MeghanIsMe

I tried to post this last night, but LJ was not cooperating. Anyway, I'm awake now, with almost enough sleep. Time to get moving!

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I'm going to bed early tonight. I'm leaving for Madison tomorrow at a quarter to seven to present my poster at the state capital building to an audience including legislators. My brother is lending me his suit. Wish me luck?

The Wisconsin state capital is one of the most beautiful neo-classical buildings I've ever been in, both outside and in. Here's a photo of the interior I shot while at the budget bill protest with Lisa in February of 2011.





Regrettably, the same person still occupies the governor's office.

Kenosha has 363 pages of zoning ordinances. I wonder how that compares to, say, Chicago.

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I just ate my last Cadbury Scream Egg of the batch that Lisa gave me as a birthday present. (Thank you!) Fortunately, two rounds of Easter closeout shopping plus a surprise gift from my dad have left my reserve in good shape, at about thirty. That will get me through to Halloween when the scream version returns!

They really need to make some that are themed for other holidays. Twice a year is not enough! Cadbury Kringle Eggs for Christmas? Cadbury Meme-orial Eggs for Veteran's Day? Cadbury Tree-m Eggs for Arbor Day? C'mon, the opportunities are endless!

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Work on my poster is coming along. I hope I can get it done in time to get printed at school before my conference. Otherwise, it will cost a lot more to get done at an Office Max or similar.

My poster on Pike Creek was accepted for the undergraduate research symposium in April! I'll be presenting it in the capitol rotunda in Madison! *bounces*

Yay!

My parents took me out for all-you-can-eat sushi yesterday, and had red velvet cake at home afterward, as a belated birthday celebration. They are wonderful, and I feel loved. I also feel like my birthday lasted almost a week!

Now, though, it's back to work as the end of the semester approaches. I'm going to submit a poster presentation to the American Association of Geographers conference. The deadline is tomorrow, so I'm working on my abstract. I also joined the organization today. That, plus conference registration will set me back about $200. And you folks think fan cons are expensive, huh?
I'm going to register for a volunteer program that offers some compensation for the fee; hopefully I'll be accepted and get some shifts. Of course, that means I actually have to plan out what I want to see while I'm there way early and ask for shifts that won't take me away from neat presentations!

I have a number of things I need to do this weekend. Interviewing for a short paper on public space in Kenosha and more work with ArcGIS are the big ones. I have a paper on the Tunguska event due in December, but I can write that over Thanksgiving break. Things feel mostly under control.

Here's what I'm submitting for AAG. It's one facet of my larger Pike Creek project, which I'll also be submitting presentations on for an undergrad research symposium and an anthropology conference in Minneapolus. What do you think? I think the last paragraph still needs a little tweaking....

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This poster examines the historical geography of Pike Creek, a buried urban river in the post-industrial Great Lakes town of Kenosha, Wisconsin. This research highlights the significance of this nearly-forgotten river to the city in both the past and the present. Urban Streams and rivers are receiving increasing attention around the world. Restorations of existing streams, or “daylighting” of streams rerouted underground have taken place in cities as varied as San Luis Obispo, California, Detroit, Michigan, and Seoul, South Korea.

My mixed-methods research into the historic geography of Pike Creek involves archival research with plat maps and tax records, early written histories of the city, newspaper archives, municipal board of health records, and academic theses. Research on the present context includes oral history interviews with people who have lived memory of the creek as well as first-hand exploration and photography of remaining portions of the waterway. Finally, I performed GIS-facilitated spatial analysis of the creek by comparing census data and city zoning information with the creek route to highlight the number of people living within the watershed and the wide array of cityscapes that it connects.

In light of the growing body of work concerning the restoration of urban riparian zones and the transitioning economy of the Rust Belt, the status of culverted rivers such as Kenosha’s Pike Creek are seen to have economic, environmental, and social ramifications. The transformation the river has undergone has implications for understandings of, and relationships with, waterways on both an individual and municipal scale.