Killjoys Style

Hello again, sports fans!

Sorry that it's taken me so long to do an update.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, whichever way you want to look at it) my classes are much more intensive this semester, so that means more readings, more assignments, etc.  Luckily, work hasn't been the major time killer, so that's good.

After nearly two months of nothing but snow, snow and MORE snow, it's finally starting to feel like spring.  I saw a real robin today! I'm just glad that having a shovel in the car won't be a necessity soon.  Of course, the change in temperature has my sinuses on the warpath, but I think its a fair trade for nice weather.  I forgot to add this to my blog last time, but this is what the worst of the snow was like.  That's my car, for reference. And that's five feet of snow behind my car that's 2 feet high, all of which I had to shovel.  Blurg.

The most exciting thing that's happened since the last time I wrote is that I dyed my hair again.  For those of you who know my past with this, I bleached my hair white two years ago.  That basically killed my hair (even though it looked AWESOME), so I decided to let it grow out naturally and just be what we in the hair dying world call 'virgin' hair.  Well, about a month ago, I got the itch again to overhaul the Katie look.  So, I dyed my hair red and I now look like my favorite Disney princess Ariel (minus the shell brassiere and the fins).  It's quite a chore to keep it bright but totally worth it.  I actually had a five year old come up to me at work and ask if I was Ariel.  I, of course, said yes. :D  Here's a peek at my look:

Another awesome thing that happened lately was I got the chance to interview the curator at the Mutter Museum (see my post about the museum for general info).  She was really nice and I tried not to geek out too much.  So far, that opportunity has been the highlight of my grad school experience.

Other than that, it's been work and school.  Thank goodness I don't have weekend classes this semester, so I've spent almost every weekend hanging out with my good friends Stephanie, Emily and Jesse.  It sounds like the four of us will also be going on the Museum Professions trip to Rome this May.  So that should be a lot of fun.

As for what's coming up in the near future, my younger brother John will be visiting me for his Spring Break.  We've got a lot of great stuff planned, so I will have to write about that!

Hope you all are well.  I promise to write again!

XOXO,
K

Last Season on "Katie's Blog" . . .

Hello once again! First, let me start off by apologizing for taking this long to post since I've been home.  As soon as I returned from my break, work got incredibly crazy since it was the beginning of the semester and there were several 10+ hour days.  Couple that with the start of classes and I had zero time to do anything when I got home but sleep.

Christmas break was absolute bliss, I must say.  I spent two and a half weeks relaxing at home with my wonderful family.  I got to see a bunch of people I haven't seen in months and hung out with my two favorite girls in the world, Caitlin and Aimee.  Needless to say it was really hard to leave, but it was great to have as much time as I did.

To update anyone who is wondering about my health since my last post, I'm am almost 100% recovered.  It took way too long for me to figure out what was wrong, but once I did, it was a REALLY easy fix. 

This semester is shaping up to be a good one.  I'm taking three classes again this semester: Registration II (which is a continuation of Registration I from last semester), The Discriminating Eye (which teaches us how to recognize different techniques and mediums in art), and Anatomy of a Museum (which is the last basic intro course I need to take).  They are all during the week this semester, so no weekend classes, which is fine by me.  More time to do homework, laundry and hang out with friends.

I'm going to try to keep things interesting this semester so it's not all boring and to give me something to write about on the good ol' blog.

Til next time!

K

ER Trips Make Good Stories

Hello once again! Now, before we start this post, I will say that this will most likely be my last post before Christmas.  I'm heading home to Kansas in about a week and will be saving all the juicy stories for a post-vacation edition of the blog. 

Nothing much has been happening since last I wrote and I wasn't sure if there would be another blog between Thanksgiving and Christmas, since the year was winding down and it would just be school and work.  But, of course, there are always those nice little surprises that pop up.  Last Friday, I wound up in the emergency room.

"But why?" you may ask. Although I hadn't been writing about it in my blog, I'd been feeling pretty ill for about the previous two weeks.  I'd been experiencing constant nausea and just feeling downright rotten.  When the family was out here, they told me to call a doctor and get in to have this weirdness checked out.  So, I did.  The Wednesday after Thanksgiving, I went in to see the doctor.  She didn't have an outright explanation for what was going on, so they took several blood samples and I would come back in two weeks to receive the results.  Until then, the doctor prescribed me an anti-nausea medication to take to help with things.  I got the medicine and took it and it seemed to work.  Yay, right? No.

That Friday, I had just put up my Christmas decorations and was watching a movie, when my lower jaw began to move all on its own.  It was a little weird, but I wasn't terribly concerned.  But then, it began to pull to one side REALLY hard.  It felt as if it was trying to pull itself out of the joint socket.  It was incredibly painful.  So, being a good, independent adult, I called my dad to see what I should do.  I could barely open my mouth to speak but I told him what was going on, and he said to go to an emergency room.  Of course, I had no idea where the nearest hospital is so dad looked it up and sent me to the University Medical and Dental Center of New Jersey emergency room.  As I drove there, my jaw centered itself, but then proceeded to lock up completely.  Not good.  I pulled in to the parking lot and went in. 

The place was packed with people and very noisy.  I made my way to the initial reception desk, where I received a bracelet and a number and was told to wait.  About two minutes later, they called my number to triage where I told the burly nurse my symptoms and he took my blood pressure and told me to wait again.  After five minutes, my number is called to reception, where I had to speak through clenched teeth and thick bullet-proof plexi to a nurse who was a bit apprehensive about taking my insurance.  After that, I was told to wait AGAIN and then I would see a doctor.  So I sat down and waited.  After a while, it seemed that it would almost be my turn to go in, when the doors opened and in came two gunshot wound victims.  I guess the deal is that when gunshots come in, no one else goes back to see doctors for a while.  Great.  So I waited and waited and waited for another two hours.  By now, it seemed that anyone who was related to, knew, or had bumped into one of the gunshot guys had poured into the ER waiting room so it was crowded and noisy.  Around 11:45, I called my dad again and asked if it was worth it to stay.  By now, my jaw had been locked for about three hours and my neck muscles were starting to clench up too.  Needless to say, I would have much rather been in pain and at home than in a crowded ER.  He told me to go ask a nurse how much longer I would have to wait, and then judge whether or not to stay.  I wandered back over to the triage booth and just at that moment, a nurse came out and saw my number and said I was next to go in! So she led me back into a quiet area, showed me a bed and drew the curtain.  After a few minutes the doctor came in and began asking all the standard questions.  When the 'What medications are you taking' question came up, I said the garbled name of the anti-nausea mediation, to which the doctor replied 'That's what's making your jaw lock.' She told me I should probably not take it anymore, which was a downer for me since the stuff had been working.  She then gave me a HUGE shot of benadryl and sent me straight home because I had driven myself and the shot would make me fall asleep.  And that's just what I did.

So after that, I'm patiently waiting to see the normal doctor this Wednesday and hopefully she can tell me what the heck has been going on with me and that it will be an easy fix.  I haven't been eating much due to the way I feel and I'd like to be able to eat a nice, proper meal again :)

Well, that was my fun little tale.  Don't worry, I'm fine and I'm not dying or anything.  On that note, have a wonderful and happy holidays!  Maybe I'll get to see some of you when I'm home!

XOXO,
K

Post-Thanksgiving Report

Hello Loyal Fan Base!

Sorry for the long absence, but there wasn't anything exciting to write about between my birthday and Thanksgiving, so I decided I'd just wait until the Turkey Day festivities were over to write.

For the few weeks leading to Thanksgiving, I had been stocking up on all the staples of a good turkey dinner.  This would by my first Thanksgiving to host and cook, so I wanted to make sure that everything was perfect.  I also wanted everything to be spot on for my family.  My mom, dad and brother were all driving up to New Jersey from Kansas to visit for the Thanksgiving weekend and I was VERY excited to see them.  After all, it had been three months since I'd last seen them and that's the longest I've ever gone without my family.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I rigorously cleaned the apartment from top to bottom so that it would pass my mother's white glove test (love you, Moogi!) and then waited.  At 3:30, I stood outside my apartment waiting eagerly.  Finally, I saw the familiar seafoam green Yaris pull around the corner.  I don't think I stopped jumping up and down until I was across the street and in the loving arms of my mom, dad and brother.  It was the best feeling in the world!  I helped them upstairs with the bags and gave Mom and John the official tour and showed Dad what had changed since he had left.  We sat chatting for a while and then went to the Gaslight Brewery for dinner.

On Thanksgiving morning, we ate cinnamon rolls and watched the parade and made fun of Al Roker, as is Keckeisen tradition.  Mom and Dad helped me get the turkey into the oven and then we all took a walk around the SHU campus.  It was raining, but that never stops a pre-Thanksgiving dinner walk.  I showed the family where I work and where I have my classes.  Once back at home, we finished cooking the rest of the dinner and set the lovely table.  The dinner was a huge success and the turkey was cooked perfectly (which was a great, considering it took up the entirety of the oven).  After dinner, we had pie that Mom and Dad had brought from Topeka and watched 'It's A Wonderful Life'.  As is tradition, we had to listen to Dad bitch and moan about George Bailey's anger issues and how he should still go to prison at the end of the movie.  He does this every year, so we've learned to just tune him out and/or laugh at him.  (Love you Daddy!)

The next day, we were up bright and early to get on the train to NYC.  At Mom and John's insistence, we went into Macy's just to say we had gone in the day after Thanksgiving.  It was a HUGE mistake.  People were everywhere and there was even a line to go up the escalator.  We left as quickly as the crowd would allow us.  We made our way up to Times Square, which was eerily devoid of people, and decided to eat lunch at Sardi's.  It was delicious, as always.  Then it was time for our first show, 'Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson'.  It was great, especially for the four history buffs sitting in the balcony who found all the vague history references hilarious.  After that, we had some time to kill before our next show, so we went to our deli that is right next to the Edison Hotel and had some snacks.  Then we went to see 'Next to Normal'.  I was really glad that I got to see the show a second time with the family, especially John, since we both love that show.  Afterwards, John managed to get the entire cast to sign his Playbill, which made his night.  Then we all limped back to the station and caught the late train out.

Saturday was our last day together, so Mom and Dad took us out to buy some little necessities that I needed.  We then had lunch at Five Guys Burgers and Fries and went home.  They all got packed up and ready to go.  I hugged everyone twice and we all assured ourselves that three weeks was nothing and I'd be home soon.  Then they drove home.  

After that, life has been pretty dull.  The semester is quickly winding down and I can't believe I've survived my first semester 1) of grad school and 2) away from home.  I'm still counting down the days til I go home for the holidays, but there is plenty to keep me busy and occupied til then. 

Hopefully, I'll have something exciting to write about before I go home.  I'll keep you posted, as always!

Until next time, readers,

XOXO,
K

Birthday with the Stars

Hello again everyone!  Things are getting incredibly busy out here, so blogging may be a bit sporadic just for a bit.

Last weekend (the weekend of the 6th-7th) I had my Object Care class in the city once again.  This time, we were meeting first at the American Museum of Natural History.  This is one of my favorite museums and I was really excited to get to go behind the scenes at this place.  We met with a paleontological researcher and preparator, who didn't know much about museum professions, but were incredibly eager to show us tons and tons of dinosaur bones.  I think everyone in the class instantly became an 8 year old again (I know I did).  Not to toot my own horn, but I also got to show off some of my osteological knowledge by identifying bones and siding them.  I was hoping after that they would instantly offer me a job, but that didn't happen :D.

After the AMNH, we all trooped up to St. John the Divine, which has an excellent textile conservation studio attached to the massive cathedral.  The pieces they showed us that they were working on were quite impressive, but textiles just don't thrill the way dinosaur bones do.  Once we were done, everyone got back on the Subway to head to Penn Station and home.

But not me!  Because I wanted something special to do for my birthday and it was on a regular weekday with school and work, I decided to treat myself to a Broadway show the Saturday before.  So, after class, I hung around in the city before my show.  I had dinner at O'Flaherty's, which is a family favorite pub in the Theatre district.  After dinner I headed to the theatre.

I was seeing 'Elling' which starred Denis O'Hare (Broadway's Assassins, HBO's TruBlood) and Brendan Fraser (The Mummy, Gods and Monsters).  Jennifer Coolidge (Best in Show, A Mighty Wind) was also in it and I happened to literally run into her before the show.  'Elling' was a great play and I'm glad that I didn't know a thing about it before I went to see it.  The play was really funny and I enjoyed every minute.  After the show, I waited by the stage door and got to meet both Brendan Fraser and Denis O'Hare, which was the highlight of my time out here. 

The next day, I went right back into NYC to watch the New York City Marathon and have a wonderful dinner with Mark and Katherine again.  It was a beautiful day for the marathon and I got to see the Chilean miner who was running.  After marathon watching for a bit, we went back and had a great dinner.  I didn't stay too long, since the night before I hadn't gotten back into South Orange until 1:30 and I desperately needed a good night's sleep.

Tuesday was my 23rd birthday (which felt more un-birthday this year).  I had work and then class that night so there wasn't any time to do anything else special and I felt I had technically celebrated that Saturday.  When I got to class, I found that my friend Stephanie had made a pan of brownies for me and this then encouraged the whole class to sing 'Happy Birthday' to me!  So that was a nice little surprise that made the day feel more like my actual birthday. 

Other than this, the rest of the week and this weekend have been mostly school and work.  I've been spending any free evenings I have completing papers and other little assignments for classes.  I want to thank all of you who sent birthday greetings to me, either e-mail, Facebook or a card in the mail. 

That's all the news for now! Talk to you next edition!

XOXO,
K

The Insanity that was 'The Rally to Restore Fear and/or Sanity'

Buckle up, kiddos.  This is going to a doozy of an entry!  If anyone needs to use the bathroom, I suggest you go now.  I'll wait . . . . . . . . . okay? Right, off we go!

So, when last we spoke, I was winding up a relatively easy week.  That all changed when my alarm went off at 3:00 AM (!!!!) on Saturday morning.  Why, in the world, was I up that early on a weekend?  Well, I was going to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Fear and/or Sanity in Washington D.C.! I had opted to take the bus that the Huffington Post was graciously offering to take people down for free.  The only hiccup was that the buses were leaving at 6:00 and we had to be at Shea Stadium in Queens by 5:30.  The New Jersey Transit system doesn't run trains on the weekends til 5:45, so that wasn't going to work.  I had finally decided, against my better judgment, to drive through Manhattan and Queens to get to Shea Stadium.

I quickly went through my ablutions and was out the door by 3:50.  I made a quick stop at the ATM to get toll money, since Manhattan seems to charge you a toll whenever you change lanes.  Using my trusty GPS (whose name is Emily; she's British), I navigated the dark and deserted NJ roads and finally made through an almost empty Lincoln Tunnel and out into the streets of NYC.  Thankfully, not many people drive at 4:00 in the morning, so it wasn't too stressful.  I did let out a whoop of thanks when I saw Shea Stadium and knew I had made it alive.  So, at 5:05, I parked my car and joined an already long line of HuffPost Bus goers.  And I waited, and waited and waited! The line got longer and didn't seem to move when 5:30 rolled around.  Apparently, the Huffington Post is not known for their even planning skills and didn't seem to know how to handle almost 20,000 people going by bus.  At around 5:45, the line moved slowly, inch by inch.  Suddenly, the lines collapsed and everyone became a massive mob of people.  To avoid anyone getting trampled, the HuffPost people decided to let people in 50-60 at a time.  So, it wasn't until around 7:00 that I cleared the check-in, had my bag checked and got onto the bus. We were moving by 7:15.

As soon as we began to move, I snarfed down a poptart I had brought along in my bag, stuck my headphones in my ears and fell asleep.  When I woke up, we were in Pennsylvania.  I managed to sit beside a very nice guy who I stuck with for most of the journey.  We chatted for the rest of the ride.  The bus made two pit stops while on the road, but we were making excellent time and I thought that maybe even after the late start, we may get to D.C. (which is a four hour drive from NYC) on time for the Rally.  That was a foolish thought.  About ten miles outside of D.C., we hit traffic and construction so it slowed us down.  By now, it was noon and the Rally had started.  Stephen, the guy I was sitting next to, and I began to watch the Rally on his phone.  It was a bit ridiculous. 

Finally, at 1:00, we made it to RFK Stadium where the bus dropped us off.  We then walked with a bunch of people from other buses about a quarter of a mile up to the nearest metro stop.  The entrance was packed with people and a police officer was shouting to the crowd that if you had a metro card, you could go right on down.  But there was a 25 minute wait to purchase a metro card with cash; it was 50 minutes if you were paying by credit card.  Stephen said that was ridiculous and he was just going to walk the 2 miles to the Rally.  I decided that was a good plan and followed him.  It's not a bad walk to the Mall from there, and we arrived about 1:30. 

By this time, however, the Mall was PACKED with thousands upon thousands of people. I could barely move, there were so many people.  I'm not sure if an estimated head count was made, but here's a picture of what I was dealing with:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74104660@N00/5129901590/in/photostream/
If you look at the picture, find the white structure in the middle.  It's a police crowd control tower.  There is a longish tent to the right.  I eventually ended up just behind those two structures.  From there, I could kind of see a broadcast screen and could sort of hear what was being said.  I took a few pictures, but they are mostly of peoples heads.  The main entertainment was reading people's signs.  Here are a few of my favorites (and please forgive me if your politics aren't my politics):

"Teaparties are for little girls with imaginary friends."
"Christine O'Donnell turned me into a newt (I got better)."
"Communist: 'You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means."

I ended up staying through Jon Stewart's main speech, but could really hear much.  I left a few minutes before it was officially over so that I could start walking back to the stadium (the metro was still crazy).  Stephen had left to go visit the portrait gallery, so I had to remember how we had gotten to the Mall.  I made it back just fine and was on one of the first buses to leave.  We drove home and arrived about 8:45.  I then drove home through much-crazier NYC traffic.  It wasn't bad, but driving stick in the big city is quite the work out for your left thigh muscle.  I also became an official New Yorker when I honked at a car that wasn't going fast enough for me.  :D  I finally got home around 10:30.  It was an interesting experience and, luckily, the bus ride was free but I'm going to have my parents save the TiVo'd Rally so I can actually see what was going on!

The rest of the week has gone by quietly.  I've started doing some volunteer work for one of my classes up at the Montclair Historical Society.  That's another, um, interesting experience.  I just can't believe it's almost time for the semester to be over.  I just need to survive a few more weeks!

Well, I'm sure that you're tired of reading by now, so I will say adios for this week.  This weekend looks to be ripe for stories, so I will have more fun things to write about next weekend.  Stay tuned!

XOXO,
k

Better Late Than Never!

Wow, this is embarrassing.  It has been two weeks since my last report! I hope this never happens again.  I was going to write after the weekend since nothing happened last week and I knew that the weekend would be the fun, blog-worthy part.  But then, things ran away with me.  Oh well, this just means a longer entry!

So, last week was pretty much a dud week.  The weekend of the 16-17th, I did manage to make my first pilgrimage to IKEA, which for those who don't know, is the biggest furniture store I've been to in my life.  I really, really should never go back without someone being in control of my wallet.  I did purchase two pieces of new furniture for the apartment; a small side table, which gives me more room to put books on, and a drop-leaf table for when my family visits me for Thanksgiving.  After lugging those up to my place, I turned around and got right back in the car to drive back to basically the same place to see 'The Social Network', which has the distinction of being the first movie I've seen since moving out here.  I'm sure I'm the last person in the world to see it, but if I'm wrong and one of you hasn't seen it, go! You can't go wrong with Aaron Sorkin/West Wing fast-paced dialogue.   After Saturday, nothing news-worthy happened for another week.  Oh, I got homemade cookies sent to me from across the country.  That was awesome. :D

The Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums (MAAM) annual conference was being held in Philadelphia this year and one of my professors strongly encouraged us to go.  So for the past few weeks, my friends Stephanie, Emily and Jesse and I had been planning on how to go to the conference. There was work and classes to work around, so it took some doing.  Finally, we all agreed that we would go to Philly on Sunday, sight-see that day, and then do the conference on Monday and drive back so that Emily and Stephanie could get to their Monday night class.  So on Sunday I met up with the girls at SHU and we drove in Emily's car to Philly.

I had booked us a room at the Hyatt Regency at Penn's Landing, where the conference was being held.  The room was gorgeous and very swank.  We got in around 1:30, checked in, dropped out bags in the room and then headed out to find some lunch.  We ended up eating at the City Tavern, which is the the Liberty Tree Tavern at DisneyWorld, only real.  I had the extremely delicious Lobster Pie (a pot pie with lobster).  After lunch (which we had decided would be our big meal of the day), we walked along the historic district.  We saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from the Revolutionary War, Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and Betsy Ross' house.  Guess who ended up with '1776' songs stuck in her head for the rest of the day??

After a lot of walking, we decided to retire to the room to rest up before hitting the town and possibly a few bars later.  We hit a bit of a snag in those plans when Stephanie got sick.  So Jesse, Emily and I went to the hotel grill and bar to have a light dinner and some drinks/dessert.  We sat there chatting and, before long, Stephanie was feeling better and joined us.  We shut the place down and then went back upstairs and ended up talking til almost 1:00 am.  It was a lot of fun, but maybe not the best idea when we had to be up by 9:00 the next morning.

Somehow, Monday morning saw all of us clean and dressed to impress.  We partook of the continental breakfast the conference provided and then went to the only breakout session we managed that day.  It was called 'Things that Go Bump in the Night: When Collections Bite Back'.  It was about all of the things in a museum's collection that could be potentially harmful to the staff.  It was really interesting, plus one of the panelists was the curator from the Mutter Museum!  Once the session ended, the girls and I went to see what free stuff could be grabbed from the vendors' booths.  By the time we were done looking at archival boxes and chatting with the head of the Registrars' Committee, we had already missed the next set of sessions.  So, the rest of the group decided that the Mutter had seemed like an interesting place and that we should go there.  Well, I'm not one to say no to going back to an awesome museum, so off we went.  The other girls didn't seem to like the Mutter as much as I did, but that didn't surprise me.  :D  Before heading out of town, we stopped by a Chipotle to get some lunch.  Fun fact: New Jersey has three Chipotles in the entire state.  What is up with that?????

So now, here I am, home again.  Besides the normal school and work stuff, nothing much has happened since the conference.  I did manage to write my first grad school paper, so that was a nice little accomplishment.  This weekend I am headed off to a covert, top-secret meeting that will attempt to restore sanity to the nation.  But, alas, my friends, that will have to wait until next week.

To be continued . . .

XOXO,
K