remember those posters you saw in elementary school regarding drugs?
this is your brain: (regular egg)
this is your brain on drugs: (egg in a skillet)
i think they should have a third category
this is your brain after spending a week in the basement of the united states holocaust memorial museum for 7 hours each day.
absolutely fried? definitely.
it's a good think our weekend itinerary includes the phrase "optional" for both saturday and sunday. i really don't think i could do nine consecutive days. at the same time, the more i think about it, the more i realize this week has flown by. i also think i'm going to have to use part of my stipend to pay the extra weight fee at reagan when i fly back to DIA next week. aside from the 250 pages of reading material assigned for the seminar, by next week i'll have another....well let's break it down here.
235 pages of steven galloway's "the cellist of sarajevo" (ushmm bookstore)
482 pages of saul friedländer's "nazi germany and the jews: 1933-1945" (barnes and noble in georgetown)
17 pages of ITS documents related to the concentration camp system
67 pages of ITS documents related to non-jewish victims
85 pages of ITS documents related to foreign, forced, and slave labor in the german war economy
93 pages of ITS documents related to displaced persons
250 pages (roughly) of the glossary of ITS terms and abbreviations (August 2, 2010 version) [free. woohoo!]
50 (roughly) pages of misc info from the museum
added to my reading packet (and not counting stuff from this weekend + monday and tuesday)?
1279.
not exactly the most environmentally friendly seminar, but i think i'll use about everything i've collected here for my master's thesis or dissertation. we'll see.
i think this has been a productive pilot seminar for the museum. i'd like to go to bad arolsen, germany someday to the actual ITS archive to do more research. i was looking through some ITS documents when eric was talking about the bundesarchiv in berlin when i heard him mention lichterfelde. for those of you who aren't familiar with your suburbs of berlin (or my travel history), i stayed in lichterfelde this past january while in berlin (we actually stayed off the S-25 stop 'lichterfelde ost' while staying there). i wish i would've known that while we were there! ah well. next time.
i'm going to relax a little bit until 10am monday morning. i'll probably take my time getting to the museum tomorrow and sunday to conduct a little research. i requested some microfiche to look at tomorrow regarding a survivor's account in crematorium three in birkenau at the library on the fifth floor of the museum, and will probably use the CNI (central name index) of the ITS on sunday to try and find records for these people:
miklos nyiszli (hungarian jew deported to auschwitz in 1944. wrote "auschwitz: a doctor's eyewitness account)
marco nahon (a greek jew sent to auschwitz, stutthof, and other smaller camps. wrote "birkenau: the camp of death")
benny hochman (holocaust survivor i might interview sometime in the near future)
john rabe (committed national socialist living in nanking, china during the time of the nanking massacre.)
monday we're going over war criminals and tuesday, we'll finish the seminar. i'll be back in mountain time next wednesday.
i can't believe school is almost here. i'm excited to make the transition to boulder and further my history studies there. i've met a lot of people at the museum who have said a lot of good things about people there and their program (a couple profs who have had christopher browning as their dissertation advisor). which reminds me. i need to finalize classes and find a place to live (since a couple deals have fallen through) when i'm not at the museum this weekend, or not at arlington taking pictures of the kennedy memorials for ian (and sasaki).
blech. it's 7:30. i think i'm just going to go to bed now.
8.06.2010
8.02.2010
ITS: day one
i know i said i'd post pictures from the rest of our trip to boston (harvard, etc), but due to my crazy july schedule, figuring out college plans, getting ready for my trip to DC, those are going to have to wait. it's not like anyone reads this anyways!
so i'm sitting at the one washington circle hotel with some chinese food in my belly, and i'm about ready to call it a day. it's certainly been a long one. in a nutshell, here's what the last couple of days has consisted of:
i drove to denver on saturday and stayed at the hampton inn by DIA, woke up around 4:30 sunday morning, got my stuff together, took the 5:15 shuttle to the airport, and was off the ground at 7:30. unlike 99% of the flights i've taken in life, i actually got some sleep thanks to a window seat by the right wing and an old couple sitting next to me. thanks to my bose headphones and (dad's) iPod, it was a relaxing, uneventful flight. got to regan national around noon ET, and took a cab to the hotel since i didn't really feel like figuring out the metro system (more on that in a second).
i'm sharing a room with a guy from the university of arkansas on the seventh floor of the hotel with a decent view of our balcony. with a nice bathroom, full kitchen, and a decent view...i can't complain. i could get used to this all expenses paid trip thing. the only downside is that washington circle is extremely busy in the mornings and evenings. ah well. can't win 'em all.
today was a full day, with the majority of it sitting down. i crashed last night around 8ET after a long day and woke up to an orchestra of sirens and horns around 6. even though eastern time is two hours ahead of mountain time (and an hour ahead of central time too i guess), it was a little weird waking up so early. more annoying than anything else, but that's okay i guess. i went back to sleep a couple times and finally got up around 8, and was showered, dressed, and on the blue line around 9. after spending a week in boston last month, i'd have to say that the orange and blue line to the smithsonian just edges out the green line in beantown. sorry ian and anna! it's a short commute from foggy bottom station to the smithsonian, and a 2-3 minute walk to the united states holocaust memorial museum (as well as the washington monument, etc).
other than a lot of talking and sitting, today was pretty uneventful. this morning we did the usual intro (name, college, year, major, etc), had a little overview of what to expect during the next week, got a group picture, and were issued temporary 5th floor access only badges (good for this weekend when i can go up and do a little independent research). half of us went with eric (who is an ITS research scholar and is in charge of the seminar) to the USDA food court which is a short walk from the museum, and the other half went with suzanne (in a nutshell, eric's boss) to the museum cafe). we got back at 2 and went over the international tracing service a little bit before heading to the fifth floor of the museum for a little orientation over the library, archives, and the photo archives. not the most exciting way to end an already long day, but at least it's out of the way and i know what to look for this weekend.
we're going over our case study topics this week. tomorrow we'll look at the concentration camp system (from our reading material), have lunch with the staff and fellows of the center for advanced holocaust studies, select documents from the ITS related to the camps, break, and have a group discussion for an hour and a half.
the topics will change each day. the rest of the schedule is
wednesday: overview of non-jewish victimsi
thursday: overview of foreign, forced, and slave labor in the german war economy
friday: overview of displaced persons
saturday: independent research in the library and archives
sunday: independent research in the holocaust victims and survivors resource center
monday: overview of war criminals in nazi germany
tuesday: possibilities of using the ITS archive collection and possible future avenues for research in holocaust studies
overall, i think our group is perfectly mixed. there are more undergrads than i thought, and eric told us that this seminar is more of a pilot than anything since the USHMM has held these seminars more for students working on their dissertations while in grad school. i was also surprised at colleges and universities of the students that were selected. everything from small, private liberal arts college like bethel, west virgina wesleyan, and southern virgina university to major D1 schools like michigan state, the university of colorado, michigan state, and cornell.
it's going to be a good trip. there's a lot to do in the area within a 15-20 minute walk. plenty of local shops, good restaurants, bookstores, and sights. i think the obama estate is only a 15 minute walk from here too. might have to go crash some parties there this weekend. i'm going to go snack on some stuff i bought at trader joe's earlier. woo!
holla.
so i'm sitting at the one washington circle hotel with some chinese food in my belly, and i'm about ready to call it a day. it's certainly been a long one. in a nutshell, here's what the last couple of days has consisted of:
i drove to denver on saturday and stayed at the hampton inn by DIA, woke up around 4:30 sunday morning, got my stuff together, took the 5:15 shuttle to the airport, and was off the ground at 7:30. unlike 99% of the flights i've taken in life, i actually got some sleep thanks to a window seat by the right wing and an old couple sitting next to me. thanks to my bose headphones and (dad's) iPod, it was a relaxing, uneventful flight. got to regan national around noon ET, and took a cab to the hotel since i didn't really feel like figuring out the metro system (more on that in a second).
i'm sharing a room with a guy from the university of arkansas on the seventh floor of the hotel with a decent view of our balcony. with a nice bathroom, full kitchen, and a decent view...i can't complain. i could get used to this all expenses paid trip thing. the only downside is that washington circle is extremely busy in the mornings and evenings. ah well. can't win 'em all.
today was a full day, with the majority of it sitting down. i crashed last night around 8ET after a long day and woke up to an orchestra of sirens and horns around 6. even though eastern time is two hours ahead of mountain time (and an hour ahead of central time too i guess), it was a little weird waking up so early. more annoying than anything else, but that's okay i guess. i went back to sleep a couple times and finally got up around 8, and was showered, dressed, and on the blue line around 9. after spending a week in boston last month, i'd have to say that the orange and blue line to the smithsonian just edges out the green line in beantown. sorry ian and anna! it's a short commute from foggy bottom station to the smithsonian, and a 2-3 minute walk to the united states holocaust memorial museum (as well as the washington monument, etc).
other than a lot of talking and sitting, today was pretty uneventful. this morning we did the usual intro (name, college, year, major, etc), had a little overview of what to expect during the next week, got a group picture, and were issued temporary 5th floor access only badges (good for this weekend when i can go up and do a little independent research). half of us went with eric (who is an ITS research scholar and is in charge of the seminar) to the USDA food court which is a short walk from the museum, and the other half went with suzanne (in a nutshell, eric's boss) to the museum cafe). we got back at 2 and went over the international tracing service a little bit before heading to the fifth floor of the museum for a little orientation over the library, archives, and the photo archives. not the most exciting way to end an already long day, but at least it's out of the way and i know what to look for this weekend.
we're going over our case study topics this week. tomorrow we'll look at the concentration camp system (from our reading material), have lunch with the staff and fellows of the center for advanced holocaust studies, select documents from the ITS related to the camps, break, and have a group discussion for an hour and a half.
the topics will change each day. the rest of the schedule is
wednesday: overview of non-jewish victimsi
thursday: overview of foreign, forced, and slave labor in the german war economy
friday: overview of displaced persons
saturday: independent research in the library and archives
sunday: independent research in the holocaust victims and survivors resource center
monday: overview of war criminals in nazi germany
tuesday: possibilities of using the ITS archive collection and possible future avenues for research in holocaust studies
overall, i think our group is perfectly mixed. there are more undergrads than i thought, and eric told us that this seminar is more of a pilot than anything since the USHMM has held these seminars more for students working on their dissertations while in grad school. i was also surprised at colleges and universities of the students that were selected. everything from small, private liberal arts college like bethel, west virgina wesleyan, and southern virgina university to major D1 schools like michigan state, the university of colorado, michigan state, and cornell.
it's going to be a good trip. there's a lot to do in the area within a 15-20 minute walk. plenty of local shops, good restaurants, bookstores, and sights. i think the obama estate is only a 15 minute walk from here too. might have to go crash some parties there this weekend. i'm going to go snack on some stuff i bought at trader joe's earlier. woo!
holla.
7.03.2010
6.24.2010
it's show time
just a quick note
i just met with hannah at the perk, and will be displaying a total of sixteen images during my show. for those of you who can't attend, but are interested in contacting me for details, here's a little digital display/gallery.
near kaikoura, new zealand. june 2007.
near kaikoura, new zealand. june 2007.
avala mountain (near belgrade, serbia). january 2010.
krakow, poland. january 2010.
silverton, colorado. march 2009.
budapest, hungary. january 2010.
auschwitz-1. poland. january 2010.
lake brunner, new zealand. june 2007.
lake pukaki, new zealand. june 2007.
lake matheson, new zealand. june 2007.
krakow, poland. memorial located at the former site of the plaszow concentration camp from the movie schindler's list. january 2010.
avala mountain (near belgrade, serbia). januray 2010.
devil's punchbowl waterfall. new zealand. june 2007.
on the famous chain bridge. budapest, hungary. january 2010.
gypsy community. belgrade, serbia. january 2010.
krakow, poland. memorial located at the former site of the plaszow concentration camp from the movie schindler's list. january 2010
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