Wow – and I really mean that.
It’s been a very intense semester for me this year, which is why there has been a lot of radio silence. So my sincerest apologies, dear reader.
A lot has happened in the span of this semester, which I am excited to tell you all about. I won’t go into every single detail (if you want more info you can ask me if you know me in real life), but I’ll try to cover the highlights of each month so you can see all of the crazy things I’ve been up to.
I finally convinced Johnna to get a blog, which you can find here. She has two posts up so far at the time of writing, and she is also a chronically busy person just like the writer of the blog you’re currently reading! So expect periodic updates from her.
Here’s what to expect so you can put yourself in the right mind-space for this blog post:
- It’s my penultimate semester of college
- I moved into a new house
- I am taking a lot of classes
- A lot of things are going on that are fun
I hope you enjoy!
September
A lot of big changes happened at the beginning of this semester for me. Most of them involved living in a new house!
Shiki Futon
The biggest development that I’d like to share with you all is my total abandonment of the western bed in favor of the Japanese shiki-futon (or shikibuton). Essentially, it’s a really nice floor mattress that you can fold up and move around. It can be really firm depending on what you have underneath, but it’s more comfortable than you’d think! Some people get special tatami mats to go underneath, which add extra cushioning but those are really expensive and not necessary. I use a plush carpet underneath and it’s plenty comfortable for me.
My room mate got one of these last year at our old apartment and when I first heard about it I became absolutely enthralled. I ordered one from this Japanese company that makes them by hand, and I have really enjoyed sleeping on it this semester.
It’s gotten to a point where I prefer sleeping on the shiki-futon as opposed to a regular western bed.
This setup is not the final one I settled on, but you can get a good idea of how it works. The cover for the futon is super comfortable and is washable. For care, I take the whole mattress out to our clothesline and let it air out outside for a few hours. I also beat dust, etc. out of it while it’s up there.
Big South Fork
Enough about my sleeping setup.
Despite being super busy this semester, I managed to hike a little bit with my roommates in the Big South Fork National Recreation Area in Tennessee. For spring break this year, Johnna and I were able to spend a night near Yahoo Falls, which is on the Kentucky side of the NRA.
This time my roommates and I wanted to day hike. We had big plans to do a long day hike and see some cool arches and waterfalls, but disaster struck us on our way into the park! A stray branch appeared on the road and punctured one of my roommate’s tires, forcing us to change it and to alter our itinerary.
It was labor day and we decided to stop for lunch at the Pickett CCC Memorial State Park. Our original plan was to eat and check out a natural arch, but when we got there, we found that there was a HUGE cookout going on featuring a lot of campers with bluegrass instruments. I wanted to try to join them, but we didn’t have instruments, and we wanted to try to hike. Our plans were thwarted again when we discovered that the trail we had intended to hike was closed for repairs. We ended up having lunch by what seemed to be an old bat roost, and it was fun!
Afterwards, we hiked to a really cool rock shelter and saw some fantastic fungi along the way, in addition to some really cool bugs.
On our way out, we watched the sun set in a valley and drove home on US-27 going north straight to Lexington.
Despite the challenges, it was still a fun day and I would like to head back to the BSF in the spring.
A Tale of Two Symphonies
You’ll be hearing a bit about symphonies on this blog. I really like going to see the symphony during the semester, especially since the UK Symphony Orchestra has free tickets for students. This year I decided to start going more to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, too. I got a letter in the mail that told me I could make my own season and get my tickets at a discount. So I got 2 other friends together and we bought tickets for 5 shows at an average of ~$17/ticket! Not too bad I’d say.
Our first performances we went to were Mahler’s 1st Symphony at the CSO, and to the multi-song performance at UK which featured Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Schubert’s 8th Symphony, and more. If you feel so inclined, you can watch the UKSO performance here although you may need a Vimeo account.
The Return of Contra Dancing
They couldn’t keep me away for too long! I was able to find the Contra Dance scene in Lexington and I’ve been going fairly regularly this semester. In September they had a really nice dance at the historic High Bridge. Not only is there a dance that happens regularly in Lexington, but there is also one that happens in Berea, which is about an hour away.
Here are some pics from September!
Squirrel Rescue
Probably the craziest thing to happen to me this semester was rescuing a flying squirrel from parental abandonment while at work.
Through a bunch of unfortunate circumstances, one of the arborists I work with accidentally cut down a flying squirrel nest in a tree he was working in. This caused the mother to jump away, leaving her two young behind. She eventually came back to get one of them, but ended up abandoning the other. I’m not sure if she didn’t see it, or if she decided that the one she left wasn’t worth saving.
Regardless, I waited to make sure the mom had plenty of time to come and save the other squirrel. I returned to the scene of the crime after work, and put the baby in a box with a blanket and a jar I put boiling water in to act as a heater.
I did a bunch of research for what to do if you find an abandoned baby flying squirrel and these were the things that they recommended.
I called some numbers I was able to find on the KY animal rehabilitator registry and got connected with, believe it or not, a rehabilitator who specializes in flying squirrels. I talked for a bit with them once I dropped the squirrel off, and apparently there are not too many urban populations of flying squirrels in Kentucky, which was exciting to hear. They told me about their plan to take care of the squirrel over the winter and to release it into the wild this spring.
I don’t have any updated photos, but from the last I heard, the squirrel is doing well and is on the right track to be ready for release this spring.
Working as a Student Arborist
For those who aren’t aware, I work with the grounds crew on campus as a student arborist. My main job is to help the actual arborists with pruning, planting, climbing, measuring, watering, and taking care of all of 13,000 trees on UK’s campus.
I started working for UK grounds in the spring semester of 2023, and it’s by far been my most favorite job that I’ve had as an undergrad during the school year. I’ve gotten to use some really cool heavy equipment, climb trees, and have planted a ton of trees on campus.
I worked a decent amount this semester, but in the spring I plan to work a lot more since I won’t have as many classes.
My backup plan in case things don’t work out being a forester is to become an arborist in a city, and this semester my goal is to get ISA-certified, which helps significantly with job prospects.
October
UV Foray
At the beginning of the month, I helped the Bluegrass Mycological Society with their UV Foray at Carter Caves State Resort Park. It was an all-day affair and a lot of fun.
For those unfamiliar, forays are a term for an organized group going out to look for as many mushroom species as they can. Whether or not the species are edible is irrelevant, which is what distinguishes forays from foraging. Mycologists are just interested in species diversity and finding cool fungi!
We started off the morning with a regular foray, which was really well-attended. Everyone found lots of different types of mushrooms and I was able to take some great photos!
Once the sun set, even more people gathered to see the UV foray, which is the same as a regular foray but with UV lights. We saw a bunch of cool specimen that glowed with our UV lights! It was a really interesting experience.
If you’re interested in doing something similar, you can buy your own UV flashlights pretty inexpensively online. Just make sure you get the right wavelength – 365nm for the best fluorescence.
Gamelan Performance
Last semester I was involved with the UK Gamelan Ensemble. If you’re not familiar with Gamelan, you can read all about it on this Wikipedia page.
Briefly, it’s a type of folk percussion music from Indonesia performed with metallophones and drums. Each Gamelan ensemble has a name, too! Ours is Angklung Langen Kerti, which means “Follow Your Bliss.”
I played a big gong for this semester, and it was super fun! You can watch our performance here. I am sitting in the back!
We opened for some other interesting groups, most notably a mongolian throat singing band and, Bli Ciaaattt, a performer from Bali who did some workshops with us the night before.
There are a lot of traditions with Gamelan that I found very interesting, one of which is that the reason the instruments are so intricately carved is that that is supposed to be the “clothes” of each instrument as if it were its own spirit of sorts. It is bad luck to step directly over the instruments as well, which can make navigating the ensemble interesting!
There are many regional types of Gamelan, but the two I am most familiar with are Javanese and Balinese. The UK ensemble is Balinese, which means that we have a slightly different tonality and 4 notes that we play. Javanese has a completely different tuning, and also has 7 notes, which can make it a bit more complex to play. Despite there only being 4 notes, there is a lot of variety in what you can play!
I learned a lot about Gamelan by watching this fantastic video which features an ethnomusicologist who specializes in Gamelan.
November
More Symphony
I went to a few more symphony performances both in Lexington and Cincinnati.
The highlight for Cincinnati was seeing Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony, which has a very moving story as it was written during the Nazi Siege of Leningrad during WWII. The performance was really amazing, and one of my most favorite concert experiences I’ve been to recently.
The UK Symphony Orchestra played Dvorak’s New World Symphony, which I really enjoyed as well!
Eastern KY Fire Fighting
Yet another job that I’ve had for a while at UK has been working as an emergency firefighter with the Kentucky Division of Forestry. It’s part of a UK program that lets us work weekends if there is a fire, and it was a moderately active fire season this year!
We got on 3 fires in Eastern KY and were able to put them out pretty easily with the crews that we had.
Firefighting in KY isn’t too hard compared to how fires are fought in the West. Our fires can be dealt with via a bulldozer and plow, and a leaf blower.
Hobonichi Planners
My latest special interest has been the Hobonichi Techo planner. It’s a Japanese planner that I learned about this year, and I am absolutely in love with it. It is extremely customizable and comes in lots of different colors and sizes. I got it because I wanted something that I could plan in detail with, while also being a diary, and something cute!
December
December was a bit of a whirlwind for me because of finals and the semester wrapping up. I got up to a bunch of things, but these are the main highlights!
Even More Contra
Although I didn’t take photos, I went to my first contra dance in Berea, which I enjoyed tremendously. The venue is really nice and there was a great after party.
I also went to the Lexington contra dance and had a great time before the end of the semester! There weren’t a ton of people there because of finals, but it felt pretty cozy as a result.
The End of Gamelan
At the end of the semester, we had our final Gamelan performance, which was a workshop that anyone could attend. I was featured on a lot more instruments this time and I enjoyed it a lot! You can watch the performance here. Next semester I will be participating in Korean Percussion Ensemble, and you’ll hear all about it on this blog!
On top of all that I applied to a bunch of jobs in fire and worked on a few personal projects that you may see in the future…
Stay tuned for a blog post coming soon detailing my trip to Spain and Brazil for the holidays! Thank you for reading ❤
Mushrooms and Arches 
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