Welcome to the Future

Today my grad school orientation stuff finally came! I’ve been all worked up over it. I hate waiting for things like mail, phone calls, etc. and I’ve been waiting for all kinds of things basically all summer. It’s rather trying.

So I got this big padded envelope, which I found surprising. Turns out they sent us just a brief letter, a one-page schedule for the one-day orientation (a very pretty schedule I might add), a lovely campus map, 2 pens, and a flash drive containing our Graduate Student Handbook and a list of helpful links. I must also add these are very nice pens with rubber grips and everything—the one even has a flashlight on the end. A flashlight! On a pen! I’m surprised it doesn’t make sonic screwdriver noises.

And the handbook, it’s all available online, but they wanted to send it to us anyway just to make sure since it’s our first year. And they had the decency to give us digital copies instead of wasting paper.

As you can surely tell, I’m excited. It just so happens that I’m also moving into my new apartment in exactly one week. I just measured the trunk of my mom’s car and my papasan chair just to make sure it’ll fit (it will). Then I wrapped up my fancy new-to-me silverware (a complete set for just $15 already sorted into a solid wood drawer organizer—smells like the old lady house it came from, but it’s all in great shape) and put it on my growing pile in the garage.

Two nights ago my stepdad and I picked up the bed our family friends gave me (free bed!). We strapped the box-spring and mattress onto the roof and tossed the frame into the van. As soon as we were ready to go it started raining. So we drove as fast as we could without losing our rooftop cargo. We had to pinch one of the straps into the sun roof to help hold everything down.

We laid the wet mattress onto the roof of my stepdad’s Fiat Spider convertible. A full mattress on top of a tiny car. And then one of the cats made it her new spot (a slight improvement on last week when she plopped herself down on the roof of my mom’s car in the middle of the driveway moments before we wanted to leave for our estate sale shopping trip).

Now we just need to make a headboard, buy a fitting bed skirt and sheets, and transport the whole mess 3.5 hours south. Not to mention the papasan, my desk, my bookshelves (luckily they’re collapsible), my dining table (disassembled), and what I have so far on kitchen utensils and appliances (which is practically a whole kitchen). Oh, and then there’s my clothes, shoes, purses, jewelry, pillows, decor, books, office and school supplies, plants, and curtains. I haven’t even really begun to pack half of these things!

The logistics of the move:

My mom and I are driving down in exactly one week in separate cars, both stuffed with most of my things. My stepdad’s following down a day later since he can’t get Friday off and is bringing my bed and whatever else I still need. BUT, my mom’s driving back the same day he’s coming down because my little sister has a horse show to prepare for. No word yet on whether my sister is coming down for any part of the move (who knows if she’ll even have room in any of the cars). Part of me is glad I’ll only be with one parent at a time. Sometimes moving is made harder by having too many extra hands.

To think I still have so much prep work to do! I need to finish figuring out what internet package to buy and how that whole business is going to work (my roommate’s moving in a week after me but bringing by her router and modem once I’m done settling all my other things). I need to figure out how the best way to pay for my public transportation needs: a monthly card, or an annual one, and please Pittsburgh, explain to me what is a ConnectCard and how is it different from everything else? And what about this magical part-time job I’m supposed to have while I go to school? Keep your fingers crossed for me on getting an interview with Barnes &  Noble. (Best job for me or what?)

I’m officially freaking out. Hopefully a weekend at my boyfriend’s will calm my nerves before the big move. Now I best be off to get started on this to do list.

Death Valley (Yeah, I’m that BA)

What better way to kick off the desert portion of our trip than with a night in Death Valley? It’s the deepest point in North America, dropping to 282 ft. below sea level at Bad Water Basin. It’s also the driest and the hottest, with its record high at 134 degrees Fahrenheit recorded on July 10, 1913. Sure everyone joked it was crazy for us to go there at the very end of May (we were there from the 29th to the 30th), but we didn’t let any of that phase us and forged bravely ahead on a very straight road.

We stopped at the Visitor Center to ask about the camping situation, fearing the worst. A ranger gave us a map and indicated where we could stay and advised us to call ahead. So while we had some lunch under the only shady tree on the grounds, I pulled out my handy dandy cell phone and English language skills and called campground after campground only to be disappointed. The one place that had anything open was at Furnace Creek, but it was RV only. The guy on the phone explained that since we didn’t have a generator to hook up and run an air conditioner all night, we wouldn’t be allowed to stay—the ground temperature was already too hot. Having lucked out on campsites every night so far, we decided to drive in and have a look around just in case.

We feared the worst because the main campsite, Furnace Wells, was closed for construction. We drove up to its stand-in, Texas Springs and discovered it to be all but empty. There were two or three spots taken, but as we drove around, we noted that most of the empty ones were not yet claimed. So we pulled into the last one with natural shade and made ourselves comfortable—well, as comfortable as you can make yourself at 105 degrees Fahrenheit. We put our camping chairs and our little folding table in the shade under our needle-y little bush-tree-thing and brewed some tea. Yes, hot tea. No joke, it’s surprisingly refreshing in that heat, especially in citrus and mint flavors. The trick of it is that the warm beverage is a lot easier for your body to absorb than something cold for which it would have to expend a great deal of energy to first warm the fluid.

What a campground we had found! Right at the back of our site there was a tiny stream (yes, a stream! In Death Valley!) and the bathrooms had actual flushing toilets as well as sinks. The troughs for refilling your water stores produced bathtub warm water…excellent for a hippie shower at dusk. It’s honestly amazing how good it feels just to rinse off from a jug.

Camp, sweet camp.

My stepmom and I changed into our breeziest outfits, secured our hats, and slathered on sunscreen in the shade where we sat and reading until dinner time. Meanwhile dad went on a birthday hike in the surrounding desert. We even had our first close call with a chipmunk trying to get into the van. Really, it was a very pleasant afternoon.

When Dad got back, we had a dinner of rice and yellow squash. We sang Dad happy birthday and had chocolates for dessert. Dad showed us pictures of desert hares with giant ears and we were amazed at how many there were.

That night, Dad slept on his mat on top of the picnic table. I had all the tent flaps open and used only my towel as a blanket. At 3 a.m.it actually got cold enough for me to put my tank-top back on (and to think just two nights ago I was all bundled up in flannel pj pants and a sweatshirt, tucked deep into my sister’s mummy sleeping bag).

But before we went to bed, we all piled onto the picnic table for some star gazing. I’ve never seen so many stars! They tried to explain to me how to find the little dipper based on the location of the big dipper, but I’m terrible at spacial relations and all that. But hey, I saw 3 shooting stars.

The next morning we had a quick breakfast and broke camp as fast as possible to escape the heat. Our day’s drive took us first to Zabriskie Point, a place my dad knew from a movie. (He never watches movies or TV! I was flabbergasted.) He told us about how it’s the first hippie movie, that it’s about young lovers on the run from the law. I have yet to watch it, but it’s at the top of my list. My dad for one was surprised that I hadn’t seen it.

We headed on to Golden Canyon where we walked for a little while but decided against the full hike. So on we went to the Artist’s Pallet.  We drove the whole Artist’s Drive loop, but sadly it was the wrong time of day to really see all the gorgeous colors in the desert—it was morning, the best time is late afternoon. After that came The Devil’s Golf Course, a vast field of treacherous yet delicate salt formations created through evaporation. Finally we came to Bad Water Basin and the Bad Water Basin Pool, a glorified puddle of salt water. Okay, that’s a bit callous, it was actually pretty incredible, especially when you turned around to look up the cliff at the sign indicating sea level—so far away! Standing there looking up at it on the one hand produced disbelief because, sure, it’s hot and vast and pretty empty, but are we really that deep? On the other hand, it sort of felt like standing submerged under water and looking up toward the surface—the landscape was that strange.

On our way out of Death Valley we saw a coyote by the side of the road.

I can definitely see where the creators of Wile E. Coyote got their inspiration.

The only other vehicle on the road stopped to get pictures of him but we drove on to a landmark for Manly Lake where we got out of the car for the last time. We saw the coyote trotting down the road toward us and when he started to get close we got back in the car. He came right up to the windows begging for food. He was emaciated and his fur was matted. I really wish we could have given him something, but the park rules prohibit it for the obvious danger it poses to visitors. Sadly, I think this little guy was a victim of the danger such feeding poses to the local wildlife: he’d grown so accustomed to begging for food from visitors that he’d grown too lazy and perhaps even unable to feed himself. After all, with the abundance of chipmunks and hares we saw, there seemed to be plenty of normal food for him if he’d only go get it.

Cleaning out my bookshelf

I’m sort of a pack rat. Not a hoarder, just….loath to throw things away. I’m one of those “but I might need that again” people. Not in any extreme way, but enough that when I cleaned out the bookshelf where I store all these “just in case” things, I found a little box full of earrings that were either broken or irritating to my ears.

But I found far more interesting things than a bunch of old earrings. It turns out I kept my entire high school education on that shelf, and even some of middle school….We’re all aware that I just graduated college, right? So yeah, there were at least 3 trash bags full of old papers and filled up notebooks.

Boy did those notebooks contain some gems! I had a habit of starting stories but never finishing them. I’d even draw what I imagined the characters to look like. So there were some terrible doodles and some decent ones and a whole lot of unfinished fiction. I had thing for writing about tough-girl computer hackers (No, I had never heard of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo…it hadn’t even been published in English yet when I was in middle school.) and just awesome ladies involved in underground revolutions and other such intrigue. There was always a blossoming love story. None of these stories ever made it to more than a page or two of opening exposition. Some of them might pass as sub-par flash-fiction. The significance of them lies not in their quality but in the fact that I started writing when I was as young as twelve.

I kept more of my Spanish class papers than anything. I found a diagram of my room, as it was set up freshman year of high school, with everything labelled in Spanish. Then I happened upon the crowning jewel of my discoveries: my senior year Spanish class journal. Yes, it’s all in Spanish, so it’s pretty staccato. The teacher even circled one word and put a question mark next to it that seems to say, “honey, that’s not a word.”

I start out in the first entry just talking about myself and my family, the basic generic conversations you memorize in every foreign language course. But also add that I’m really emotional about my impending graduation (this entry is from the end of March). I end the entry with how sad I am about my cat, Bob, who died that August.

The next entry is from April 1st and it starts out with “I’m very angry and annoyed today.” It goes on the explain that I’m glad it’s raining because the weather matches my mood. I drive that point home by elaborating that I don’t want sunshine because it wouldn’t match my mood. I go on to list all the things that I don’t like and add that I’m feeling a little sick and just want to crawl back into bed. Next, I list all the good things I’m waiting for: spring break, graduation, summer, a trip to Austria… I end the entry with “everything good is in the future. Nothing is good today.”

The third entry is just about how busy I am.

Then comes a wonderful entry about how excited I am for things to come and I spend a paragraph talking about how much I love my car (yes, the Daewoo).

The last two entries aren’t graded, which hopefully means I never turned them in because the one is devoted largely to my hate of studying. I wrote, “I never study; never, never, never.”

This journal fascinates me now more than ever because having just graduated college, I’m in a similar place right now. Then and now I feel like I’m in suspended animation just waiting for the exciting new things coming my way. Although I have to say I’m quite a bit more cheerful this time around. Also a little sadder about putting the past behind me.

After I cleaned out and reorganized that bookshelf to make room for a bunch of the books I’ve accumulated over the last 4 years (hey, I’m getting a masters in literature, I really might need them again), I felt light and clean like I’d just taken a shower. But when I went to bed that night I sat there looking across the room at the totally different shelf and I started freaking out a little.

Nothing makes big changes feel more real than when you get rid of everything you don’t need anymore.

 

Mono Lake and the road to Death Valley

Just one day shy of a week late…Oops. But I was  busy. I went apartment hunting, and I found a place! So now it’s on to job hunting and furniture shopping. But really, I’m cool with just sleeping on my newly carpeted floor—now that I have a floor to sleep on at all. But I’ll talk more about current life stuff in the next post. This post is all about the mysterious land east of the Tioga Pass.

We descended from the Tioga Pass into a desert landscape so completely different it felt like we’d crossed through some invisible portal to another dimension. We found a room for the night at the Lee Vining Motel in Lee Vining, CA.

I had a gloriously long, hot shower and Dad and I joked about how strange it felt to be clean shaven again.

We had dinner at a drive-in diagonally across the street because it was the only open place in town. Luckily it was delicious. Dad and I had these loaded burgers piled high with pretty much every topping the place had in the kitchen: cheddar, bleu cheese, onion rings, bbq sauce, and bacon. My stepmom had a chicken Hawaiian burger with pineapples that was very messy yet very tasty. She and I decided to follow up our burgers with soft serve. I ordered us twists, but I guess in these parts a cone of chocolate and vanilla ice cream swirled together is called a half-and-half. Perhaps something like the pop vs. soda controversy?

Anyway, we took a walk with our ice creams. We watched a little kids’ baseball game and I failed miserably at trying to explain the sport to my parents. Then we watched a whole flock of swallows gather mud from a puddle for nest building. That was way more our speed.

The next morning we went to the only grocer in town for breakfast and supplies for the next leg of our journey. We bought homemade peanut butter—the best peanut butter I’ve ever eaten. Dad mostly just ate it with a spoon with a slice of bread on the side. It was called “Mono-Made” (their quotes) and if you’re ever in the area, you should buy some (unless you’re allergic, then you probably really shouldn’t). We got some tasty breakfast sandwiches, chocolate filled pastries (so good!), and banana bread for breakfast.

Aside about the chocolate pastries:

They weren’t labeled but they were clearly freshly made and next to some other pastries filled with something else, but both fillings were relatively mysterious. Of course we were curious. An employee came by and I asked her in English if the chocolate pastries were indeed filled with chocolate. She said yes. I turned to my stepmom and told her in German that they’re filled with “Schokolade,” and the woman said “¡Si! ¡Chocolate!” in Spanish and we all laughed because chocolate in German and Spanish sounds much more alike than chocolate in English and Spanish.

Finding a nice spot to eat breakfast proved a little harder. We drove out of town a ways in the direction of Death Valley (south) and found a dirt road that we couldn’t drive down as far as we’d hoped. So we parked in front of a house with a bunch of broken down vehicles in front of it. It looked pretty abandoned and nobody came out to chase us away.

After breakfast and before we properly hit the road, we explored the shore of Mono Lake. This is a saltwater lake that’s been shrunken quite drastically by human water usage. It’s protected now and there’s all these markers showing where the shoreline was in various years. The goal is to get it back to the 1963 elevation. Before human interference back in 1941, the lake was at 6,417 ft. It was at it’s lowest in 1982: 6,372 ft. It’s currently at 6,382 ft. The goal is 6,392 ft. When you’re actually there standing at the plaque where the shore used to be and you look over an expanse of shrubberies toward the lake shimmering blue in the distance, the magnitude of the situation becomes a little more clear.

See the snow-capped mountains trapping all those clouds? And the tufa formations? And that’s a landlocked salt lake! We live on a crazy amazing planet.

My dad says he vaguely remembers signing a petition back in 1986 that had something to do with preserving the lake. He was on a road trip of a much larger scale than ours and his English wasn’t nearly as good at the time, but he recalls being excited that people cared about protecting the environment.

We saw at least 4 kinds of birds on that first visit, some lizards, and all these crazy little alkali flies once foraged by a band of local Northern Paiute. There are also some extra super tiny shrimp called brine shrimp that look like they’ve been around since before the dinosaurs. Then there’s the tufa: the limestone formations that make it feel on the one hand like you’re walking through a coral reef and on the other hand like you’re walking on another planet.

Once we got on road we passed several more lakes. We’re not sure if they were salt or freshwater, but Dad surmised that they formed when water-tight granite trapped glacial runoff.

The whole way along this road I was torn between journaling the goings on and taking pictures of the striking landscape. We passed mountains and cattle farms and everything was strikingly beautiful. At one point my dad called out, “Look! A desert bird!” Full of excitement, I asked, “Where?” as I scoured the swiftly passing landscape. Turns out that’s what my dad calls trash blowing in the wind.

Everything’s Bigger in California

Yesterday I wrote all about how and why I’m in a slump. Today I’m doing what I can to get out of it. I went to the stable with my sister to keep myself from dragging my heels around the house all afternoon. It was nice to sit and watch her lunge her horse. Now that I have the evening and the living room to myself, I decided it’s time to return to my trip. I guess showing my mom the full collection of pictures (well, most of the collection) inspired me to continue.

Finally! Yosemite! We drove into the valley along with a deluge of other tourists, stopping every couple of feet to take pictures of the amazing…everything. The throngs of people were a little overwhelming after a relatively quiet, private time so far. Sure there were always people, but never this many. It’s almost like touring Times Square except you’re craning your neck to take in El Capitan

Surprise! Can you find the climber?

on one side and a waterfall on the other instead of a mass of billboards. But we walked into the trees to find a picnic area and suddenly we were alone.

We sat at the edge of a stream, at the foot of El Capitan splitting a few apples between us as we studied the cliff face. We managed to find at least three different rock climbers. This required my stepmom’s incredibly keen eye followed by closer inspection with our cameras zoomed as far as possible, then finally zooming in on the speck in the picture. Sometimes I accidentally took a shot of a bush instead of a person. Later, I scoured the pictures gain and one that I thought was empty turned out to be one of the clearest images of a climber I’d gotten.

Eventually we moved on and decided to check out another waterfall. The Mist Trail (funny name for a trail since Mist means trash in German) was, of course, overrun with people. Dad made fun of the families dressed up like they’d just stepped out of an L.L.Bean catalog. My stepmom was exasperated at the people not at all equipped for hiking, particularly the parents comforting a small child who had clearly just slipped and hit her head on a rock thanks to her flip-flops.

Turns out the Mist Trail was aptly named, much like the Maid of Mist boats at Niagara Falls. Except we’d left our rain gear at home. But we braved the crowds and made it to the top of the waterfall. For the return trip, we decided to take the loop up and over, away from the water and the mist and the people. We were rewarded with the very best, vertigo-inducing view of the waterfall.

On this trail, we met an old Indian guy and his family. He still had quite an Indian accent, but he told us he’s lived in Fresno for decades. He claimed that he hasn’t been sick or gone to the doctor in years because he hikes. He and his family were in amazing shape, so I think he’s right, hiking is one of the best things you can do for your overall health. I was definitely feeling recuperated and relaxed—the magic of nature.

Our Indian friend pointed out Half Dome, Liberty Point, and Grizzly Point (I think I remembered those correctly). When we asked him about the smoke rising from the trees on a slope across the valley, he explained that the fire had been contained for days now and would probably burn itself out soon. Some of the trees here need fire to reproduce (the Giant Sequoia for example, has cones that only open and release seeds under the application of heat) so some of the forests are actually routinely burned. Throughout or trip we passed plenty of charred stretches of woodlands.

That night we finally made it into that campground in Stanislaus. We cooked pasta in tomato sauce with tuna for dinner—a whole pound of pasta and we ate it all.

The next day we drove back into Yosemite to visit the Mariposa Grove. Neither pictures nor words can capture the enormity of the sequoias we saw there. I can tell you that Grizzly Giant’s biggest branch has a diameter of 7 ft, but until you’re standing right under it…actually I walked all the way around that tree and I’m not sure I comprehend the size of it.

These trees are named Bachelor and the Three Graces. They’re pretty hard to photograph.

As if these trees weren’t impressive enough on their own, way back when Yosemite was young and they were trying to attract visitors to the park, someone came up with the gimmick of carving a tunnel through the living tree. They did this to two of the trees in the Mariposa Grove. One of them fell. The other one is still standing and you can still walk through it—so of course people have carved graffiti into it, hampering its healing. At least they don’t drive cars through it anymore.

The funny thing is, their cones are tiny! Hiking in Stanislaus, we found these gigantic cones and we figured they must be from giant sequoias. Nature is funny like that: the tiniest, most unassuming thing can grow—under the right conditions—into a behemoth.

After walking the little loop through the Grove, we drove over the Tioga Pass. We caught a magnificent view of Half Dome peeking—peaking, you could say—out of the fog. We passed mountain lakes and meadows and were generally amazed.

On the other side, the landscape changed rather abruptly into desert. If it’s been a while since your last earth science class, the Sierra Nevada range traps a lot of the rain on its west side, leaving the east side arid. This is important information for you, gentle reader, to remember for next week’s post.

Something different

So my last couple posts have been about my trip, but if you’ve read enough of my blog then you know by know that it exhibits some ADD. I just find it tiresome to focus on one topic for very long when there’s something else pressing that I want to share. It’s kind of like when you’re stressing out over a few things that you have to do and even though the one thing isn’t as important as the others it’s always sapping some of your attention and energy so you have to do it first before you can focus on anything else.

Right now my current state of affairs is refusing to let me focus on blogging my trip.

I’m starting grad school in Pittsburgh in the fall but I still need to find an apartment (possibly a roommate) and a part-time job to help support myself. I’m repeating this mostly for my own benefit because most of the people who read this blog probably already know all this from my Facebook or from generally being part of my life. Well, maybe it’s not so beneficial: I have a habit of repeating my concerns and responsibilities to myself like a mantra. I think I started doing this as a way to remember everything that I have to do (yes, I also write to-do lists and keep a planner), but now it’s become a way to weigh myself down with all the things I have to do. My mantra-like repetition makes even the smallest tasks (showering or flossing for example) seem so—aufwändig*—as to require more time and energy than I have at present. This attitude results in procrastination. (Yes, I do still shower and floss regularly and keep proper personal hygiene in general, so don’t worry.)

Maybe a more specific example will help:

I had to fill out a financial aid form to accompany my FAFSA. This form was supposed to be returned to the Office of Financial Aid by May 1st. All this form required was logging onto my new university email, opening the attachment, and printing the form (I did everything except print the form when I first got the email) so I could fill it out (it’s a 1-page deal, nothing complicated) and mail it to the office by the deadline. I didn’t manage to complete and return this form until just a day or two before I left for my trip on May 24th. Luckily I suffered no ill consequences. I’ve noticed that financial aid deadlines—most deadlines, really—are set far in advance to accommodate unforeseen complications (such as procrastinators like myself). So not only am I a procrastinator, I’m exploitative. I make myself feel better about this by reminding myself of some of my friends who operate on entirely different planes of procrastination and exploitation: at least I’ve never taken advantage of the fact that a professor likes me by asking for an extension on an assignment, I get everything done in time when it really counts. Besides, why change a system that works? And isn’t sneaky and underhanded of people to set deadlines that aren’t even real? I shouldn’t give in to their manipulation just to be polite, should I? My excuse in this situation was that I was still attending classes, doing homework, studying, and taking final exams. I hadn’t even graduated yet and already my new school was asking me to fill out paperwork! A little room to breath would be nice, thank you very much. Okay, so the academic calendar is different from school to school and if I wanted room to breath a could have taken a gap year, but what do I have to gain from pointing out to myself the hole I’m digging myself?

The real problem with my current state of flux is that it’s a state of flux: there’s nothing fun about being in limbo. Sure I’m working as a freelance writer and I’m enjoying my current assignment, but when I’m stressed out enjoyment doesn’t feel like fun—or I don’t allow myself to have fun—yeah, something like that.

I try to distract myself by procrastinating, except the things I do to procrastinate stop being entertaining when I’m constantly stressing out over the time I’m wasting while I”m doing them. Vicious cycle, anyone?

Here’s a list of things I could be doing right now:

• cleaning out my desk
• sorting through my old clothes
• selling everything that I don’t need anymore
• horseback riding
• yoga
• kickboxing
• swimming
• hanging out with friends
• going to the movies
• getting ice cream
• walking/grooming/playing with the dog
• grooming the cat
• vacuuming my room
• car shopping
• apartment shopping
• reading
• catching up on TV
• watching movies
• playing video games
• hanging out with my sister
• arts and crafts

I just lack the gumption to do any of these things.

So you remember how I said at the beginning that sometimes there’s always that one little thing that saps your focus from the task at hand? For me, that one little thing right now is the need to find a place to live in the coming school year. I’m going to Pittsburgh at the end of next week for a second attempt at touring apartments. I just need to call and set up appointments (fat chance of getting hold of anyone on Independence Day). As long as I don’t have a place to live, I won’t be able to really focus or enjoy myself. And once I have a place, the lack of job will be the next nagging distraction.

*Aufwändig: this means something requires a great deal of effort and expenditure of resources.  Sometimes I just can’t come up with a word in English that expresses the same thing as a word in German (it goes the other way too).