Waiting in the cold

Hollis and I have very nearly opposite schedules, so we don't travel together as often as we did in the summer. But sometimes we get to ride the bus together. And then it is a lot more fun.

See how excited we are?

Okay, so this was mostly just an excuse to take a picture and blog using my new iPod :)

Identity

I wrote this email to a teacher sharing my thoughts on the topic of Identity. We had been discussing that day what was a real Indian? In my mind this is closely tied to anyone's personal identity.

Just for reference, Blood Quantum is how much percentage someone has of a certain racial, or ethnic ancestry, particularly in reference to whether an American Indian is considered by the US government to be an American Indian.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elissa

Today we were talking about Indian "Identity" and I wanted to share some thoughts I'd had on the subject.
The first time I remember investigating my "heritage" was in fourth or fifth grade when we had to do a presentation on a foreign country (or culture) in our blood heritage. It was the first time I tried to track my genealogy out of the country. My family has been born in the US for about 3 or 4 generations on all sides and by the time I got people that were born in another country, it was scattered all over. I think I ended up being about 1/4th English and 1/8th Danish and then 1/16ths and 1/32 other stuff. Oh and like 1/8 Swiss, which means they were part of another country or culture when Switzerland was formed. I didn't want to do England, cause like 3 or 4 kids were already doing England, so i ended doing Switzerland. After that I don't remember thinking much about the culture my ancestors were from. This is not to discredit the culture and heritage of my parents and their parents and grandparents, but that was about as far as it went for me.

Then I got into a multicultural studies class my sophomore year in college and was one of two (three including the teacher) of white, middle class, christian males. I got the impression from the class that the accepted view of multiculturalism was that I, being of the oppressing class, would never know the hardships of those that I had oppressed, regardless of the actions of my or their ancestors. I didn't really get it and it didn't affect my relationships with any of my friends (arab, asian, african, european, american etc.) but it did expose to me the importance that many people put on race, and ethnicity. And that we do have distinct and different heritage and that that shouldn't be ignored, and that past oppression has modern day consequences and affects.

As part of my personal statement in my transfer application to the University of Washington, I was asked to include how multiculturalism has affected me and life. I didn't understand the question. Because it was much more than who am I, ancestrally (a northern European mutt), or how much money my father makes (middle class), or what schools and church I went to, and what friends I had. I had to some how comprehensively talk about it all, and it was the first time I tried to figure out how I identified myself.

Ok, here goes. I was white. Check. Little confusion about that. I had no known relatives from Africa, Asia, South America, or that were "Native Americans". I was part of the middle class, a culture all of its own (or so I'm told). My parents made a decent living and spread over 11 kids we always had enough, but we sure didn't have luxuries of cable TV and large birthday parties. I was Christian, but a special kind of Christian. One that many Christians didn't consider Christian. Some even called us a Cult. I was (and am) Mormon. That was how I primarily identified myself. I was more Mormon than I was of European decent. More than I was middle class (the church easily crosses financial lines, and thus my social circle founded therein did as well). More than I was from Seattle (and I am a Seattle-ite through and through). But this Christian subsection was hardly ever recognized in school. Never discussed in multicultural classes I had taken. The only reference I remember from K-12 education was eighth grade high-cap social studies, where someone did a vague and extremely skeptical report on the founding of the church by Joseph Smith, and how they were the primary settlers of Utah.

And so I wasn't sure how well this identity fit in with the "academic" view of multiculturalism that this question was addressing. I decided to include it and voice my opinion on the lack of history of mormons and mormon persecution in college and primary education. It being once acceptable to kill blacks because of their skin color, must be as outrageous as an extermination order passed in Missouri to kill all mormons in the state. There weren't concentration camps. Instead those that didn't escape were killed on site.

The people who endured this and pioneered to find freedom and worked hard to do so (in Utah of all places) are the people I claim to be my cultural ancestors. I've thought a lot about this cultural portion of ancestry and feel that who you define yourself as should have more impact on the way you are defined as others to be than who your parents and grandparents were and what they did. Would Bruce Wayne be a great man if he squandered his father's fortune because his father fought for social justice? No, he had to.

Anyway, I've blathered on and this is a bit disjointed, but to get down to my point, I think cultural self identification (and acting as part of those identifications, practicing what you preach) is more important than any sort of blood quantum or whatever. I understand that religious culture is a lot easier to adopt into your own life than racial or ethnic culture, but are American Ex-pats living in Britain (that want nothing to do with the United States) American? Are they British? Should it matter?

Hollis Crapo

My new iPod!

Earlier this summer I got a checking account at Key Bank. They had a
special - get an account, do some things with it, and get a free iPod.
Simple. So I jumped through some hoops and then waited for my iPod to
arrive. I expected to get one of the 3G iPods because the newest ones
were released after I signed up with Key.

To my extreme surprise and delight, I got a new iPod! It has a camera
that takes photos and video. And Hollis and I went to the Apple Store
to buy this awesome case for it.

Hollis and I use our iPods for calendars - we have them synced with each other. And then we are also starting to use them as our phones - for free! We love it. As long as we have wi-fi, we have a free phone line. So after December, you shouldn't call our cell numbers. You should call our google voice numbers. We'll try to remember to let everyone know ;)

School Fall 2010

So Michelle and I are in school right now, I in my senior year at UW and Michelle in her last year of her Masters program there as well. So I thought I would tell you about my classes. I'm taking Northwest Coastal Indian 2D art. It all about learning the shapes and forms of Coastal Indian art and involves a lot of drawing and is super fun. Its been about 8 years since I've taken an art class, and I love it. I'm taking an intro to American Indian Studies class. It's required for my AIS minor and is very laid back and broad and . . . well . . . easy. But the best class by far is Wood Carving. It's taught by the same teacher that teaches my 2D art class. He is an Indian artist that lives locally and has been teaching for years. He only teaches these two classes and teaches them both every quarter. He is also a curator at the Burke Historical Museum.

For the Wood Carving class, the first project was make an adze, a traditional wood carving tool. First we went to the Pratt Fine Arts Center and received a piece of steel that used to be a suspension strut for truck. It was cut into 6" strips and trimmed to about 1 1/2" wide. We then used a trench forge, hammer, tongs, anvil, grinders and sanders to make it a blade.

Then we were given a trimmed tree branch to make into a handle that we de-barked and shaped. Then we used hose clamps to fasten the blade to it.

From there our teacher cut down a tree (alder) and cut it into 14" tall rounds. He brought them to class where we partnered up, picked a round and used a froe (a long thin wedge attached at a right angle to a handle at one end) to split the round in half. then we took our round, measured out a rectangle on one side, and then using squares and yard sticks to transfer the rectangle to its exact mirror on the other end.

Then using the froe, we cleaved the round at the edges of our rectangle.

Then used our adze to square up the block.

We are now tracing our sketches for our ladle (our second project), on the sides and then top and bottom and using the adze to trim away the excess wood. After that, we use straight knives and crooked knives to carve from there. Its really awesome.

We got free phones!!!! (Well, kinda)

So Michelle and I recently got iPod touch's with a couple ideas in mind. One of them being to sync our calendars to wirelessly and stay abreast of each others schedules. Using the built in calendar app, and syncing it to a already-in-use Google Calendar, we set it up quite nicely. The second purpose was to try and finagle a free internet phone (VoIP, Voice over IP) that ran through the iPod touch so we could make phone calls, from the iPod, for free, anywhere there was WiFi. The idea behind it is feasible enough. There are many VoIP providers on the internet, many of which have a certain number of free minutes per week or month, but we wanted the best one.

Michelle has an account through a company called Gizmo5 that allows her unlimited calls to Internet/Computer based phone numbers. This includes Google Voice, a free forwarding number google set up to connect incoming calls to any phone numbers you may have. It also works for outgoing calls by calling the number you want to call FROM first and then calls the number you are trying to reach after you pick up. So through Google Voice, you could use the Gizmo5 number to make unlimited free phone calls, so long as you have access to the Gizmo5 number from your iPod. Unfortunately there is no built in microphone for 3rd generation iPod touch's and so they need a headset with a microphone (Which we don't have) to use any of the VoIP apps. Not to mention that most of them cost money, just to get the app, and there isn't a free trial period for most.

Another hiccup we ran into was that Gizmo5 was recently bought out by Google and has since frozen all new account registrations, so although Michelle has a number she can use, I do not. Not to mention the trouble of finding an App that allows you to go online to the google voice website to make a call and still accept that call in the VoIP app. I began doing a lot of research into it trying to find out which one would work with what we needed it to, and preferably let us test it before we spent any money on applications we can't get refunds for. This has be a project of mine for the last couple of weeks and then today I came across a fairly recent app called Whistle Phone. It, like many other VoIP providers, boasts free calling to landlines and cell phones anywhere in the US. But this one DOESN'T have any hidden limitations! It legitimately allows free incoming and outgoing calls anywhere in the US over a WiFi internet connection. They can do this, because it is powered by ads. Every few outgoing calls or so, you have to listen to a 20 second ad before it dials out. I was blown away. If you have an iPod touch and want the option of having a free phone to make and receive calls in hotspots, it is DEFINITELY worth it.

It also has a call forwarding option, so if you don't pick up in the first 60 seconds, it will forward on to any other phone, and then give the option to leave a message on the voicemail of that phone if it still isn't answered.

There is my little rave. I hope you all enjoyed it. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask!

New Callings

I got a calling in my new ward. I'm the Sunday School teacher for the 16-17 year olds. I've never been a Sunday School teacher before, but i'm quite excited. It's nice to have a steady, small group of people to custom tailor my lessons to. I love being entrusted with a stewardship to help develop the testimonies of others. Michelle got called to be a ward missionary. Last week we had our interviews, and this week we were going to be set apart, but the bishop and his councilors were booked and so it got pushed to next week. But that didn't stop me from sitting in on my class this week.

Story time: During the sacrament I was thinking about the hymn Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd. And then began thinking about the ninety and nine versus the one. So often we talk about the one, but feel like the ninety and nine. We haven't gone off the deep end and so it feels like no one is paying much attention to us. Anyway, I felt strongly that I should write this down. So I pulled out my journal and started writing. It turned into an outline for a talk, and then morphed into a lesson plan. Then some scriptures came to mind, and then the speaker (we were well into the second talk by now) said something that really caught my ear. She and her husband recently returned from a mission and she said that "the Lord sees us all as individuals." I was really impressed by that simple bit of truth. To the Lord, there is no ninety and nine. He never has to leave us to go after the one. He is always with us. We are all always the one to him. It was very comforting.

Well, after sacrament meeting was over, I walked over to the 2nd councilor to make sure I wasn't expected to teach today, cause i haven't received a manual or anything, much less prepared the lesson. He said no, someone else had been taking charge of the class while a new teacher was called and that they had the lesson today, but I was free to sit in on the class this week and see where they were in the manual etc. So when I found the classroom, I sat in the back row as students filed in. They got to chatting and I introduced myself to those I hadn't met yet and waited for the teacher to arrive. Eventually no one came and the students decided they could just play scripture hangman again this week. So I stood up and said, no, I have prepared a lesson and if it please the body, I will share it with everyone. So I taught the lesson I prepared in Sacrament meeting an hour before. It went well, students participated, I learned people’s names, the spirit was present and I had a wonderful opportunity to share my testimony and I know everyone was paying attention. They even laughed at a few parts of the lesson. It was pretty great. I'm so glad I had the inspiration to prepare the lesson I did. And even more glad I didn't ignore the prompting to write down my thoughts.

Hollis

Enchantment hike (that was very LONG)

The day before our Wenatchee wedding reception, my dad and I planned to go on an 18-mile day hike through the enchantments. We had done it before, and had finished in a reasonable amount of time. And we both had loved it. This time, my dad had invited several people and brought his fishing rod to fish in the lakes with.

We got up at 4 AM so that we could arrive at the trailhead by 6 or so. The weather was quite comfortable for a hike. Brian found some moss along the way and posed with it, pretending it was a goatee.

After hiking around a lake, we came to the foot of Azgard pass - a steep incline that is normally the hardest part of the hike.

Hollis is super cute as he smiles at me; we're partway up Azgard and are looking down on the lake we climbed earlier.

We made it to the top just after noon. The weather was wonderful! Hollis and I were very excited to be that far up the pass.

We all ate lunch and then began exploring. Hollis's favorite part was the goats.

Then we started the long downhill portion. However, we were much slower than we anticipated, and took 12 hours to make it down. It was dark for the last 4 to 5 miles of the hike, and the flashlight Hollis and I brought was nearly useless. Natalie and Tim had run ahead - both were equipped with headlamps. In fact, I think they ran the entire last six miles. We were supposed to be in a group of 5 - Nat, Hollis, Tim, Brian, and I - so their headlamps would have been useful to spread between Hollis, Brian and I. However, Brian took a little bit longer to get packed up, so I wanted for Brian, and Hollis waited for me. And then we ran, thinking that we'd catch up to Nat and Tim. But we didn't. And then it got dark, so we went slow. GB caught up to us - he had a headlamp and a flashlight.

We reached the end of the trail, and then couldn't figure out how to get to the parking lot! It was extremely frustrating. We ended up hiking back and forth along the end before we found it. Nat and Tim were flashing the car headlights to let us know where the parking lot was, and that did help. It was after 11 30 PM when we reached the car. We were exhausted and filthy and sore. We waited for the last of our group to finish - it was 1 AM by that time. Then we drove home. I stayed up and talked to my dad (I think) so he could drive.

By the time we got home and Hollis and I got cleaned up, it was 4 AM. We had been up for twenty-four hours! Needless to say, we weren't all that helpful for setting up for our wedding reception. My mom then officially banned hikes of any sort the day before wedding receptions.

Wenatchee Wedding Reception

We had a reception in Wenatchee on July 30. This was our thrid (and final) open house. It sure felt good to be done. This was the first reception with a wedding cake. You can see how excited we are to be cutting that cake! Boy oh boy. We also did some dancing. Mostly only small children joined us, but we did convince one older couple to come cut the rug.

The cutest part was probably when I threw the boquet. All the girls (my cousins, mostly) lined up to catch my boquet. After my cousin Sarah caught it, my cousin Hannah handed the boquet back to me insisting that I throw it again (top right picture). I did, and aimed it specifically at her. She smiled to pose with me for the picture of when she caught it. It's an adorable smile that is much closer to a grimace than a smile :). I told her it was her turn to throw the boquet. She managed to send it straight up into the air. It was pretty adorable.