The second in two days

Adapted from my journal.

I've been saying for months that the only way to really learn these primitive skills is through doing them. But I've also had a sub-liminal sense of vague despair, because I have so much to learn and so little opportunity. My plans have been along the lines of, "buy primitive-skills books, and learn the skills by practicing them... somewhere." But there's not much forest to speak of around Cincinnati, so practicing a lot of things would be pretty problematic. And books, while helpful, can't impart but a minúte fraction of the knowledge that a real person, who can answer question, and a real forest, rather than pictures of nature in halftone dots, can. My best ideas for solutions to these were: get in contact with the Meskwaki Indians on the rez in Iowa (the college has community service stuff going on there), and learn their history and such. That would cover the people part. For the forest part, I had a vague plan to spend a summer in Minnesota or something, sometime in the fuzzy future. I couldn't think how to make that jive with my plans, which needed to include working for money for most of the summer; also, I would mostly lack direction, not knowing much, including where to start.
-In general, these plans sucked, because they meant only by-the-seat-of-my-pants learning (and probably nothing very deep), and would also leave me at the end of the summer with no community to pursue my goals with. Also, I would be working with kids in Meskwaki schools, and thanks to the checkered scratch that tar-black history of America Inc., they probably wouldn't know how to live off the land in the prairies much better than I would. My best bet for that would be the elders, but not only would it be kinda weird for me to go asking them to teach me the Ancient Ways, but also I would only be on the rez for a few hours a week, hardly enough to learn anything meaningful at all even over the course of a year.
-Today I was reading the REWILD.INFO forums, feeling like I was nowhere even close to knowing what I would eventually need to know, and I opened up a part of the forum that I hadn't thought to click on before. Wilderness School Reviews. I think the reason I'd ignored it before is the word "school", which made me think of classes reminiscent of either elementary school or Manito-wish's "Leadership Seminars", which made use of some pretty cheesy quotes printed onto the walls of the MLC basement. But straight off, I found a school called Teaching Drum (coincidentally about an hour's drive from Manito-wish), which all the REWILDers seem to think is top-of-the-line, or at least the ones who've been there. And it does look incredible. You can go there for a month, or 3, or 11. As I read more and saw pictures, it became very clear that I'd have to go there or to some wilderness school like it. A month is a fairly reasonable $800 (compare: about $4800 at the college, before financial aid and such), which I have saved up already, but that's not to say that I'm going to go and blow my whole year's salary on this. Actually, by the end of the year I'll have a lot more money, because I plan to do a lot of work-study this year. Whatever makes student loans less painful later on. I'm getting paid a nice piece for running Press. And I plan to work this summer, unless I do some sort of unpaid internship instead. A paid internship would be real nice. And I want to learn these skills soon, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to go this summer.
-But meanwhile my goal still stands - I'll catch and eat my own small game by the beginning of summer. I can't slow down my self-driven learning just because I'll be learning in a group later on.

I'm on break

I had a terrible week full of tons of work, and then it was over and I got to come back home. I took with me two first-years, R. and S. It's not particularly important that I keep their names secret, since I'm not saying anything incriminating about them at all, but I figured it's probably good practice anyhow. It was a pretty okay car ride. I dropped S. off in Crawfordsville and then dropped R. off in Indianapolis - though she got us all turned around and lost us an hour there. But she says she's going to bake some cookies for the return trip to make up for it. Her parents picked her up at a McDonald's, just like S.'s did. Even if the food sucks, I guess they make good meeting points. So now I'm just rambling.
-It's nice being home for a while. Using our bathroom, I've come to realize what a raw deal I get at East Campus: it's environmentally friendly, and the buildings have a LEED certification (but I don't remember what color), but they achieve that through low-flow faucets (so filling up a water bottle takes like a full minute) and low water temperatures (so showers are nowhere near as enjoyable as they could be, especially when it's cold). Here, the water is nice and hot and it doesn't take forever to fill up a pot to make ramen noodles. And I get my own bedroom, so I can turn out the lights whenever I want - but that's one of those "inherent in the system" things at college. Ah, the comforts of home.
-We've got two new kittens. They're both extremely cute and maybe the most friendly cats we've ever had. Coming here, I'm seeing the wisdom of keeping a snake for a pet, though. I don't feel compelled to let him wander around outside his cage, since he mainly stays in one spot and doesn't seem too anxious to run [slither] around anyhow. But all these mammals need their space. Dad let his weasel outside for a little while, and hasn't seen her for a couple days. He thinks she probably met a dog. Before I left for college, I was walking Micah's dog in the woods when he sniffed out Mom's cat at the time, lying there. We never did figure out what happened to her - I didn't see any treadmarks, so she may have gotten sick or fallen out of a tree. A couple weeks before that, our other cat at the time got hit by a car and Dad found him. Mom has decided to keep a closer rein on these kittens so they don't meet the same fate. "Darn hrududil," she says: it's the rabbits' word* for those giant noisy metal things, in Watership Down.
-I'm getting a magazine article written about me! This should probably have been at the beginning of this entry, but it seemed kinda pretentious to do that. It's tentatively called "A Field Guide to Young Font Designers", and it's going to be in STEP Inside Design magazine. I've been in touch already with the guy who's writing it; I told him about myself and about how I came to be a font designer. It's going to be out in January/February 2009. So, keep your eyes out - this is pretty darn awesome, if I say so myself.
-I've been playing Scrabble some more with Mom, and working with Dad on restoring his old Mercedes, the one from 1963 that he bought in the late '70s when he was in Spain with the Navy. Mainly we're working on getting all the paint off it, because it's all got to be replaced. Micah is of course playing his part in this too. If he ever gets a driver's license (he may have to wait a while, because given all his legal woes, Dad doesn't seem too incredibly disposed to dedicate a lot of insurance money to him or let him behind the wheel of a really nice old car), it may become his car. If Dad becomes persuaded to give it to him.
-And I'm getting ever closer to the end of Brennu-Njáls Saga. It's longer than I realized. But there's also some semblance of a climax I'm coming to - a real big lawsuit against some people who burnt down a house with some people in it: and the distinction between "lawsuit" and "battle" can get tricky in old Iceland.
-So, I guess that's about it, until next time. Uh, bye!.

*Plural, and the singular is hrududu.

Free time??

It's been busy. Nothing I couldn't handle, but it's certainly been busy. The thing is, I'm doing all my schoolwork while at the same time gutsily reading for pleasure, something most people don't try doing here. My thinking is, I should give myself at least some time to read for pleasure, or I might end up miserable. Or I guess slightly less happy. So, my days have been filled primarily with homework, but also with other activties, and then on top of all that I'm reading Njál's Saga, an Icelandic saga from the 13th century. It's pretty great, by the way. I'm about halfway through. After that, I have a significant backlog of other books to read. Mom has sent me two, and I plan also to read something about the Plains Indians, and I may at some point read You Shall Know Our Velocity!, which endears me right away because the text of the book starts on the front cover, continues on through the front endpaper, and goes right on until just about the end. There's one blank page and then two red pages, one of which has the copyright stuff on it. Isn't that great? It's by Dave Eggers, who's a peculiar guy. He started up his own publishing company and literary magazine, called Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. He's pretty great and quirky. But let's move on from Dave Eggers.
-I've also been working on co-staffing Press*, which is the student organization that publishes book-length or book-size projects that students make. This semester we're going to be publishing a photograph collection from an amazing photographer among our ranks; and a book of stories that revolve around a Section 8 housing unit (if I've got that regulation right) in DC, with pictures; and a stationery set. It looks like it's going to be a fun semester in Press. And, I had a krokay tournament. Turnout was pretty low. It ended up being just a game. I made it to the end either first or second, but I ended up getting knocked out, and watching the rest of the game play out. A guy named Ben ended up winning. All in all it was an excellent game with four new players.
-Ooh! And I got a job at Bob's Underground Coffee House. It's nothing large-scale - one two-hour shift a week, and anoher three-hour one if theSaturay person can't come. But I love it. Working in Bob's is much less dismal than working in the dining hall. Even though it is underground. Bob's is a room covered in graffiti, where we serve coffee-related drinks. It's open from 8 to 1 every night. Night-owls like me come and play board games, or read the impressive and ragtag array of books, pamphlets, and propaganda left by other patrons, or see bands that play there occasionally, or do homework, or just drink something with friends in a room full of ratty old comfortable furniture. I've only had one shift there so far. I've got another shift's worth of training, and then I man the place solo during my shift the rest of the year.
-And on Friday afternoons, I do flintknapping on the porch of Goodnow Hall with Professor Whittaker, an anthropology professor who's been knapping for a couple decades now. Thus far I've made some mediocre arrowheads, and I'm working on some more, one made of obsidian. Obsidian is not only an awesome word, but also an awesome mineral, basically hard black glass. I'm going to work on scrapers, and eventually I plan to make an ax blade.
-The point of college, I guess, is the classes, so I should at least mention those. I'm enjoying them all, but they tend to assign me tons of reading. Last Tuesday, I had to read 80 pages for sociology, and on the same day either 20 or 40 for English. The Spanish professor has a tendency to give assignments like "Prepare a five-minute presentation on the reading" with no warning. Luckily, he has us give those presentations to each other. And we can BS each other or just admit, "I was up 'til 3 last night and couldn't get to the reading." That's happened to me some. Some of it is because I was reading about what Hallgerd and Gunnar and their servants have been doing. Hallgerd is nuts, always making one of her servants go over and kill one of Njál's and then doing it again after Njál's new servant takes revenge, but there's nothing anyone can do about it, because she's a woman, and it'd be dishonorable to kill her. But I think we've gotten beyond her crap now. Really, Njál's Saga is a great saga. I mean, I don't read a lot of sagas, but this one is pretty intense. I got into it because in English we had read Beowulf, and when I finished it I was in a saga mood. This one is awesomer. Beside those, I'm also learning a lot in anthropology and sociology. Anthropology is the duller class, but that's mainly because my professor isn't what you'd call a dynamo. As a rule, she doesn't get excited about anthropology in class. Whereas my sociology professor really gets into the classes. I bet if I had Professor Whittaker it'd be a more even match.
-Tenzing shed a couple days ago for probably thesecond time, but this was the first time I found the skin. I couldn't keep it, though, because as he was shedding he pooped in his skin, rendering it naaasty. And, I have a video of him eating. Here it is.
-That's about all for now. I'll be back some other time.

*Which is another reason Dave Eggers is endearing to me. I didn't want to mention that up there, though, becuse I'd just moved on from him.