Kate's Indiana Adventure

Bet you didn't know...

2009-04-22T13:47:00.000-07:00

I bet you didn't know that Indiana has almost no redeeming qualities. Well, now you do.

Go Hoosiers!

Spring Cleaning!

2009-03-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

Well, the weather is absolutely perfect in Bloomington and it's spring break so Dane and I have nothing to do. Actually, that's not really true. I have lots of long term projects, but none of them have to get done today so we've spent the day on very important things such as:

1. Watching the house finches, chickadees, morning doves, and cardinals eat out of the bird feeder. It's especially great because the feeder sticks to the apartment window with suction cups and the eating birds are literally 3 feet from our office chairs. We have decided that the lady house finch is kind of a bully to her doting male companion.

2. I'm reading this fabulous book called "Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression." A family friend sent it to me for some spring break reading. I absolutely love this book. I'm usually not much of a pleasure reader, but the author's voice is so clear and her stories so compelling that I cannot put the little treasure down. It's so inspiring to learn how, not so long ago, people knew how to live without modern conveniences like refrigerators, central heating, and free time. I certainly don't want to go back to living that way, but it reminded me that the skills we have lost in a few generations are profound.

3. Reading the book's chapter on food made me hungary so I made potato pancakes for lunch. So easy and delicious with apple butter and jam!

4. Dane and I took down the plastic window film that has been our only protection against the harsh Indiana winter (note the sarcasm). For a girl who grew up in Minnesota, I thought winter here would be a breeze, but it turns out that they haven't heard of insulation in Indiana so it was sort of miserable. Now that it's up to 60 or 70 most days, I feel like a real person again.

5. Dane and I both did some spring cleaning today. I don't know what in the world possessed me, but suddenly I was tossing out old clothes, dusting, wiping down the kitchen, mopping the floors, cleaning the bathroom, even vacuuming off the deck. I know vacuuming the deck sounds a little odd, but believe me, it's the only way to get the thing clean.

6. We have our very first pet. They are called Triops. Think Sea Monkey's 2.0. They come all dried out in this little package. You add water, wait a few days and "tada," you have yourself a pet. They are very tiny at this point, about the size of a pin head, but they should get a few inches long.

Well, that's all the exciting news from here. I think I should start doing something productive. I think my midterm is calling out to me!

Go Hoosiers!

Success!

2009-03-10T19:16:00.000-07:00

Internship, done and done. After all the drama and hulabalu, the perfect internship was right in my own back yard. This summer I will be interning at the Friends of the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness (or friends of the b-dub for short) based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They are awesome and I can do a ton of policy work for them on fancy-pants issues like sulfide-mining, regional haze, forest service rules, etc. I can even ride my bike to work because there is a bike path that goes almost doorstep to doorstep. I'm happy because I have an internship. They are happy because I am perfect (and modest). My Dad is even happy because I will eat all the food in the house. It's perfect.

I must get to bed before I turn into a pumpkin.

Go Hoosiers!

Bummer

2009-03-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

I was having a pretty good day. My three midterms in the last 24 hours went off without a hitch. In fact, I even enjoyed taking my environmental law test and, for a few hours, was seriously considering law school. Then I thought about all the lawyers already in this world and thought better of it.

I went home and celebrated by making a yummy eggplant curry and eating a jello pudding pop.

I've been waiting all day to hear back from the Oregon Fellows program. It's this groovy internship opportunity based in Oregon (obviously) that places students with local governments and non-profits in the Portland area. Sounds pretty great right?

Well, I thought so too. Unfortunately, I got rejected this evening. I don't want to take it too personally. As I told Dane just yesterday after Firefox rejected him, "we're just so awesome that we aren't used to getting rejected." We don't have a lot of practice. Maybe if we got turned down more often we could get over it more easily.

My question is this: Who is more qualified than me? I know this sounds really ego-centric, but I'm honestly asking. I graduated from a top notch school manga cum with honors in my major. I teach kids how to canoe in the summer. I can write. I can read. I can even do cartwheels. I'm in a graduate program. I just want a internship. You don't even have to pay me! Seriously. Who the hell is getting these god damn internships if I'm not? They better be the next freaking Gandhi. I even got rejected from the internship I wrote about in my last post.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Go Hoosiers.

Spunk

2009-02-07T06:58:00.000-08:00

You know that the economy is bad when you have a hard time finding quality unpaid internships. I'm been scouring treehugger.com, Indiana Career Services, High Country News, Orion Magazine, Idealist.org, and even put out a call over Facebook (which, incredibly, was my most successful search technique) with very little to show for it. The good news is that now I've know applied to about 5 openings and I have about 4 more to go.

I was having a difficult time for two reasons:

(1) There are approximately two million environmental organizations and most of them are absolute basket cases. I'm sure their are very well intentioned and hard working people in each of them, but when they have a bad website and their name is something like "Friends of the Rainbows, Flowers and Trees for Harmonious Living in the North-Central Quadrangle of Oregon" it doesn't inspire confidence. There are also organizations that have seemingly legitimate granola-crunchy names like "The Pacific Legal Foundation," but are actually anti-environmental organizations (or, as they would want me to say, they promote a balanced approach to environmental protection).

(2) Every intern stuffs envelopes, files papers and gets coffee- especially the unpaid variety. I'm astonishingly over-qualified for all of these tasks and I was starting to wonder just how much of a scam this whole interning thing was until I came up with a brilliant idea.

Since I'm not getting paid for many of these internships anyway, why not contact a truly interesting organization and work with them to design something just for me? And that's exactly what I did yesterday.

The mission of Western Resource Advocates is to protect the West's land, air, and water. They use lawyers, scientists, and economists to 1) advance clean energy to reduce pollution and global climate change 2) promote urban water conservation and river restoration; and 3) defend special public lands from energy development and unauthorized off-road vehicle travel. We collaborate with other conservation groups, hunters and fisherman, ranchers, American Indians, and others to ensure a sustainable future for the West.

And a single tear ran down my face as I read it.

They didn't have any internships posted, but what did I have to lose?

I sent them the following email:

Good people of Western Resource Advocates, I am very interested in interning at you organization and, while I know that you do not have any such position advertised, I hope I can convince you that I am an excellent candidate for the non-existent opening.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Kate Logan. I am a masters of public affairs candidate at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. I graduated from Whitman College (a small, private liberal arts school in Walla Walla, Washington) in 2008 with a degree in Geology. I am professionally passionate about water allocation, western public lands, and extractive industries. Since starting graduate school, I have taken as many courses as possible specifically tailored to determining the cause and scope of environmental problems and finding the resources to solve them. I know that my core knowledge of economic markets, environmental law, statistics and earth sciences are important tools in tackling these issues. I have extensive experience writing for technical and non-technical audiences, including essays on topics such as BLM land management and water rights, and an undergraduate thesis in geology. As a graduate research assistant, I have further developed my ability to work independently on a wide range of topics.

I became aware of your organization after seeing an advertisement in High Country News several months for a Water Policy Analyst position. At the time, I softly cursed my career timing and wished I had 5 more years of professional experience so I could apply for this dream job. I consoled myself with the notion that in no time at all your organization would release a posting for summer interns. Unfortunately for me, no such opportunity has presented itself and, since I have nothing to lose, I decided it was time to take unilateral internship action.

I do not expect to be paid for any work or reimbursed for travel expenses in this imaginary internship. As a life-long student, I am accustomed to paying for the privilege to work. I would, however, want to work on a project that is of use and substance to your organization. I do not want to act exclusively as the coffee girl or the copy machine mavin, although I know that some office work is part of every organization and I am willing to do my share. My resume is attached and I would be happy to discuss my qualifications further.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Kate Logan

Less than 6 hours later I got an email back! Nothing is promised, but they like my "spunk" and might be able to work something out.

Now, back to homework!

Go Hoosiers!

I'm holding my breath

2008-11-04T16:07:00.000-08:00

I cannot concentrate. I've been trying to do work all day, but every 5 minutes I hit the refresh button on my New York Times home page to see if anything has changed with the election. Many of my classmates at SPEA feel the same way. One girl worried that something really important would happen while she was in class from 5 to 6 today and she would miss it. Because I voted absentee in Minnesota, I didn't have the pleasure of waiting in line today. I wish I had. It would have given me something to do. I would have gotten a "I voted" sticker and I could have gotten free Starbucks coffee for doing my patriotic duty (they had a promotional deal).

I don't really understand why I'm so interested. I'm truly inspired by Barack, but I also don't think McCain is a bad guy. I do worry that he would die in office if elected and we would get Caribou Barbie (my aunts coined term for Ms. Palin) as President.

I have been thinking a lot about my Mom today. Last election cycle she volunteered relentlessly for the Kerry campaign office in St. Paul. She organized, answered phones, and put her anger towards President Bush to good use. I think she would have loved this election. Seriously, if she could get that excited about John Kerry (I'm sorry Mr. Kerry, but I saw you speak at Macalester and you were not that inspiring) than I can only imagine how happy she would be about Senator Obama.

She would understand, much more than I, what nominating a minority means in the United States. When I was about 12 and learning about the civil rights movement for the first time I asked her about her experience during that time. This is what she told me: For a while during college or graduate school (I can't remember which) she lived in Memphis, TN. While there, she made friends with a young African American man and, thinking nothing of it, invited him over to her apartment. When he arrived the doorman let him in but minutes later made some lame excuse to knock on her door and make sure that everything was "alright." Being the northerner that she was, it took her a moment to figure out why the doorman was actually at her apartment door. She was very embarrassed and apologized to her visitor profusely. She confided that this, among other reasons, was one of the reasons she didn't stay in Memphis very long. For one thing, she had to move back to Minnesota so she could meet my Dad and have me!

Obviously this is one of the less dramatic racially charged stories from that era, but I still think that it is still shows just how far we've come.

Anyway, in a few hours we'll know how it turns out and either way I know my Mom will be smiling somewhere because Mr. Bush is on his way out.

Go Hoosier (but only if Obama wins the state. Keep your fingers crossed)!

Tests, tests, tests

2008-10-12T09:23:00.000-07:00

Sorry, y'all,

I know, its been almost a month since I've written anything. It's amazing how after reading and writing all day I have little motivation to do it anymore. Here's quick summary of the last month:

1. I have law reading coming out of my ears, but I recently (last night) mastered the art of skimming.

2. I read a book about animal rights activists and deer hunters for my public management class.

3. I'm researching contested Nevada water rights for a class.

4. My GA professor asked me to research diesel fuel for a research paper. Ask me to explain how a diesel engine works sometime!

5. I'm good at taking economics tests and bad at writing economics papers.

6. Dane and I have a lovely new couch that I got for super cheap at the used furniture store. I put a red slip cover over it to cover up the awesome muted aquas, corals, and blues of early 90's/late 80's. We hope it doesn't have flees...

7. Dane and I are getting along super well. We don't see each other much during the week, so we spend lots of time on the weekends going for hikes and enjoying each others company.

8. I have 3 tests this week and 2 on Monday (tomorrow). I better get back to work.

Go Hoosiers!

Read the Fine Print

2008-09-17T11:47:00.000-07:00

I've learned a few important things in school over the past few weeks. I've re-learned the laws of supply and demand in economics, struggled thru my first programs in SAS (Statistical Analysis Software), learned about principal-agency relationships in law class, and tried to find an appropriate size for government in public management. But, the most important lesson I've learned so far in this whole moving-to-Indiana process is to always read the fine print.

You see, Dane and I (actually it was more Dane) realized that it was cheaper to hire movers to haul his belongings accross the country than to rent a U-haul truck and do it ourselves. We couldn't believe it. It was less money to pay somebody else to carry boxes up and down the stairs in 105 degree heat? We both felt that it was just too good to be true, but numbers don't lie. Right?

The movers required a two day pick up window. We were excited at the prospect of perhaps having an extra day in Glacier National Park in addition to the one we'd already planned. The first day of potential pick up came and went. We were a little disappointed, but no matter. We got a call that they would arrive the following day at about noon. In the morning we got up early in anticipation, wrapping the bed in its protective plastic bag, double checking the tape job on all of the boxes, and pacing around the box filled house. Hours passed with no word from the movers. Then, about noon Dane got a call on his cell phone. "Victory," we declared, "they're in Hood River." No such luck.

"You see," the dispatcher explained, "the movers just had a run in with the police." Our movers had driven too many hours in one day and had gotten in trouble with the police at a weigh station. We tried to occupy ourselves the rest of the day in a white-walled box-filled house with limited success.

The movers arrived the next day and were very professional. Dane and I both agree that the movers themselves were very certious individuals.

As we were signing the paperwork we learned that our belongings would be dropped off within 14 days after we arrived at our new place. This was certainly not the impression we were under during the sales pitch. We were under the distinct impression our things would arrive 14 days after pick up. Opps! Somebody lied to us. We left on our our road trip to Indiana the next day, camping and driving for what seemed like days on end. We had to cancel the trip to Glacier National Park because of the late pick-up. So sad!

Upon arriving in Indiana and, with even closer inspection of the paper work, we discovered that the possible delay got even worse than we imagined. The movers had 14 business days to deliver our stuff. Suddenly we realized that with labor day and weekends we might be without furniture until nearly Christmas break! Actually it was more September 9th. Considering the movers arrived at Dane's house in Hood River on August 13th, there was a distinct possibility we might sleep on the floor for almost an entire month. I promptly went out and bought a blow-up queen-size mattress.

But, we had hope. Barak Obama would be so proud. We had hope that they would be a better moving company. We knew deep down that they would not wait until the very last day to deliver our belongings. And we were wrong.

As the days went by we started to question if we would ever see our things again. The whole operation started to seem shady in retrospect. We found the company on the internet. They made us pay in cash. We did not have a receipt for the half we paid up front. As we looked more closely at the contract we noticed misspellings. Hmmm.

Then, like a miracle, on the very last day of our contract we got a call. It was the movers. They would arrive at 8:30 pm on September 9th. We were hopeful, but not totally shocked when 8:30 pm turned into 10:30 pm. The giant semi-truck pulled up in front of the apartment and out came all of the boxes we said goodbye to nearly a month ago. Well, everything except the top of a desk and a bookshelf, they lost those.

All in all, Dane and I are not sure how to feel about the whole thing. After the movers left around midnight Dane and I unwrapped the mattress, threw a sheet over it, and tucked ourselves under the blanket. I turned to Dane and asked, "So, do you think it was worth it to hire movers?" After a long pause he said, "Maybe...."

Go Hoosiers!

The Cracker Barrel

2008-09-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a little while since I last updated the blog, but I was going to class and figuring out my life. I'll just summarize the last week by saying that so far graduate school is a million times better than undergrad because I spend half as much time in class and then waste all that saved time waiting for the bus.

Now for the cultural experience portion of the blog...

Today Dane and I went to the Cracker Barrel. For those of you that don't know the "Barrel" serves chain restaurant style down home cookin'. We tried to make it the most authentic southern experience we possibly could. I ordered sweet tea and Dane played it safe with Coke Classic. Then we greedily explored the brown trifold menu. There were fried items I've never seen at the Minnesota state fair. We were both tempted by the Chicken Fried Steak, but settled on the Chicken Fried Chicken with Sawmill Gravy and Chicken & Dumplings respectively. Each meal came with THREE different sides plus a choice of buttermilk biscuit or cornbread muffins. Making sure that none of our sides overlapped, I went for the corn, mashed potatoes and fried okra, while Dane sprung for the steak fries, apple pie filling, and green beans. When our food arrived Dane got three different plates laden with main dish and sides and I got a serving platter the size of a hub cap. We ate and ate and ate until we realized that we were no match for the southern/midwestern portions. The Pacific Northwest has ruined our natural eating abilities with rabbit food. We ambled out of the restaurant with a wide stance and took a few laps around the adjacent outlet mall before heading home. We ate at noon and weren't hungary when we sat down to eat dinner at 8 pm. Needless to say, we recommend the Cracker Barrel experience.

Go Hoosiers!

When you are mistaken for a law student...

2008-08-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

How do you know you just spent too much on textbooks? When you are mistaken for a law student like I was at the bookstore today. Yep, I walked out of the there $655.75 lighter than when I entered. The most disappointing part- all the books fit into one canvas bag. Sigh. I think the clerk was also fooled by my book titles. Here's a tantalizing sampling:

- Public Law and Public Administration

- The Warping of Government Work

- Public Administration: The Profession and the Practice

- Managerial Economics

- Cases on Public Law and Public Administration

- Statistical Methods and Data Analysis.

You want to know the crazy part? I can't wait to read them all.

I also started looking at internships tonight. Suddenly a job title like Policy Analyst for the Southern Nevada Water Authority or Environmental Protection Agency seems highly plausible. I don't know about you, but too me that sounds pretty darn tootin' cool. Maybe I could even get the job title "decider."

Bloomington is wonderful, especially now that the unbearable heat and humidity have broken. It's been down right pleasant for the last few days.

Go Hoosiers!

Translation

2008-08-25T19:52:00.000-07:00

So it turns out "Graduate Orientation" means "sit for 8 hours on uncomfortable wooden folding chairs and be told how hard your life will be for the next 2 years. No worries though... it will all be worth it for that awesome unpaid internship next summer."

As an extra bonus I got to fill out paper work tonight.

The Start of the Beginning

2008-08-23T19:11:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm sitting on the floor of my home for the next two years-- a two bedroom apartment complete with substandard appliances. The air condition is running to fend off the 200% humidity on this lovely Bloomington, Indiana evening. The furniture we packaged up more than a week ago should arrive some time in the next week. The movers will most likely pick a delivery time when both Dane and I have a mandatory, super important meeting that will define our graduate careers. That would be incredibly convenient.

But seriously, Indiana is great. I went to the Farmer's Market this morning and bought zucchini, peppers (red and green), and a mountain of peaches. The highlight our urban vegetable adventure was waiting in the corn line. Yes, a line for corn. It was half a block long. I've never tasted this blessed holy grail of corn before, but those already in line spoke highly of its firm kernel and superior sweetness. Their descriptions were almost erotic.

The afternoon was filled with soft-bellied internet perusing until Dane and I turned to each other and decided it was time for our first outdoor Indiana adventure. We jumped in the car after wading through muggy air (have I mentioned that it's humid here) and drove 14 miles further east where we found Yellowwood State Park. It's a darling forest complete with tent campground, a small lake, and graveyard (spooky) were it appears no one lasted past their 6th birthday (sad). It was positively gorgeous and I can't wait to escape there whenever the thriving metropolis of Bloomington gets to be too much.

Well, that's it. Greetings from the land of Chick-fil-A, sweet tea, and Hoosiers.