A "Rapid" Change

Greetings from Grand Rapids, Michigan, everyone! What am I doing here, you may ask. That is a wonderful question. The last week has literally been a whirlwind, and the last couple of days feel like they have lasted for months. It's crazy how quickly everything can change. One minute I'm a park ranger in Mississippi--the next minute I'm in Illinois for school--and the next minute I'm on a field trip to Michigan. As I wrote the other day, Mom and I left Natchez on Friday and then drove to Corinth. At the left you will see a picture of Mom and me out in front of the Generals' Quarters Bed and Breakfast where we stayed in Corinth, Mississippi. It was a really fun place, and we enjoyed seeing all of the historical markers and sites in Corinth. On Saturday morning we went to the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center, which is a really nice, new facility with high-tech exhibits. It made me happy to think that I'll be learning to do things like that in school. Then we went to the Shiloh National Military Park in Tennessee, which was very, very cool. We even got to see the monument marking the place where Albert Sidney Johnston was killed during the battle of Shiloh in 1862! But, as we approached Charleston, Illinois, I got sad again. We arrived in Charleston at about 8:30 p.m. and had a fun evening meeting the Stowells (Brother Stowell is the bishop of the ward) and their six cute kids. They let us stay at their house for the evening since I can't move in to my apartment until Wednesday. Then on Sunday I took Mom to the train station in Mattoon (about 10 miles from Charleston) to catch her train up to the Chicago O'Hare airport. Again I was sad. Then I went to church and had lunch with the Stowells, but I was still sad. In fact, today (Monday) is the first day I haven't broken down into tears from missing home and/or Mississippi. Last night I had a fun time meeting the other students in the program though (there are 10 of us). Alyson and I spent the night at our professors' home (Dr. Riccio and Dr. Small are married, but Dr. Small goes by her maiden name) since we are homeless until Wednesday. We had to wake up at 5:00 this morning to go over to the school, pile into a big white van, and drive to Grand Rapids. Talk about some seriously rapid bonding time for 10 students stuck in a van with one another.

We've had a good day in Grand Rapids visiting the Grand Rapids Public Museum and the Grand Rapids Art Museum. Some of the EIU Historical Administration program alumni work at these various institutions, so they've been giving us the behind-the-scenes look at museum operations. It was all good until we had a slightly awkward moment this evening. We had a BBQ at this lady Veronica's house. She's a graduate of the EIU program back in the day, and she works at the GR Public Museum. All of the older alumni were telling us rookies about weird people they'd had in their Historical Administration classes. Veronica said, "We had the weirdest guy named Benjamin. He was fine until he went and joined the Mormons!" Uh-oh, here we go, I thought to myself. She proceeded to tell everyone how weird he was, and how he became more involved with his "faith" than with school. Dr. Riccio and Alyson (my soon-to-be roommate) officially know I'm a Mormon, but hello, can one not figure out that the girl from Utah sitting there wearing a shirt that says BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY EST. 1875 is probably a Mormon???? Obviously everyone else but Veronica could figure it out because there was an awfully awkward moment of silence after her less-than-flattering remarks. Oh well, I'm afraid I need to just buck-up and get used to being the odd-man-out. The description of Mormons as a "peculiar people" never really meant much to me until I spent time away from Utah. Now I see the truthfulness of that description--we really are different (in good ways) from most of the people in the world! It's all good though--I'm just going to keep being the nice, happy Mormon girl. I'm still super super super super super duper extraordinarily homesick, but I'm not going to run away from school like I did last year. Well, I'm off to bed, and tomorrow we get to visit the Gerald Ford museum! Everyone thinks it's totally awesome that my mom used to babysit his kids!!!