I realized that in my last post I didn’t quite explain my Senior Project! My roommate Will and I are spending a week in New York and we’re recording our music with two  different producers. One is our friend Matt who lives in an apartment in Bushwick. This is where we are staying for the  time we will be in New York. The recording setup is strange and fun. It’s similar to what we would use at home, so it’s very comfortable. Matt is able to help us get each track we’ve been working on really going in the right direction, while adding elements to them from his own experience working and touring with the band Friends, which was on the label Lucky Number out of England. The second producer is a friend we recently made named Caleb. He works at Redbull’s studio in Manhattan, so the equipment is all pretty ridiculous and much more high quality than what we are used to. We have two days scheduled this weekend in that tricked out studio Redbull has put together there, and Will and I are both nervous and incredibly excited to move into that realm of recording.

The city is an interesting place to record – very different from home. Walking outside trees are replaced with concrete structures and the occasional deer running in front of someone’s Prius is instead a homeless man searching for loose cigarettes. It has its charm for sure, and is a nice change being able to travel about on foot or subway instead of having to get into one of my parent’s 4 wheeled vehicles.

-Con

When people picture Archaeologists, most people imagine some kind of Indiana Jones crawling out of a great pit carrying some amazing artifact. The truth of the matter is nothing like that. Though getting in the ground for a dig is definitely the highlight, what happens to the artifacts after they’ve been found is just as important. If everything isn’t documented and organized, you can forget where they came from, which means you might not know why they are important. Even the smallest piece of glass or teeny tiny fish bone has to be catalogued. So even though we all agreed that today would’ve been a great day to get out in the field, we followed our plan and worked in the “storage facility” today. The storage facility is basically a climate controlled room which has become a temporary office and artifact storage space all in one. So I spent my first day doing just that. Now some people, alright many people would think of that as boring, but it really isn’t. As you go through areas and layers of soil you see all of the amazing artifacts collected from each stored safely in the bags I have the honour to handle. Yeah I admit, the continuous bags of old brick can be pretty boring, but how often do most people get to hold beautiful Native American beads from the 17th century? It’s hard work, but it’s worth it.

But…my day wasn’t done. Our last task of the day was scoping out a hotel meeting room for a conference that Fairfield is trying to make sure Gloucester can host. It’s a conference for a Virginia History group (there’s about a million) that Fairfield really wants to host here in Gloucester, which is full to the river banks that surround it with history. It was actually a Gloucester Chamber of Commerce meeting that we were visiting during, so I even met Congressman Rob Wittman, the representative from Virginia’s first district. It was an interesting experience, I was representing the Fairfield Foundation, but  I also got quite a few questions about my school. Most of the people I talked to were very interested in Westtown, though one man thought that since it was a Quaker school that meant kids rode to school in their horse-drawn buggies, of course confusing the Quakers with the Amish. I tried to clear this misconception up, but didn’t have much luck, the man didn’t seem to quite understand.

Nevertheless it was a great first day! Tomorrow I’ll be working till about 9 pm because it’s Lab Night! Volunteers from all over the area and of all ages come to help wash and examine artifacts at our lab on the Rosewell Plantation property Visitor’s center. It’s from 6-9 pm and all are welcome, so if anyone is in the area you are welcome to come join. Directions are on the Foundation’s website.

http://www.fairfieldfoundation.org/volunteer-opportunities/

~HopeLily Van Duyne

I opened my eyes and pulled on a sweater from my closet, before quickly running downstairs to drink a cup of coffee with my mom. I pulled my brother’s bass guitar up from the basement and threw it in a case meant for some other instrument, before then eating breakfast and brushing my teeth. I felt a bit nervous, knowing I had a performance later that day, but it was a good nervous. I remember T. John Baird telling a story about Thelonious Monk or someone like that– they said that the day you stop feeling nervous when you perform is the same day you stop playing music. I try to pretend sometimes this isn’t the truth so maybe perhaps I can trick myself into relaxing about being in front of so many strangers, but I know I’m not right. The show went very well, the musicians we opened for were really kind and the crowd seemed into all the music.

-Con

As my parents and I have been discovering for the past few days, preparing for a trip to Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, and Peru is much harder than we had anticipated. It is the rainy season right now in Quito and Machu Picchu, the locations in the mainland we will be visiting. In the Galapagos Islands however, we are expecting temperatures from the mid-80’s to 90’s! My parents have not been in this cold PA weather as long as I have, and do not share my fear of melting upon arrival. So far our luggage is looking a little like this:

Pictured above, is 90% of our photography equipment for the trip. We will be taking a variety of lenses (which you probably got from the picture) in order to capture the best possible pictures for portrait, landscape, and action photography. The GoPro will be used during snorkel excursions, as well a Nikon point and shoot (which is not pictured). Luckily, I will be carrying just the small bag with a Nikon D7000 and a few lenses. 

This is how I will be documenting this trip! Notes in the memo pads, iPad for blogging, and a SD Card port attachment to share some pictures along the journey!

This outfit will be worn while trekking up to Machu Picchu, for it is the rainy season and temperatures will drop lower than the averages as we trek higher in elevation. Layers, layers, layers, my father continues to tell me.

This is my personal favorite outfit for the trip, for a day in the Galapagos where we will be spending eight days of our trip. A Henderson half-suit for deep-sea snorkeling, maybe even a resort dive 20 feet below. Plenty of sunblock to prevent the frying of my body, trekking sandals for navigating the abundance of volcanoes, and a surf suit for fun.

It is definitely going to be the adventure of a lifetime, I look forward to updating on Wednesday when we land in Quito, Ecuador. I would also like to thank my parents in advanced for putting up with my constant videos asking them their opinions about food, sights, etc. I hope some of my readers will find my blog posts at least mildly entertaining, but for now I have to start reading The Origin of  Species to put myself in the Darwinian mindset ;).

** A side note about my family in general, our thoughts revolve around meals most of the time so just be aware that there will be tons of blogging about food, only if it is good,though.

-Eden