Wow!

Even though I am slated to present my project on Thursday and am therefore working on my presentation, I just wanted to write a blog post to congratulate my peers on their awesome presentations. I was amazed by the creativity, originality, and meaningfulness of their projects and presentations. Dominique taught me so much I didn't know about black culture and the importance of hair in that culture. Pauline's presentation really resonated with me because I could totally relate to her (previous) feelings of being lost and unsure about what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. Juliana's claymation movie was adorable and it really seemed like she put a lot of time and effort into making it! Justin's movie was very original and unique; it was so interesting to view someone's every day life in a film as opposed to, like Justin said, the amazing stunts and moments people usually capture in Youtube videos.

All in all, I am very impressed with my classmates! I can't wait to see all the presentations on Thursday!

More Family Information!

As I continue on this journey of trying to uncover information about my relatives and ancestors, I am constantly surprised and amazed at the wealth of information that is available, even through simple means such as Google searches. It makes me realize how lucky we are to be able to use the Internet to look up facts and answers to almost any question we could ask.

I was just discussing this phenomenon with a friend this morning. We were saying that we were shocked that our parents, when they were our age, did not have access to such an amazing information database as the Internet. Today if we have a question about anything - almost anything at all - we only have to type our query into our smartphones to find an answer. Although the Internet has caused a lot of problems and complications (such as Internet bullying and stalking, and many others), we are so lucky to have this incredible resource. As my friend and I were saying, it would drive us crazy to not be able to remember something, and then not be able to even look up an answer or solution! Nowadays, information is so readily and easily available that we have become very impatient and demanding, in my opinion.

Anyway, this evening, when I scoured the web for more information about my ancestors, I found so much! It was truly astounding. Of course, I am very lucky that I have such a famous relative, Stephen Hopkins, about whom there is, unsurprisingly, a ton of information. However, when looking up the relative after whom I am named, I found some new, interesting facts, too.

One thing I found on the Internet tonight was this:

This is a screenshot from a website called "Find a Grave." I found a few of my ancestors' graves on this website, and some even had photos. This particular screenshot is from the Stephen Hopkins grave page. Although there was not a photo, there were several of these flowers images and accompanying messages, which was interesting because it shows how many people are actually related to Stephen Hopkins. Am I considered a relative of these people as well? Amazingly, there are 156 "notes" to Stephen Hopkins just on this one website. Incredible!

Family Graves

My great-aunt was able to scan and email me a photo of my great-great-great-great-grandparents graves, which she took while visiting Brookfield, Vermont, where they got married. During this trip, my great-aunt apparently also visited Randolph, Vermont, where a number of my other ancestors used to live. This photo was very special and important to me because it shows the grave of the ancestor after whom I am named. Somehow, just having a picture of her burial place makes me feel closer to her and as if I know more about her, even though there are many things I don't know, like what she was like, her hobbies, the way she grew up, and so much more. Only my middle name comes from this relative (it's her maiden name), because my mother thought it would be a bit too much to give me my whole name after her, since she lived so long ago and no one in our family knows very much about her. However, even just sharing my middle name with her maiden name makes me feel as though we have some sort of connection to each other. Although I'm not sure how to learn more about who this great-great-great-great-grandmother was as a person, I would like to try. I think that's where this project will go after this class is over; I'd like to work on finding out more about this relative and her life.

The photo my great-aunt sent me will be revealed during my final presentation. So don't expect to see it on this blog, you'll have to wait!

On another note, my great-aunt has been so kind and helpful in her responses. I am immensely impressed with and grateful for her. Since she was my (late) grandmother's sister, I think she must be very old now - probably over 90 years old! Thus, I am very impressed that she knows how to use a computer so well; she even has a Facebook! I am so glad that this project has allowed me to connect and speak with her, even though we have never met in person. She has been a huge help with this project, and I hope that our relationship will continue after this class is over.

My Peers' Projects

Today in class we read and commented on each other's blogs. I didn't realize the amazing variety and creativity of my classmates' projects! It was great to be able to look at them and get a kind of preview before presentations next week!

Sports & Privilege

After a difficult and distressing loss (though it's still great to be a Michigan wolverine!), I find myself looking back and reflecting on the role and importance of sports in our culture today. Last night, I watched my team compete for the National Championship in men's basketball along with thousands of other fans. As the final buzzer sounded, announcing Michigan's defeat, every face in the crowd looked incredibly disappointed and morose. Why do sports have this effect on us? Isn't it just a game? And how do they make us feel so united (for instance, when you high-five the people sitting around you, even though you don't know them)? I think these questions would be good starting points for a new project (apart from my genealogy project) that would involve investigating sports and the role they play in our lives and our society.

Another point I want to make about sports and how important they are in our culture is: we are very privileged to be able to watch, play, and care about this popular pastime. As Thylias mentioned during our last class, during which we debated about a hypothetical situation involving actor Ryan Gosling, we are very privileged to be able to have conversations and arguments about hypothetical situations. Similarly, we are privileged to be able to expend so much energy caring about sports. In impoverished nations, most people must focus all their energy on simply surviving. Meanwhile, we are able to have fun and invest much time and energy into what is - really, when it comes down to it - "just a game." Although sports fans cheer on their teams every week, it seems that they rarely pause to consider just how lucky and privileged they are. We are all very privileged to have been able to care so much about last night's game; even though we lost, we should still consider ourselves blessed with this special kind of privilege and opportunity.

Genealogy Project Update

My great-aunt has responded to my email! She has agreed to send me information regarding some of my ancestors, even though there is only a little time left to work on my project. (Of course, I will continue to communicate with her once this class is over, and learn more about my family history. This project will not, and cannot, be completed this semester - or perhaps ever.)

Sadly, my great-aunt told me that she took so long to respond because she has been sick with pneumonia. I am really hoping that she is feeling better. Pneumonia can be a very difficult sickness to manage, especially at her age.

More updates may be included in this blog or in my end-of-semester presentation. Stay tuned!

Stars as Ancestors

After all this searching for my human ancestors (although, now that some of them have been deceased for hundreds of years, they are on their way to becoming stardust once again), I have become curious about the idea that Thylias presented to us on the first day of class: we all come from stardust - the stars are our ancestors.

My roommate, who is an astronomy major, agreed with this idea, and during a conversation about astronomy and the universe, she explained why she too believes that we are all "made of stardust." She said that scientists do not yet know what caused the universe to be created. Of course, the Big Bang theory is very convincing to most astronomers; however, no one knows what caused that. Where did the matter come from that caused the Big Bang? How could there have been matter before there was a universe - before there was anything? These are questions that science has not yet been able to answer.

Furthermore, scientists are aware that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. But how can the universe expand? Isn't the universe everything? My roommate said these questions have also not been answered yet, but some scientists speculate that there are multiple universes, and "our" universe is expanding into others ("our" because we clearly do not own the universe; we are merely one tiny speck in the universe). Or, she explained, our universe could function like a balloon being blown up. Our universe sits on the surface of this expanding balloon, and so it is able to expand, too.

If this all seems pretty confusing, it is. I certainly don't understand half the information my roommate tells me about astronomy. But it's still really interesting.

My roommate also explained to me that someday, the Sun, along with the Earth, will someday explode or implode, and pieces of the planets in our solar system will be scattered out into space. It seems scary, but this is all slated to happen in a long time - long after we and many subsequent generations are gone.

One of the theories for how the Big Bang occurred is that fragments from other exploded universes or celestial bodies came together to form something new: our universe. This is the answer to our relation to stardust. When we die, our bodies will decompose and eventually become part of the Earth. Then, a long, long time from now, the Earth will explode and become part of space. When that happens, our own fragments will become part of the stars and space. Perhaps our fragments will even create something new, just as the Big Bang created our universe. Thus, we came from stardust and will one day return to stardust. So, my family and ancestors can not only be traced back to humans with names and physical bodies, but also to the stars and the heavens, which is really beautiful.

A beautiful view of the Milky Way. The mountains pictured beneath the stars are located in Arizona. This would be a gorgeous place to travel to and explore!

A Walk in the Woods

Today during class, some of my classmates and I decided to explore the wooded, natural areas of North Campus - a place I am unfamiliar with, so I was happy to learn more! We trekked through tall, brown, straw-like grass to a small lake surrounded by rocks, which proved useful for stepping on and moving across the stream. Then we ventured to a creepy little shack (colloquially called "The Hut") up in the trees. Interestingly, this structure has existed for a long time, but only two people in our class even knew about it. And even though its roof is visible from the road, none of us had noticed it before. When we went there, we all thought it seemed haunted.

Here are some photos from our journey today. Enjoy!

A view of the stream trickling into the lake. We dubbed it "a waterfall of sewage." (It did not look very clean.)

It's really a shame that people have thrown trash in the natural areas of North Campus. Here, an old plastic water bottle can be seen among the stream and the rocks.

Someone has ironically written (or painted - not sure what medium they used) "CAVE ART" on a rock near the lake. Is this "art"?

A view of the trees surrounding "The Hut." The area is heavily wooded, which may contribute to the shack's seeming creepiness and remoteness.

This piece of art sits on the rafters near the ceiling of "The Hut." It has scissors for a nose. It looked both creepy and cool! Its placement on the ceiling, looking down, adds to its eerie air.

Also eerie, this dead and dried-up rose sits between the slats of wood that hold up "The Hut." A poem (not pictured - it was too bright inside to capture it) is written on the wood next to this rose.

Family Tree News

Good news! My mom has sent me pictures of a (partial) family tree that shows how my grandmother, and therefore I, link back to Stephen Hopkins. I will be revealing these pictures during my end-of-the-semester presentation.

Seeing this family tree was really interesting, as it includes my ancestors' birth places, birth dates, death dates, death locations, and dates of marriage. (However, this information is a little sparser for my more distant relatives, like Stephen Hopkins and his children.) Having so much information made me feel like I knew so much more about my family and my ancestors!

One thing I found really fascinating about this family tree was that it revealed that I am descended from one of Stephen Hopkins's daughters from his first marriage, so this daughter was born in England. It seemed special, since he only had three children with his first wife. This also means that I had two relatives travel to America on the Mayflower - both Stephen Hopkins and his daughter!

To answer some of Thylias's questions (from her comment on an earlier blog post):

I would love to take some of the information I'm learning about my family and make it into a book other than my blog - perhaps a scrapbook or "family tree" album of some kind. I want to share everything I'm learning with my other relatives, both present and future. I would love to have something to show my future children, if I have them, that details who they are related to and what those relatives were like. I've actually already started sharing the things I've learned about Stephen Hopkins with other members of my family. For instance, both my brother and one of my cousins is partially named after Stephen Hopkins, so I've shared many of my findings with them (through email and Facebook). My entire family is really curious and glad that I am doing this research! Of course, traditional oral story-telling is also a form of "book," so I will be making that form of book when I verbally tell my family and possibly my future children all that I now know about my distant relatives.

As for how this will guide my life, I'm not sure yet! It makes me feel amazing to know that I have such an accomplished (and kind of famous!) relative! I'm also very happy to be able to share the information I've learned with my family members, present and future. Of course, doing this research has made me think more deeply about my own legacy that I will one day leave behind (see my previous blog post!). However, as this project is a work in progress, I'm not quite sure what the end result will be, and how that end result will affect my life and my outlook.

My "Sexism" Collage

Today I finished my collage depicting sexism in the media. It features photos and text from a women's magazine that I feel shows blatant sexism against women. Although I don't normally consider myself a visually creative or artistic person (I've always been more of a writer than a visual artist), I was actually really pleased with the final result! In fact, I like my collage so much that I think I'll hang it in my bedroom after presenting it in class. It's colorful and interesting, and I really like how it turned out. Here are some pictures of my process in making the collage and the finished product.

I chose to include this text in my collage because it really emphasizes love over career or ambition, which is, unfortunately, a way that women are commonly discouraged from being career-driven instead of falling in love, getting married, having kids, etc. The message is that "love [should come] first," which is the opposite of what modern, self-asserting women need to hear!

The only mention of lesbian relationships that I found in the entire magazine was this small photo of Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi. I really think women's magazines should be celebrating and covering a diverse array of relationships, not just heterosexual ones. As Thylias mentioned, this is the reason that non-"normative" groups must create their own media and publications - they are just ignored by "mainstream" media!

The only part of the magazine cover (where I pasted everything in the collage) that I decided not to obscure or cover with other text and pictures from inside the magazine, was the barcode. I think the barcode is an important symbol of capitalism and commercialism. This capitalism - and just money in general - is the reason that there is so much sexism in this magazine. Clearly, the magazine is giving the people "what they want," and what they will buy. However, are they really giving "the people" what they want? Or do we just not have any alternatives?

The simple text "Does your coworker want to sleep with you?" again encourages women to focus more on men and their love lives than on their careers. At work, you should be thinking about work, not about whether or not your coworkers want to have sex with you!

I also found tons of articles, advertisements, and pictures in the magazine related to marriage. The magazine did not really suggest that there are alternatives to marriages (even though there are), and made the reader feel like marriage is the big goal, when really focusing on yourself and your career and success should be the end goal. They made it seem as though marriage is the only thing - when it's really only one of many things, or even nothing, in most women's lives. Come on, women's magazines - get with the times!

Here's the picture of the finished collage, and some more close-ups of different parts of it.

Who Am I? - My Future Legacy

Who can say what kind of legacy they might leave for future generations to examine and ponder? As for myself, I hope to leave behind an impressive and interesting legacy - I just have to hope I live long  enough to figure out what that might be and to leave it! The problem, I think, with answering this question is that we never know when we might "leave," and what we will have accomplished by that time. Almost everyone probably knows what kind of legacy they hope they will leave behind, but no one actually knows what will happen, because life, unfortunately, often ends when we're in "the middle of things."

Like most people, I hope to make a positive impact on the world - whether that be through politics, art, business, or any number of other avenues. I hope that future generations of my family will be able to hear or read about my life and say that I truly made a difference, and was important in some way to our society's history. Of course, many people hope for just this and, in reality, few people can be powerful, impactful people.

One way to leave my history and legacy behind could be to write it down. In high school, I kept a diary and wrote in it nearly every day. Sometimes I wish I had kept up with this activity; as I went away to college and got (very) busy with other facets of my life, I wrote less and less. Now, it's been almost two years since I've written a diary entry. I so enjoy having those high school years documented; I wish I had kept up during my college years. Fortunately, if I discipline myself to write often, I could maybe reverse my lazy and unproductive trend. Maybe if I make a good, measurable goal and monitor myself, I could restart my diary writing habit. (I will think more about this over the next few days.)

However, in this day and age, I think we should really ask ourselves: is writing in a diary even necessary anymore? With social media, we are constantly talking about and updating others on our lives, on our daily activities. One status on my Facebook newsfeed reads: "First interview with a Sydney job went great!" Another says: "I have faith that at some point today I will find the motivation to ride the elevator to the gym." Although both of these Facebook posters are not writing about their daily lives in their diaries (well, I guess I don't really know - maybe they are!), they are posting about their daily lives on the Internet, and those posts will be saved there forever. So, in these technology-driven days, maybe we don't really need traditional pen-and-paper diaries. Maybe future generations will look to the Internet and social media websites for clues about their ancestors.

Certainly, I think that part of the legacy I am leaving for my future relatives is online. It's fascinating - and a little creepy - to realize that most of my life is documented on the Internet. And for many children being born today, their online legacy extends to even before they're born! Tons of parents post their children's in-utero ultrasounds and baby photos to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and countless other social media sites. It seems crazy, but these kids amass huge digital footprints even before they're born!

No matter what form I leave my legacy in, I hope that future generations will be able to decipher who I really was from whatever I leave behind. For example, although my ancestor Stephen Hopkins seems like a rebel, I have no way of knowing what he was really like. I can only hope that whatever information I find or hear about him is accurate and a fair portrayal.

In the photo above, I chose to censor my eyes because through investigating my family lineage, I've realized that I really don't know who I am. I don't know - and will never know - all the relatives who came before me and had some kind of influence on my genes and therefore my personality, appearance, and demeanor. I can only guess based on my research and, clearly, just reading about someone doesn't mean you really know who they are. I have so much more to learn about my family and my background - so much that I don't think this kind of work can ever really be finished. So, I censored my eyes to show that I am a work in progress and always will be, as will be this project.

A Good Genealogy Website

This website seems to have a lot of information about the Hopkins family and their descendants. I'm hoping I can talk with my own family to find out which of the people listed in this family tree are related to me.

Click here to visit the website.

Some More Stephen Hopkins Tidbits!

First, I found out that this book (pictured below), and possibly others, have been written about my ancestor Stephen Hopkins.

A book written about Stephen Hopkins, by Caleb Johnson

Stephen was a member of several early exploring missions when he returned to Virginia on the Mayflower. He was also used as an "expert" on the Native Americans there; he spoke their languages and negotiated with them. A Native American chief was even invited to stay in his house for one night.

A bit of a rebel (as became obvious through his earlier mutiny incident), Stephen opened up shops selling alcohol in the new colony, and was fined several times for this infraction. He also got into fights and allowed people to drink excessively at his house, another crime that he was punished for.

This is a photo of the beach in Bermuda where Stephen Hopkins and his companions were shipwrecked. Apparently, they were trapped on the island for ten months, and were forced to survive on turtles, birds, and wild pigs. No wonder Stephen got a little stir-crazy and decided to start a mutiny!

Something I've Learned About My Family...

A painting of the signing of the Mayflower Compact. Perhaps my ancestor, Stephen Hopkins, is in this painting!

One of my most distant ancestors is Stephen Hopkins, a man who arrived to America on the Mayflower. In fact, he was a prominent man on the ship; he was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact, which was signed the day the ship docked in the New World, and he was an assistant to the governor of Plymouth Colony through 1636, after arriving in America in 1620. Apparently, Stephen was a businessman of sorts – a tanner and a merchant, he was asked to assist in the governance and financial business of the colony.

Stephen Hopkins had three children with his first wife even before coming to the New World: Elizabeth, Constance, and Giles. With his second wife, Stephen had seven more children, two of whom had children of their own. I wonder which one is more directly related to me, which one gave birth to my direct ancestors. I wonder how I could even find out! Interestingly, one of Stephen’s children was the only baby born aboard the Mayflower. Unfortunately, this child died at around age seven. Elizabeth Hopkins, Stephen’s second wife, died in 1640, before he did, and he indicated that he wanted to be buried near her. So romance was alive, even in the seventeenth century!

Here’s the craziest part: historians now think that this Stephen Hopkins, my ancestor, had actually been on voyages intended for the New World before the Mayflower! Apparently, Stephen left England on a ship headed for Jamestown, to bring the colony supplies and their new governor, Sir Thomas Gates. However, the ship crashed on the island of Bermuda after weathering a severe storm for five days. It is thought that on this ship was another soon-to-be-famous passenger, John Rolfe, who would later marry Pocahontas. During his time shipwrecked, Stephen began voicing his dissent against the governor, Gates, and was sentenced to death for mutiny. After many people begged for mercy for him, however, he was pardoned. (I can’t believe I’m learning this about my own relative!)

Eventually, a new ship was constructed, which sailed to Jamestown as they originally intended. Within four years, Stephen learned of his wife’s death back in England, and soon returned to care for his children. Six years later, despite the incredible hardships he had already survived during his first trip to America, he departed once again for the New World on the Mayflower.

Here’s a fun fact: in 1611, Shakespeare debuted The Tempest, which tells the tale of a shipwreck near Bermuda. One of the characters in a subplot of the play is thought to have been possibly based on Stephen Hopkins. I’m related to a superstar!

The history of this ancestor is extremely interesting and I plan to pursue it further, to see if I can get any more information on him and his children. I hope to find out which of his children I am directly related to, although I realize that this might be a very difficult task, as these people died so many years ago. I will update with more information soon!

Magazines & Sexism

Today I finished cutting (or tearing) up my second book! I think the result was very nice and will be even better when it can be displayed with a fan blowing around the torn pages. Here are two pictures of the finished product (although it could be said that this product is still in progress, since I haven't yet decided how I will use the scraps).

Here, the pages can be seen fanning out, revealing their rips and tears. I like the way they flutter when the book is opened and closed and the pages are fanned. That's why I think the fan effect will be very interesting!

This is a side view of the book. You can see the tears in the pages, and how these consistent tears create a disheveled and used effect. I also like how, in this photo, the yellowing of the pages is visible. This yellowing creates a similarly used-looking, broken-in effect.

Today I also started a new project: cutting up a magazine. I chose to use a women's magazine that I bought a few months ago and that I have already read. While I was on the bus today, I had an idea for using this magazine and its scraps: I could create a collage that shows how women are portrayed in the media, even in magazines that cater to women. I believe that women are treated very badly by the media, often being sexualized and encouraged to get married, have boyfriends, and depend on men. Furthermore, these magazines emphasize marriage and children over careers.

Not only do these magazines (and many other forms of media) portray women in a sexist and disappointing light, they also completely ignore certain segments of the population. For example, although there were tons of articles in this magazine about women's relationships and sex lives, there was only one mention of lesbian relationships (and that was when they were gossiping about celebrities!). In addition, most of the women featured in this magazine were white, "traditionally" beautiful, and extremely skinny. Several articles even encouraged women to lose weight and eat less!

Even though the magazine was made for women, many of the photos and advertisements still portrayed women as sexual objects. See this picture, below, for an example.

This photo was part of an article from the magazine. In the upper left hand corner, the text reads "Lust." This picture only shows the woman's breasts - it doesn't even show her face! It's as if this photo is trying to communicate to women that all they are - or the only "good" parts of them - are their bodies, especially the frequently sexualized parts of their bodies.

On Tuesday, I will continue to create my collage. I am hoping to find some positive portrayals of women in the magazine, too. I hope that I can!

Book-making again!

Today I continued my book-making (or destroying - you can look at it either way) on The Devil Wears Prada. Here is a picture of my progress at the time class started (before I did any work on it today).

As you can see from the above photo, I had already done some page-ripping the last class I worked on it. I began by ripping out three strips from one page, and then two strips from the next. This gave the book an interesting effect: part of the text from different pages could be seen even when the book was opened to only one page. Thus, one could see two, three, four, and maybe even five pages and pieces of text from those pages at one time.

This picture is one taken from my point of view as I ripped the book's pages. I had to hold the page while I ripped strips off of it.

I found that I really liked the randomness of the rips; each strip would be a different size and shape, and each time I ripped a page, new shapes would emerge. I couldn't control the ripping very well, as the pages were really thin, but I actually found this uncontrollable randomness to add to the effect of the ripped pages. Each page and each strip of page became a "happy accident."

The two photos above show how different page rips could appear. Each rip has a unique size and shape that dictates how the page looks at the end, and ultimately how the book will appear at the end.

At times I noticed that in my accidental and random ripping, I had left unobscured an important part of the book.

In this picture, for example, you can see that the title of the book, The Devil Wears Prada, was (unintentionally) left unripped. Even more interesting, you could see the title through the rips of the other pages surrounding it. Thus, I accidentally left an important facet of the book (its title) visible.

Similarly, here I unintentionally left the number of the first chapter visible, and not ripped up. This is an important part of the book because it signals to the reader where to begin.

During the class, I realized that I was amassing a lot of scraps that were ripped out of the book. Here is a picture of the book covered by the scraps that were torn from it.

Also during the class, I had the idea of using a fan to blow the pages back and forth, since I think this would create a neat effect with all the ripped pages floating around in the air. Hopefully soon I will be able to use a fan to achieve this effect. If I can, I will film it and post it!

Something I Found

While reading a book, The Swimming Pool Library, for another English class, I flipped to the next chapter and found this gently wedged in the spine.

This receipt, dated August 21, 1994, seems like a very interesting and unexpected artifact from the past. I love finding things like this and searching for places that may or may not still exist. In this case, I used a simple Google search to determine that this address, 6604 Mayfield Road, is in Cleveland, Ohio, and that it is no longer a Rini-Rego, as it states on this receipt, but has become a different pharmacy/convenience store, Giant Eagle. The phone number and address, however, remain the same.

I think about how long ago this receipt was printed - I was only two years old at the time! It seems incredible that the receipt has survived so long, especially in such a clean and unwrinkled condition.

When I find little artifacts like this, I also tend to think about who it was who shopped at this store on that particular day. Why did they buy what they bought? This person bought "produce" (not specified exactly what kind of produce), bacon, two crimini mushrooms, and cream cheese. Were these the ingredients to a meal this person planned to cook later that day? Does he just really like mushrooms? And why did he place it between the pages of this book? If he used it as a bookmark, why is it in such pristine condition?

Interestingly, there are things we can know almost certainly based on what we can observe; for example, that the person who bought these things paid $11.00 in cash and received $0.38 in change. We also know (almost) for sure the day he bought them, the time (it says 10:00AM on the receipt), and where he bought them. However, there are also conjectures or assumptions we can make based on the information we have. For instance, we do not know the gender of the person who shopped here. We could guess that it may have been a man, since the book would seem to have a predominantly male audience (but I do not know that for sure, either). Also, we know that the store is located near a major highway, so we could assume that he drove to the store. However, we don't know if he was on his way somewhere else - even on a road trip - or if he was just going there and going home. (It would seem that he was going home afterwards, since the things he bought are more ingredient-like than stand-alone snacks.)

Even more fascinating, I found this receipt in the same book, nestled in some of the first pages.

Apparently, this person (perhaps the same person), went to a Holiday Inn (we don't know where) and bought a "sunrise" (maybe a kind of traditional bacon-and-eggs breakfast?) and a coffee. He also bought an LA Times. Does that suggest that he was not in Ohio anymore, but in California? Maybe.

This receipt is dated October 13, but does not include a year. It does say that there was only one person, so we may guess that he was traveling alone. Maybe he was on a business trip? We may never know.

An "Original" Way to Look at Text

This video by Daniel Anderson provides an interesting and innovative way to view and define text. It could be even suggest new definitions of and musings on the meaning of "book"! Enjoy!

Book #2: Puppy Party

For my second book, I decided to go a different route than the strike-through-and-see-what-bleeds-into-the-next-page thing. Since my second book had a lot of photos in it and was about puppies (so cute!), I decided to choose the most adorable puppies (in my opinion), cut out their pictures, and paste them into a collage on the front cover. My collage ended up completely obscuring the cover, but I think it turned out well (see the last photo on this post!).

My book-making tools!

I used scissors to cut out the pictures and glue to stick them to the cover and make the collage. The wreckage of the cut-up pages sits below the scissors. I may use these scraps in subsequent classes to create something new!

This is the beginning of my collage. It was difficult to decide how to position the photos, especially since they needed to be layered on top of each other. I laid out the photos before I glued them so that I could get a preview of the final result.

This was my favorite photo in my collage because it looks like my dog at home. I miss her!

After all the puppy pictures were glued down, I decided to use some of the scraps to make curling decorations around the edges of the collage. I really liked the result, so I decided to add more!

This is the final version of my collage! I really like the way it turned out. I think the curly decorations make it look festive, so I called the collage "Puppy Party." I think it looks really cute!

During the next class, I will try doing something completely different with my third book. I have a few ideas, but I'll have to see which one feels right on Thursday. Until then, I have my first two books to admire and display!

A Project Update

This week I will be getting back to my genealogy project. I'm still waiting on a response from my mother's relative, but I expect that she will write back to me soon! Then I can continue to learn about and explore my interesting ancestry.

Back in the USA!

Hello fellow tines - I am finally back in Michigan! I had an awesome spring break in the Grand Cayman Islands. The food was amazing, the beach was beautiful, and the sea breeze was refreshing!

My favorite adventure during the break was when I went on a day trip to swim and play with sting rays! We boated to the middle of the ocean, where there was a shallow area where many sting rays like to swim and meet the tourists - some of them have been canoodling with tourists at the same spot for twenty years! They were a little scary at first, I must admit, but once I realized they were friendly and not dangerous, I had a lot of fun swimming with and touching them. Their hide feels extremely weird; it's really slimy and slippery. Rumor has it that kissing a sting ray gives you seven years of good luck, so here's a picture of me trying to kiss a sting ray I was holding!

The sting ray was very friendly!

Here are some more pictures from my wonderful trip! Enjoy!

The beach

A cute little turtle swimming in a pond

A pirate-like ship we spotted out on the water!

Overall, I had a great vacation!

A Note About Spring Break

During Spring Break, I will be away on vacation in the Caribbean. I will take many pictures for my blog and share them when I get back to Michigan! Have a good break, everyone!

My (First) Journey Through the Novel Vive la Paris by Esme Raji Codell

Vive la Paris by Esme Raji Codell is a children's book that deals with the deep themes of bullying and the Holocaust. It is also the book I chose to experiment with when we embarked on a journey of cutting and marking up books today in class.

Thylias suggested that we could begin by crossing out things we didn't want read, and highlighting things we wanted read, or wanted to emphasize in the text. So, I started by highlighting lines and words that I liked. This was slightly difficult, as I had never read the book before (so I didn't really know what to look for), but that made the project even more interesting - I was judging the text on an individual word and sentence level, not as a whole, which is an unusual way to view a book.

The first words I highlighted were the first two words of the book: "Excuse me." I really liked that the book started this way; it seemed like a catchy, captivating introduction and made me want to read more. I also highlighted other words on the first page that I thought seemed interesting and important, such as "piano lessons." I did not find any words on the first page that I wanted to cross out or obscure.

The first page of Vive la Paris

By page three, I had decided to start crossing words out as well as highlighting them.

Page 3 of Vive la Paris

When I arrived at page four, I noticed that the words I had struck through on the previous page appeared as different crossed-out words on the next page. It was as though I had accidentally obscured words on page four.

Page 4 and 5 of Vive la Paris

Sometimes I would cross out words that would appear on the next page as just blue lines (since the Sharpie I was using was blue). This happened when there were no words on the next page where I had struck through on the previous page, like these pages below.

The two photos above are of pages 7 and 8 of Vive la Paris

It was very interesting to examine which words had been purposefully crossed out and which words were accidentally obscured. Sometimes I would think about striking through a word (or group of words) on one page, then go to the next page and cross out some words. Once I turned back to the previous page, I found that the words I had considered crossing out had been obscured by the strike-throughs on the next page. Here is an example of this below. On page 120, I crossed out "some words in squiggly letters" (near the top of the page), which inadvertently crossed out "You're lucky to be alive" on page 119. I had previously considered crossing out "You're lucky to be alive," but had decided against it. Interestingly, crossing out other words on the next page also crossed out these words.

Pages 119 and 120 of Vive la Paris

I found this process of working through the book and crossing out certain words fascinating and enlightening. I will continue to work with this book during and between future classes - perhaps even tearing out a page and leaving it outside at the mercy of the elements, and seeing how that changes the experience of the book as a whole. For now, the book will remain in the library cabinet while I go on vacation for Spring Break.