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Today is my last day at 826DC. I took a week off for family vacation at the Outer Banks. If for some reason you don’t know what or where the Outer Banks is, I feel sorry for you. It is probably my favorite place in the whole entire world.
It was the perfect relaxing break from the hot and muggy District. I think it is most prevalent around August that the nation’s capitol was built on a swamp.
Anyways, that was an unnecessary tangent. As I said, I’m completing my last day here at the center and it is sort of bittersweet. I’m looking forward to starting my senior year and taking a freshman level Physics course. But this summer has been absolutely wonderful. Right now, 826DC students are being filmed for an iPad app (to be released along with a book of their awesome work!) All of these soon-to-be college freshman are dressed up reading their poetry and prose for the camera. It is super cool.
This internship experience has opened me up to a whole new sector of education. It is so promising meeting individuals and students who are willing to dedicate extra time, above and beyond the necessary, to further their and other’s education. I don’t have a real plan for graduation, but this summer has made me more hopeful that I can find a way to be involved in education, education reform, and tutoring. I might, dare I say, want to be a teacher.
Also, one last thing–thanks Papa Walter for reading all of these posts! Miss you a ton!
-Kady
“There are stories everywhere,” my Editor just told.
I have long held this to be true. As much as I love Bryn Mawr, it’s not always a non-stop hard news generator. The running joke at the Bi-Co News when I was the BMC News Editor was that my job was to make something from nothing every week.
This was not particularly hard. Students at Bryn Mawr tend to be super interesting and do interesting things. So while we may never have had a police raid on our campus or a car explode, there’s always stories to tell.
But here’s the thing, I tend to find things interesting that other people might not. I’m super curious, and maybe even what you could call nosy. I like to know what’s going on in people’s lives.
And my Editor said the exact same thing.
The conversation arose from a story I had been half-researching. The library website said they were hosting an ancient Egypt exhibit. Which sounds pretty awesome, right?
It’s not quite what sounded like. There’s actually a local artist who does art modeled after Egyptian art. Now I still think that sounds interesting, and the artist has to be a fascinating guy.
So I asked if I could do the story anyway. And I am, because people are interesting. And people tend to find other people interesting.
So I have an interview with the artist scheduled at 2. Hopefully, he won’t disappoint.
Hey y’all!
Sorry for the infrequent posting, recently. My summer has really picked up. I want to write a longer post in the next few days, but it could probably benefit me to organize some of my thoughts here, right now. I’ve had two Bryn Mawr friends visit in the past two weeks, one from Philly and another from Durham, NC. It’s always great seeing people outside of “the bubble.”
My dad returned from Haiti last night. He was there for 4 days with his a group of athletes, physicians, and artists, working at the ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier retreat center which is being converted into the Haitian National Sports Center for Olympic hopefuls. My dad is part of a group of artists (3 of them) called Workingman Collective. The collective focuses on creating interdisciplinary interactions, connecting professionals from different fields, in hopes of raising a dialogue of pertinent local and larger issues. I haven’t been able to talk to him all about the trip yet, but as soon as I do I’ll post more.
Now I”m off to Floyd, VA for FLoyd Fest. This is a weekend bluegrass and African dance music festival in the blueridge mountains. Gona get my hippie on!
-Kady
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Finishing up my last few weeks in the lab! Just a quick update to post this picture of me starting a new project. This is 1/3 of a core taken about 10 years ago off the coast of New York. We’re continuing to run samples on it… a little difficult, since it was taken so long ago and has dried up a lot since then (this means that the sediment is loose, so there’s room for it to move around, meaning that some of our data could be skewed).
I’m also spending my last bit of time here re-running loss-on-ignition samples that gave us inconsistent results. We’ll see what happens!
Daniel Burnham, the chief designer of the White City (1893) and Plan of Chicago (1909) was quoted as saying “Make no little plans, for they have no power to stir man’s blood.” I’d say that Burnham was an idealist, perhaps his vision was far-fetched, but his legacy and his ideas are still relevant today.
During my trip to Chicago I spent time in the Chicago Historical Society archives and in the many parks along the lake shore. Jackson Park, the site of the Columbian Exposition, arguably one of the most important urban events in American history, has been reclaimed by nature: overgrown with weeds and bushy trees, and in some places, swallowed by a parking lot. It’s hard to even imagine the fair took place there, which is both sad and somewhat telling. Frederick Jackson Turner, named this country’s first American historian, gave a speech at the world’s fair in Chicago, claiming that the frontier was closed and the era of exploration was over. The American wilderness and the great power of nature was forever going to be changed. Interestingly, Jackson park in some places feels very wild…. very separate from the downtown metropolis.
Though the site of the fair itself no longer resembles the incredible spectacle or urban center that Paris’ fairgrounds can boast, it inspired a movement. Burnham’s vision for parks, walkways and access to the public is alive and well, and frankly, in full swing. Millennium Park and Grant Park especially are exemplary of public park space. The city commissioned Starchitect Frank Gehry to design a pavilion for free outdoor concerts. There are contemporary art installations, gardens, and seating. There are fountains for children to play in, and vendors to satisfy their needs. The parks are their own world of urban nature. These spaces are expansive and connect the loop to the lake and really do remind visitors and residents of the city’s moto (latin) Urbs in horto, meaning city in a garden.
My trip to Paris seems like a long long time ago, even though it wasn’t. The Chicagoan relationship to nature and public space was like a different planet from the Paris that I knew and visited. How do our cities reflect our value and concept of nature? How is urban beauty, either in buildings or parks related to the spectacle of the world’s fairs? These questions are bouncing around in my head. I’m happy to see that these moments in history have a great legacy that has shaped the urban fabric and has influenced public space.
 Frank Gehry's Pritzker Pavilion for free concerts outdoors
This post is mainly an excuse to post these pictures:
Just by looking at the photos, you can get a pretty good idea of what happened.
The short version: someone knocked over the statue (a WWII memorial) and then made of with the decapitated head.
For a longer version, you can read my story (it’s all about generating traffic to The Gazette’s website.)
But this is one of those instances when the photo told the story. The picture, if you will ignore the cliche, is worth a thousand words.
One of the first things I was told when I started at the Gazette is that “Art makes the world go round.”
It’s kind of tricky, because sometimes you have a great story, but no obvious photo to go with it. So you have to get creative. You can’t run a page without photos. And you definitely can’t have a front page without a giant photo.
Before coming here, I had never really given much thought to the importance of breaking up a page. I expected good writing, an interesting story and a pithy headline would draw a reader to my story. I always did photo assignments when working for the Bi-Co, but was never super concerned about them.
That’s changed.
As you might have noticed, I rarely post to this blog with out a photo. And I’ve taken to including pictures in my emails. It’s a more engaging way to read. And it doesn’t detract from the writing, a good photo can add to it.
It’s hard to believe, but I only have 10 days left at the Gazette. It’s gone so fast.
The political situation here in Malawi is very tense. The president, Bingu, is tending more and more towards becoming a dictator, and everyone is getting worried. In addition to the black outs, there is a really bad fuel crisis, and finding a gas station that has gas is nearly impossible. When they do get a shipment of fuel, there are mile long lines of cars all the way down the street to get it. You can buy fuel on the black market, but it’s very expensive and even that is hard to find sometimes. People blame the crisis on different things, but almost all of the versions come back to Bingu being at fault. To make matters worse, earlier this summer the British ambassador in Malawi wrote that Bingu is becoming more and more of a dictator, and got kicked out of the country. The UK responded by kicking the Malawi ambassador out of their country, and last week they discontinued all funding for Malawi, which is a huge chunk of Malawi’s budget. Additionally, an injunctions bill was just passed, making it illegal for the courts to challenge Bingu and raising people’s anxiety about dictatorship. All of this came to a boiling point last Wednesday, July 20, in nationwide demonstrations against Bingu’s rule. In the bigger cities it got violent and the police used a lot of tear gas and started beating people; 18 deaths have been confirmed. For those interested, more information can be found at: New York Times, The Zeleza Post (which covers the reasons behind the demonstrations well), a blog covering the day’s events, some coverage of the lead up to the demonstrations, and an article from the BBC. Maggie and I are very safe and there is nothing to worry about.
Other than all of the political unrest, the past two weeks have been great. I have been traveling all over Malawi. It started two weeks ago today with a trip to Blantyre with Maggie and our friend Lauren who is working with Maggie in Balaka. We had to go to Blantyre to get our visas extended and Maggie had to visit some offices there for a project that she is working on. After going to the immigration office, we found a little Ethiopian restaurant down the street and did some grocery shopping to cook on our new hotplate (!!!) and returned to Balaka before dark. It was a short and easy trip, and it was a relief to get the visas done.
Three days later some of Maggie’s advisors arrived in Lilongwe, so we took a minibus up to see them. We all had dinner and Maggie got to talk out some of the problems she was working through with them for a while. The next morning Maggie and I went grocery shopping (yes, again. The options in Blantyre and Lilongwe are about 9999999999999 times better than those in Balaka, so we had to take full advantage). We found all sorts of treats, but the most notable were brie and dark chocolate. After all of this excitement, the minibus back was king of a buzzkill. It was very cramped, I got stuck pressed up against a window, and it stopped every five minutes to pick up more passengers and stuff it even fuller. People were on top of each other, people were on the floor, I was surprised the conductor didn’t try to put people on the roof. Maggie’s main concern was the brie, and making sure that it didn’t get squished by the people sitting next to me (read: on top of me), and mine was trying to fall asleep on the bumpy ride that jolted to another stop every time it started moving again. It is normally a three-hour drive. We arrived in Balaka six hours later.
Our week of travel continued the next day with a trip to Liwonde National Park, because Lauren and Maggie had never been. We ate more of the delicious food that I talked about in my previous post about my first Liwonde trip, and did an early morning canoe safari. It was a really clear and peaceful morning on the river, and we got to see lots of hippos, along with impala and waterbuck and a glance of an elephant in the distance. It was a really great way to spend my last weekend living with Maggie.
That day when we got back from the trip it was time for me to move to Zomba. I was sad to leave Maggie, but the whole time I’ve been here people have been raving about Zomba so I was looking forward to seeing it. I was really lucky and Maggie’s coworker gave me a ride, so I didn’t have to navigate the minibuses with all of my luggage, and before long I was ready to start the second half of my internship in Zomba! I got moved in and met my four housemates, who are really great, and then one of the supervisors came over with his friends and we sat and talked (in the candlelight, due to the black outs that are due to happen throughout the country every day until December 31).
The final trip was this past weekend. My four housemates and I went to Cape Maclear on Lake Malawi for the weekend. Friday afternoon the five of us piled into a coworkers car that we borrowed for the occasion. The car was great, but the radio was broken and there was only one CD in the car. I don’t know if you have ever experienced the wonders of The Best of Don Williams, but we did. Over and over again. For three and a half hours. If you haven’t had the pleasure, I would suggest looking up Crying in the Rain by Don Williams right now. Or maybe his cover of Fever. Either way, it’s sure to blow your mind. We got there Friday night just in time to watch the sunset on the beach and have fresh fish for dinner at our beautiful beachfront hotel. After dinner we went out dancing and ended the night looking at the stars, which looked so much closer and brighter than they do at home. The next morning after breakfast we got on a boat and went fish eagling. The entails a man on the boat standing up and whistling at the eagles, and then throwing fish off of the boat and having them swoop down really close to where we were sitting, and us taking pictures of them. After fish eagling, we went to an island in the lake and went snorkeling and had lunch and relaxed on the rocks for a while. Harry, our guide, tried to teach us how to catch a fish with our bare hands using rice, but he was the only one who was quick enough to do it. There were a lot of cichlids in the lake that we got to see while snorkeling, which were absolutely beautiful. After about three hours of lazing around on the island and snorkeling we came back to Cape Maclear and did some more lazing around on the beach until dinner. At dinner we ordered “potato nachos” which were cheese fries, and I had a cheeseburger, a nice and healthy change of pace from all of the Malawian fresh produce and rice I’ve been eating. It got a little chilly, and the restaurant got a fire going that we sat around for awhile while we waited for our food to digest before we went dancing. Sunday, the idea of leaving was downright depressing. Cape Maclear was beautiful, and sunny, and relaxing, and all around perfect, and none of us wanted to even think about getting in the car with good old Don Williams and going home. We waited as long as we could, but after one more dip in the lake and a little more time laying on the beach, it was time to go. Time flies when you’re listening to Don, and the drive home was over in no time.
These past few weeks, I’ve learned that not every day is necessarily “successful” in lab research. Sometimes your experiments just don’t go as well as you’d like… It’s been some time since I’ve blogged because we had some contamination issues in the lab. Our experiments were not going well as they had previously so we had to troubleshoot. After we cleaned our pipettes, threw out our old experiment kits, and tweaked our protocols, we’re back on track! I’ll be sure to fill you in on what cool science has been happening in the lab, but for now I think you’ll want to hear about my day in the Operating Room (OR)!
This past Friday I shadowed Dr. Miller, an orthopedic surgeon, in the OR. I woke up bright and so I could get to the hospital at 7:30 a.m. Our day started with a meeting to discuss the cases for the day with the other surgeons and administrators. A Physician Assistant (PA) student and medical student doing her fellowship were also observing Dr. Miller so they made sure I knew what was going on. We changed into scrubs, which are pretty comfortable, I think I could get used to spending the whole day in them (: With a surgical cap and mask, I was all set to go into the OR!
 Ready to observe surgery! I observed operations on three patients, all of whom had Cerebral Palsy (CP). CP is caused by abnormalities in parts of the brain that control muscle movements. The common set of symptoms in children who have CP are abnormal muscle tone and difficulty with muscle coordination and movement.
At first when I saw the small eight-year-old blonde haired boy on the operating table, I wasn’t too sure if I could handle what I was about to see in the OR. The young boy had an epidural catheter replaced. This procedure, which causes loss of sensation and loss of pain by blocking transmission signals through nerves near the spinal cord, is primarily performed to relieve pain in patients, particularly those in childbirth. The patient had a catheter replaced to treat his chronic pain from CP. It was a fairly simple procedure, a good way to start the day as the operation wasn’t too messy or bloody.
Next was a teenage boy who suffered from a severe form of CP. He had a gangly stature and did not have full motion of his knees. The patient had a crouched gait and his feet were pointed outward. Dr. Miller performed a hamstring lengthening and midfoot osteotomy (a fancy medical term for when a bone is cut to shorten, lengthen, or change its alignment) on both of the patient’s feet; after he did the operation, Dr. Miller would flex the patient’s feet to see if they were flexing and moving properly. It was neat to see the drastic change in movement, but at the same time slightly creepy since our patient was still under anesthesia!
Lastly was cute and brave little preteen who had the most complex case of the day-a patella re-alignment and subtalor fusion. She was upset when she first entered the OR, she kept on calling for her mother, even her stuffed monkey George could not soothe her. After resisting oral anesthesia, she had an IV placed and an epidural catheter (like our first patient) since she would be in a lot of pain after her surgery. After major operations (the surgery took nearly three hours!) on both her right and left knees and feet, the patient was casted from foot to thigh. Prior to the surgery the patient did not have any mobility and needed help from her mother or support from a walker to walk, but now she should be able to walk on her own!
It seemed like I was in one of those popular medical shows on T.V.–it was really neat to see all the behind the scenes action. In the procedure room there were nearly ten people, each having a different role (from handing the surgeon the correct tools to monitoring the patients’ vital signs to operating the x-ray machine). There were so many teams working together, from the one in the pre-operation room to the anesthesiology prep, to the actual operation, to the post-anesthesiology unit, recovery room, etc. I’m glad I got to observe the Orthopedics OR as A.I. duPont is ranked 7th in the nation among all children’s hospitals for pediatric Orthopedic care! By the time we were out of the OR it was 6:30 in the evening, 11 hours later from the start of our day at 7:30 that morning, I now have even more respect for surgeons! As Dr. Miller would say, my day in the OR was definitely a uniquely satisfying experience!
Hi everyone! When Bryn Mawr asked me to blog this summer, I assumed I’d only do so while in Zambia. But now that I’m home, finally getting to eat sushi and sleep in my own wonderful bed, I continue to reflect. Here’s an illustration of my moment of reentry:
Imagine me, rising over the crest of an escalator at Victoria Station in London at 7:15 AM having flown all night from Johannesburg. I feel like a disgruntled debutante; unprepared for what’s behind the curtain, unready to enter society in a new way. I step off the ribbed platform, juggling my suitcase, backpack, iPod, and train ticket, and I am instantly body slammed by a man who glares, grunts, and gallivants off to make his train without a word. Gathering myself, I attempt to navigate the migration of (remarkably unfriendly) people, and am once again bulldozed by another self-important businessman. My hand darts to the ground to pick up my iPod which I had dropped in the collision, swerving through a shifting forest of overly shined shoes and weapon-like heels. The methodical up-and-down motion of stomping limbs feels reminiscent of the entrance of a monstrous machine; one that threatens to enclose me as a result of my sluggish movements and bad luck. Having fumbled my way to a wall in the station’s corridor, I take a deep breath, pulling the filmy morning air into my body, and exhaling the last remaining bits of Zambia that I’d cradled in my lungs.
As I gather myself and my belongings, I decide to sit at a Starbucks to figure out my plan, given that I have an 8 hour layover. I look through the freshly washed windows and out to the concourse, trying to make sense of the everyday motions of a first world country that now seems so foreign. People move too fast, signs flash invasively, coins clink, shopping bags rustle, hands of clocks seem not to tick, but to spin in circles.
It’s as if someone pressed ‘fast forward’ on a big screen TV and I’m watching the world flash by. While we usually attempt to skip over only the commercials, it seems as if even the content, the things that matter, are being accelerated, especially the quality of life. People skim through interactions, cut corners to reach their goals, and forget to take a closer look at humanity as they barrel towards their futures.
In these long 45 seconds, I say to myself, ‘I don’t feel ready for this.’ All I see are stone walls, headphones that insulate and isolate, and the tangible, metallic flavor of the Underground. Money changes hands without the enjoyment of bargaining. Wealthy teen girls strive for a ‘hobo chic’ look, attempting to emulate the look of the impoverished. People pay hundreds of dollars to be seen with certain emblems emblazoned onto overtly flashy bags crafted from the skins of animals who were poorly treated in life, their carcasses wasted in death. I want to climb back into the enveloping embrace of Africa, back to where gospel music blares on the radio, where people greet one another as equals, and where I am encased in the dust; connected with the earth, and embraced by the people.
Stay tuned for more reflections as I reintegrate myself into my American life and continue to work on reconciling the person I was, the person Zambia helped me to become, and the person I am becoming. Thanks for reading!
Long time, no write, and I’m truly sorry for that. It’s just hard to top my earlier posts on gay rights and activism, and historical laws passing, and academic swag. I had to build up my strength after helping make American history and gay history and all that jazz, you know how it is. Actually, I have been on a bit of retreat because I am currently attending the NY State Writers’ Institute at Skidmore College, and my method has been a bit “Walden Pond”: I attend workshops, attend readings, attend meetings with individual authors, and then isolate myself in the woods to write for hours.
This has been an amazing, amazing experience. Being with other young (a rough definition of young is in use here, as I will explain later) and energized writers who are at the top of their game is so exciting and so fulfilling, and makes me feel like I’m making the right decision in pursuing an MFA post-Bryn Mawr. Having workshops under the tutelage of brilliant and sage authors is priceless. Right now my class is being taught by Amy Hempel, and it’s amazing to have someone of her caliber (I mean, she is one of THE top names in fiction right now, if not THE name in short fiction) read my work, give me advice and guidance, and meet with me one on one to discuss my writing and my future. Having her support is just…it’s definitely a life dream fulfilled. Her collections were some of the first I read when I started discovering short fiction, and to be in the same room with a personal hero, and to discuss your own work and your own life with her…it’s surreal.
Next week our workshop is taught by Mary Gaitskill, another huge huge hero of mine, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be blushing the whole class. With Amy, I have a notebook on hand and have been writing down everything she says in class – one of her methods is to list lots and lots of recommendations for reading – and while at first I was afraid of looking like a nerd, I realized everyone in the class was doing it. I am the youngest in the class by a good five or so years – my writing sample placed me into the MFA-level class, and I’m with students who have either completed their MFA, or are currently working on one. This ranges from 30 to 55 year olds, and the fact that I’m representing Bryn Mawr with these heavy-hitters? Is pretty darn cool, and makes me extremely proud. My story was workshopped on the first day of class, and hearing from experienced and published writers who are peers at the same time was really awesome. I know I keep using the same words over and over to describe this experience, but I’m so glad I’m here.
The full list of resident writers is here, and yes, I have met them all or will be meeting them soon: http://cms.skidmore.edu/news/news.cfm?passID=2879
Tomorrow I go hear Russell Banks read, and then we’re going to talk to him after the reading. Maybe I’ll run some of my Adirondack research project past him, haha…except I’m not kidding.
Basically I am in writer’s nirvana right now.
 WRONG NIRVANA
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