The First Blog

Hello everybody,
I have now been in Bismarck for five whole days. I arrived last Wednesday- later in the evening after a relatively uneventful, but very long drive with a brief stop in Saint Paul to see Krista and gas scare on my way to Bismarck. I started looking for places not too long after I hit a quarter of tank, but there was nothing. After my gaslight went on and some frantic calls to Mom, I pulled off the road at the next stop, but there was no gas place, just a dog yapping at my car as I drove along the gravel road. After getting back on the road, the gas light went off and I succeeded in making it to Tappen as my light went back on again. Crisis averted. The guy in the store even let me pay first because I must've had some more important place to get to, or so he said.

Anyway I arrived in Bismarck and decided to look around a bit and my sense of direction got horribly muttled up. Still I managed to find my place of work (although I doubled back because I wasn't sure- though I expected a tall capital building, the supposedly art deco style skyscraper still caught me off guard) and eventually the house I'm living at. After driving past their place, David came out and waved his hands. I pulled into the driveway, saying that I'd hoped to arrive a bit earlier (afterall my grandma sometimes goes to bed around 9:30, so 9:45 wasn't the earliest), but they go to bed later anyway. They helped me unload the necessary things for the evening and I settled in their daughter's old room.

The next day I got ready for work, scrambling to make some eggs (although not scrambled eggs) since that's mostly what I had for breakfast food after unloading my cooler. I found my way to the reading room without a hitch and my boss came out to greet me from behind the glass doors that seperate the workers from the researchers. I expected a more rounded fellow in a tweed suit with receeding light orange hair, but my boss had a full head of salt and pepper hair and a thin frame, wearing a navy suit with a sedate Mickey Mouse tie. After pulling some materials for a grad student who had walked in on rather late notice, he showed me around, introducing me to everyone and taking me down to security to get a badge- right now I still have the volunteer one though. He showed me my desk and the 70's orange chair reminded me of the old wall dividers of the same color in my mom's office- it really felt like an official job then.

At 10, the other interns in my department and I headed off on a large tour of everyone and everything. We walked through the musuem's collections looking at old guns and the Medora horse before heading to Paleontology where we saw the 8,000 pound block of mummified dinasour fossil that still has patches of skin before walking along the shelves and shelves of archives. Then there was a potluck lunch and we finally had a chance to talk with some of the other interns- many of who are actually working at my building and some that are working at the Historical Site's outposts.

On Friday I mostly looked at old newpapers, searching for interesting stories that could make a good radio script for certain dates. Still, for the Fourth of July it seems there were mostly "many celebrations (not a direct quote, but a direct sentiment)". There was also a video about the cold war missil launch facility in Cooperstown- pretty nifty.

Anyway, this weekend I haven't done much. I no longer want to adventure, but rather prefer to hide away. Still I've started reading for pleasure again (a sign that I am re-entering civilian life) and I did manage a bike ride today- I swear there are more hills here. I went grocery shopping and made lasagne because I thought they were going to be out for a bit, but they got back early just as I was layering everything so the kitchen truly was a mess- I felt so horrible, like I was 11 again and I was in trouble- although they probably weren't as distraught about the whole thing as I was. And that's about it for now. Tomorrow I head back to work.