Kelmarsh 2012: Now with Improved Water Rides!!

So about Kelmarsh…

 

It basically did not happen. Here’s why-

 

 

See that rather wide and fast-flowing stream? That picture was taken Saturday morning. The stream was not there Friday night. Allow me to explain from the beginning…

 

Friday morning, Boyfriend Rob and I woke up and started throwing things together for the legendary Kelmarsh Festival of History. Having watched videos of shows from previous years and having listened to the war stories of Crusade’s seasoned veterans, we knew Kelmarsh was supposed to be the biggest show of the year, with pyrotechnics, WWII fighter planes, huge crowds and also alcohol (outside of official show hours, of course). Crusade was slated to put on a battle from 1066, a battle from the 15^th century and also portray the camps of Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Living History area. At the same time, there would be other battles and living history displays from basically any period in Western history anybody could think of. It was going to be a packed weekend and we were excited.

 

By 3:30, we were on a train south, with our friend and fellow reenactor, Gareth, and by 6:00, we were standing outside of a small train station in a small commuter town, a few miles away from Kelmarsh Hall. Unable to reach any of our Crusade compatriots by phone, we wandered up to a cab and asked for a ride. The cab driver grabbed our backpacks, sleeping bags, and suitcase of chainmail and plate armor (yes we have one) and put them in the back of the car, maneuvering carefully around his eggs and various other groceries. What followed then was a terrifying and very-much-over-the-speed-limit drive down to the event site, where our driver nudged his way around a line of cars waiting for directions from the organizers and dropped us off. We headed towards the Crusade camp, where the brightly striped squares stood out in the large field of white and used-to-be-white tents. We set up our little sleeping area and Gareth headed off for perrier (catapult) team practice, which included holding the perrier on its trailer as it was transported to the battlefield.

 

 

Rob and I took a turn about the camp. We looked in on the War of 1812-era life-size fort, with whole sections that were prepared to be blown off in the battle the next day. I had the supremely odd experience of hearing Confederate rebels speaking in obviously British accents. And we saw the very muddy and authentic-looking 10 foot tall WWI trenches. By that time, the sky had gotten very dark and was spitting bits of rain, so we headed back to camp for a quick dinner of meat pasties and conversation around the fire. By the time Rob, Gareth and I trudged to the portable toilets for a pre-sleep visit, it was pouring and the grass was highly squelchy. But my boots were dry on the inside and we had been assured that the field, usually used for music festivals, was equipped with drains, pumps, and other measures to keep flooding at bay. We may get a bit damp, but we’d be all right. Rain is not a new phenomenon to the British Isles, after all, and definitely not a new phenomenon for reenactors. I fell asleep around 12:30am to the sound of slightly intoxicated chicanery from around the camp fire and rain beating a loud staccato on the canvas above my head. I woke up a little while later to hear only rain, fell back asleep, and woke up again in a few hours to hear more rain and a horn blowing ceaselessly from the Viking camp not too far away. “Who’s blowing a horn at this hour?” I thought, “Its too early for breakfast…” I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

 

It wasn’t long after that that I was half-woken by voices all over camp, saying things like “totally soaked” “water ankle-deep” and “show cancelled.” Eventually, I sat up and asked some slightly-more-awake people what was going on and discovered that I was sitting in one of the only dry spots left in the whole section of the camp. At some point early in the morning, the parking lot at the top of the field had decided to imitate the headwaters of the Nile and sent a torrent down the incline, straight into the Viking, Saxon, High and Late Medieval camps. The drains couldn’t keep up and at some point, some poor soul had woken up to find his air mattress floating out of his tent and down the hill, with him still on it. The horn I had heard was a warning, an attempt to rouse everyone before they, too, were washed away. In half of our tents, anything left on the ground was completely sopping, whether it be carpet, cow hide or sleeping bag. By the time I went outside, the Anglo-Saxons in the camp behind us were pulling stakes up from the middle of the stream, having lost the battle to keep their tent stable. The ground was so saturated that it seemed to rock slightly whenever my foot made contact with it and each step brought up a fresh pool of water. If a patch of ground wasn’t covered in water, it was covered in mud and in many cases both. Then the announcement came over the speaker system- show cancelled, entrance flooded, don’t try to leave because you won’t be able to. But on the bright side, free tea and coffee in the beer tent!

 

We ate a breakfast of packaged pancakes, bread, and cold brioche and set off to find the least wet way to the toilets. Many people had abandoned any pretense of footwear and simply walked around barefoot but my boots, bless them, were holding firm so I tried to avoid the biggest puddles/lakes and employed a complex method of climbing and clambering to get onto one of the raised toilet trailers without walking through Lake Michigan Reloaded, which had appeared at the bottom of the field.

 

Reports came drifting in over the next hour or so- Plastic camp (the non-authentic camping area in the field below) was almost washed away, with water over a foot high in some tents. The poor horses stood in ankle-deep water until they found a place to put them. People wandered around in the odd assortment of modern clothing and authentic kit that reenactors of all eras tend to wear when the public isn’t around- whatever is the driest in this case. The rain, oblivious to all the trouble it was causing, continued to sprinkle down from time to time. Some intrepid merchants opened for business. Organizers bustled back and forth in tough little carts or huge tractors. We all wondered when we could leave and what we should do before then.

 

By 9am, there was an announcement saying that anybody who thought they could leave without damaging the ground too much with their tires was welcome to try. Rob, Gareth, and I had no transportation back to the train station except for rides from Crusade. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem but considering the circumstances we didn’t want to be a burden. Fortunately, Rob’s parents live nearby and his dad graciously swooped in (or rather, drove to one side of the stream) to save us. An organizer gave our armor and kit a ride up to the car, we piled in, and spent the rest of the day in a haze of dry-and-warm-clothes induced happiness. From what I have heard, most people had bailed by Saturday night and everyone was safe home by Sunday. And while I’m disappointed that the show did not go on as planned, I am infinitely grateful for the dry bed I got to sleep in on Saturday and the real house it was in…

 

Coming Soon!

 

10 Things You (Really Really) Miss While Reenacting

 

and

 

The Trials and Tribulations of MA Dissertation Writing

And I’ll leave you with a few more pictures:

Not Exactly “Hot off the Press” but Definitely Cooking Somewhere

Tags

Crusades, Festival of History, future posts, Harewood House, Kelmarsh Hall, reenactment

So I’ve been involved with this hobby some people call “slightly insane” and I call “totally awesome” and what is actually called “reenacting.”  If you’ve never heard of reenacting before, its essentially people attempting to recreate certain historic periods for the education of the public.  This can include sourcing, making/buying, and wearing authentic clothes, learning historic forms of combat, mastering certain crafts, and camping in canvas tents in the middle of a field, in the middle of a rainstorm, fantasizing about things like a cup of tea and a toilet that not only flushes but is less than ten yards from where you’re sleeping.

What historic periods do people reenact, you ask?  Basically, any you can think of.  Most reenactment groups are based in Europe and North America and I have seen anything from Ancient Greek to Vietnam War events (and some events have a wide range).  (For a quick visual of different reenactors portraying different periods, click here and drool over the pretty pictures.)  My group, Crusade, specializes in the mid 12th to late 13th centuries and, of course, the Crusades but we lend our hand to Norman, Viking, and occasionally Vietnam War events.  And I personally have also done a few American Civil War events as well.  The thing about reenacting is that it kind of gets into your blood.  You spend considerable amounts of time, effort, and probably money on perfecting your kit for the Third Crusade, then someone from the Napoleonic wars walks past and you think “Wow, I like that.  I wonder how she made that.  I wonder how I could make it.  Can I afford to make it?  How much rice am I willing to eat this month?”  And then two months later, you’ve got another “impression” (character to play) and you’re on the lookout for the next shiny thing.

But acquisition of shiny things aside, the whole point of reenacting is educating the public.  While we definitely have fun wearing mail, bashing each other with swords, and swanning around in cool clothes, we are also there to explain anything and everything to the people attending.  We are there so that they can meet history, up close and personal, by touching it and hearing it and seeing it.  And if just one person in one thousand leaves an event with a better understanding of the period, then we’ve done our jobs (though obviously we aim for higher numbers than that).

So what does all this have to do with The Blog?  Well, I am currently working on a series of posts about some of my reenacting adventures, which will include such future-hits as “10 Things you (really really) miss from the real world while at a reenactment”, “10 things I learned from being a reenactor”, and write-ups of two of my events- Harewood Medieval Fair (two weeks ago) and the Festival of History at Kelmarsh Hall (this weekend).  I’ll try to throw in some cool pictures, too.  If you’d like to follow along with the official coverage of the Festival of History, check out this site- http://www.historic-uk.com/Blog/Live-Coverage-of-the-Festival-of-History-2012/.

Cheers!

Remember that time I had a blog…

Tags

Centre for Medieval Studies, England, Great Britain, life abroad, York

Yes, there has been a long hiatus on this blog. Yet again, life went a bit nuts but I’m going to give it another go and this time, I’m going to make a promise to post at least once a week if not more often. To usher in this new phase of frequent-posting, I have given the blog a facelift and sleek new look! To get everyone up to speed, here’s a quick update-

Last spring, I got accepted into the Master’s program at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York, which was super exciting because York is Magic (see below)

See all the books and the beer and the Vikings and the Minster and the Magic?!?!?!? It’s very magical.

In September, I moved across the pond and I’ve been living here since. Its been an awesome and sometimes really crazy adventure. (I’m planning to write up some of this craziness in future posts.) But more importantly, the adventure is going to continue for at least another three years because I was accepted for a PhD in Medieval Studies at the Centre for Medieval Studies! This is a three year program starting in October. Between now and the start of the PhD, I’ll be working on my Master’s dissertation, studying dead languages and running around with the Crusade re-enactment group, dressed in funny clothes doing very nerdy things. (Check out the link to get an idea.)

So keep an eye on this space for more developments and ever increasing insanity.  But to keep you entertained until next time, here’s a few things I’ve learned from living here so far:

1. If the forecast says sunny, it will rain. If the forecast says rain, it will be sunny. All forecasts will change every five minutes.
2. Sheep are hilarious when chased.
3. If it is snowing, the country will grind to a halt. Light to moderate chaos will ensue.
4. Pants. Are not pants.

Cheers!

ADI

Suspensful Update

Just to tantalize you all-

I know I disappeared again but now, with my senior thesis done and graduation just two weeks away, I am back and I have some big news! But you’ll have to wait until I can write up a proper entry. So stay tuned!!!

Allison

Snow Lightning Means We’re All Going To Die

Don’t worry, readers, I will tell you all about what I’ve been up to soon.  But first, a story far more daring and adventurous, full of Wrath-of-God-like weather, screaming, panic attacks, and a cute dog.  At the beginning of it, I had absolutely no idea what I was in for, and by the end of it, I had no desire to see the inside of a car ever again.

This is the Terrible Trip to Towson.

Once upon a time (a few weeks ago), I and my friends were trundling off to our first day of classes at UMBC.  The sky was rather dark and ominous and we had heard rumors of snow.  In fact, the  morning classes had already been canceled due to bad weather.  We knew some more snow was heading for us in the afternoon and into the evening.  What we did not know, was that the “snow” was actually an unholy mix of ice, slush, and a smattering of snow all mixed together to create white outs that would be descending from nowhere, causing complete havoc and disappearing, only to return to create yet more chaos and confusion.

Now, though I love my school, I will say that it has a terrible record when it comes to closing for inclement weather.  That is, it almost never does, even though most of the students are commuters who have to drive, take the bus, or walk to school.  Still, UMBC administration must have heard about the impending terror because as soon as I sat down for my first session of German 302, the word was spreading that campus would be closing at 4pm.

My German instructor read us the syllabus and told us to go home.  I met up with my best friend/roommate Rachael and our friends Zack and Simon and ran by the bookstore to pick up textbooks.  It was now about 4pm.  As we walked out of the Commons building, in which the bookstore was located, we could see what looked like heavy rain pouring down outside the glass windows.

“Hm,” I thought, “I wonder how bad it could be, if its just raining.”

HA.

As soon as we walked out the door, we discovered that it was not, in fact, rain but ice.  Solid, raindrop-shaped pieces of ice that bit repeatedly into any exposed skin until it was turned wet, cold, and bright, bright red.  As we scrambled our way up a hill towards our apartment, I curled over my bag, trying to keep over $100 of textbooks dry, mumbling swearword after swearword.

And then suddenly the sky went from dark gray to bright white.  We all stopped, dumbfounded, and two seconds later the air ripped apart in an earth-shaking peal of thunder that lasted 10 seconds or more.

Yes.

It was an ice thunderstorm.

A thunderstorm.

WITH ICE!

WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO ANGER YOU, OH GOD?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Yeah, it was pretty terrifying.

We ran to the apartment and prepared to leave, when I got a call from my mom, informing me that we should under no circumstances be on the roads before 7, because there were random white-outs everywhere and the world was ending.  So we waited until about 7:30, saw that the world still seemed to be mostly in place, and headed out onto I-695 towards Towson.  The roads stayed fairly clear of cars and snow for about ten minutes and we stayed fairly happy:

We didn’t know.

We DID’NT KNOOOOOOOOOW!!!!

We started to see brake lights ahead.  We slowed down and eventually rolled to stop behind four lanes of stopped cars.

We stayed in that spot for the next four hours.

Well, that’s not entirely true…we did move a bit….all 2/10ths of a mile.

Two tenths of a mile.

In four hours.

Fact: I do not like being in cars when the car can’t go anywhere, surrounded by cars that also can not go anywhere.  It makes me have mini-panic attacks and do things like repeatedly clench my hands while rocking back and forth like a crazy person.  Welcome to the life of a claustrophobiac.

And so, about two hours into our stint in Purgatory, I looked like this:

Rachael vainly attempted to calm me down with deep breathing exercises, which mostly resulted in me still hyperventilating, just louder.

We also began to get really, really hungry.  Finally, we resorted to eating tortillas and salsa, the only edible thing in the car besides lettuce and raw beef.

Above: Not Food

Above: Food.

Eventually, we realized that the quarter tank of gas that we had started with was beginning to dwindle.  We decided to make a break for it at the next exit.  We then spent two hours making our way onto said exit and actually off the damn highway.  As soon as 695 was behind us, I began to hyperventilate more, but in an I’m-so-relieved way and not an I’m-going-to-die-a-terrible-death way.  That relief stopped when we hit another traffic jam.  I should also mention that at this point, we had seen over twenty abandoned cars and that lightning was still stabbing into the sky at various intervals.

Another hour later and we had worked our way out of two more traffic jams and up an ice-covered slope to get onto a road that had been blocked by a Highway Administration truck.  Because screw the Highway Administration.  There was gas on the other side of that truck and we were going to get it if it killed us.  Which it might.

We got to the gas station just as the car started beeping at us, demanding to be fed.  We went to turn and realized that our way was blocked by two cars.  Blocked in such a way that all we would have needed was another foot of space to get in and get to gas, food, water, and a bathroom.  I ran into the building, hoping to find the owner of the maroon SUV that stood between us and all that we considered good and holy in the world at that moment.

“Oh, that guy?” the attendant said, “No, he left.  He won’t be back till morning.”

AND HE COULDN’T HAVE MOVED HIS CAR ONE MORE FOOT?

We went to back out and try to get into the other entrance.  Unfortunately, the snow and ice had other ideas.  After ten minutes of frantic pushing and burning rubber, an angel in the form of the FedEx guy whose truck was disabled showed up and shoved us out of the ditch.  Rachael and I solemnly swear to use FedEx for the rest of our lives.

As the car filled up, we went into the gas station, grabbed a bottle of water and chugged it.  We grabbed food off of the shelves and shoved it in our mouths.  We went back to the car and watched the gas gauge slowly rise to full.  We nearly cried from happiness.

I grabbed the GPS and demanded that it take us to Towson without ever coming in sight of a highway.  Ten minutes later, we found ourselves driving down wonderfully shoveled country roads, with peaceful fields rolling past.  I calmed down, but you can still hear the stress in my voice:

Yeah.  Rough night.

We finally reached the house at 2:30am.  The dog, bless him had been on his own for over 15 hours, had not had a single accident and ran around us in a haze of excitement for ten minutes straight.  We crawled into bed and swore to God that we would never, ever drive in the snow again.  Not because of the snow, you see, but because of everyone else.

Yes.  Yes, snow lightning, you bested us.  Congratulations.  I hate your guts.

Finals are Fierce Carnivorous Predators

Yes, yes everyone.  In case you weren’t aware, finals are fierce and vicious carnivorous creatures that lie in wait for the whole semester, only to leap out and tear poor unsuspecting university students to pieces through sleep deprivation, anxiety attacks, and brain overload.

Sometimes they do it through presentations, where for a solid week Powerpoint becomes the cruel, cruel ruler of your life, teasing you with super cool effects and backgrounds and then laughing in your face the minute you want to do something that seems fairly standard and simple, forcing you to wander through a maze of obscurely worded options and drop-down menus until you start to feel as though you are perhaps on a quest for something akin to the Holy Grail, instead of a way to change all of your title boxes into Times New Roman font.  The notes you have written on small index cards become a mantra in your head, repeating over and over until you wake up convinced that you did the presentation perfectly to thunderous applause, only to find out that its still two days away.  This mantra will continue for at least 24 hours after you give the presentation, making you desperate to get something, anything else stuck in your head, even if it’s the “Song That Never Ends.”

Sometimes they do it through forcing you to stay up late cramming for an exam, shoving information into your brain until its packed as tightly as a Tokyo subway car during the morning rush hour.  As you finally lay down to sleep, your notes and study guide swim before your eyes until you’re not sure if they’re open or closed. 90%of this information will, of course, be forgotten once you walk out of the exam room, cradling the aching hand that you are sure will develop advanced arthritis the next day.

Sometimes they do it through papers, forcing you to wade through book after book and page after page of JSTOR, EBSCO, or some other database that is organized in such a way as to make you want to throttle whoever designed the search system, and then try to spit out all of that information out in a way that makes some semblance of sense and provides some semblance of an argument, while Post-it notes slowly migrate from the books, to the desk, and finally to your hair or face.  And by the time you finally hit ten or fifteen or, God forbid, something like 25 or 30 pages, you find you have developed an intense, all-consuming bitterness towards some truly random topics, such as the political history of Greece, or John Donne’s use of geographical metaphors in his poetry, or whatever the heck you thought was a good idea to write about a few weeks ago when you rushed to pick out a topic three hours before the deadline.

And once those one to two weeks of mental torture are over, you find that somehow the giant pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen has grown sentient mold and that you barely have enough brain power left to properly operate the microwave.

Yes, my friends, I, and I am sure most of you, have been sustaining myself against attack by finals.  Fortunately, I now have 2 presentations, 4 papers and 3 exams behind me, and only 1 exam between me and relaxing at home eating a dinner that I did not have to cook and using a kitchen with a dishwasher.

And between me and that exam is a weekend in New York, involving such exciting events as traveling on the super sketchy bus run by what might be the Chinese mafia and staying in a one room apartment with three guys, two of which are engineers, and all the mess that goes along with it.  So be on the look out for lots of pictures with short descriptions, with longer posts explaining those pictures coming not long after that.  In the meantime, my lunch break at the Folger is over and I’m off to the Library of Congress to do important research-y things (aka copying stuff).

For my friends still facing finals: Stay strong and go for the throat (its their weak point) and for everyone else…just enjoy the fact that you don’t have finals…

Allison

Hp7 in imax

That is all.

Allison I

Posted from WordPress for Android

Awesome phonage abilities!

Hello everyone!

So I am writing this post on my phone, which has the Android operating system and an app for WordPress. As you can maybe tell by the title, I am very impressed by this. I also got out of one of my classes uper early and figured that I would pass the time before my next class by writing!

And speaking of writing, I am hard at work on my NaNoWriMo novel. Thanks to that cold and my life as a senior undergraduate, I am woefully behind on my word count but I will say that I am past 10,000 words and that I plan to do my darndest to finish it!  I’m planning to have a write-in with two of my friends this week. As you may gues, a write-in is basically where a few people, in this case Becky, Rachael, and I lock ourselves in a room or take over a corner of a coffee shop and not look at anything but our computer screens and rapidly typing fingers for several hours and hopefully have a lot of words typed up by the end.  Ism actually planning to do that tonight as well, since I have no classes on Friday and thus no immediate homework to do.  And I am, unfortunately, not going to be able to make it to Harry Potter 7 at midnight tonight, mostly due to the fact that I have to be somewhat alert and a disgustingly early hour tomorrow morning. Alas and welaway, as Chaucer’s characters often say…

And now the classroom is getting a bit full and class is starting soon. I’ll probably take a break for NaNo-ing to write another post tonight. Until then, farewell!

Allison I

Posted from WordPress for Android

Stupid Colds…

Hey everybody,

So as you may have noticed, I didn’t have my usual Folger-lunch-time post last Friday.  That would be because I wasn’t at work.  And that would be because I got a cold that had delusions of grandeur and kept me bed-and-couch ridden from Wednesday night to Sunday.  On the one hand, I got to sleep for ridiculously long periods of time (and goodness knows, we university students love to sleep) but on the other, having body aches and a sore throat isn’t the pleasantest of experiences.  Still, I’m not one to complain about minor diseases and besides, I am WAY too busy thinking about the end of the semester (much too) rapidly approaching.  And I’ve been so occupied catching up on my work that I haven’t had a chance to post or work on my NaNoWriMo novel.  Fortunately, I have a several hour bus ride up to New York tonight, which should give me time to catch up on my novel (sounds so pretentious when you put it that way…) AND write a SUPER long post ALL about the AMAZING Rally to Restore Sanity as well as write some more impressions.  Also, the fact that HARRY POTTER 7 PART 1 IS COMING OUT NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!  THIS IS VERY EXCITING.  YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED.  VERY, VERY EXCITED.

*ahem*

Yes.  I am a Harry Potter fan.  And as those of you who have been reading this blog for a while may remember, I had the amazing and once-in-a-lifetime chance to tour Harry Potter studios back when HP7 was being filmed.  So I’m pretty excited to see the film not only because it’s the film of the last book (EEK!) but also because it’ll be super cool to see everything that I saw in real life, on-screen.

But alas, I must dash for now; my quick break is over and its back to work.  More soon!

Allison I

Impressions, Sanity, and NaNoWriMo

Hello everyone!

Just as in my last post, I am typing this while sitting at my desk at the Folger Institute, eating my lunch (including locally made raspberry yogurt, yum!).  Last time, I believe I announced something about an announcement about updates…or something like that.  Or maybe I didn’t…hmmm….*stares at the wall trying to remember* *eats some raspberry yogurt* *thinks about how good raspberry yogurt is* *thinks about how weird the weather has been* *thinks about how good a nap would be right now…*

Wait, what?

Oh yeah, updates!

So here’s the deal- I was trying to think of what would be a really good way to make updates about my life interesting and more than just…you know…updates of my life, which I highly doubt would be fantastically fascinating to most people, especially those who don’t know me outside of the blogosphere.  So instead of just plain old updates, I thought that I might do more of “impressions,” of places I’ve been and people I’ve seen and so on, with short explanations for context.  Let’s start with an example of,  say, my walk from Union Station to the Folger every Friday morning:

It’s not a long walk, about 10-15 minutes, but always plenty to see.  I’m usually moving along with a  small crowd of people, all dressed in suits, ties, heels, clutching leather purses and tall cups of coffee, or dragging rolling briefcases behind them.  We ford across the rivers of traffic around the outside of the station and through the small park across from it, scattering birds and squirrels.  Next are the Senate Office buildings, large and square and a sort of dingy grey.  Capitol Hill cops stop each car that goes through and briefly expects it for anything suspicious.  I smile to one of them, he nods back.  It’s at this point that I always think about what would happen if there was something suspicious in one of those cars and some sort of crisis occurred.  I have faith in their ability to handle the situation but very little faith in my ability to calm down my parents for at least six hours after it appears on the news.

Emerging from the canyon between the office buildings, my surroundings suddenly open up as a vast expanse of grass and concrete leads to the Capitol Building.  If democracy was a religion, the Capitol Building would be one of its greatest temples; the white rotunda in the morning sun, topped with the Statue of Freedom, reminds me of those great houses that the Greeks and Romans built to their gods.  And now I’m walking past the Temple of Justice, the Supreme Court building, pillars rising up with a stalwart and austere strength.  “I know this building style is supposed to imitate the Roman state buildings and emulate a great republic and all,” I think to myself, “But the Romans actually painted their buildings and statues with bright colors and for that matter so did the builders of the medieval churches and cathedrals.”  I try to imagine with the Capitol and Supreme Court would look like with bright red pillars, maybe yellow walls and some long drapes of fabric.  The more hardline of the Tea Partiers would have apoplectic fits.  That would be the best prank ever pulled in the history of mankind and I would very much have to buy the perpetrators a drink.  Or five.  But really, if they want to actually, historically accurately recall Ancient Rome, then they really should be colored…  “You are such a nerd,” I tell myself, and walk across the street, turning left to walk past the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, in all its late 19th century splendor, it reminds me of a staid older man with mutton chops and a large pipe, puffing away and harrumphing at the world, while secretly handing out sweets in the form of books to nerdy people everywhere.  A few more moments and another cross walk later, and I’m pulling open the door to the Folger building, ready for another day at work….

So yes, something sort of like that.  In the next couple of weeks, I’m planning to do similar, but perhaps longer descriptions of the Folger Library, my recent weekend in New York City for the New York Comic Con, maybe some of my classes, and whatever else I happen to think of.   So what do you think?  Good? Bad? Terrible?  Let me know!!

Also happening soon on the blog:

I’m very excited to be going to the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear tomorrow!  I am a fan of both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and feel that, though they are slanted like everybody, they’re more believable than certain *other* news programs/stations.  In particular, I very much agree with Jon Stewart’s reasons behind the Rally, namely that members of both sides of the political spectrum are becoming entirely too concerned with trying to beat out and/or slam the other side and they’re losing focus on the fact that they’re supposed to be actually working on solving the tough issues we currently face.  This goes for both politicians and “regular” people.  Hard times like these can bring out either the worst in people, or the best.  The important thing to remember is that we need to work to make sure its the latter that we bring out in ourselves and each other.  A bit of friction is required to make sure the democratic process functions well but as Ben Franklin said, “We must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately.”  So many of my friends and I will be heading into DC tomorrow to show our support of sanity!

And on a slightly less political note, I am also excited to announce that I will be participating in National Write a Novel Month (aka NaNoWriMo)!  This is an awesome event that anyone can sign up for, for free.  The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel between 1 Nov and 30 Nov.  It doesn’t have to be a good novel or a coherent novel, just 50,000 words.  The idea is to break down the barriers that can normally hamper the imagination and the imaginative process, to let your mind run wild and see what turns up.  I’m doing this with two of my best friends, Rachael and Becky.  To be honest, I’m a bit terrified.  I mean, 50,000 words?  That’s a lot.  But I’m determined to do it and I’ll be updating you guys about it a lot, probably because I’ll need to complain about how I can’t do it.  The project website is here-

NaNoWriMo

Well, my lunch break is just about over and its time to get back to work.  Look for Twitter posts and possibly short blog posts all day tomorrow!!!

Still need a sign-off….

ADI