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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.

Grandpa Heusser

This past weekend I went with my family to Grand Junction, CO for my Grandfather's funeral. He passed away on Sunday 17. October in his sleep. The funeral was beautiful, the tributes to him were so good. It made me remember all that I had tucked away since his memory and self has been fading. It's been a while since I've had time with my adventurous, intelligent, life-loving grandfather, as Alzheimer's has caused some separation making it hard for me to connect. He was amazing. Seriously. Educator, singer, taxidermist (I kid you not), scholar, outdoorsman, bird-lover, family man, the list goes on...
The picture above is from Grand Junction's main street which has a variety of art fixtures along the sidewalks. This piece has always reminded me of my grandparents. When we would come to visit we would often go to main street and walk up and down checking out all of the little shops and pieces of art and this one always stuck out. My parents always emphasized bike-riding when we were younger, urging us to hop on our bikes to go to the movies, or pick up something from the store, or to go to our dance classes - always with a story of how they used to ride their bikes e v e r y w h e r e when they were younger. This was passed down from my lovely grandparents (especially my grandfather whose thought of an enjoyable excursion was riding bikes from Grand Junction to Salt Lake City-aaahhh!). I used to curse their names as I hopped onto my turquoise bike and pedaled off to various activities. But now I see that it was a valuable part of my childhood and has done a lot in shaping my thoughts and attitudes and goals in life. And they did that in more ways than just this one. I am glad for the heritage from which I come, I love my family and our ideals and standards. I am glad for the weighty value of education, nature, music, art, dance, etc. that is so prevalent in my family. My greatest asset is my family. Really.

For an eloquent tribute written by my sweet older sister go here. Beauty.

Some people change their clothes for the occasion - I like to change my hair.

So, I love to dye my hair. It's a fun change and I have little attachment to my hair - I don't really know what to do with it most of the time. I've spent a good amount of my life with really short hair. I've had some interesting dos. Now I am growing it out for the first time in several years. It's longer than I've had it in a long time, usually I start to grow it out and decide that it's just not going to work out and I end up chopping it off again. Right now it is just a little past my shoulders, whoa. My friend has some mad hair dying skills, so I've been having her dye my hair and put highlights in for the past year-ish. My hair doesn't hold dye all that well, so if I want to go dark, I have to GO DARK. So I got the kit with the picture of the darkest hair and we did it. And it came out black...hmm. We added some blond highlights, it could use a few more. So I am a blackhead. Super dark. Gah.

The worst bit - this is not the first time this has happened. I did this on the mission too. What? But that was a mistake of not reading the word BLACK on the box. I wish I could blame that on Estonian, but it just wouldn't be true.

it's on like donkey kong

So, I'm going to Indiana. School starts in January, I'll be moving there officially at the beginning of that month. But...I'll be going for a little weekend in November! My friend Kelly just got accepted to IU Bloomington's School of Library and Information Sciences, the very school to which I was accepted! So we have decided to take a weekend trip together to check things out there. I am excited!

Also, can you believe how cute my sister's kiddos are? My goodness. They came down a few weeks ago to visit me and we had a blast. We got some lunch and went to the park where naturally the activities turned to tag and tying my nephew's legs together. A very nice day.

Elu läheb edasi.

Danger-bad

So, it is probably not a good idea for me to post two times in one week - I might get burned out and leave off posting for another year. But I also thought I should make up for the lost time.

I just wanted to share a bit of news that I came across today...the #1 song on the US pop charts on my birth day was Michael Jackson's 'Beat It'. So there you go.

I'm back

It has been almost a full year since I last posted. Failure. Quick re-cap: I have been living in Provo in the same apartment and working at the same used bookstore. But here's what's different - I have been accepted at Indiana University Bloomington to study Library Science. I start in January, I cannnnnnnoooootttt wwwaaaaaiiiitttt. It's going to be great, the best. Closer to the Librarian I have dreamed of being my whole life.

Check out the beautiful atrium of the Harold B. Lee Library. That is Maris, my good friend from Estonia, and I on the stairs. She came to Utah with her husband Matthew and we did a little tour of the BY. I love this library, it's so beautiful, I have good memories here.

So, there it is. I will be posting more regularly, I'm trying to change.

Peace out.