Hey girls, it’s Wednesday.
I’m home from camp now and I’m glad to be back. I’m glad to be back. I’m glad to be back. Sorry, I’m hoping that if I tell myself I’m glad to be back over and over again it will become true. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be seeing my family again, but in the short three weeks I lived there I came to really love New York. I really miss my suite mates and the city already… but I’m hope now and I’m happy about it! #falseenthusiasm. I have all kinds of stories to tell about camp, but I have to figure out how to tell them first. So I’m going to tell you stories from camp in another post and instead use this post to spend a bit of time talking about my home state.
I feel like the best way to talk about Indiana is by talking about the title of this post. Go ahead, scroll back up to see it, I’ll wait. That’s a quote from a song. It’s called “Back Home Again In Indiana”, I considered posting the lyrics here, but I decided against it. Why?... you may not really care why, but I want you to ask why. Alright Emily, “why?” There you go, now please stop being so demanding. I didn’t post the lyrics to the song because I feel like they don’t capture its true feeling. It’s a sentimental song. When you listen to it the song seems kind of sad and loving in this completely sweet way, at least that’s how I feel. The song is not Indiana’s official state song, but I feel like it should be because of the way it makes you imagine the Hoosier state (in case you didn’t know, people from Indiana are called “Hoosiers” or “hicks” but, to quote my uncle Ed [who is actually an intelligent man] “we like to prefer to be called Hoosiers.”). I invite you to look the song up, but first I’m going to tell you that, honestly, that’s not how I usually view the 19th state of the union. I will admit that I’m not really a proud Hoosier, I’m not sure anybody is… well maybe some few people from Indy… yeah, Indy’s a pretty nice place… anyways, I’m don’t there are very many proud Hoosiers out there. I can remember in my theater project class one of the plays had flag desecration. We wanted to perform the play, but we knew the American flag and the school flag were off limits and I remember someone saying “Could we use the state flag” Someone else then said “I bet we could, I mean when I drive past the state flag I don’t really feel any sense of pride… I mean I see an Indiana state flag and I guess I kind of laugh.” … While we didn’t end up performing the play the conversation really makes it obvious how Hoosiers, at least the Hoosiers at my school, feel about the state. Who can blame them?
- With a population of 795,458, Indianapolis is the largest city in Indiana and 13th largest in the United States. Three other cities in Indiana have a population greater than 100,000: Fort Wayne (251,247), Evansville (116,253) and South Bend (104,069).
- Indiana ties with South Carolina for 8th highest Obesity rate in the country.
- In 2003, Indiana ranked 11th in the nation for the lowest percentage of adults lacking Basic prose literacy skills.
In Indiana’s second largest city 12.5% of the population and 9.6% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 17.5% of those under the age of 18 and 7.6% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
· In January of 2005 Men’s Health Magazine called Fort Wayne the Dumbest city in the United States… believe me, I remember when my 4th grade class found out. Articles about it:
o The original Men’s Health Article: http://www.menshealth.com/men/health/metrogrades/is-your-city-stupid/article/225a99edbbbd201099edbbbd2010cfe793cd
o USA Today, Looking For Signs of Intelligent Life in Fort Wayne: http://www.usatoday.com/life/2005-01-19-dumb-cities_x.htm
…Anyways, I’m home now and it’s bittersweet.
What I’m Reading: AH EVERYTHING, but recently I’ve been focusing on Noam Chompsky… Although, I got Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World books 4 through 6 (!!) today so…
What I’m listening to: Catching up on NPR’s “This American Life” but also “Ulysses” by Franz Ferdinand
What I’m Watching: Arrested Development Season 1
Quote: "Certain motherfuckers think they can fuck with my shit, but you can't kill the Rooster. You might can fuck him up some times, but, bitch, nobody kills the motherfucking Roster. You know what I'm saying?"
— David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day (you should all read him)
Some Stuff You Should Check Out:
Oh, and the Indiana fact’s, I ripped them off the sites google recommended me, mostly wikipedia
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