archives in the spring

This past Saturday was the spring 2010 meeting of the New England Archivists in Amherst, MA. It was a pretty good conference, but until just a few days before it began I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to go. The short version is that I thought I had a ride, then, about one week before the meeting, I learned I no longer had a ride and set about scrambling to find one again. At one point I almost gave up and decided not to go, but that would have been the wrong choice. By Wednesday night I had secured my ride again and could rest easy.

Because the meeting was in Amherst, I got up at 5am on Saturday to meet my group at the rental car (by the way, I'm pretty sure ZipCars are the best thing ever for city dwellers). We managed to make only one wrong turn on the way there, for which Christina was demoted from her role as Navigator. She should have kept her position, because on the way back our new navigator failed big time, and only Christina's photographic memory of which stores we had passed on the way there was able to get us back on track.

The campus at UMass Amherst is actually very nice. During our lunch break I went outside and walked around a lovely pond full of ducks and geese. The sessions were pretty good too, for the most part, and I picked up some awesome swag, like tin acid-free boxes big enough only for business cards.

The best part of the day, however, came after lunch at a session on international archives. One of the presenters, who works at Tufts, is from Austria and spent time talking about the state of Austrian archival institutions. How awesome is that? When the session ended I introduced myself and got her card. Later on this spring we're going to meet and talk about libraries and archives in Austria! How much more perfect could that moment have been? I guess I really was supposed to go to this event.

-Kim

well there's good news...

...and there's complicated news. After my one month post-op check-up on Friday, the good news is that my healing is progressing at such a rate that my dentists continue to be astounded. In both thickness and height, this second grafting procedure has yielded even better results than the first. Hooray for me.

The news that gives me complicated feelings rather than simply good or bad is that the earliest date we could schedule my next surgery, the upper left side, is May 21. We did what we could to try to get it in sooner, but this was the best we could do. It boils down to the difficulty in matching together three schedules: mine, my dentist Fatema, and the surgeon Dr. Griffin.

On the one hand, this is great because it won't take any more time away from this semester (it actually falls exactly one week after my graduation). This is very good news, since I have three big projects to complete in the next few weeks and another surgery would make that difficult, to say the least. So there is a sense of relief associated with this news. Also, my healing weeks will be in the empty buffer zone between the end of the semester and the start of my summer job as a tour guide at Park Street Church (unconfirmed, but I know they want me back), so I'll have plenty of time to sleep and recover.

On the other hand, scheduling the next surgery for May stretches out the whole process much longer than I would have liked. The procedure that we do in May will be the third in a series of at least four (there has been some debate between Fatema and Dr. Griffin about whether they might do one more procedure on the bottom teeth when we're done with all the bone grafting, to thicken the soft tissue even more). After the surgery in May I will have to wait four to six weeks before we could even consider doing the upper right. Waiting for the left side to heal is absolutely necessary so that I will be able to chew on that side again when we do the surgery on the right--there is no getting around it unless I want to be on a purely liquid diet for six weeks. Not to mention that having two large areas healing at the same time is just not the best idea. So the fourth surgery would be put off until at least June, best case scenario. Then we take into account all the follow-up appointments to check the tissue growth. I've been in every week for the past month for measurements, photographs and cleanings. The weekly visits are now over, but she wants to see me at the two and three month mark as well. So, best-case scenario, the last date I could have a surgery this summer and complete my follow-up appointments, would be the end of June. That would be a tight squeeze, fitting it in after the one on May 21. So, my series of surgeries is likely to be incomplete when I leave town at the end of summer in preparation for spending the fall in Salzburg. Darn.

On the other hand, having the work unfinished gives me a reason to come back to Boston in January and narrows my job searching options. This could be a good thing, as a narrower focus could make searching easier, and I do have a few good contacts here in Boston, as well as friends who would let me stay with them while I look for a place of my own.

On the other hand, if I don't find a job right away but decide to come back to Boston to complete my surgeries (even without dental insurance) it will be a very expensive few months. If I were allowed to look beyond the Boston area, say back home in the Midwest, I would have more options and therefore, mathematically, better chances of finding something.

On the other hand, by completing this internship I am making my resume much more impressive and making myself much more likely to get a job period, wherever I look. After all, who else will be able to say they've done what I will be doing?

On the other hand, sometimes I worry too much. God has been working things out beautifully so far, and I should trust him to continue. He led me from USF to Boston, to an incredible program where I have learned much and made great friends. He made sure I was in Boston, with access to the most current and exciting dental procedures when I needed them. And he blessed me with an incredible internship, which will bless me in ways I can't even imagine yet. I worry because I don't know where I will be or what I will be doing in January, when really, that's not so bad. Plenty of people don't know what they'll be living next week or whether they'll have enough money for food tomorrow. I have never had to worry about those things, and there is plenty of time still for these details to come together.

As for surgeries, I'll take them as they come and trust that the one who created my mouth will grant me the time and the opportunity to complete the work of repairing and strengthening it.

-Kim

Erin go Bragh

St. Patrick's Day is pretty much the perfect holiday for me. It was originally observed to celebrate a Christian Saint, it now commemorates the country I have been in love with all my life, and it gives me an excuse to wear ridiculous amounts of green without being laughed at.

And today is already off to a great start, celebration-wise. Allow me to share a bit of my obsessiveness:

Breakfast: a bowl of Lucky Charms (On a side note, it's always the marshmallows that get the press, but have you ever looked closely at the cereal pieces? Just what are they? I swear I saw an icthus.) and a cup of Irish Breakfast tea (with a little milk, this may be my favorite variety of black tea)

Clothing: Green socks, green Dropkick Murphys t-shirt (I already wore the Ireland football [read: soccer] jersey on Sunday for the parade fiasco, and I'm wearing green every day this week as a challenge to myself to do so without repeating anything--not so hard, actually), and green USF track jacket.

Accessories: Chipped, forest green nail polish replaced by a fresh coat of springier peridot green, green belt (which I wear most days), and harp earrings to go with the silver harp necklace I bought in Ireland four years ago (the 12-stringed harp is the official symbol of Ireland, for anyone who didn't know). (Sadly, my other key accessory, a pin of a frog sitting on a shamrock that reads "kiss me, I'm Irish" is at home in South Dakota, out of my reach, along with my Celtic cross pendant made with real conemara marble from Ireland. Still, wearing *all* of that at once might have been a bit much for tutoring at the writing center.)

Music: Dropkick Murphys has already been playing on my iTunes, and I'll probably mix in some Celtic fiddling later as well, and of course my favorite tune, Barrage's "Until We Meet Again".

Dinner: This one is rather out of my control, but Bartol has advertised an Irish dinner tonight. Last year they served corned beef and cabbage and Irish soda bread, and if that repeats I will be very happy indeed.

And, as if just to make this day even better, the sun is shining, the puddles are gone and Boston is set to hit a high of 60 this afternoon. It's a wonderful day to be alive, Irish or not, although of course everyone in the world is Irish today.

And it seems as though the luck of the Irish really is with me today. As rare as finding a four-leaf clover is finding a teaspoon in Bartol. At some point we were inundated with soup spoons, and lately that's all a person can find. But today at lunch, after scooping out the last bit of my favorite flavor of ice cream, I went to the utensil racks and found one! It was dead center, showing just barely enough for me to see that its curve was different from all the spoons around it. I plucked it from the buch with joy and returned to the table triumphant, to applause from my friends (yes, they really were that impressed).

It would be lovely if this luck, or these blessings, rather, continue. I have a five pager paper due tomorrow that has yet to be written. But since I already have an extensive outline prepared and late last night solved the problem of the accompanying diagram, I feel like I'm in pretty good shape. I'll spend my evening writing instead of attending the certainly overcrowded party at the Beehive, but when I finish I'll be dancing a jig to celebrate!

To close, I offer this saying I found on Island Ireland. May it be said of me as well.

What Shall I Say About the Irish?
The utterly impractical, never predictable,
Sometimes irascible, quite inexplicable, Irish.
Strange blend of shyness,
pride and conceit,
And stubborn refusal to bow in defeat.
He's spoiling and ready to argue and fight,
Yet the smile of a child
fills his soul with delight.
His eyes are the quickest to well up with tears,
Yet his strength is the strongest
to banish your fears.
His hate is as fierce as his devotion is grand,
And there is no middle ground
on which he will stand.
He's wild and he's gentle,
he's good and he's bad.
He's proud and he's humble,
he's happy and sad.
He's in love with the ocean,
the earth and the skies,
He's enamoured with beauty wherever it lies.
He's victor and victim, a star and a clod,
But mostly he's Irish—
in love with his God.

-Kim

Texas!

One week ago today I spent the day in Austin, TX with Dianna. It was the last day of a spring break trip to visit her down in Waco. Last year she came to Boston to visit me, and it snowed. I thought this year we should do the smart thing and let me come to Texas, where it would be warmer. It actually rained half the time I was there, but it was a warm rain, and actually, that's probably all that saved me from coming back north with a wicked sunburn. The sun shone strong in Austin that day, though it was on its way down by the time Dianna took the photo below on our visit to the capitol building.


Another highlight of our time in Austin was the LBJ Presidential Library. I have a newfound respect for the man now. Previously he was just one of the other names other than Lincoln or Washington and had no real association for me. Now that I've been reminded of the hundreds of bills and acts he signed into law to make America a better society, I find I have become a fan. And the nerd in me just loved being in the museum. They had on display some of his actual speeches with hand written notes and the Bible he was sworn in on after JFK's assassination (by the way, we also saw the spot where Kennedy was shot on our way through Dallas, complete with conspiracy theorists trying to win over the tourists). And then we walked up from the lower level and I was absolutely astounded by what we saw:


All those shelves of red boxes are the LBJ archives. Those are the actual stacks of archival quality, acid free boxes with the presidential seal embossed on them. What a collection!

On the two days we stayed in Waco, it rained. That wasn't a big deal on Sunday, since we had intended to stay indoors anyway, going to church and watching the Oscars in the evening. But on Monday a got the grand tour of Waco in the rain. The best part was probably visiting the Dr. Pepper Museum. Did you know that Dr. Pepper was invented in Waco? Well, it was, and the old bottling plant is now a museum, with old equipment and advertisements on display. They even have their own archives. I wonder if I could get a job there? Dr. Pepper is my favorite carbonated beverage, after all...


Best friend fail. Sadly, this is the only picture from the whole trip I have of me and Dianna together. I don't have any idea how it could have slipped my mind, especially since I likely won't see her again until Christmas....


This sidewalk leads up to the bear enclosure on the Baylor campus. Yes, they have two live bears on campus. Sadly, I didn't get to see them. The first two times we went, it was cool and rainy and they were asleep in their cave. The last two times, we stopped by in the morning on our way out of town, and it was apparently too early and they hadn't been let out to play yet. It made me very sad.

In all, though, it was a great trip. Being back in a plains state made me feel so much at home. The weather was great, too. It felt like being home in South Dakota in the summer. I enjoy living in Boston and don't seem to have any trouble with the closeness of the city. But I'll always be a Midwestern girl at heart, with a special love for the wide open spaces and simple living. I mean, how can you not love a sky this big?


-Kim

the Great Flood of 2010

I don't care if it's not official yet--I'm declaring this one Great anyway. It's been raining for three days, and while I haven't yet heard any official totals, what can be seen with the naked eye is pretty darn impressive. Entire branches of the T system were unable to run, and buses were trying to shuttle people in to work. It's amazing that in a culture so accepting of snow days we can't call a "flood day" when things are so bad. The trains have just as much trouble in current conditions as in heavy snow, and yet everyone is expected to slog through and get to work. About half of my photo archives class was absent today because they either couldn't make it into town or they had to stay home to deal with flooded basements.

I didn't leave campus at all yesterday, so I missed some of the excitement, but the news this morning was ridiculous. The above ground stops of the Green Line weren't running for several hours, and the Fenway T stop was completely shut down. They even put up a dam of sandbags to keep the muddy river creek (which crested at 15' above it's usual level) from sending water down into the subway tunnels. Below is a photograph of the barricade from the MBTA Flickr account.


This next picture (also courtesy the MBTA) is of a section of track on the Green Line between Chestnut Hill and Newton Centre that completely lost its support when a sinkhole opened underneath it. Read the full details here.


This next one I took myself when Christina and I wandered over to the park after class. Our usual route to the Longwood T stop is completely underwater. The trains are running again now, as the train in the back of the photo shows, but you have to take a much longer route to get to the station. Going on this photo expedition, I learned my rain boots are no longer perfectly waterproof. Sad day. Oh, and apparently the Charles River is overflowing its banks as well.


And the worst part? Metro Boston got off easy compared to a lot of other towns in the area. Allan Parish was right, a little rain never hurt anybody "but a lot can kill you." Let's pray the rain really does stop tomorrow so we can start putting things back together.

-Kim

And just for the sake of irony, I have one more thing to share. As I was writing this my iTunes was on shuffle, and several water related songs came up. But the one that really made me laugh was "Flood" by Jars of Clay. In case you don't know the words, here they are. Now you can all share in the irony.

"Flood"

Rain, rain on my face
It hasn't stopped raining for days
My world is a flood
Slowly I become one with the mud

Chorus:
But if I can't swim after forty days
And my mind is crushed by the thrashing waves
Lift me up so high that I cannot fall
Lift me up
Lift me up - when I'm falling
Lift me up - I'm weak and I'm dying
Lift me up - I need you to hold me
Lift me up - Keep me from drowning again

Downpour on my soul
Splashing in the ocean, I'm losing control
Dark sky all around
I can't feel my feet touching the ground

[Chorus]

Calm the storms that drench my eyes
Dry the streams still flowing
Cast down all the waves of sin
And guilt that overthrow me

[Chorus]

Lift me up - when I'm falling
Lift me up - I'm weak and I'm dying
Lift me up - I need you to hold me
Lift me up - Keep me from drowning again

parade fail

March 14 is Pi Day. This year, it was also the date of the annual South Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade. Unfortunately, this weekend a Nor'easter blew through New England. The rain was pouring down all day, and the wind made it come horizontally. And yet the parade went on. Here's a picture from the boston.com website of what the conditions were like:


After much deliberation, my friends and I decided that rather than get soaked and risk getting sick at possibly the most inopportune time of the semester, we would stay in and watch it on TV. However, after much painstaking research and phone calls to both the Mayor's hotline (the guy who answered the phone was rather rude when he told me they had nothing to do with the parade, in spite of the fact that boston.com advertised that we could phone the hotline for news of the parade) and the official parade phone number, we learned that the only station that would be broadcasting the parade was New England Cable News (NECN), which is not included in the Simmons dorm cable package.

With that sad discovery, we decided to make the day as Irish as we could to make up for it. After much deliberation and searching through the available movies on Netflix instant download for any related to or filmed in Ireland, we decided on one that Sara owns, "The Secret of Roan Inish." It was a very fun movie full of adorable accents and beautiful music. Here we are getting ready to enjoy the show, still decked out in our very green finery:


I just hope that there will still be some Irish fun to be had on the holiday itself and that Boston did not expend all its fervor on one dreary, blustery parade day.

-Kim

I dream of teeth

On Wednesday night I dreamed I went to see my dentist and she wasn't there. Many strange events and circumstances had transpired to make me late, and when I arrived her area was empty. I was very sad, because this meant that I was never going to have my stitches removed and would have a mass of wet string in my mouth for the rest of my life. (Is it weird that I'm now dreaming about going to the dentist? Let's hope it was just because I really wanted my stitches out!)

Thankfully, this did not happen when I went in on Friday. I was a few minutes late thanks to the mass transit system being what it is, but it wasn't a problem. However, once Fatema had called me from the waiting room and brought me back to her chair she discovered that Dr. Chueng was nowhere to be found. Dr. Chueng is the one who has been taking the measurements in my mouth from the start, so we couldn't possibly take them without her.

Fatema called and left her a message and set about completing the portion of the appointment that she could do on her own--taking photographs of my progress and removing the stitches. She applied a topical numbing agent, so I couldn't feel much while she was cutting the thread and pulling it out, but I could see the pieces of thread as they came out, and it's amazing how long some of them were.

By the time we had finished that, Dr. Chueng had appeared and we were able to take the measurements. Afterward Fatema gave me a fancy new interdental brush to keep the spaces between my teeth clean. I won't be allowed to floss for many more weeks as the bone and soft tissue continue to grow, but the plaque still needs to be kept out. The same company also makes extra-soft toothbrushes which are better for my extra sensitive tissue post-surgery. Sadly, the only store in all of Massachusetts that sells them is about two hours away by car. Who would have thought I would end up buying my toothbrushes online? Still, it's a small price to pay for a healthy mouth. That's what I have to keep telling myself when I get frustrated by the pain and inconvenience of oral surgery. The pain is temporary, but the benefits are long-lasting. I may not be able to bite into an apple right now, but I'll be glad when I am an old woman and able to do so with my own teeth.

-Kim

whims, bangs and flops

Hello world! I know it's been a while, but I really am still here.

Now what was it I wanted to tell you all about? Oh yeah! So, I did a rather brave thing not too long ago. I decided that my bangs were getting too long, but since I'm trying to grow the rest of my hair out right now it clearly made no sense to go out and pay a professional stylist. So as I was waiting for the free skate of the Olympic women's figure skating competition, I sat down on the floor in front of my full length mirror with a trash can between my knees to catch the mess and cut my own bangs. I think I did pretty darn well, considering it was my first attempt. It was easier because the bangs were already a good shape, so I just tried to cut the same amount off all the way across to keep them even. Possibly they ended up a bit shorter than intended, but that just means I can wait even longer before attempting it again. So what do you think?


Oh yeah, and I just spent several days in Texas visiting Dianna. It was a blast and will be highlighted in a separate post soon, along with pictures. Right now I'm playing catch-up with my schoolwork because of spending most of my spring break in sunny Texas, so that comes first. Also, I'm going to the dentist today to get my stitches out: yay! I'm really tired of having this mass of wet string in my mouth.

-Kim

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass - RGM version

I am absolutely in awe. Go. Watch. It.