a certain shade of blue

After the sun has sunk beneath the horizon, the winter sky turns a certain shade of blue.

The waning light of the sun seems to create a blue layered under turquoise and over deeper shades of black. In the incomplete world of Crayola colors, the best name for it is midnight blue. This shade is the sun’s last hurrah before giving the sky over to night and blackness and starlight. If my memory is correct, this isn’t specific to the winter months, but when snow covers the ground and each breath hangs in the air, there’s a certain magic that dances through the skies at this time of night.

It’s a time of day when I feel like if I close my eyes and breathe in deeply and then slowly exhale, I might become absorbed into the blue. It would be like coming home.

Having lived in other parts of the country, it seems that skies of this color are very particular to the upper Midwest although I couldn’t say with certainty that the Northwest and Northeast don’t enjoy similarly beautiful night skies. Perhaps it’s because of how far north these states are or because of the relative absence of artificial light or because of how clean the air is. Regardless of the reason, night skies here are full of a beauty and majesty that’s leaves me in awe.

These photos may not capture this perfectly, but for a glimpse of this blue, you can go here or here or here or here.

consolidation

I learned today via Facebook (imparter of all things true - ha) that my little high school is beginning the process of merging with another little high school in the area. I think they're starting with merging the sports teams and then will move to sharing teachers, eventually merging the schools completely. I have seen this coming for a long time, and honestly, I'm surprised the school remained independent for as long as it has.

It was interesting to read my former schoolmates mourn the coming merger through their comments on Facebook. All the nostalgia and talk of this being the "end of an era" just doesn't fully resonate with me. I think this decision will really benefit the students in the end. With a larger student body, they'll be able to offer more classes (both core and electives), which will really benefit the students. I know I would have loved it if my school had more electives when I attended there. French, business law, accounting, and economics just didn't really interest me although I took them for lack of other options.

In the long run, I think this will be for the best. I think that the need for quality education far outweighs the need to have individual small town schools. That said, I don't feel that my identity was ever fully wrapped up in my high school. That, however, is not true for all my former schoolmates. These small high schools are something that the students and people of the town can really rally around and have pride in. They are full of history and tradition, and I guess that even a small part of me will be a bit sad when the school I graduated from no longer exists.

Argentina: Part 1

I've been back from Argentina for almost a week now, and if I don't start posting stories about the trip soon, then it may not happen at all. It's always difficult for me to write about big trips (too many things to say, perhaps), and the longer I procrastinate, the harder it will be. I've decided that rather than narrate the whole thing (no one wants to read that), I would chunk up the trips into topics.

Travel
If nothing else, traveling to Argentina was a lengthy process, kind of like a relay race that went something like this:

1. from my apartment to Diego's apartment
2. from Diego's apartment to his work
3. from his work to the West Falls Church Metro stop (co-worker gave us a ride)
4. Metro to the airport (all that and we just made it to the airport)
5. 2 1/2 hour flight from DC to Miami
6. 8 hour flight from Miami to Buenos Aires
7. 5 hour shuttle ride from Buenos Aires to Mar del Plata
8. 10 minute car ride from the shuttle stop to Diego's aunt and mom's place.

* To return, reverse directions.

All in all, from leaving my apartment to arriving at our final destination, it took more than 24 hours. Needless to say, it was wonderful to finally stop moving.

I slept on and off for most of the freezing cold plane ride from Miami to Buenos Aires, so it didn't seem as long as it actually was. Although I certainly could have stood for more sleep after the flight, I was not very successful sleeping on the shuttle.

The drive between Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata reminded me very much of driving across eastern South Dakota, but somehow it seemed more desolate. It was beautiful, of course, but fewer small towns and farms dotted the landscape. The land was pancake flat and stretched to the horizon with very little disrupting the view. Here and there, clumps of trees spotted the prairie with herds of cattle interspersed throughout.

Somewhere between Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata

From Argentina Nov 2008

If the drive to Mar del Plata was uneventful, driving in Mar del Plata (or Buenos Aires for that matter) was a completely different experience. Only major intersections, and honestly not even all of those, have stop lights or stop signs to regulate the traffic. Instead, whoever "gets to the intersection first" gets to go first, or something like that. I guess there are some laws governing how the right of way is supposed to work: you yield to traffic coming from the right but get the right of way if traffic is coming from the left. This is made slightly easier by the fact that most of the streets are one way only. I never saw any accidents, but I might have gotten a few more gray hairs just sitting in the passenger seat. Needless to say, I was definitely not going to get behind the wheel of any car while in Argentina.

View of a Buenos Aires intersection from 20 stories up

From Argentina Nov 2008

Up next: Food

3 degrees

When I signed up to attend a day-long diversity workshop, I went in with some expectations. I did not expect to be thrown back into the small world of South Dakota. I sat down at an empty table, and after a few minutes, a woman about my age joined me. We made the usual introductions: sharing our names and what department we worked for on campus. From there things went something like this...

L. Can I ask you a bizarre question?
M. Sure. Go ahead.
L. Do you know anyone in the library from South Dakota?
M. Actually yes... I'm from South Dakota.

So it turns out that L, who works in the SCOM department and was born and raised in SD, has a sister who works in HR for Siouxland Hospitals. Someone her sister knows (or met) knows me. We couldn't figure out who that linking person was, but with only 2 people between us, we'd made that good ol' South Dakota connection.

It is seriously such a small world.

exotic

Upon learning that I am from South Dakota, the guy from India says to the guy from Peru: "She's more exotic than we are."

for the kids in the country

Background: I'm sitting in the waiting room at the Dodge dealership waiting for the shuttle to come and take me to work. The customer service agent who is handling my car walks up to me.

CS: Ma'am, I don't mean to offend you, but can I ask you a question.
M: Sure.
CS: You've got South Dakota tags on your vehicle.
M: Yeah... (at this point I'm a little nervous that he might be about to lecture me about not having gotten my Virginia tags yet)
CS: Well, why would you ever leave a beautiful, beautiful place like that, to move to a crowded place like this?