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B-town

Bloomington! Indiana! I went there this last weekend, had the best time. No joke. It was beautiful and wonderful and great. Now I am going to walk you through every minute detail of the weekend. Thrilling.

First off - I went there with my friend Kelly, who will also be starting there in January. We will both be studying Library Science. Rad.

We flew into Indianapolis on Friday pretty late, checked into our hotel, zonked out. The next morning we drove to Bloomington and went straight to the Farmer's Market. They were having a soup tasting event - loads of restaurants came and offered free samples of soups they serve. It was delicious. Then on to campus. We visited the Lilly Library, home to an impressive collection of rare books including a Bible printed on the Gutenberg Press. I touched vellum from a very old book (it would be even more neat if I could remember the date of the book...). Other campus events included buying all sorts of Indiana swag, drooling over our building and taking awkward pictures. Fantastic.

Then we went on a drive to check out a neighboring city. It is called Nashville. It's an artsy little town with cute little shops. Very nice. I bought a teapot. It is beautiful - a deep purple. After that we came back into town and met with future roommates, all very cool people, I am happy to say. The apartment is nice. We had a good visit with them, learned all sorts of vital things about Bloomington, like where the public library is and what sorts festivals we can look forward to (apple butter festival, maple syrup festival, etc.). Also information on our program. So great.

Sunday - mostly just church, checking out the ward. Delicious Indian food, soooooo good. Then an episode of the new BBC miniseries Sherlock Holmes. Kinda want to see more and more of that.

Monday - More campus! We got to see it with all of the students there. We went and talked to some people in the Library Science school, got some questions answered, introduced ourselves. Then, my favorite: I went to the Estonian department and spoke in Estonian for about 25 minutes with a native Estonian! (I can't think of any way to not make that last sentence redundant.) It was soooo rad. I was nervous, not going to lie I sweat a bit, I was a little damp when I left her office. Gross. But it was good, I loved it, it felt good. I will be involved as much as I can when school starts. Then we headed off to Indianapolis where we poked around for a little bit then took off for Utah, back to life.

This was so good, I had the best weekend I've had in a while. And it made Bloomington tangible. I can picture it and I can't wait to see it again. I'ma be a librarian.

Soofyan

Here is a little summary of my evening with Mr. Stevens

Highlights

I enjoyed the drive. There was pleasant conversation, I felt comfortable. Also Chipotle, the restaurant where we went to eat, was delicious, though I was quite chilly. But I should have relished the coolness because it was so warm in the concert...

anticipating the concert with my friend Brad. I look worried. I'm not.

Sufjan Stevens is amazing. I enjoyed the music, he pretty much only played brand new stuff, I felt like it was a stretch, but it didn't feel too uncomfortable. I especially liked the in between bits of music where he slowed it down and did some folksy stuff. But I also enjoyed a lot of the showiness of the other songs. Even his dissertation 20 minute long epic mini-series of a song had appealing bits and drew me in. He is also very articulate. I liked how he expressed himself. He has a very large vocabulary and he doesn't use the word 'like' as a filler. I am trying to curb my own use of that word. I liked how he explained his road to finding his new sound - exploring new sounds, making a lot of discord and spending some time with that - breaking down completely his old sound to start to rebuild his new sound. He hadn't put out an album in years and he spent a few years in the middle of this process and then through studying the art of that Royal fellow he found a way to connect it. In my mind that means that his study of that art was tactile, that he released himself into the art and examined it from every angle. I like that. It entices me to do more - be more curious and tactile myself.

Sufjan and his band from where I sat

In between songs he told us about a dream he had the night before where he and his bandmates were invited to a concert by Prince, but when they got there it turned out to be just a man dressed up as Prince doing bad karaoke to Prince's music. Anyone who has that detailed of a dream involving both Prince and karaoke is automatically someone I want to get to know. So good.

He wore wings and a flashing visor(?). And silver pants.

He played Chicago.

Lowlight

only one...I was very warm and didn't bring a hair tie with which to pull back my hair.

So there you go. I had the best time.