Earthquakes, Hurricanes, and Dada. Oh My!

It's been kind of a crazy week and a lot has happened. I figured for this entry I'd share some snippets from each day and occasionally some photos to highlight each day's particular adventure.

Sunday 21 Aug 2011: The Walk

It was my first day in new ward: the Glenn Dale YSA Ward. The chapel is about 6 miles from where I live. My father recommended that I find the bishop's number and ask for help getting a ride. I refused, explaining that I had my own plan and that I would take care of it. I intended on taking the bus. It turns out that neither the MetroBus routes nor the Prince George's County bus systems operate on Sundays. By the time I figured this out (late Saturday night) it was a bit late to call and ask anyone for a ride. So I decided to walk to church.

Turns out Greenbelt Rd is also Route 193. It lacked a sufficient amount of sidewalks.
Luckily there was a generous bike lane.

Google Maps estimated that it would take about 2 hours to get there. And that was about right. I listened to some talks from General Conference and a podcast called Hard Core History. Learned quite a bit about the Roman Republic and the Gracchi brothers on the way to Sacrament. I got a ride back home after church.

Monday 22 Aug 2011: FHE Dada

Among other things, I attended FHE at the Institute building. Oh I hope things look better at institute in way of interesting people otherwise I'm doubting that my church community will be a source of great friends out here. Not very lively people. Maybe it was just a low energy day? Anyway, I had planned to wear one of my Legends of the Hidden Temple shirts to see what reactions I might get. Sort of a precursor to my adorning my Captain Hammer shirt. I figure if I wear these items and someone responds with enthusiasm, the exchange will reveal the higher likelihood that a friendship is probable.

Blue Barracudas Represent!

One person asked me about the shirt, but that was it. On the plus side we did create some Dada poems. Unfortunately no one knew what that meant. I was the only that responded with any form of enthusiasm which meant that the person who decided that Dada would be the activity asked me to explain it. I gave a one minute explanation rather than my 25 minute lecture, thinking she'd give more background. Not so much. So mostly, it just frustrated people. And when we were making poems, the woman who planned the activity was not exactly creating poems by chance herself even though she was working off the whole idea of Tristan Tzara's chance poetry. I liked the poem I made. Would have copied it down, but it was dada. I made it, appreciated it, and then it was done. Why hold onto it? I did like that some random words I pulled made the line "Books, Books, Read." That was cool.

Tuesday 23 Aug 2011: The Day the Earth Did Not Stand Still

I attended some beginning of the year meetings on campus starting at 11 AM. First meeting with all the graduate students and faculty in our department and then just our individual program. There are 4 graduate programs in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland: MFA in Dance, MFA in Design, MFA in Performance, and MA/PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies. So yeah, after all of our meetings the new PhD students were waiting to meet with Frank Hildy and while we sat around the conference room table, the room started shaking. back and forth. To me it felt like a motion ride . . . like Star Tours at Disney's MGM Studios in Walt Disney World.

Luke faced Vader and the Death Star on his first adventure; this earthquake isn't some sort of allegory or omen is it?

I should probably be less glib--I know that it was very terrifying for many people--but I thought the whole earthquake things was a hoot. I had fun . . . and then I went to get food with some of the other grad students. It was a nice day.

Wednesday 24 Aug 2011: A New Home

Not much happened. The big item on the schedule was dinner at Dr. Hildy's house with other students and faculty. I went there before when I came out to visit the school; it was nice to go back because Frank's wife Cindy and her brother are both amazing cooks. Before the dinner, I spent a lot of time on campus wandering around the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center or CSPAC. I decided to take some pictures of my new home. When I first saw this building I think my jaw dropped. It's so beautiful.

Eat your heart out, HFAC!

Thursday 25 Aug 2011: Allan Davis and the Temple of Gloom

Spent the whole day on an adventure to see and worship in the Washington, D.C. Temple. When I saw gloom, I refer not to the edifice, but to the terrible weather. When I walked outside of my house, it was raining, so I grabbed an umbrella. I realized that I had the wrong time for the bus and returned home. When it was time to catch the next bus, the weather looked fine so I left behind my umbrella and rain jacket. That was a bad decision. It rained a lot and I got soaked.

It took a few hours but I finally made it to the beautiful D.C. Temple.



After I attended a session, I walked outside into a wave of humidity that I have not experienced since I was in the greenhouses at Kew Gardens. I tried taking pictures, but the air kept fogging up my camera.


I had to keep wiping off the lens, but I got some decent pictures.




It took another few hours to get home, but on my way while walking from the Metro Station I saw a frog in the dark. I tried to get a picture of it, but this was the best one I could get. I found him quite cute.

Jeremiah? Seems appropriate given the day's journey.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 26-28 Aug 2011: Hurricane Irene

These three days were pretty much all the same. Everything was so frantic because of Irene. We didn't get any rain on Friday. A few showers on Saturday. Some wind early Sunday morning. And two sustained blackouts. One for 4 hours on Saturday evening and one all of Sunday until around 10 PM. It sounds like Irene did some serious damage, but luckily that impact was not really felt in Greenbelt, MD in significant ways. My church meetings were cancelled. I finished reading Antonin Artaud's The Theatre and Its Double, read a lot of a Sookie Stackhouse novel (the books HBO's True Blood series is based on), and played cribbage and Uno with my roommates. A simple weekend for me.

And that my friends was my week before school: an earthquake, a hurricane, and dada. Who could ask for anything more?

A New Start: The First Week

So here's the thing: I just moved to Maryland to start a PhD program in Theatre and Performance Studies. I'm excited to start something new and challenging. The fact that I live so close to DC thrills me to no end. Yet I miss a lot that I had to leave in Utah--mostly people, but to an extant the familiarity and ease of a nice and easy college-town life. Turns out I miss being able to walk a couple of blocks to Panda Express or Macey's grocery store a bit more than I anticipated. But like I said, right now, I'm mostly wanting for friendship . . . or at least the daily interaction that I'm used to. So my solution?

Set up a blog!

Actually I set this up a long time ago and I apparently haven't posted on it for like two or three years. I've retitled it, changed the design format, and decided to try my hand at more frequent ruminations and documentations of my everyday life. It's more of an archive than anything else: evidence that I've actually done stuff with my time. I failed to do that at BYU and I kinda regret that. Those were some great years with a lot of fond memories. But as I spent a week in a new town setting up my new life I realized something--when you don't have somebody around who's going to ask "What did you do today?" or "What did you do this week?" actions have a way of seeming insignificant. The days and the memories blur together, losing distinction. This blog, it's a fight against introspective atrophy. I expect some old friends to occasionally follow and comment so the conversations and dialogues keep going.

As far as what I can say for this week. I moved into the place I'll be living for a year on Monday. I cannot describe how many times I've said in my mind, "It's a good place for your first year here." I'm not sure when I realized that I was saying it so much not as an observation anymore but rather as an effort to convince myself of the sentiment. The truth is that it really is a good place for my first year. It's conducive to studying; other people living here are very nice; I have my own room; and it's conveniently located to so many great things like campus, where I'll go to church, bus routes, shopping centers. At the same time everyone I live with studies math or physics. I'm used to that; I smiled when I saw a quantum mechanics book with Schrödinger's cat on it. But it's no Brett and Casey. I got used to living with people who study history and psychology; it's an atmosphere I miss. The lack will dissipate when school starts but for now its absence is noticeably present.

On Monday I unpacked my boxes and suitcases; then, I walked to Target (about an hour walk) and picked up some groceries. Tuesday, I explored my new neighborhood and moseyed on over to a local co-op grocery store to pick up some more items. Funny thing about getting to a new area: sometimes you miss the road you're supposed to turn on. So while this was the route I was supposed to take:



This is the route I actually took:



Live and learn. Plus side, got to listen to a lot more of my podcasts. I have listened to a lot of Podcasts lately. I also got a Netflix account. That decision has resulted in a Parks and Recreation marathon and the nightly watching of films like the independent sci-fi rom-com TiMER starring Emma Caulfield (Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and the miniseries Tin Man starring Zooey Deschanel. The former was far superior to the latter. Tin Man was a hoot and entertaining but I found TiMER to be highly enjoyable.





It's a movie about a world where a technology has been invented that allows people to know the day when they'll meet their soulmates. Sometimes it's a countdown of a few days and for other people it's a matter of years or decades. Because why not enjoy a light philosophical treatment of fate and agency when watching a romantic comedy?! . . . Yeah I watched a lot of Daria this week too.



In news of actually being productive, I bought a bike this week. On Wednesday, after I took care of some business on campus, I took a bus south of College Park to a place called Arrow Bicycles in Hyattsville, MD. They sell Giant Bicycles. I've missed the Giant Rincon bike I had on my mission and I knew that I wanted that kind of bike again. I think the one I have now is actually better though. It's a black and silver Giant Revel 2. I am completely out of shape and still a klutz; plus it turns out that I hate 4 way stops since I don't actually know how those work and when you're on a bike you're technically a vehicle no a pedestrian so it's just confusing. I really need to learn how to drive. Foreign languages and driving--those are my extra curriculars this year. But anyway I really like my bike.







Ooo . . . and fun story. While I was riding my bike back from campus on Thursday, while I was starting on trail, I came across a deer. I couldn't have been more than 15 or 20 feet away from this night woodland creature chewing on a tree.



It was unexpected, simple, and somehow tranquilizing. When I saw him, I realized that I think I'm gonna like it here.