.

5. The bus lines 29 and 152 (sounds weird, but you develop a love for the buses that always take you home).

6. My host family, especially my caring and understanding host mom.

7. Parque Las Heras, which is three blocks away from my host family's house and always a chill spot.

8. Ridiculously cheap (and always organic) fresh fruit and vegetables.

9. The lady at the laundromat I go to who learned how to spell my name correctly and recognizes me every time.

10. The man at the bookstore a few blocks from my house who also recognizes me and greets me every time I come in.

11. The friends I have made that helped me survive every class.

12. The ability to sleep in as late as I want every day (both a gift and a curse).

13. The opportunity to practice Spanish every day! Speaking, reading, writing, and listening.

I would be lying if I said every moment here has been amazing; study abroad has its ups and downs. But every moment is worthwhile in the end and I mean it when I say that I have emerged as a better person. My main reason to come here was to learn Spanish, but I have learned a lot about myself and about life. I truly think that everybody should have an experience like this and not stay inside a bubble their whole life. Get out of your comfort zone! You only regret the things in life you didn't do.

Transportation.

2010-11-03T06:48:00.000-07:00

Living in Buenos Aires has given me a new perspective on the concept of transportation.

I have had a car since I was 16 years old, and I loved driving it. When I moved to Bozeman for college my freshman year, I felt like my life was missing something without my car, and before my first semester ended I had a car again.

But as life goes on, I realize that it is much better without a car.

In Bozeman I try to only drive when absolutely necessary. I bike as much as I can, and because Bozeman is pretty small, even my friends who lived "far away" from me last year were less than a 20 minute bike away. I always took the bus to Big Sky and only drove the 10 blocks from my house to the bus stop last year because I didn't want to haul all of my snowboarding gear that far in the snow.

Now that I have lived in Buenos Aires almost 5 months without a car, I have decided I do not miss it at all. The public transportation here is very efficient, easy to use once you get used to it, and much more relaxing than driving yourself (people drive crazily here! Not to mention the immense amount of traffic in a big city like this).

Another thing I have gotten very used to is walking long distances. I have mentioned previously that just wandering around the city is a good way to get to know it but can get tedious, but if I have a legitimate destination I don't mind walking an hour to get there. In fact, an hour is nothing in the scheme of things, it's a good time to listen to some music and reflect on life, do some people watching and city observing, and get a little bit of exercise while you're at it.

Because I usually bike everywhere in Bozeman, I never took the time to walk places, because biking is far more efficient. But, when I get back I'm going to start walking more if I have time.

In the past week I have started going to a climbing gym every day that is located about an hour walk from my house. It's open until 10:00 pm, and the past few nights I have stayed basically until it closes and then walked home. When I first got here, I was afraid to go outside when it was dark out, but in reality Buenos Aires is a very safe city—don't believe the urban myths! Walking home at 10:30 pm I see tons of people outside. Especially now that it's summer and warm even late at night, there are pedestrians of every variety, people going running, people hanging out in public spaces, and people sitting outside eating dinner at restaurants with outdoor seating (dinner time is late here!). It's very safe, especially if you stick to the main roads. After climbing, it's a good way to wind down and relax while bumping some good music.

The majority of people who live in Buenos Aires don't have cars. For them, as for me, time in transport is time to relax. It's nice to sit on a bus and not have to worry about driving, and it's nice to take the time to walk and see what you're passing instead of speeding by as quickly as possible. Life without a car is simple. Live simply.

Final Essay for Literatura Latinoamericana

2010-11-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

This is my last week of class, so yesterday was pretty intense. I had two final exams in my two literature classes, and a paper due in Latin American Literature. Being the procrastinator I am, I didn't start the paper until Sunday night, stayed up until 3:30 am writing it, was only about 2/3 done, and planned on waking up early to finish it and then study for my exams. I failed to wake up early, got up at 10:30, and finished the essay around 1:30, leaving me very little time to study as I had class at 4:00. However, I am very happy with the essay. It's about 6 pages long, and I wrote it about Roberto Bolaño's novel Nocturno de Chile and how it expresses the "collective memory" of Chile during their time of political unrest in the 1970's and '80's.

If you are literate in Spanish or just want to get an idea of what you can do after living in a Spanish-speaking country for 4 months, you should check it out. I copied and pasted it below because I'm so proud of it, hah. When I came here, I had only taken two semesters of Spanish in my life (101 and 102 last year at MSU) and was in no way literate in Spanish, nor could I even write a page without looking up 20 words and phrases and how to conjugate every verb. I still have to look up words and phrases when I write in Spanish, but it is a lot easier for me now! I am also literate enough to read books like Nocturno de Chile without looking up too many words. It's amazing how much you can learn while studying abroad...

Nocturno de Chile y la Memoria Colectiva de Literatura

La literatura latinoamericana es único en el mundo no sólo por el hecho que es “latinoamericana,” sino por lo que significa esta adjetiva. La “América Latina” actual surgió después de una historia complicada y llena de conquista, conflicto, tragedia, y lucha hegemónica. Por eso, las obras que podemos llamar “literatura latinoamericana” están escritos por autores quienes vivieron esta historia, y su parte de la historia está dentro de su literatura. Puede estar en una manera obvia o críptica, pero sí o sí está allí; en América Latina, la literatura y la historia están inextricable más que en la literatura más conocido del resto del mundo.

La que hace este fenómeno posible es la memoria, la que tiene cada autor latinoamericano, la que está latinoamericana en sí misma, y la que está parte de la historia. De hecho, la combinación de todas las memorias latinoamericanas forma la historia latinoamericana, y todas las obras escritas de estas memorias forma la historia latinoamericana como el resto del mundo la conoce. Entonces, es posible llamar esta historia “la memoria colectiva,” una cosa compartida porque “las memorias individuales están siempre enmarcadas socialmente” (Jelín 20). Es claro que toda América Latina no tiene la misma historia, pero cuando hablamos de un país durante un tiempo específico, es más fácil imaginar “la memoria colectiva.” Está hecho de todas las memorias individuales, que pueden manifestarse en “testimonios,” la forma más conocido de contar la historia de un individuo. Pero cómo se manifiesta “la memoria colectiva” es más complicada; si una obra se trata de toda la historia compartida no se puede relatarla con sólo un narrador sin llamarla ficción.

En su texto “¿De qué hablamos cuando hablamos de memorias?” Elizabeth Jelín describe la idea de “la memoria colectiva” como cosa propia de cada persona, porque “uno no recuerda solo sino con la ayuda de los recuerdos de otros y con los códigos culturales compartidos, aun cuando las memorias personales son únicas y singulares…toda memoria es una reconstrucción más que un recuerdo” (20-21). Dicho así, la historia escrito se trata de la misma cosa de que se trata “la memoria colectiva;” son lo mismo. Un libro de historia trata de reconstruir la historia específica de un grupo de gente en un lugar durante un tiempo en el pasado; la memoria colectiva hace lo mismo, pero con la dimensión adicional de la punta de vista humana. A pesar de que libros de historia están escritos por seres humanos, no están escritos en primera persona; la memoria colectiva sí está en primera persona, la primera persona de cada persona que tiene parte de la historia.

Para hacer una obra de la memoria colectiva en primera persona usando sólo un narrador, es necesario escribirla como ficción. Haciendo esto, es posible hablar de los aspectos más importantes de la memoria y su historia y ponerlos visto; “toda narrativa del pasado implica una selección,” y la memoria colectiva tiene más cosas que la memoria de solo una persona de que se puede seleccionar (Jelín 29). Una obra que se trata de esto no se puede llamarse un libro de historia, aunque lo es.

La memoria de un evento trágico sufre tanta de la dificultad de relatarse con complejidad como del temor de olvidarse. En la novela Nocturno de Chile por Roberto Bolaño, se trata de este problema en Chile después del presidencia de Allende, el golpe de estado de 1973 y la dictadura de Pinochet que siguió. La novela es una obra de ficción, pero la historia a que se refiere es la verdadera, y a través del narrador, Sebastián Urrutia Lacroix, la novela resalta como se sobrevive después de tanta trauma política y personal.

En las primeras dos páginas de Nocturno de Chile, Bolaño, mediante Sebastián, saca los temas más importante de la construcción de la memoria del tiempo de tragedia. Empieza “Ahora me muero, pero tengo muchas cosas que decir todavía” (11). Sebastián tiene el temor de olvidar su historia, la que por cualquier razón no ha dicho “todavía” pero que quiere contar antes de morir. Puede tener algunas razones para este deseo, que Jolin dice “surge de la ansiedad y aun la angustia que genera la posibilidad del olvido” (18). Esta posibilidad de olvido no es del narrador, sino de la memoria colectiva; “es el peso relativo del contexto social y de lo individual en los procesos de memoria,” el sentimiento del narrador que si no comparte su memoria antes de morirse, sus compañeros de memoria se va a perder algo importante de su historia compartida.

Otra tema de la memoria que resalta Bolaño en Nocturno de Chile es el tema del silencio, lo que Jelín llama “la contracara del olvido” (31). Hablar de silencio aquí se refiere a los silencios después de un evento trágico, la incapacidad de repetir lo que pasó por varios razones, incluso los silencios “impuestos por temor” o los voluntarios “para cuidar a los otros.” Pero también es posible que una permanezca silente por no tener una audiencia para escuchar su memoria-historia, que tiene que ver con el sentimiento de urgencia de contar la dicha memoria-historia antes de que su portador se muera. Sebastián, el narrador de Bolaño, se lo describe: “Uno tiene la obligación moral de ser responsable de sus actos y también de sus palabras e incluso de sus silencios…así que mucho cuidado con los silencios” (11). Durante la novela, el narrador permanece silente en muchas situaciones, y también nota los silencios que se encontró. Pero el silencio más fuerte del texto es lo que no está escrito. Nunca queda claro las cosas que Sebastián tiene que decir “todavía.” Y eso también es una función de la memoria de las experiencias traumáticas. Si bien “toda narrativa del pasado implica una selección,” no toda de la selección está hecho voluntariamente:

“Una de las características de las experiencias traumáticas es la masividad del impacto que provocan, creando un hueco en la capacidad de ‘ser hablado’ o contado. Se provoca un agujero en la capacidad de representación psíquica. Faltan las palabras, faltan los recuerdos. La memoria queda desarticulada y sólo aparecen huellas dolorosas, patologías y silencios.” (Jelín 36).

A través de su narrador Sebastián, Bolaño resalta este fenómeno de tener el deseo de contar algo, pero de no poder hacerlo por un problema básicamente sin solución. La represión de la memoria por razones de seguridad o de miedo o de no tener una audiencia se hace permanente después de un tiempo, y impide el proceso de mejorar la situación entera: la del portador de la memoria, la de sus compañeros de memoria, y la de su historia compartido.

El silencio compartido más inquietante del texto que por suerte Sebastián tiene esfuerzo de contar muchos años después es lo que pasó en la casa de María Canales, que invitaba a los intelectuales chilenos a su casa para “soirées” durante un tiempo en que no había muchos lugares en que los intelectuales podrían congregar. Lo que se inquieta es que el esposo de María Canales era “uno de los principales agentes de la DINA y que usaba su casa como centro de interrogatorios.” Sebastián refleja sobre el hecho que esto pudo pasar en silencio, que por un lado supuestamente nadie supo que estaba pasando, pero por otro lado alguien descubrió lo que “Jimmy” hizo una noche, pero todavía nadie dijo nada: “¿Por qué nadie, en su momento, dijo nada? La respuesta era sencilla: porque tuvo miedo, porque tuvieron miedo” (142). El silencio impuesto por miedo perturba la historia; en este caso tiene un impacto inmenso en la historia por el hecho que durante un tiempo en que ya era difícil seguir con la vida normal, uno de los únicos escapas era una casa de interrogatorios. Saber eso hierva la herida de vivir en aquello tiempo aún más, y saberlo pero quedarse mudo es aún peor.

En Nocturno de Chile, Sebastián cree que va a morir porque tiene una fiebre. Esto sirve para racionalizar la construcción extraño de la novela, que no tiene capítulos ni párrafos y que cambia de tema la mayoría del tiempo sin razón clara. Sebastián dice que tiene algo para decir, pero lo que dice es un fluir de conciencia, de memorias a veces no relacionadas, y con referencias a un “joven envejecido” que aparece en el presente pero cuyo identidad no es cierto. Esta “estructura” se puede explicar por la función de la memoria, como describe Gillis, “las identidades y las memorias no son cosas sobre las que pensamos, sino cosas con las que pensamos” (Jelín 25). Es claro que pese de su experiencia vasta de la vida, Sebastián no está seguro de su identidad y no puede contar su memoria en una manera fácil de entender. En una de las últimas páginas del libro, Sebastián admite su inseguridad de identidad: “¿soy yo el joven envejecido? ¿Esto es el verdadero, el gran terror, ser yo el joven envejecido que grita sin que nadie lo escuche?” (149-150). Surge, al final, la confesión de Sebastián de tener miedo de no tener audiencia para su memoria, de ser “el joven envejecido,” que puede ser Sebastián durante el tiempo de la memoria que quiere contar pero no puede.

La manera críptica de Sebastián de contar su memoria, a veces contando conversaciones con amigos, a veces contando historias que sus amigos contó a él, a veces contando lo que estaba leyendo o pensando cuando algo pasó, y sobre todo contando muy poco de la historia política de Chile durante su época, es exactamente “el peso relativo del contexto social y de lo individual en los procesos de memoria” (Jelín 20). A través de su narración enfermizo, lo que Sebastián está contando es parte de “la memoria colectiva,” con contexto individual y social, porque “la realidad social es compleja, contradictoria, llena de tensiones y conflictos. La memoria no es una excepción” (Jelín 37). Hay que ser un ser humano para contar historia, y la verdad es que historia no siempre es fácil de vivir ni entender, y al contarla nada de eso cambia. Una imagen verdadera de la situación de Chile durante los años ’70 no se puede sacar de un libro histórico, pero mediante un testimonio la imagen es más claro, y la novela de Bolaño se trata de un testimonio incompleto pero fuerte que crea una imagen casi roto y críptico cuyo punto no queda muy claro. Sin embargo, parece incompleto y poco claro porque eso es exactamente de que se trata, una historia trastornada que sólo se puede explicar así.

Al fin de la novela, una frase repite: “Así se hace la literatura.” Aparece después de la historia que Sebastián cuenta, cuando visita María Canales en su casa que no más es una casa de interrogatorios y Chile es supuestamente en paz, pero todavía queda mucha para arreglar. Pensando en eso, con fiebre en su cama apoyado en un codo, Sebastián dice:

“Desde hace mucho tiempo el joven envejecido guarda silencio. Ya no despotrica contra mí ni contra los escritores. ¿Tiene esto solución? Así se hace la literatura en Chile, así se hace la gran literatura de Occidente…Poco puede uno solo contra la historia. El joven envejecido siempre ha estado solo y yo siempre he estado con la historia.” (148)

El joven envejecido puede ser Sebastián, puede ser Chile, o puede ser la memoria colectiva chilena. “Poco puede uno solo contra la historia,” y por eso es necesario tener una memoria colectiva porque “en resumen, la ‘experiencia’ es vivida subjetivamente y es culturalmente compartida y compartible” (Jelín 37). Al escribir la novela Nocturno de Chile, Roberto Bolaño creó lo que Jelín llama un “vehículo de la memoria” que sirve para contar parte de la memoria colectiva de Chile, confusa, trastornada, y sobreviviendo. Así se hace la literatura.

Living with a Host Family/Life with Argentines

2010-10-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

It is pretty much assumed that if you study abroad, you live with a host family. It's a given. You decide to study abroad and you're asked, "You're living with a host family, right? Good. It's better that way." I'm not even sure if it was a choice for me, although I think it was. I just went along with it, and I've been living with an Argentine host family since mid-June.

My host family is very nice. They only consist of my host mom, about the same age as my real mom, and my host sister, who's 22, the same age as my real sister. Coincidence? Who knows. It is nice though, as I have the freedom to come and go as I please and do whatever I want.

However, living with a host family, not to mention in a foreign country, is somewhat of a lifestyle shock after being in college for two years. When I was a freshman, I lived in Roskie, and when I was a sophomore, I lived in a house with 3 other roommates. After having such freedom for two years, and friends around me at all times, it is weird living with an Argentine family. I can't really invite people over to my house to hang out because it's not my house. I can't go to other people's houses to hang out because they live with host families too. This makes having a social life ridiculously difficult, or ridiculously expensive. Hanging out with people takes a lot of effort here. First you must come up with an idea of something people want to do. Then make sure people can come. Then make sure whatever it is doesn't involve spending too much money, because we're all broke college kids. But if you can't hang out at somebody's house, you basically have to spend money, whether it be at the bar or at a restaurant or in transit or doing any activity, everything has a price.

Along with the social life difficulties are the difficulties of adhering to your host family's schedule. In a host family, you get breakfast and dinner included. You pay for it, so you want to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, Argentines aren't big on breakfast, and they think that Americans love corn flakes. My "included breakfast" consists of corn flakes and coffee. I do not like corn flakes, so I stopped eating those a while ago and just buy my own breakfast food. Also, Argentines eat dinner extremely late. I mean ridiculously late. On Thursday I ate dinner with my host mom at 10:00 pm. Honestly, I hate that schedule. It's extremely unhealthy. I like to eat a big breakfast, a smaller lunch, and a smaller dinner, and I don't like eating anything past 7 or 8 at night. Argentines are the opposite. They eat their entire calorie intake for the day at dinner, which happens between 8:30 and 10:00 depending on the night, and then they go to sleep. I can't sleep immediately after eating. I don't even want to eat at that point. In order to be hungry at dinner time, I basically have to starve all day, which makes me incapable of doing anything productive, which I don't like either. But, I paid for dinner, I should eat it. It's a vicious cycle. I am very glad it's almost over.

This is just one more reason it's easy to gain weight while studying abroad. If you live with a host family, you can't make your own dietary choices. If you're like me and are usually hungry for dinner around 6 or 7, and you have to eat a snack to tide you over for dinner, you end up eating an entire meal you could probably do without.

But, there are pros and cons to everything. My host family is really nice, and I'm glad I live with them. They are good to practice my Spanish with and through them I have definitely been able to experience Argentine culture firsthand.

Of course, if you live with anybody for a long enough period of time, they are going to get on your nerves. It's been over 4 months, so clearly some things have started to bother me, like the late dinner time. But, as all things come to an end, I think I'll survive my last week with my host family, and I'll miss them when I leave.

Keeping Busy in a Foreign Country

2010-10-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

Living in a foreign country for an extended period of time is quite an interesting experience. Obviously.

It starts out as a big mystery. You have to figure out everything, from where to go and how to get there to how to speak the language well enough that if you get lost or confused, you can ask somebody for help. It is at first like an extended vacation. Everything is new and exciting, there is so much to explore!

Then, you start to figure all of that out. You visit all of the main attractions, you figure out how to speak and understand the language, you eat all of the new and "exotic" foods. It is no longer vacation, it is your life. At this point, walking around like a tourist is no longer appealing. At least, not for me. At this point, I am not a tourist in this city. I live here. So I want to spend my time doing more meaningful things than walking around with a camera.

Then there is the nightlife. For many Americans who come to this city, the nightlife is the main attraction. In Argentina, as in every country in the world except for the United States, the drinking age is 18. Buenos Aires is full of nightclubs, they get a lot of big name musicians and DJs here, and it is easy to get sucked into the vicious cycle of going out every night, staying at the club until it closes around 5 or 6 am, sleeping all day, then going back and doing it all over again. I am not going to lie, I have gone to my fair share of clubs while I have been here. Ever since I was a freshman in college and went to my first Pretty Lights concert, I have loved dancing to electronic music, and the electronic scene is huge here. Although, unfortunately, the music is not nearly as good as Pretty Lights most of the time. But after a while, like walking around with a camera, going to clubs gets old too. It's the worst feeling when you wake up and the sun is setting and you realize you slept through all of the daylight. I like to be outside in the sun, so I decided the nightlife here is not for me. The clubs don't start getting good here until around 2 or 3 am, and then you are compelled to stay until 5 or 6 am (or even 7, depending on the club), and as I said, it's a vicious cycle.

So, I stopped going to clubs. I stopped walking around like a tourist. And I was faced with the problem: what do I do now?

Of course, this entire time I have had to go to class. They don't call it "Study Abroad" for nothing. But, I am taking 4 classes which are each 2 days a week for an hour and a half. So, 4 days out of the week I have class for 3 hours a day. That leaves 3 whole days of nothing and a lot of free time on the days I do have class.

Basically, I had to get a hobby. I started going swimming at the pool by my university, I started going running in the park. Even doing that I was left with a lot of free time. So finally, I worked up my nerve and went to a climbing gym.

I brought my climbing shoes here thinking it was a good idea, but I had just bought them before I left for Argentina and I have never really been a climber, so the idea of starting to climb in a foreign country was, to say the least, intimidating. I checked out 2 different gyms in July-ish, but I wasn't motivated to return. But this Thursday, I decided to go for it again. I went to the gym close to my university and realized that despite running and swimming, I am not in good shape. I think the immense amount of free time in which I don't do much at all has something to do with this. So, I went climbing again yesterday and I realized it is a really good way to utilize my free time while being active. It's too easy to get lazy, become inactive, and gain weight while studying abroad. Climbing doesn't seem like an extremely active sport, but it definitely is. I have so little upper body muscle that I can't even climb the bouldering walls at the gym (which are all slanted inwards, making it more difficult), I have just been trying to build muscle traversing from one end of the wall to the other.

I wish I would have started doing this three months ago, but you live and learn. This isn't an extended vacation, this is my life! Now I only have 9 days left in Buenos Aires and I'm just figuring out how to live a healthy life here.

You live and learn.

Only 2 more weeks of class?!

2010-10-22T18:56:00.000-07:00

The time has been flying by here in Argentina. My mom came to visit me two weeks ago and we went on a 10-day trip to the Patagonia area, including Parque Nacional Torres del Paine in Chile and Parque Nacional Los Glaciares in Argentina, and we managed to get five good days of hiking in. It was definitely rejuvenating to get away from the city for a while.

We got back Sunday and my mom left Monday and after not studying or having class for a week, I realized I have a lot of work to do! There are only two weeks left in the semester. One week of normal class, and another week of mainly test-taking, although with a normal class schedule. Not exactly like "Dead Week" and "Finals Week" at MSU but I am feeling just as much pressure!

First of all, I have to do a final project for my Argentine Culture class that is due this Tuesday. It can be in any form and about anything, but I am choosing to do mine in paper format, so it has to be 10 pages long. In Spanish. Sounds terrible, I know, why did I choose to write a paper? My saving grace is that I'm including pictures. I'm already four pages in, so I'm feeling pretty good about it. But as with any project, I'm a little nervous about it because I didn't get a chance to talk to my professor about it, and I chose to write it about the impact on Argentina's culture of the Argentine desaparecidos (disappeared people) during the military dictatorship of 1976-1982, but with repercussions starting in 1969 until 1983. My idea was inspired by the Parque de la Memoria, if you're interested you should read into it.

Secondly, I have to write a 5-7 page paper for my Latin American Literature class. It's not due until the last week of class, two Mondays from now, and frankly I have no idea what I am going to write it about. It, too, can be about anything I want, basically anything we've read in class or another work (or other works) by the same authors we've read, or something by another Latin American author we haven't read anything by, with the teacher's approval. It's basically your standard literature class term paper, and it needs to be supplemented by two articles of literary criticism about the book/short story/poem/whatever the paper is about. Which I can't tell you, because I don't know. I haven't finished reading the last book we were assigned for that class yet, but I plan on finishing it this weekend and if I'm really ambitious I might decide to write my final paper on that. It's called "Nocturno de Chile" by Roberto Bolaño. It's a pretty confusing book to read; it has no chapters or even paragraphs, it's basically one big monologue narrated by an old man with a fever laying in bed reflecting on his life and feeling guilty about something. It supposedly has to do with the conflict in Chile during the dictatorship of Pinochet, who was Chile's dictator between 1973-1990 and was supported by the United States for either our own selfish reasons or our ignorance of what was going on while no other country in the world supported him.

The more I am here, the more I realize how little I know about the history of other countries in the world.

I am happy that now my reading comprehension in Spanish is good enough that I can read such a complex book, even though it's definitely slow reading and I have to re-read pretty much every page. But I think that is more due to the complex nature of the book than my reading comprehension.

So if I don't update for a couple of weeks, you know what I'm doing.

Happy semester!

More BA photography.

2010-09-21T18:36:00.000-07:00

Coolest work of art I've ever seen, made up of pillars. In the "Parque de la Memoria."

Some pescadores (fishermen) on the coast of the Rio de la Plata in Buenos Aires.

Aeroparque Jorge Newbery. If you fly to Buenos Aires, I recommend that you land here.

Sweet clock.

This is why I love Buenos Aires.

2010-09-19T16:19:00.000-07:00

I took this video while walking through a park in Buenos Aires today:

That's right. Dance aerobics! They do it every weekend. Awesome.

Mid-Terms

2010-09-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

If you're an MSU student, you're probably just getting into the swing of the semester, figuring out your classes and your teachers.

I, on the other hand, am taking mid-terms, or "examenes parciales" as they are called en español, and it is not enjoyable. Especially because the way most classes work here, the mid-term counts for 20-30% of your grade. I suppose it isn't too different from the way a lot of MSU classes work; there isn't a lot of graded homework, just a few papers, the mid-term, and the final. But, when everything is in Spanish, it seems a lot worse.

Also, the grading system here is not the same as in the United States. Instead of an A-F letter system, they use a 1-10 number system, with 1 being the absolute worst and 10 the absolute best. I'm pretty sure I need a 6 or higher to get credit for my classes, and thankfully they go on my transcript as "Pass" or "Fail" so I don't have to stress too much about my GPA getting lower because of a weird grade transfer.

Today marks my 3 month anniversary in Argentina. I have to say, although at times I wonder why I even try to speak Spanish, I have gotten far better at it over the past 3 months. It's hard to notice on a daily basis, but every week gets better and now I realize that I am taking classes in which only Spanish is spoken and I just took two midterms for two literature classes in which I only wrote in Spanish, and I'm feeling good about it. I didn't even bring my dictionary to the midterms, because looking up words wastes time and I know enough Spanish that I can communicate what I want to, and when I'm reading I can figure out what words mean from the context, instead of looking every third word up like I was at the beginning of the semester.

Basically, living in Argentina has been worth every minute!

What it's like to study abroad.

2010-09-07T18:35:00.001-07:00

I have written many things on this blog, related to fun events, travels, and a little school here and there (because isn't that the way life goes? ha, ha). But I have not really described what it is like to study abroad. So here it is:

It's like the first semester of college all over again, but this time you're surrounded by people speaking a foreign language and you're living with a family of strangers (aka host family). Sounds fun, right?

But after the initial shock, the people of the family you live with are not strangers. They are concerned for your well-being, but they give you freedom to come and go as you please. They find out which foods you like and feed them to you. They teach you interesting tidbits about the culture and the language. They become your family, your extended family that lives abroad.

The language takes some getting used to, but all you have to do is give it time and keep trying. Every day I learn more, every week I notice I am speaking better Spanish than the week before. It's amazing. I almost wish I could stay here a whole year to really get fluent, but Bozeman is calling me...

Before I left for Argentina, at the Study Abroad Orientation, I kept hearing "keep your sense of humor." I thought, "Great advice. How am I going to do that when I have no idea what is going on?" But now, three months after my arrival, I understand. Your sense of humor is all in your head, in your imagination, in your way of looking at things. I now understand enough Spanish that I can laugh at people's jokes, but even more than that I feel comfortable and happy enough here that I can step back, look at a situation, and laugh. I can sit on the Subte (subway) listening to music and people watching, and laugh. And it's all very entertaining.

At this point, the less English I hear and speak every day, the better.

Every move has an adjustment period. New place, new people, new way of life, and in the case of Study Abroad, new language. Adjusting takes time. But when you can allow yourself to feel comfortable and confident doing what you're doing, life is awesome.

And when all else fails, you always have your sense of humor.

Dash Berlin in BA

2010-09-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

As the concert-going fanatic I am, I have recently started trying harder to get into the music scene in Buenos Aires. There is literally ALWAYS something going on, every night of the week. Sometimes you have to prioritize (especially when you're in school). But, by far the best show I have been to in a long time was last Friday at Club Pacha, when I saw Dash Berlin, a DJ from the Netherlands. I have been somewhat obsessed with European electronic/trance music for the past four months or so, so it was basically a dream come true.

As is the Argentine way, Dash Berlin didn't start playing until around 3 a.m. (there was other music before, obviously), and he kept playing until 7:15 a.m. When I finally left, it was light outside...and that's how it is in Buenos Aires. It was, to say the least, amazing. I took some videos but my repeated attempts to upload them have failed, so I'll leave you with this YouTube video:

It's Move In Day!

2010-08-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

Today was the official "Move in Day" in the dorms for the fall semester. Reading the online article about it in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle made me slightly nostalgic for my own freshman year. Two years ago, at this time, I was moving into Roskie Hall, Room 424. Now, I'm in Buenos Aires, Argentina, already a month into the semester.

Oh, how times have changed.

I had some of the most fun times of my life in Roskie, and that was just the beginning of how going to MSU changed my life. It's amazing how many opportunities going to college opens up, especially moving to a different state to go to college. It's when you finally get to decide what you do with every second of your time. There are so many sports to play, clubs to join, community service opportunities, and ...there's STUDY ABROAD!

Going to college is only the first step in an exciting future. I would never be here right now if it weren't for my decision to go to MSU. Study abroad is truly the best way to experience another culture and learn another language (all for a reasonable price!), and coming here was probably the second best decision I ever made...the first being the decision to go to MSU!

Despite the fact that I miss Bozeman more than anything, I couldn't have chosen a better time to study abroad. "Absence makes the heart grow stronger" is definitely true. But, thanks to my study abroad schedule, I'll be done with the semester and back in Bozeman November 14, just in time for the ski season to start...and to start my job at Big Sky! Because I'm studying abroad and my semester ends at the beginning of November, I was able to get a job at Big Sky and I'll have two months of freedom to start the season, in my favorite place on earth, MONTANA.

Could life get better than this?

BA Photography

2010-08-25T17:48:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated in a while, but I have been taking some city pictures of Buenos Aires which I figured I'd post for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Green Film Festival in Buenos Aires

2010-08-13T09:04:00.001-07:00

This weekend the Cinemark movie theatre which is a block away from my apartment in Buenos Aires is hosting the "Green Film Festival" [literally...they don't translate it]. It's an international film festival consisting of ten environmentally-conscious movies.

I love the environment, so I watched all of the trailers and decided I wanted to see the French documentary "Home," and went with three of my friends last night.

The trailer was in English, so I was kind of expecting the movie to be in English with subtitles, although I though it was strange that it was French movie with an English trailer. Turns out, since the whole movie was narrated footage with no actual actors, it was entirely in Spanish. I was able to understand almost everything, but I had to concentrate really hard and hang on every word, and then I would forget what they had said before, and in the end I got the main idea but definitely not every detail.

It was overall a very interesting experience; the cinematography alone was excellent. They used the technique of re-touching the original footage of natural landscapes and city scenes to make the colors more vivid and bring out certain details, so at times it looked almost animated. They really overdid a lot of the colors to emphasize their point, like the color red in scenes that showed land degradation, as if the land was bleeding. The movie talked about all of the problems with resource depletion and overuse, the pollution and resources used in big cities, and in general all of the bad things people are doing to the environment. It was actually rather depressing at times, especially when they flashed depressing statistics on the screen. But of course, at the end they tried to brighten the mood by saying all each individual person needs to do is be environmentally conscious in everyday life, and after the movie everybody got an "Urbana & Orgánica" flyer about different eco-friendly places to shop in Buenos Aires. Nice.

One of the points of the movie was that the vast majority of people in the world live in big coastal cities, and that 20% of the world's population uses 80% of the resources. And that we should all stop consuming resources unnecessarily and buying cars. Which led to this thought process of mine:

I live in Buenos Aires, the biggest city in Argentina, thus I do not have a car. I am just one more person on the Subte, or one more person on the colectivo, every day. My transportation-related carbon impact is almost nothing; the same pollution is generated whether I'm there or not.

There are many people living in poverty in Buenos Aires. The unemployment rate is 21%. One thing all of these unemployed people do (approximately 35,000 of them) is walk the streets of BA at night sorting through trash, looking for recyclables. They're called "cartoneros" and they separate the recyclables and bring them to recycling facilities for a refund; that's how they make money (gracias á mi clase de Tradiciones y Culturas Argentinas para la información).

The people of Buenos Aires don't recycle, but the cartoneros do it for them. It's a strange but functional process. If the people of BA recycled, the cartoneros wouldn't have a way to make money; they'd just be more worthless unemployed people. Thus more people have a way to make money and the city is more eco-friendly because the people with money are not eco-friendly. How oxymoronic.

So what is more eco-friendly: living in a big, polluted, trashy city where public transportation is a part of every person's daily life and everybody rides an Omnibus (long-distance bus) when they want to travel to a different part of the country, or living in a nice, small town where you can ride your bike everywhere if you're motivated, but if it's too cold or just a bit too far you drive in your car, and when you want to go to a different town you road trip in your personal car, or fly in a plane? Obviously the small town is more healthy, if you actually bike most of the time, but the driving is going to happen. And of course, when it comes down to it I choose Bozeman, not Buenos Aires.

Being perfect is just not possible...but I am thankful for the bus to Big Sky for this reason, because that cuts down on the majority of my winter driving, and really it's easy to be eco-friendly in Bozeman because you can bike, walk, or take the free Streamline bus anywhere, and shop at Town & Country or the Co-op.

Basically, I can't wait to go back to Bozeman, but I appreciate Buenos Aires more every day.

¡Riddim en Vivo!

2010-08-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite pastimes/activities is going to concerts. If you've read some of my posts from the previous year, you might have noticed several about the road trips I went on for the sole purpose of going to awesome concerts. So, to continue this tradition of mine, last weekend I decided to seize an opportunity to go to a concert in Buenos Aires (no road trip necessary in this city!).

The band I saw is called Riddim; they're an Argentine reggae group. I had never heard of them, but I saw a flyer for the concert on the Subte [Subway] during the week and had nothing to else to do last Saturday night, so I decided to go for it. It was at a club I had been to once before, a good size but not too giant, and the stage is elevated to basically my height, so no matter where in the crowd you are you can see everything.

I couldn't be happier that I went; the show was amazing. Riddim is a band made up of nine people, so the variety of instruments they have going on made for an awesome show. They are made up of a brass section consisting of a trumpet, trombone, and saxophone player, a keyboardist, two guitarrists, a bass player, a drummer, and of course the lead singer. They are apparently really popular in Argentina, because the crowd was singing along half of the time.

I would highly recommend checking this band out if you like reggae and want to expand your musical horizons; their website is http://www.riddim.com.ar/.

And here's another link about the show I went to which includes a music video.

It's almost time for the fall semester to start at MSU...hopefully everyone's enjoying the end of the summer!

The Semester Begins in Buenos Aires

2010-08-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

It's probably time for me to write a post that makes it sound like I'm doing what I came here to do...study! Semester classes began last Monday at the Universidad de Belgrano, where I'm studying. I am taking four, all taught in Spanish. They have a cool program here specifically for international students in which you can take classes taught in either English or Spanish, but I of course opted for all classes in Spanish for the added challenge...because I'm here to learn Spanish, right?

The classes I am taking are:

Argentine Literature

Latin American Literature

Argentine Cultural Studies

Español Avanzado A (Advanced Spanish A)

I'm an English and Spanish Teaching major, so two literature classes in a semester is nothing new to me. However, I am notorious for not allowing myself enough time to read the assigned readings in my literature classes, and now all of the assigned readings are in Spanish, meaning it takes me waaaay more time to read them. And ideally, I should read them at least three times to understand them well. This is a slight problem, because I don't want to spend all of my day reading, and then there's other reading in Spanish to be done for my Culture class (which is no joke, the professor is quite scholarly and has high expectations of us). My actual Spanish language class is definitely the easiest for me, which I suppose makes sense, since I am faced with a much higher level of Spanish every day than is taught in my Spanish class (which slightly bothers me, but there's nothing I can do about it really). For a sample of what I'm reading right now, click here (luckily I'm only reading an excerpt of this, but still...).

Long story short, I have approximately four hours to read about 10 pages of Spanish literature and I am instead writing this blog.

Which brings me to my next point, my schedule. The schedule here is every Bozemanite's wildest dream. Classes (for my program) are offered Monday-Thursday from 1:00-7:00 p.m. Each class is an hour and a half long. Hence, this is my schedule:

Monday & Wednesday 4:00-7:00

Tuesday & Thursday 2:30-5:30

Conveniently, every weekend is a three day weekend and I have the majority of Monday free. Most buses out of town leave in the evening, so when I want to travel for the weekend I can leave Thursday night, arrive at my destination Friday morning, catch a return bus Sunday night, and be back with time to spare before class. Amazing! Too bad my bank account isn't on this travel schedule.

So, study abroad in Buenos Aires is no joke, but there's no doubt that being immersed in so much Spanish and reading so much Spanish literature is going to work wonders on my level of Spanish!

Until next time...keep enjoying summer in the USA! If you're there, that is...

Humahuaca Gorge

2010-07-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

¡Hola a todos!

Anybody who is geologically inclined would love Humahuaca Gorge. I got to go on a day trip through it while I was staying in Salta and it has some amazing rock formations!

"Humahuaca Gorge" is basically a high altitude desert mountain pass, and includes several small towns, the most famous of which are Humahuaca (home to the most giant monument I have yet to see, pictured at right...the man in the middle is 9 meters tall!!)

and Purmamarca, a smaller town nestled into mountains made up of rocks of a rainbow of colors, a sampling of which you can see at left and below.

We also got to visit a historical site called "El Pucara de Tilcara," a town dating back to the 9th-15th centuries, before the Spanish came to South America. It is an important archeological site and in its prime was home to over 1500 people and a booming trading town; today some original adobe huts still exist within the protected area.

And finally, a fun fact...we passed through the Tropic of Capricorn, which was marked by the monument below. I feel quite worldly, because I've already been to the Equator and the Arctic Circle and travelled past the Tropic of Cancer, so now I just need to go to Antarctic Circle to complete my north-south travels!

I'll post one more blog about my vacation, and then it's back to school...I just finished my first week of classes for the semester and it was quite an experience! Have a good weekend!

Salta

2010-07-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

The second destination of my "winter" vacation here in Argentina was Salta, where I stayed for four nights. It is nicknamed "Salta la Linda" (Salta the beautiful) because it's surrounded by mountains (albeit small mountains, and it's a desert relatively close to the Equator so it rarely snows). But, I have to agree that it is a beautiful city, much more my style than Buenos Aires, minus the climate. I was there during the coldest time of year and walked around in a t-shirt every day!

One of the city's main tourist attractions is a cable car (it's called a "teleférico" in Spanish for anybody who's interested) which takes you to the top of the nearest "mountain," where you are able to see a beautiful view of the city. There are also stairs that go up the "mountain," which I opted to take instead, and it only took about 45 minutes for me to walk up.

The main park of the city was also really cool, probably my favorite I have encountered so far. There was a big lake with a fountain in it that you could paddleboat around, and there was a little island in the middle that was basically a bird sactuary.

And finally, the city is home to the most giant monument to a General I have yet to see. It was in the middle of another cool park that was more or less at the base of the stairs up the mountain, and it was didicated to General Güemes. I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but Argentineans don't like to get very creative when they name things. The names of streets, plazas, places, monuments,

and everything else are all the same in every town. For example, every town's main plaza is "Plaza 9 de Julio" because that is Argentina's independence day. And "Güemes" is the name of a street a couple of blocks down from the street I live on in Buenos Aires. You have to love it...

Salta itself was awesome, and I really enjoyed just wandering around on the free day I had there. But it's also surrounded by many national parks and geologically beautiful areas, which I took two day trips to see, and will talk about in subsequent posts...

I hope everybody is getting outside and enjoying the summer!!!

Mendoza and Bodegas

2010-07-27T21:00:00.001-07:00

...a continuation of my fascinating vacation blog series.

Mendoza, as I mentioned in my previous post, is a small city of a little over 100,000 people. It also is home to a vast expanse of park (which I have quickly learned is true of every city in Argentina, if you can find it).

Our hostel in Mendoza (which was named Damajuana and was quite nice, I recommend it) was conveniently located about six blocks from said vast park, so of course it was one of the first places I went in Mendoza. In the middle was a manmade lake, pictured at left.

Mendoza is also home to many scultures and other public works of art, as is true with basically any town/city in Argentina. For example, see below:

While we were in Mendoza, we were basically obligated to go on a wine tour, because the region is renowed for its wines. We elected to go on a bike tour in which we were driven to a bike rental place a little ways out of town, and from there we biked to two bodegas (wineries) where we sampled Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon, as well as some champagne.

At right: proof I biked with the lovely Andes and some out of season grape plants in the background, not to mention real snow!

At the first winery we got grouped with a large bus tour, so it was rather impersonal, but the second winery was cool because our tour guide was from England and our group only had four people in it, so she gave the tour in English and I learned many interesting facts about the wine and champagne-making processes.

At left: stainless steel wine-aging units. There were many.

At right: a special kind of wood barrels for aging of a different type of wine (unfortunately I don't remember the specifics for anybody who's interested, you'll just have to go on a tour yourself...)

The whole experience was fun because I had never been on a wine tour before, and it was fun to get to ride a bike for the first time since I left the United States! I'll never take it for granted again...

Overall, Mendoza is a very laid-back city/town, and my favorite part was probably the park. The climate wasn't quite legitimate for me, however, because there wasn't enough snow to go snowboarding even though the mountains are relatively close...definite issue! But if you like wine, it's a must when traveling around Argentina.

Next in the fascinating series: Salta!

The Mendozan Andes

2010-07-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my winter vacation in Argentina, and I have a lot to talk about!

My first destination was Mendoza, a city with a population of a little over 100,000 which is about a 13 hour bus ride to the west and slightly south of Buenos Aires, pretty close to the border of Chile. It is also conveniently located about a half hour's drive from the Andes mountains, although it is most famous for its wine and is basically the Napa Valley of Argentina. I was there for a total of about 3 and a half days, during which I went on a bus tour to the Andes and a bike tour to two bodegas (wineries), and had some free time to explore the city as well.

Our first full day in Mendoza was spent on a bus (and off of it) in the Andes mountains. On the right is my first close up view, as the sun was rising. It was probably the coldest weather I have experienced in Argentina, and the coldest I will experience unless I travel far south sometime soon (which I won't). But, on the Bozemanite scale it really wasn't that bad. And as you can see, there was snow in the mountains, but only a light dusting.

Our next stop was at a mountainous operation complete with a ski lift, but I am still not entirely sure why. There were places to rent skis, but they were all closed because there wasn't enough snow, and everbody riding the lift was not skiing. The main attraction, as you can see in the picture, was sledding. Little kids were having a blast sliding down this little hill on a mixture of ice and dirt. It was all rather comical to me; I guess I was a spoiled child when it came to snow. I asked our tour guide when the ideal skiing time was, and he laughed and said there really wasn't one...that was about as good as it gets. But, it was a beautiful location nonetheless.

The "ski" lift.

At our last stop, another sledding hill, I was able to hike up a little ways to get a nice view. Unfortunately, it was my most active opportunity of the day, but we only had about 30 minutes. But, considering that I didn't have a car or very much money, the tour was overall worth it.

Stay tuned for Mendoza Part 2: The City and Bodegas!

Oficina de Migraciones = DMV

2010-07-16T08:22:00.001-07:00

This morning, I woke up the earlier than I ever have in Buenos Aires so I could go to the Migrations Office for my 8:00 appointment to obtain my Student Visa. Some of my friends had already gone, and I had heard it was a confusing maze to navigate, so I prepared myself for confusion.

I took the Subte (subway) to a stop approximately 4 blocks away from the Migrations Office, and started to walk in what I thought was the right direction. Streets are rather difficult to navigate in Buenos Aires because half of the time there is no sign indicating which street or streets you are on at a given corner. But, some of the signs are really helpful and actually tell you which block of the street you are on (aka 3100-3200, etc). I found the street the office is on and started walking to the 1300 block, because the address was 1351. I saw nothing that looked like a Migrations building and a nice parking attendant noticed I looked lost and asked what I was looking for. Actually, he guessed it—it must happen often. He told me to turn around and go four blocks in the opposite direction...aka the 1000 block. What?!?! I will never understand this city, or their method of assigning addresses.

I managed to find the "Migrations Office," which was not just one office but an entire complex of different buildings labeled with numbers. After asking several people, I was able to figure out which building I needed to go to, #4, which was apparently half of a building containing both #3 and #4. The door to #4 said "Salida" ("Exit"), so I went to the door that said "Entrada" ("Enter"), which was labeled #3 but in the same building. Already, I had no idea what was going on.

I walked inside and saw a couple of booths that said "Information," and I thought they looked promising and told the man behind one of the booths the name of the office I was looking for. He handed me a number and pointed in a vague direction, and I wandered back to a waiting area in which other people possessed similar numbers, and had a sign displaying which number was being served at which window.

It was exactly like going to the DMV. Supposedly I had an "appointment," but I'm not sure what that did for me, because I feel like I could have done the exact same thing without it.

So, I waited for my number to appear and walked to the appropriate window. Might I add, these windows were literally windows, made of solid glass, with tiny slits at the bottom for exchanging paperwork and apparently for hearing through, essentially forcing people like me to bend down like idiots to hear what the people behind the glass were saying.

I told the lady who was supposed to be helping me that I was there to get my visa. She leafed through my passport, said one thing which I was unable to hear through the impenetrable shield between us, saw the confused look on my face, and without ANY attempt at further conversation said "I'm going to get somebody who speaks English." I told her I could speak some Spanish, but she was apparently uninterested in giving me further direction. She told me to sit down and wait.

So, I sat down and waited a further 20 minutes, when a lady finally came and asked what I needed. I said, "I'm here to get my visa. Am I in the right place?"

"You have an appointment today?"

"Yes."

My helpful English speaker apparently found this situation very hilarious, and laughed as she took me into the other half of the building...aka #4...the building I thought I needed to go to in the first place. Awesome.

There, I was fingerprinted (for the second time since I've been here; the first was when I got a background check to obtain the criminal records necessary for the visa. You think they'd have them on file?), given another piece of paper, and pointed towards yet another series of booths. There, a lady who actually tried to speak to me in Spanish I could understand took all of my accumulated documents and paperwork and gave me some papers to sign, then told me to go pay my 300 peso fee and come back. After this, I had to sign more papers and wait a short while more.

After all of that, I was given a piece of paper and told to come back in 15 days for the visa.

All I could think was, "What just happened?"

Long story short: getting your visa is like going to the DMV. And to call it an "appointment" is a joke. I'm pretty sure they just tell people to come on certain days to regulate the amount of people they have to deal with.

Oh, life abroad...what an experience.

One Month Already?!?!

2010-07-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

[me with General San Martín at the Plaza San Martín]

Tomorrow will mark my one month anniversary of being in Argentina, and while I still have quite some time left here, it's hard to believe it's already been that long!

Today I had my final exam for my Intensive Spanish class; it consisted of a written and an oral portion. The written part was great but the oral part was much more difficult; it's rather hard to think on the spot in a foreign language, even when you have a little time to prepare. Our teacher told us what we had to talk about and then gave us about 20 minutes to prepare, and we did it in small groups. I'm not sure if that made it better or worse...

Anyway, since I haven't talked much about my class, it was five days a week for 4 weeks from 10-3. There were a total of seven people in my class and we had two different teachers who taught on different days of the week. Both of them were really nice and really good teachers! I definitely learned a lot from them, even though all of the grammar we learned was review for me, it's hard to remember everything until you've had it drilled into your head a few times.

My favorite part of class was all of the vocabulary I learned, both Argentina-specific and generally useful words and phrases. Whenever we would start talking about a random topic in class (which was often), our teachers would seize the opportunity to teach us related vocabulary, since of course we always had to speak in Spanish. It was very entertaining; I highly recommend the program!

Now I have a whole week off from school until the semester here starts July 26 (don't worry, the semester at MSU doesn't start until August 30, if you are lucky enough to be going there)!

In celebration of my successful completion of the intensive class, and to seize my only long vacation I will have in Argentina, I'm going to leave tomorrow night for Mendoza, a region west of Buenos Aires fairly close to Chile which is famous for its wine. It's also in the mountains, which is far more exciting for me than the wine aspect! I'll be there for three days, and from there I'm going to Salta, which is much farther north and also in the mountains, and contains the highest concentration of National Parks in the northern part of Argentina. I'm traveling with a friend from my program and we're taking buses everywhere, which means a looooot of travel time, but it's also waaay cheaper than flying! And, the buses we are taking have beds, so we can sleep. I've definitely driven further distances in my car (aka: Bozeman to Anchorage), so I'm just happy I don't have to drive!

If I don't have a chance to update again before I leave, stay tuned for the stories of my adventures!

Colonia, Uruguay!

2010-07-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

The past couple of weeks have flown by in Buenos Aires! Today is 9 de Julio, the Argentinean Independence Day, so I don't have class, and thus I have time to blog again, finally.

As I mentioned at the end of my previous post, a couple of weeks ago I went on a day trip to Colonia, Uruguay, which is a short boat ride across the Rio de la Plata from Buenos Aires. It was very fun and refreshing for me to get out of the big city, because it takes some getting used to.

Colonia is a small town, and we spent the day in the historical district, where there is a lighthouse (or faro in Spanish), lots of coast to wander, and cobblestone streets everywhere. We were also lucky enough to be there on the day Uruguay won their World Cup game against Korea, so people were celebrating all day, yelling, waving flags, and driving around the streets in cars packed full of celebrating people honking their horns incessantly.

Here are a few pictures:

The view of Colonia from the Buquebus (our means of transportation, a ferry)

Part of the historical district, including a sweet sculpture that caught my eye.

The view from the top of the lighthouse.

It was all in all a fun and cheap weekend getaway. The Uruguayan exchange rate is approximately 20 Uruguayan pesos to 1 US dollar...crazy!

More to come later...I'll try to start updating more frequently!

¡Mi Vida en Buenos Aires!

2010-06-25T20:40:00.001-07:00

¡Hola a todos!

I have been in Buenos Aires, Argentina for a week now and have finally settled in enough that I decided it was time to write a blog about it. I am studying abroad here for about six months in one of MSU's many Study Abroad programs, and let me just say that it is CRAZY!

I have a lot to write about, so I'll make this an introductory post of sorts. Buenos Aires is a giant city of approximately 13 million people. According to Wikipedia, the population density in the city is approximately 34,800 people per square mile...that's basically the entire population of Bozeman IN EVERY SQUARE MILE. Ridiculous! I'm from Anchorage, Alaska, which has a population of about 265,000 people and a population density of 165 people per square mile, so I am completely out of my element. It's an experience I had to have at least once in my life, however, and why not do it in a foreign country?

Needless to say, Buenos Aires is full of skyscraper after skyscraper and it's hard to see more than 100 yards in any direction at any time because there are so many buildings and people everywhere. As you can see in the picture above, every block consists of conjoined buildings with no separation in between. There are parks throughout the city, but most are surrounded by fences. The picture above shows where my apartment is. It's conveniently located next to a restaurant that serves delicious empanadas, which are kind of like "meat pies" or miniature pasties, if you are familiar with those. Although, they come in many varieties, including vegetarian.

Driving here is crazy to say the least, and I would not attempt to drive a car in the city because I would probably wreck it in an instant. Drivers here are crazy; I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as a "traffic cop" and definitely no such thing as a "stop sign." The few stop signs that do exist are pretty much treated as yield signs or ignored altogether. But, as in many big cities, the public transportation is really good and widely used. There is a big subway, or "Subte" system, and also many buses, as well as taxis, although those are much more expensive.

I am taking classes at the Universidad de Belgrano, which is about a 50 minute walk through crowded, noisy city streets. But, I am living in the apartment shown above with a host family, and there is a Subte stop about a block away from my house, which I can take to get to school. The stop I get off at is about a 10-15 minute walk from the university, so my total commuting time is less than a half hour; not bad at all.

As you can see to the left, my university is not what typically comes to mind when thinking of universities...there is no campus, it's just a really tall building. There are a few other buildings throughout the city that have other classes in them, but this is the only one I go to. There's a closer-up view of the front of the building below.

I could go on and on forever about all of the cultural and geographical differences, but I'll leave those for another time. Tomorrow, I'm going to take a ferry across the Rio de la Plata (see a map for geographical orientation) to Colonia, Uruguay for a day trip with some people from my program. I'm excited to get out of the city and breathe some fresh air!

¡Hasta luego!

Goodbye, Montana. Hello, Argentina...

2010-06-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

I have officially left Bozeman and Montana for about six months. Two Fridays ago, after moving out of my house and packing a 5' x 10' storage unit full of the majority of my possessions, I packed up my car and drove to George, Washington, the location of The Gorge and the Sasquatch! Music Festival. I spent Memorial Day weekend camping at the festival and had an amazing time.

Me at The Gorge

Then, I drove to Bellingham, Washington with a friend and stayed with her for the night, and the following morning I picked my mom up from the Bellingham airport and we drove all the way back to my hometown of Anchorage, Alaska. It took us three days, and we arrived last Friday night. Since I've been back in Alaska, I've had a lot of fun with my old friends and it's basically a vacation for me.

Next Monday, I'll be leaving Alaska and the United States for about six months. I'm going to Buenos Aires, Argentina to study abroad, starting with a four week intensive Spanish language program, and then I'm going to complete the fall semester at the Universidad de Belgrano.

I'm really excited to study abroad and my summer has been awesome so far. I plan on blogging again from Argentina once I get settled, so stay tuned. For now, enjoy the summer! I know I will.

Biking by the Bridgers

2010-05-20T15:57:00.001-07:00

Today I decided to go on a long bike ride, even though it was raining and not very pleasant outside. I rode out towards the Bridger mountains and ended up on a trail that went along Bridger Creek.

Bridger Creek

Then I ended up further back towrds where I had come from and decided to ride up the Story Mill road, which was a good decision.

The view was pretty good even though it was cloudy and raining, and once again I got to explore a place I had never been.

I've decided lately that one of my favorite things about Bozeman is that it is surrounded by 360° of mountains, and every one is worth exploring.

Hyalite Canyon

2010-05-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

My mom came to town for the past two days, so yesterday we decided to go hiking in Hyalite Canyon. It is a really cool place in the mountains on the south side of town which has a road leading about 12 miles through the mountains. We drove all the way down the road to hike the Hyalite Creek trail, but the trail was still covered in snow so we could only walk part of the way. We still got to see some waterfalls and cool rock formations along the way, though:

Me and Grotto Falls

Me and some "karens"

Since we didn't get to hike as far as we had planned, we decided to check out another trail further back on the road, and walked out to Palisade Falls, which were awesome:

Palisade Falls

We climbed a little further than the trail and got to the top of a rock outcrop, and the view was amazing. You can see Hyalite Lake in the background on the right.

Overall it was a fun day, and I'm glad I got to explore part of Hyalite. There's tons of stuff to do back there, including camping, fishing, a cabin, mountain biking, and rock climbing. In the winter, you can cross country ski, snowshoe, and ice climb. Basically, it's an outdoor paradise. I'd highly recommend exploring it if you come visit.

Free Download, Local Music!

2010-05-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

Cure for the Common, the local band who has previously played in my friends' basement and at Bobcat Fest (which I have blogged about in the past), has made a live recording of theirs from the "Rock Against Rape" in the MSU Strand Union Building Ballrooms on April 21 available to download for free!

Click here for some good, free, local, funky music.

Start the summer right!

Finals Week

2010-05-04T17:35:00.000-07:00

It's (finally?) finals week, and I'm 1/3 done with my finals for the week. I had my Spanish 102 final at 4:00 today so I'm glad that's over, although I should probably continue to study considering I will be in Argentina before I know it.

Unfortunately, I am one of the unlucky few who has a final on Friday, and worse, it's at 8:00 am! All I can say is I will be ready to celebrate by Friday night.

My other final is tomorrow at 8:00 am for British Literature II (which is being discontinued after this semester, so I am one of the last students to have to take it...awesome), so I can get that over with and study for my last final, which is in Educational Psychology and will probably be the hardest.

Two of my roommates are already done with finals, and my other roommate isn't in school this semester, so basically motivation is hard to come by at this point. However, that's what the library is for (although I haven't ventured there so far this week).

Three more days...

Bobcat Fest!

2010-05-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Friday, from 5-8 pm, several blocks of Main Street were closed down for the Bobcat Fest. It was the last day of classes for the semester, so it was a celebration sponsored by ASMSU (the Associated Students of MSU). There was free food, free t-shirts, and live music, and it was super fun!

Cure for the Common, the same local band who played in my friends' basement a few weeks ago, played first, followed by Keegan Smith and the Fam. One of my friends has an apartment on Main street which has a balcony overlooking where the stage was, so we had a great view, although I went down to the street to dance for a while.

The view from the balcony.

Due to the fact that it is spring in Montana, it was snowing on and off throughout the event and thus was slightly chilly. However, a lot of people still came out and it was a lot of fun.

After the Bobcat Fest, the same friends that had Cure for the Common play in their basement had another live band play in their basement, named Mister Downtown. They were pretty good, although a little bit too punk/alternative for my liking.

All in all, it was a great night of free live music!

Dead Week is upon us!

2010-04-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

It's currently the week before finals week, which means it's the last week of normal classes for the semester. It's also rather morbidly referred to as "Dead Week," which means that in the residence halls "quiet time" is all of the time except for two hours a day when people are allowed to be as loud as they want. On the rest of campus, it implies that everybody is studying all of the time, which may or may not be the case.

In my case, I've been really stressed out. I rarely get headaches, and I've had pretty bad ones the last two evenings in a row. One thing that was bothering me was my lack of a plane ticket to Buenos Aires, where I am going to start studying abroad in June. Finally, I figured it out yesterday and now I have my ticket, which I'm really excited about.

Adding to my study abroad planning-induced stress is the fact that finals are right around the corner. The semester has flown by as usual, and now that I think about it, I think I learned a few things. My first final is Friday, and I have a final presentation for my Educational Technology class tomorrow night. Then, I have three finals next week, and the last one is Friday at 8:00 am. I will be so relieved when it is over!

Meanwhile, I'm going to study.

Roskie Run!

2010-04-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

This morning, for the second year in a row, I ran the Roskie Run. This year was the 30th annual Roskie Run, a 5K run starting at Roskie, looping around campus, and ending back at Roskie. It is put on by the Roskie RHA (Residence Hall Association; essentially a group of students who decide how to spend their residence hall's money) and it benefits the Boys & Girls Club of Montana.

Although I did not exactly enjoy waking up at 9 a.m. to get ready and get to Roskie on time (the run started at 10), I did get a cool shirt (shown above) and a medal (everybody who participated got one). Plus, I exercised early in the day and have had a semi-productive day ever since (consisting of some studying and frisbee golfing). My plan is to make it a tradition and run the Roskie Run every year.

Poetry

2010-04-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

I just wrote another poem for my American Literature assignment, because the first one wasn't long enough and because I wanted to. I'm pretty happy with it, so I'll probably turn this one in. It is based on Emily Dickinson's poem (243)

I've known a Heaven, like a Tent —
To wrap its shining Yards —
Pluck up its stakes, and disappear —
Without the sound of Boards
Or Rip of Nail — Or Carpenter —
But just the miles of Stare —
That signalize a Show's Retreat —
In North America —

No Trace — no Figment of the Thing
That dazzled, Yesterday,
No Ring — no Marvel —
Men, and Feats —
Dissolved as utterly —
As Bird's far Navigation
Discloses just a Hue —
A plash of Oars, a Gaiety —
Then swallowed up, of View.

I basically wrote my poem about writing poetry, because when imitating a poem the meter drives everything:

Tap tap Tapping, tap tap Tap —
I beat the message Out —
I feel compelled, but still unsure —
Restless and in the Clouds
A Beat goes Here — Here Emphasis —
And now to think of Words —
Which continue their Tap Tapping —
In My Cerebellum —

Tick Tick — it's Ticking in my Head
I listen, Comforted,
Like Rain — a Deluge —
Drop, by Drop —
Discreet yet momentous —
The Words form Resilience
As they are wont to Do —
I write them Down, quite Aimlessly —
Tap tapping still, they Soothe.

Pre-Departure Study Abroad Orientation

2010-04-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

This morning (and afternoon) from 9:30 to 1:30 I had my pre-departure Study Abroad Orientation. In the past couple of weeks everybody has been planning for next semester and registering for classes, but I have not taken part in any of that because I am going to study abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina next semester. It was a somewhat complicated process; the application is hard enough to get together and the paperwork has only grown since I was accepted. So while most of my peers are planning for the summer and fall semester, all I know is that I'm going to be in Argentina from June 18-sometime in November. Or perhaps longer.

I've been getting more excited as my departure date approaches, but also more apprehensive. First of all, I don't have a plane ticket, so I really need to get on that. But the orientation today was really helpful and I feel less in the dark about everything, especially because everybody else I know who is studying abroad feels the same way (and I know three people going to the same place I am, although they won't get there until August, so that is somewhat comforting).

One thing that surprised me was the number of people there, and also the places they were going! Everybody who is studying abroad for either the summer, the fall, the whole year, or some combination, was there. We were in a pretty large lecture hall and it was full of probably at least 100 people. Some of the destinations were really cool, too, and now I want to go pretty much everywhere in the world. One girl is going to Svalbard, which is part of Norway but is a large island located north of Norway across the Arctic Ocean. She said she was excited to learn how to shoot a polar bear rifle because people aren't allowed to leave town without them. I hope she was kidding.

Anyway, I know people say this all of the time, but MSU has a really good Study Abroad program, and it is easy to take advantage of. I'm super excited to go learn to speak Spanish (hopefully) fluently, while experiencing a new culture and traveling to places I've never seen. It's never too early to travel the world!

More Poetry

2010-04-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

The English department is rather small at MSU, and therefore the professors all talk to each other and know what is going on in all of the other English classes. For this reason, I have pretty much the exact same poetry assignment in my American Literature class that I just had to do a couple of weeks ago for my British Literature class, because both of my teachers apparently love poetry. This is actually fine with me, because I kind of like poetry too. I decided to try to model my American Literature poem off of an Emily Dickinson poem:

435

Much Madness is divinest Sense—

To a discerning Eye—

Much Sense—the starkest Madness—

'Tis the Majority

In this, as All, prevail—

Assent—and you are sane—

Demur—you're straightway dangerous—

And handled with a Chain—

The topic of my poem is completely unrelated to Dickinson's. I've been pretty obsessed with "dubstep" music lately, which is really bass heavy and what some might call weird, but I love it. So I ended up with this poem:

[001]

That Sound is like a mindless bass—

In a distorted Pitch—

It hits—the moment Pauses—

I feel Eternity

That sound, in truth, is real—

The pulse—is in my veins—

That sound—is all my consciousness—

And with it I’ll remain—

New and Improved Poem

2010-04-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

If you recall, I posted a poem over Spring Break which was a rough draft of an assignment I had. The actual assignment was due today, and it's actually almost entirely different than the original. We've been reading poetry in both of my literature classes, so I focused a lot more on putting emphasis in the same places.

Not only was this due today, but I had another assignment due in my Educational Psychology class AND I had to teach that class today with three other people because it was my turn for the "Team Teaching Assignment." Basically, I woke up at 5 am to get everything done.

Don't procrastinate in college.

Here's the final poem:

THE MARRIAGE OF MUSIC AND DANCE

THE TRANSFORMATION.

The crowd roars and waves its limbs in impatient space:

Behind stage the wanted waits.

Back then, she was embarrassed to dance.

Uncertain in her youth until

She saw the light.

Once enchanted she let go.

And in that ecstasy

Was a body free.

When that fateful moment happened:

It was life but, as a dream

Was over much too soon;

And though the moment ended

Her heart still soared.

Life would never be the same again,

She wants the moment back, and drives

To far lands to witness reprise.

Feel the freedom exude from

The girl’s pleasantries.

And look into her wide blue eyes

Music is her home.

The crowd roars and waves its limbs in harmonious glee;

The music has set it free.

Cure For The Common

2010-04-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

I normally try to keep the more personal aspects of my life out of this blog (aka my social life, ahem) but last weekend something happened which I cannot resist blogging about.

Some of my friends wanted to have an extraordinary dance party at their house, so they decided to try to get a band to play in their basement (which is pretty much vacant). After a little searching and brainstorming, they called Cure for the Common, a local funk band. They opened for Bassnectar at the Rail Jam and were playing a show at the Top Hat in Missoula (the location of the Sound Tribe afterparty I attended a little while ago) when my friends called, but they immediately agreed to play in my friend's basement, on a Friday night, for free.

Needless to say, everybody was really excited. The band showed up around 9:00 and started playing at 10:00, and even though the basement got ridiculously hot and crowded they played for about three hours. It was epic; I couldn't resist blogging about it.

The band in the basement. Unfortunately the drummer isn't visible from this view.

Click here to watch a video on their Facebook.

This is just one more example of why Bozeman is so cool.

Is this real?

2010-04-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

Montana appears to be in a state of confusion right now and so am I. During spring break and the following week, summer appeared to be right around the corner. Suddenly, on Tuesday morning I awoke to a winter wonderland outside and it continued to snow heavily throughout the day. Conditions at Bridger were epic for the past two days, and Big Sky too, I have heard. Bridger was planning on closing this Sunday but they extended their season until Tuesday, which is perfect for me because I'll be able to make it up Tuesday morning.

Basically we received 18" of snow in 48 hours, yesterday was nice and sunny and the snow began to melt, and this morning it snowed again. Welcome to the schizophrenic weather of Montana. I can't wait to take advantage of our day off from school tomorrow and go to Big Sky!

I took this picture from the Big Sky website. It was taken on March 6 but it accurately portrays my excitement to go up tomorrow!

Anyway, back in the real world the semester continues on. We are on the home stretch and I am in slight disbelief; where did all the time go? Oh yeah, I spent it all snowboarding. Luckily I am in a good place academically and the past couple of weeks have been relatively uneventful. My biggest assignment right now is a team teaching project for my Educational Psychology class; we're teaching the class on Wednesday about peer dynamics in high school. Although group projects can be frustrating because everyone's schedules are conflicting, I think this is going to go pretty smoothly once we sit down and get it done.

Even though I've been coasting ever since spring break, I have a feeling this is the calm before the storm of the last few weeks of the semester. I'll have to brace myself...

Live from Bridger Bowl!

2010-03-26T07:47:00.001-07:00

Over a month ago, I was up at Bridger and decided to record a little video on my iPod. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I've been pretty busy and had some technology issues, I never posted it. Finally, I got it on YouTube and now you can watch it! It's short and sweet and it speaks for itself, so enjoy!

Some Academic Poetry

2010-03-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

Although it's Spring Break, I haven't been completely vegetative. Since I've had so much free time on my hands, I decided to work on an assignment I have for my British Literature 2 class. We've read a lot of different works by different authors, and for this assignment we are supposed to pick a poem and model our own poem from it, with a different spin. So, I decided to take the intro from William Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" and model my poem on it. The gist of Blake's introduction is that organized religion came along and ruined everything. My poem is not so complex. It's still a work in progress, but I'll let it speak for itself.

Here's Blake's introduction:

THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL

THE ARGUMENT

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air:

Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

Once meek, and in a perilous path,

The just man kept his course along

The vale of death.

Roses are planted where thorns grow,

And on the barren heath

Sing the honey bees.

Then the perilous path was planted,

And a river and a spring

On every cliff and tomb,

And on the bleached bones

Red clay brought forth;

Till the villain left the paths of ease,

To walk in perilous paths, and drive

The just man into barren climes.

Now the sneaking serpent walks

In mild humility,

And the just man rages in the wilds

Where lions roam.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air;

Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

Here's my poem:

THE MARRIAGE OF MUSIC AND DANCE

THE TRANSFORMATION

The crowd roars and waves its limbs in impatient angst:

Behind stage the wanted waits.

Once meek, and apprehensive to dance,

The shy girl nodded and swayed while

Learning language.

In time she bloomed and bolder grew,

Without humility

She freed her body.

Then the spell was cast upon her,

And the music spoke to her

Through intertwined harmony,

The melody and beat

Her only need;

Now she roams the crowd unpinned and smiles,

Her movement opens space, she holds

A conversation of sound and mime.

The free girl lets herself go

With the music’s flowy beat,

Motion is natural to her now, she

Dances fluently.

The crowd roars and waves its limbs in harmonious glee;

The music has set it free.

Hiking the M

2010-03-17T09:36:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, one of my friends invited me to hike the M with her. It was Friday afternoon and I had been debating whether I should go to Bridger or not, but as it was getting a bit late for Bridger to be worth it, I decided to hike with her.

The M is Bozeman's iconic hike; chances are if you've visited you've seen the giant white MSU "M" on the side of the Bridger mountains. It's visible from pretty much anywhere in town. It's fairly short, it took us probably an hour and a half total with breaks. My friend brought her dog, so we stopped at the top to throw a stick for him and take a little break.

There are a couple of different routes up, one which is easier and has a lot of switchbacks, and another which leads basically straight up. On the way up the easier trail are several "shortcuts" which lead up steeper trails. We took the easy way up and the direct way down. Overall, it was a fun hike, and it was nice to get outside a do something other than go snowboarding. The trail was still kind of slushy and muddy in places, but was definitely in good condition.

Here's me at the top of the M. The picture at the top is the view from the top. If you visit Bozeman, I would recommend it for a short excursion. The view from the top is beautiful and all of Bozeman is visible. It's good to get outside!

Spring Break!

2010-03-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

Spring Break is finally here, and I couldn't be more relieved. It's been a hectic week in school; I had two mid-terms and a paper due and Friday was our last MSU Friday (which had a record 1,020 attendees—crazy). Naturally, I am ready to relax.

Today I drove from Bozeman to Fort Collins, Colorado, to meet up with my mom and my sister. My sister goes to school here and we are driving to Vail in the morning for a week of skiing. I'm excited because I've never been to Vail and my mom is paying for everything. Plus, I haven't been snowboarding since last Saturday due to the crazy weekend and week I had, so I'm pretty much going through withdrawals at this point. We're waking up early tomorrow to get at least a half day in, thankfully.

Another thing: The Wailers came to Bozeman Wednesday night with Passafire and played a show at the Emerson Cultural Center. I originally wasn't going to go in favor of studying, but I made a last-minute decision to go. It was awesome!

Rail Jam 2010

2010-03-13T20:55:00.000-08:00

Last Friday and Saturday, the Chamberlin Rail Jam was at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds in Bozeman. Both nights included skiing, snowboarding, and live music, and tickets were only $5 for both nights for students! On Friday, the preliminary skiing and snowboarding took place, and the GZA from the Wu-Tang Clan headlined the concert. Saturday was the finals for the rail jam, and Bassnectar headlined.

The setup for the rail jam consisted of three side-by-side rails—one box, one rail, and one double-kink rail. The stage was directly across from the rails with booths in between and separate beer gardens, one in a barn and one close to the stage.

I went both nights, and as you might be able to guess from my previous blogs, Bassnectar was my favorite part. One of my friends, Jess, brought her hula hoop to the concert and hooped all night. There is a video of her on Facebook, but I am unable to post it directly here (although I have her permission). Try clicking this link to check it out.

I did find a video of it on YouTube, although the sound quality is terrible. All in all, it was a good weekend.

ASMSU Elections

2010-03-03T19:48:00.000-08:00

ASMSU, or the Associated Students of Montana State University, is basically MSU's student government. It is election season for ASMSU — on Monday there was a primary Presidential candidate debate, and on Tuesday we had the primary election to choose which two candidates would progress to the final election.

In addition to an elected President and Vice President and an appointed Business Manager, ASMSU consists of a senate. The seats on the ASMSU senate are divided by where the students live. It consists of three on-campus senators, four off-campus senators, a Greek senator, a Family/Grad Housing senator, and three "At-Large" senators. So, similar to districts in a city, students who live on campus choose from candidates in the on-campus district. The At-Large senators are selected by the entire student body.

ASMSU is basically the representative of the students of MSU that the administration sees; if the administration wants to know how students feel about an issue, they ask ASMSU. In addition to communicating with MSU's administration, ASMSU decides how to spend the students' money. Every student taking seven or more credits pays a $151 fee towards ASMSU. Some of the money is earmarked for various student services, and $89 per student is left for ASMSU to decide how to spend.

So, the main reason to get involved in ASMSU, or at least be informed about it, is that they decide how to spend your money on programs for you.

If you want to watch Monday's Presidential debate, click this link.

For the record, the Exponent (our student newspaper) had a great article about ASMSU in their February 18 issue, which was of great assistance to me in writing this blog.

Get involved!

Sound Tribe Sector 9 in Missoula

2010-02-25T23:02:00.000-08:00

On Monday, Sound Tribe Sector 9, otherwise referred to as STS9, played a show at the Wilma Theatre in Missoula. I am an avid fan, so at about 1:00 Monday afternoon I departed Bozeman with a car full of friends and made the three hour drive to Missoula (I only missed one class to make this happen...school first!).

If you haven't heard of them, Sound Tribe has a unique sound. They're somewhere between jam band and electronic. I'm terrible at categorizing by genres, so you can find out for yourself: you can [legally] download an entire live show they performed at Red Rocks here, for free. In fact, you can get most of their music for free, and live recordings are the best, which is what makes their shows so amazing.

The show in Missoula was no exception. It surpassed my expectations. Emancipator opened; he's a DJ who also plays the guitar and I really liked him. Then Sound Tribe came on and played two sets and an encore, and I danced the entire time. The crowd was full of energy. There was an 18+ afterparty at the Top Hat down the street as well, which my friends and I all had tickets for. After the Sound Tribe show we were pretty tired, however, so we went back to our hotel (everything was within four blocks of each other) and probably would have stayed there had we not already payed for our afterparty tickets. By the way, the hotel we stayed at was full of people from Bozeman, many whom we knew. After the Sound Tribe show everybody congregated on the balcony of the hotel and cheered spontaneously...I feel sorry for the families staying there that night. Anyway, as it was, only three of us made it to the afterparty, which Mimosa played at; he's a DJ from San Francisco, and he was awesome. Even though it was really late at night/early in the morning he was so into the show, dancing crazily on stage and at one point standing on the table all of his equipment was on. If you want to check his music out there is a free download mix available here.

All in all, it was a great night. And yes, it was a Monday, but that's what I love about the flexibility of college. As I said, I only missed one class on Monday to drive to Missoula, and I only have one class at 2:00 on Tuesday so I was able to make it back in time to go, albeit a little sleep deprived. It was definitely worth it.

*The above pictures were obtained from STS9's website. I didn't bring my camera or phone to the concert because I probably would have broken or lost them.

***UPDATE***

There is a recording of the live show that I saw available for download online. Check it out!

Click here

Yoga

2010-02-10T19:58:00.000-08:00

In my last post I talked about our awesome gym and all of the cool stuff it has to offer. One of the things I mentioned was the group fitness classes. When I was looking on the gym's website to check my facts, I happened upon the group fitness schedule and saw a 6:15 am yoga class Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I usually do not do my exercising early in the morning, but I thought yoga would be a nice way to start the day and it's really the best time to fit it into my schedule.

So, I committed and paid the $40 for the group fitness classes, bought a yoga mat, and went to class this morning at 6:15. There were quite a lot of people there, more than I expected, of a variety of ages and a variety of skill levels, so I didn't feel weird having never been. I'm definitely glad I went; I really liked it. It put me in a good mood and I started the day awake and on time, not in a daze after speed biking to campus like I usually do. Yoga is great because it is exercise that you don't realize is exercise until you're done. It was also crazy doing it early in the morning because when the class started it was pitch black outside and by the time it was over it was light out, and I hadn't noticed.

I'm going to try to start going every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning, so maybe I'll be a zen master by the end of the year.

The Hosaeus Recreation and Fitness Center

2010-02-08T20:46:00.000-08:00

Commonly referred to as "the gym," the Hosaeus Recreation and Fitness Center is quite a popular spot on campus. It features three gyms that can be used for recreational use, indoor tennis courts, a bouldering wall (for climbing), a swimming pool, an indoor track (12 laps to a mile can get repetitive), and plenty of workout equipment from treadmills, ellipticals, rowing machines, and stationary bikes to everything needed for weightlifting of any sort (not my specialty). Also, there are several group fitness rooms in which group fitness classes are offered, including yoga, tai chi, zumba, spinning, ab lab, and many more — for $40 a semester students can attend any of these.

I've become somewhat obsessed with physical fitness this semester, so I've been going to the gym more than usual. It's nice to have such a good gym on campus because I can go when I have a break between classes, or after class (I'm not the type that wakes up super early to work out in the morning, but a lot of people do). I have a locker at the gym ($40 a year, $25 a semester), which means I can keep my running shoes and swimsuit there, and am also provided with a towel I can exchange for a clean one every time I use it. I personally enjoy swimming, and I run on the indoor track too, although like I said it can get a little boring. On an unrelated note, I went running outside last night and it was pleasantly good conditions, so I might start doing that more often.

Anyway, I just found out through President Cruzado's Monday Morning memo that our gym has been awarded the 2010 Outstanding Sports Facilities Award by the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association, so that's exciting. A nice gym at your fingertips is one more perk of being a student at MSU!

The ASMSU Exponent and Read This!

2010-02-03T20:26:00.000-08:00

Today I got to Reid Hall about 15 minutes before my Spanish class started, so I had some time to kill before I could actually enter my classroom. I wandered towards the main stairwell looking for a place to sit, saw an empty bench by the stairs, and decided to sit there. There happened to be a campus publication on the bench—MSU's Literature and Arts publication, Read This! The above picture was obtained from their website.

The issue was from Fall 2009; I'm not sure how or why it was there. However, I am an English major so I decided I should look into it. It is composed of poems, short stories, photos, and various artwork all aesthetically arranged for the reader/viewer's pleasure. I opened up to the first page and read a striking poem which alluded to some aspects of Bozeman I am all too familiar with; I was immediately glad I had chosen to read it.

Last spring, I remember looking through the same publication because my friend's sister was a Senior in the Photography program and had about eight photos in the last issue of the magazine. It's almost off-putting because there are no ads or editorials, save blurbs about the contributors and a note inviting anyone to send in their contributions of any sort. If I dabbled in creative writing or poetry more, I probably would send something in.

On a related note, the more mainstream school newspaper at MSU is called the Exponent, sponsored by the Associated Students of MSU (ASMSU). It includes music and book reviews, relevant articles about activities going on around campus and around town, and my favorite, "ExpoRants!" in which contributors rant about a subject of their choice — always entertaining. They also run classified ads 30 words or less free for students.

One of my classmates from last semester is an editor from the Exponent, and I talked to him about becoming a writer. He said they are always looking for more people and I should look into it. I fully intend to do so, but I haven't gotten around to it because I've been quite busy...it's definitely on my to do list. It also turns out that another classmate of mine is an editor for Read This! So MSU really is a small world. Or a small piece of the world.

Reading community publications like the Exponent and Read This! is a really cool part of being a student here; it makes me feel more connected (especially when I know the author of the article I'm reading, which has happened on numerous occasions). It's also a lot more enjoyable than reading Puritan literature...the downside of taking American Literature I.

Visit MSU!

2010-01-31T17:21:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, the 29th, was the second of three MSU Fridays we have throughout the year. If you haven't heard of it, it's basically a huge day of events centered around helping prospective students learn everything they want to know about MSU. There are sample classes, tours of campus and the residence halls, info sessions on things like study abroad , financial aid, and the Honors program, to name a few. You can see one of our physics professors, Jeff Adams, doing a demo during a physics sample class on the right.

Last Friday we had a good turnout, between 600 and 700 people I believe. There is still one more MSU Friday on March 12th and you can register on our website and learn all about it at http://www.montana.edu/admissions/msufriday.shtml.

One thing I noticed during the Phone-A-Thon was that a lot of people haven't come to visit MSU/Bozeman yet. I would strongly recommend doing so, especially if you're a little iffy on whether you want to come here or go elsewhere. I know that as soon as I visited, my mind was made up that I was coming here. You don't have to go to MSU Friday, either; you can schedule a visit any time and we offer regular campus tours twice every weekday. So come visit! You're sure to have a good time.

Study Abroad!

2010-01-22T16:43:00.000-08:00

Something MSU advertises a lot but still doesn't get as much attention as it should is their Study Abroad program. You may have heard the statistics: over 200 programs in about 50 countries around the world.

I have heard study abroad-related presentations countless times both before I came to MSU and while I have been a student here, but it wasn't until recently that I started to seriously consider it. It takes a certain amount of bravery to completely move to a foreign country for almost half of a year, and sometimes for a whole year. Then there is the whole question of how expensive it will be, and the social factor. I'll be honest: after making a lot of friends during my freshman year, I was not about to leave for a whole semester so soon. The prospect of having my own house off campus with my friends was too exciting for me.

This year, when faced with the prospect of studying abroad again, more excuses arose. I'm going to be a junior next year; won't it be hard to take classes relating to my major without getting behind? And the money...always the money.

But now I'm serious. This fall I heard about a six-week summer program in Costa Rica and decided it was the very least I could do to immerse myself in a Spanish-speaking country. My plan was to go to Costa Rica for the first part of the summer and then take summer school for the second summer session. Then, this week in my Spanish 102 class, a representative from the Study Abroad office came to talk to us; she was a senior who had spent a year in England. I realized that going to Costa Rica for a measly six weeks was not the real deal. Besides, going for only six weeks would almost be as expensive as going somewhere for a whole semester—a lot of the programs cost exactly the same as MSU tuition, and scholarships still apply. Furthermore, for out of state students, they could be cheaper than attending MSU for a semester.

On Thursday, I attended a Study Abroad info session and now I have an appointment with the Study Abroad advisor on Monday. I'm really excited now; I went to Ecuador with my family over the summer and I loved it, and I really want to go somewhere in South America, hopefully Chile. My newly revised plan is to attend both sessions of summer school and get somewhat ahead that way (and hopefully improve my Spanish proficiency), and then not worry about what credits will apply to my major when I'm actually studying abroad, because it's more about the experience, and the grades are pass/fail. Furthermore, I would still be back in Bozeman just in time for the ski season! Could it get any better? Probably not...

Anyway, I would highly recommend looking into the study abroad programs when you are a freshman and plan on going as a sophomore, because I have heard that many people come back and want to go somewhere else, which gets less and less plausible the further they are in school.

If you're interested, check out MSU's study abroad website: http://www.montana.edu/international/studyabroad/.

Have a good weekend!

Advocats!

2010-01-16T15:12:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted — I guess I've had writer's block of sorts. The past couple of weeks my life has consisted mainly of snowboarding, work, and now school...and I have a feeling it's going to stay that way for most of the semester.

But, I decided to tell you about AdvoCats, which is basically the reason I write this blog. AdvoCats is a group of students who work with the Office of Admissions and give campus tours, among other things. We have class once a week for about an hour, in which we learn a lot of cool things about MSU and organize our upcoming events and activities. Anybody can join, although there is an application process. I have really enjoyed being an AdvoCat this year and will probably continue to be one in years to come. The next thing we will be doing is a Phone-A-Thon, in which we will call people who have expressed interest in MSU and answer any questions they may have. So in the next couple weeks, you might get a seemingly random phone call from an MSU student if you have applied to MSU. I remember getting one of these calls as a senior and not knowing what to say, so I'm interested to see how it goes when I'm the person making the call.

As I briefly mentioned, being an AdvoCat has given me the opportunity to write this blog; there are other jobs available in relation to the Office of Admissions that AdvoCats hear about first. So if you like being involved in your school, this is a great way to do it!

Moonlight Basin!

2010-01-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

Today was $20 day at Moonlight Basin, and I had never been there so I decided to go up with a friend. We elected to take the bus which picks up from the Strand Union Building (SUB) on campus as well as the mall, and drops off at Big Sky and Moonlight. This was the first time I had ridden the bus, and I really liked it. The stress of driving was removed and I got to listen to music and attempt to sleep. The Skyline Bus (Your link to the peak!) runs multiple times a day, every day, and it's free. I'm going to start taking it more often. The only downside was waking up at 7:00 AM to catch the 8:10 bus from the mall, but it allowed me to get a longer day of snowboarding in than usual, which was nice.

It was a really good day for snowboarding, and I had a blast. Moonlight is a really cool mountain, located on the backside of Big Sky and lesser known than its neighbor. Because of its name and the fact that its slopes have mostly northern exposure, I always assumed it didn't get much sunlight. This is false. It was a sunny day and the lower half of the mountain was sunny all day, which was awesome (I'm hoping to develop a goggle tan early in the season). Moonlight's most used chair is the Six Shooter, which seats six people per chair and goes fast, as its name suggests. There was still a lot of powder to be had from all of the snow we got earlier this week, and I had a great day. Moonlight is actually the best deal around at just $495 for a college season pass—cheaper if you buy it preseason. I think I'm getting my season pass there next year; they may or may not stay open in later years because of financial issues.

The above pictures were obtained from Moonlight's website, http://www.moonlightbasin.com/.

I've been back in Bozeman since Monday afternoon and the week has flown by! I can't believe the semester starts on Wednesday...

Winter Break

2009-12-30T20:19:00.000-08:00

Christmas is over, and New Year's is almost here! I'll be in Alaska until Monday, when I will return to Bozeman a week before school starts.

It's been an interesting break, but now that I've been here about a week and a half I am getting used to my Alaska life again. Actually, it's not too different from my Bozeman life in that I try to go snowboarding as much as possible (I live in Anchorage, about a 45 minute drive away from Alyeska Resort). I have found that the longer I am away at college, the weirder it is to come back to my Alaskan life, but after a while I am used to it again and it's as fun as it used to be. And now I know who my real friends are, while some people I don't see much anymore. Also, I find myself spending a lot more time with my family than usual because I don't get to see them much, either.

I've been up to Alyeska five times so far and hope to get a few more days in before I leave. New Year's is tomorrow and I'm planning on celebrating at a friend's house, so I'm excited about that. I've also been walking my dogs almost daily, which is fun (my mom bought a dog when my older sister left for college, and recently bought another one to replace me. empty nest syndrome?).

A random side note: I noticed someone commented my blog a couple weeks ago and said they had visited MSU recently and were thinking about going into nursing. I have no way of replying to that person's page so hopefully they read this. We have a really good nursing program of about 800 students (making it the seventh largest program in the nation), and the students spend their first two years of school at the MSU campus in Bozeman and then are transferred to one of our satellite schools in Kalispell, Missoula, Great Falls, or Billings. A few people do get to stay in Bozeman, but only about 16 because our hospital isn't very big!

Anyway, I hope everybody is having a good holiday season; happy new year!

Recreational Reading

2009-12-24T13:42:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Alaska for a couple of weeks, and it's nice to finally be able to relax! All of the free time is a novelty. My sister gave me a book to read over the break called "A Life at Work" by Thomas Moore. As an English major (and a college student in general), I usually only have time to read what is required of me, if I even manage that. This book is actually really good, and applicable to any aspiring college student, college student, or person in any stage of life. It's about how to "discover what you were born to do."

There are inspirational quotes at the beginning of each chapter. At the beginning of Chapter 4, I read this:

"Leonardo advised aspiring artists to discover the pictures to be found in cracks in walls; Chinese sages were conceived as their mothers stepped into the footprints of unicorns; all of us make up our lives out of the cracks in the walls of our past memories and the unicorn footprints of our future."
Lynda Sexson

I gasped when I read this. I have mentioned before that my favorite professor this semester was Dr. Michael Sexson. For one of our class periods, he did not come to class at all but instead had a guest speaker run the class. The guest speaker was, in fact, his wife, Lynda Sexson. And it was the same Lynda Sexson quoted above, in this renowned book I am reading. Crazy!

Some Google-ing has revealed that the quote is from a book called "Ordinarily Sacred" by Sexson. And it is indeed the same Sexson. She is a history/humanities professor at MSU, and is as wise as or wiser than her husband. My classmates and I always wondered how their dinner conversations went. Probably, they would be over our heads.

The longer I am in college, the more I find connections between my life and the world around me. It's great.

And I would recommend "A Life at Work," if you're looking for something to read and/or are lost in life.

I might check out "Ordinarily Sacred," too.

The End of Another Semester

2009-12-19T22:52:00.000-08:00

Finals are over, and another semester has come to an end. This semester I was (un)lucky enough to have a final on Friday at 2:00, so I got to stick around for the entire week. My only other final during finals week was on Tuesday at 8:00 am, so I was almost out of school mode until Friday morning, when I last-minute studied for my last exam.

The end of a semester is an interesting time, because people finally start to connect after getting to know each other in classes throughout the semester, and then it's over. But it's always exciting to look forward to the next semester, when we can do it all over again—more awkward class periods await, until the same cycle repeats itself.

I had a great semester and managed to pull all A's. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm happy about it. It's a relief to be free for a few weeks so I can forget everything I learned.

But hopefully not.

Random picture: a rainbow over Miller Dining Hall. I took it last spring from my dorm room in Roskie.

The Junior One Acts

2009-12-13T16:18:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to The Junior One Acts at the Black Box Theatre in the Visual Communications Building (VCB) on campus.

The Junior One Acts consisted of six short one-act plays (about 20 minutes each) that were all written, directed, produced, and performed by students. All of the sets were also hand-made by students. Basically, it was an entirely student-run production and it was pretty cool. The Black Box Theatre is basically a room with seating on three sides and a curtain on the other. The stage is in the middle of the room, creating an interactive experience for the audience and actors/actresses. The theatre is all black, so there is no limitations on how the set can look.

I had never been to a production in the Black Box Theatre, but I was impressed. All of the students involved were in the MTA 374 class, nicknamed "Studio 374." The plays were all funny and entertaining, the props and the sets were excellent, and the acting was good. My favorites were the play called "Helter Skelter," about two serial killers who live together and their domestic arguments over keeping a clean house, and the play called "Rusty Pipes" about Mario and Luigi of the Mario Brothers, 30 years after their fame has faded away. The body parts in "Helter Skelter" were amusingly life-like and the Mario pipe (the signature green pipe used to transport places) was life-sized and looked like the real thing—and it actually worked!

Overall I was impressed, and I look forward to checking out more events at the Black Box Theatre in the future.

Last day of classes!

2009-12-10T19:52:00.000-08:00

Today was my last day of classes for the semester. Now all I have to look forward to is a take-home final due Tuesday and two finals next week, one on Tuesday and one on Friday. I was lucky enough to configure my schedule so I don't have any classes on Fridays, which has been really nice this semester. I took 17 credits this semester; I wouldn't recommend taking any more than that. I had four classes that were only on Tuesday and Thursday, and one class (Spanish) that was Monday through Thursday. This made for very hectic Tuesdays and Thursdays, especially because I also worked those nights, so although it was nice having more free time on the other days, I don't think I would do it again.

My two favorite classes this semester were Biblical Foundations of Literature and Spanish 101. I went into Biblical Foundations of Literature not knowing what to expect, but the professor, Dr. Michael Sexson, was one of the best teachers I have ever had. He taught us not only how to think about the Bible from a critical, literary perspective (and by critical, I mean objectively), but also how to think in general and many useful life lessons. One of my favorite things about his class was that everyone was required to keep a blog related to the class. This sounds a little strange, and I thought it was at first, but it allowed for everyone to get to know each other through writing and comment on whatever they found interesting. Dr. Sexson would read some of the blogs in class and we discussed them, so it was overall a great forum of ideas and communication. If you're interested, my blog address is http://karenwilsonak.blogspot.com/. Our last day of class today was almost sad, because we have finally come together as a class. We spent the last few weeks doing presentations, first group presentations we had about half of the semester to work on, and then individual term paper presentations. Our group presentations related to certain books of the Bible, and our term papers could basically be about whatever we wanted related to the class.

Spanish 101 was a really fun class, and I also really liked the professor, Sally Sanchez. She made it really fun and was encouraging and positive. I have never taken Spanish before, but now I think I'm going to double major in both English and Spanish Teaching. If I actually do this, I have a lot of college ahead of me!

Overall, it was a fun semester and I continued to meet new people and expand my knowledge. I'm glad I'll have a break soon, but I'm still looking forward to next semester.

First day at Big Sky

2009-12-04T17:47:00.000-08:00

Today I went snowboarding at Big Sky for the first time this year. It was $20 pass day for everyone, but I actually have a season pass so I picked that up and it was free for me (not really, I have a long way to go until I pay it off).

This is a picture of Big Sky - the big peak is Lone Peak. I didn't take this picture, I found it online (apparently it's from somebody's vacation home, I want to live there) because the Bluetooth on my phone won't send the pictures I took today.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun today. They have only opened about a third of their terrain so far, but it's plenty of room to have fun and it wasn't that crowded, either. That's one of the things I like about Big Sky - it's never that crowded, even on the weekends. Especially riding the singles line, there is barely a wait to get on the most highly trafficked lift, and at most other lifts there is no line at all.

My least favorite thing about Big Sky is how rocky it is. Considering that the mountain is entirely rock with not too much vegetation, this makes sense. However, it is never enjoyable to ride over what looks like nice white snow and suddenly crunch over several jagged rocks. Since it is still early in the season, this definitely happened to me several times today, and I felt bad for the base of my snowboard. But, when more snow accumulates this won't be a problem.

Like I said, today was a lot of fun and tomorrow I'm hoping to go to Bridger. I'm really glad the snowboarding season is here - I need something to keep me outside.

Back in Bozeman

2009-12-02T16:57:00.000-08:00

So, it's back to reality and I'm back in good old Bozeman. I returned Monday from a long Thanksgiving break and I have to say I have never been so happy to be back. In my last blog, I listed the perks of being home—mostly having to do with monetary mooching.

Now that I'm back, Bozeman feels more home-y than ever. I love the lifestyle here; Anchorage is a pretty big city, which means lots of driving around and less spur-of-the-moment activities. Let me list the reasons I love Bozeman:

•I can walk from my house to class in 15 minutes.

•I can walk from my house to work in 10 minutes (the joys of working on campus, ha ha).

•I only have to drive when I'm feeling lazy or going on a fun venture.

•I have my own house, so I don't have to worry about bothering my mom or adhering to her rules.

•Rent for said house is absurdly cheap (compared to Anchorage, at least).

•There are always many social opportunities to choose from.

•All of my friends live within a 1.5-mile radius (only because I'm on the edge of the circle, otherwise they'd all be much closer).

•I feel like I am doing something with my life.

To elaborate on the last point, in Bozeman I have a purpose—school. It keeps me busy and motivated, it's social, it's NOT required (so I'm doing this because I want to? what a novel idea!), and it opens up many opportunities, in both the short and long term. Maybe I'm weird, but I like being busy and when I'm in school that's never a problem. And, it makes my free time that much more fun!

Basically, I love Bozeman. Who doesn't?

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T19:20:00.001-08:00

This year I have been fortunate enough to return to my homeland of Alaska for the Thanksgiving holiday. I have definitely enjoyed being back. The perks include:

•Free food

•Free transportation (I'm not filling up that gas tank!)

•Getting to see old friends

•Getting to see my family (Mom, sister, and dogs)

•Having some free time to think without being in a time crunch

•Free shopping trips (Let's go shopping!)

•Enjoying Alaska's great outdoors

It's nice to come home and not have to completely support myself. However, I'm looking forward to going back to Bozeman. I have realized that as time goes on, I feel more connected with Bozeman than Alaska. I have been warned of this phenomenon by my older sister, but I thought since last year I came back and everything felt the same as when I left that would continue to happen. This is not so. I'm okay with it, though. I love Bozeman and I think since I am committed to going to school for a few more years it would be good to settle in Bozeman even when there's not school.

Either way, I can't deny I like all the perks of visiting home. For instance: I just had a great, free, family Thanksgiving dinner.

I'm thankful.

'Tis the season

2009-11-22T14:30:00.000-08:00

...of group projects.

In the past two weeks I have have two group projects due, and a third one is due after Thanksgiving, so at one point I was juggling three group projects at once. I've definitely been feeling the pressure of the semester coming to a close, which means that we're all supposed to have learned enough in our classes to complete large and arduous assignments. I have never had so many group projects at once, and one of them involved five people and another involved six, which made it almost impossible to figure out a time everyone could meet. However, I'm pretty much done with those now, which is a huge relief. For the project due after Thanksgiving, we made a movie, which is about 20 minutes long and tells the story of the Book of Acts (from the Bible; it's for my Biblical Foundations of Literature class). I'm pretty excited about that; it's definitely the longest movie I've ever made. I helped one of my partners put it all together last Wednesday, and it's still in the final editing process. Hopefully, when it's all done we can upload it onto YouTube or something and I can post it on here.

Another group assignment I had was to design "the ideal school for teens." It was for my Lifespan of Human Development class and was supposed to be a partner assignment, but I ended up in a group of three. We decided to make a little booklet describing our school, and I thought the cover was the most entertaining, so here it is:

This is a picture of how it looks on my computer, because I didn't end up with the hard copy after it got graded. But, I can assure you the booklet was very legit and we got a high score.

While I am relieved to be pretty much done with group projects, there is still a lot to do before the semester ends...mainly writing a term paper for my Biblical class and studying for finals. It's nice to have Thanksgiving break coming up, but I plan to spend a lot of it studying. (Key words: plan to.)

Miller Dining Hall

2009-11-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

...from an employee's perspective.

Last year I lived in Roskie, so I ate in the Miller Dining Hall 99.9% of the time. I never ventured to Harrison, although I was fond of Hannon if I was on campus or felt like making the trek. The point is, Miller was a favorite hangout of mine. After about the first month of school, it became impossible to go there without inadvertently seeing somebody I knew, which was nice because it meant I rarely ate alone.

Now, I don't live in the dorms. However, my job hunt at the beginning of the year did not go well, so in desperation, I applied to Miller — they have tons of employees and a high turnover rate, so I figured my chances were good. They actually didn't have any openings when I first applied, but they took down my name and phone number and said they'd call me. There was no actual application involved. It was a very informal process, but they actually did call me about a week and a half later. I accepted, having no idea what I was getting into, and the next day I was dishwashing.

Being a dishwasher in the Miller Dining Hall isn't actually that bad, especially because I don't live in the dorms any more. I still see people I know there every day, and I get to eat there when I work, which is actually an awesome perk when you're paying for your own groceries. Most importantly, I get a paycheck, which is more than a lot of people can say. It's a pretty laid-back job, although dinner shifts can get crazy - Miller is the biggest of the dining halls and therefore highly trafficked.

Another thing I like about my job is the hours. I only work 12-15 hours a week; since many of the employees are students, the shifts are short and you can choose your schedule. And, it's close to my house, because my house is close to campus, and that makes my life way easier because I can walk to work. Overall, I would recommend working on campus (even if dishwashing isn't your cup of tea) because there are a lot of jobs available and it's convenient.

Chali 2na, Gift of Gab, Mr. Lif, and Lyrics Born in Bozeman

2009-11-18T11:49:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned at the end of my last blog, last Saturday there was a concert at the Fairgrounds in Bozeman featuring the above hip-hop artists (Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, Gift of Gab from Blackalicious, Mr. Lif, and Lyrics Born) . I was really excited for the concert, and doors were supposed to open at 6:30. My roommates and I went to our friend's apartment on Main Street around 5:30, and we were planning on walking from there. At 6:30, we got a call from our friend who was currently at the concert, and he said doors weren't opening until 8; apparently it was a bit unorganized. So, we waited at my friend's apartment until about 8 and then walked to the concert. We got there in good time to see Mr. Lif and Gift of Gab, who played first.

I love concerts and my main goal is always to be as close to the front as possible. I made my way to the front of the stage by the speakers, where I stayed for the remainder of the concert, which was amazing. Chali 2na (of Jurassic 5) is one of my favorite rappers and seeing him live was awesome. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures, but...

This is Gift of Gab freestyling. I just watched a documentary on the art of freestyling last night, so I find it to be very impressive. I don't know how he raps so quickly.

The fairgrounds is probably Bozeman's best concert venue, because it's big and the concerts are all-ages. Last year, Girl Talk and Atmosphere played there, to drop some names. I'm hoping more artists decide to play there in the near future.

Pray 4 Snow and MSU Hockey

2009-11-08T14:56:00.000-08:00

On Friday night, I had two new experiences at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds (which are in Bozeman). One was the Pray 4 Snow festival and the other was my first MSU hockey game.

Pray 4 Snow is an annual event in which snow enthusiasts of all types get together and, supposedly, "pray for snow." I had never been, but heard it was fun. It started at 6 and went until 11, so I showed up with some friends around 7:30. When we got there, a band was playing inside the barn, but not many people were there—my friends who had gone last year said there had been a lot more people when they went. We decided we were probably early. By 9:00, there were more people, but still not a huge crowd. We walked outside, to where a large wooden dog (about 15 feet tall) was set up with a bunch of firewood below it, waiting to be burned. Apparently, we got there at the right time—some people had just lit it on fire. We watched as the fire grew until it overtook the dog and created an immense amount of heat. I puzzled over the question of how burning a massive amount of wood and releasing more heat into the atmosphere would help encourage snow to fall, but apparently these rituals are beyond my comprehension.

The burning dog, in all its majesty.

After the dog burned, we decided it was time to move on. As luck would have it, some of our other friends were attending the MSU hockey game, which started at 10:00 at the ice rink next door to where Pray 4 Snow was taking place. I didn't even know MSU had a hockey team until I heard about this, so I figured it was worth checking out. Hockey is a huge deal in Alaska, but I hadn't heard much about it in Montana. The rink at the Fairgrounds didn't have much bleacher space, but soon it was packed with people. Apparently the people that do go to hockey games are really into it. I decided to leave about a third of the way through, but it was a good game. From a little research I just did, I learned the MSU Hellcats hockey team is a Division II team. They are a registered club at the university, but don't get any funding from it; it's completely student run. You can check out their webpage here.

All in all it was an interesting night. The fairgrounds is a happening place; I'm looking forward to seeing Chali 2na, Gift of Gab, Lyrics Born, and Mr. Lif in concert there next Saturday...stay tuned.

Greg Mortenson

2009-11-06T11:33:00.000-08:00

If you haven't heard of Greg Mortenson, he's a world-famous local of Bozeman. He's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice for his work establishing schools in Afghanistan, and has founded 131 so far. I got the chance to see him speak at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse on campus this past Wednesday, and it was pretty interesting. The talk was free to the public, which I thought was pretty cool. I took somewhat extensive notes, because I was somewhat delirious from not getting enough sleep for about a month and from the busy day I'd had already. I decided to take pictures of my notes and post them, because I think they are my best account of what happened. Mortenson told a lot of stories about his work, and invited two other people to come up on stage and tell their stories.

Mortenson's book "Three Cups of Tea" is internationally recognized and today is required reading for all military officers, after General Petraeus read it and found it to be profoundly helpful in his outlook on the "conflict" in Afghanistan. He told Mortenson the three most important lessons he learned from the book were to listen, to respect, and to build relationships.

Something I found most intriguing about Mortenson's work is that when he started his efforts, he was completely broke. He got the opportunity to talk at an elementary school, and the kids took interest in his cause and one told him he'd donate the contents of his piggy bank. From there, Mortenson started the "Pennies for Peace" program, which has exploded into schools internationally and raised millions of dollars.

Yes, Greg Mortenson said it; Bozeman is awesome!

Halloween in Denver

2009-11-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about living in Bozeman is how easy it is to drive virtually anywhere in the continental U.S. (as you can imagine, living in Alaska does not make road trips to anywhere but other places in Alaska easy). I am fortunate enough to have a car, and this past weekend three of my friends and I road tripped to Denver to see Bassnectar in concert at the Fillmore.

To put it simply, it was amazing. Here's a video from Bassnectar's set (the sound quality isn't great, but you'll get the idea).

Heavyweight Dub Champion and RJD2 opened, but due to poor planning we didn't get there until halfway through RJD2's set. However, it all worked out because there was an afterparty at Casselman's Bar & Venue, and it was 18+ which is convenient for me because I am 19 and it irritates me when my age prevents me from going to shows. So, right after the concert we took a taxi to the afterparty, where we saw Heavyweight Dub Champion, then Bassnectar again, then a sweet DJ named Wolfe. I had tons of fun and danced until the very end at approximately 4 am. Here's a video of Wolfe (he wore a clown mask the entire time—impressive).

Although I didn't do the traditional Halloween activities, I had an awesome Halloween. This was my second time traveling to Denver for a concert and it was definitely worth it—big cities are a different scene. Roadtrips are a lot of fun, and for me they're definitely a perk of going to college outside of Alaska.

Nicholas Kristof

2009-10-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, MSU hosted humanitarian and New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof as a guest speaker—you can see him on the right with members of the MSU Leadership Institute. He spoke to a large crowd in the SUB (Strand Union Building) Ballrooms - the room was packed with probably 1000+ people. I attended because in one of my classes (Lifespan of Human Development) it was an extra credit opportunity and in another class (Multicultural Education) it was a "Cultural Plunge" opportunity, which is a required assignment.

Despite my reasons for attending, I found the lecture very interesting. Kristof has been touring to promote his book, "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide." However, Kristof's lecture did not promote his book as much as it called for support of the cause. He told many stories of his own experiences and those of people he had met, and at the end of the lecture held a Q & A session for anybody who wished to ask a question about anything.

I learned some things I had never known before about women and medical practices from Kristof's lecture. Some of the things I found most interesting about Kristof’s lecture related to brothels and female genital cutting. Women’s use in brothels is a form of slavery and over 800,000 women per year are transported between countries for this purpose—they are actually bought and sold as property. I did not realize such practices were so widespread, or even practiced at all. Another thing I learned which American women would never consider or worry about is female genital cutting, an apparently widespread practice which I had also never heard of involving the removal of some or all of the clitoris and labia. This sounds horrible and I can’t imagine why anybody would ever think it’s a good idea, especially when these women are expected to be mothers someday.

Listening to Kristof's lecture was a good experience; he is just one example of many well-known figures MSU hosts for the betterment of its students' cultural knowledge.

For a news article about Kristof's lecture and MSU experience, click here.

Dorm Life

2009-10-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

I do not live in the dorms this semester, but I did last year and it's a big part of college life. Almost every freshman at MSU is required to live in the dorms, so I think it's something worth talking about. Also, I work in the Miller Dining Hall right now, so I have dorm interaction on an almost daily basis.

My freshman year, I lived in Roskie on the 4th floor. It was the Outdoor Pursuits floor, so in theory all the girls on my floor were ourdoorsy. In fact, this was true for some girls more than others. When I was initially filling out my residence life application, I was apprehensive about checking the Outdoor Pursuits option in the first place, but it turned out to be a very good decision. Living on the Outdoor Pursuits floor doesn't come with any obligations—you can participate as much or as little as you want (this goes for any living option - so try it!). We had two camping trips, one each semester, and various group outings, but most people made friends on the floor and did things with them, not as a formal part of living on the floor but as friends.

One of my favorite parts of dorm life was RHA meetings, which are held weekly. I'm not talking about the meetings themselves (although they were interesting), but the floor vs. floor competitions that took place after the meetings. There was chocolate syrup Twister, pie your RA, duct tape your RA, and my favorite, tug-o-war (and many more). My floor became very close by the end of the year, and we liked to dress up in themes for these events.

Some people from my floor and my RA:

pre-tug-o-war.

Action shot during tug-o-war. As you can see, we had already lost, but some of us were too stubborn to let go and thus got pulled over and dragged across the ground. It was awesome.

Another perk of that RHA meeting was I bought Roskie's old ping-pong table for $40; it goes to show what being in the right place at the right time can do for you.

I could go on for hours about the dorms, why I love Roskie, and how much fun I had last year, but I'd hate to bore anybody. Suffice it to say that living in the dorms is a good experience everybody should have - embrace it!

Nice to meet you.

2009-10-18T22:08:00.000-07:00

Hello friends and strangers!

If you are reading this blog, thank you. It will be sure to be entertaining, at least by my standards. I'm going to start by talking about myself, because it's fun and easy and a good way to begin a blog of any type. My life this year has gotten busier than ever and I'm loving it. As my site reads, I am a sophomore at MSU this year. Several changes have occurred in my Montana life since I gained sophomore status. First of all, I now live in a house (technically a condo), which is quite a different living environment than the dorms. Second, I now have a job; I never worked during school last year because I was "adjusting" and I had money saved up. Now, ironically I work at the Miller Dining Hall (located between North and South Hedges) as a dishwasher. Third, I am an AdvoCat on campus, meaning I give a campus tour every Friday at 9 a.m. and do other various admissions-related activities, as well as some community service with other AdvoCats (so far we've helped re-paint the "M," check out Christy's blog). On top of this I am taking 16 credits—it makes for a busy schedule.

My favorite class this year is probably my Biblical Foundations of Literature class, taught by Michael Sexson. He actually requires us to have a blog for the class, which apparently will count for a substantial portion of our grade. You can check out mine here. It's the first time I've had to blog for a class, but Dr. Sexson insists everyone will be doing it in 10 years—we'll see. I like it because there's no specific requirements for what you write, as long as it relates to the class or something you're reading for it or any related ideas.

Now that I've established myself, I'll keep you posted on exciting developments in my life at MSU.