The Tilford Train

This morning when my alarm went off, waking me up from my little nap, I opened my eyes and realized that I felt like I got hit by a train--the Tilford Dudley train! I couldn't get out of bed to go to church. :-( I was completely exhausted, and another day was just barely beginning. I realized that this was not a good thing, so I started trying to plan how I could fit a nap in between church and the Dudley exhibit opening. According to my groggy mental calculations (while I was still half asleep) I would not have time for a nap--and I couldn't take one after the exhibit opening because we had another class meeting scheduled for this evening. Suddenly I realized that if I kept going at this pace I was going to have a relapse of my cold or get mono or something that could totally take me out for a while. So, I did the only thing I had energy to do and I turned off my alarm and went back to sleep. I slept until noon, but I woke up refreshed and feeling much better about everything. I think I just needed a morning off. I felt bad I missed church, but if my body were to shut down, I wouldn't be able to go anyway, and I'd rather not have my body shut down, so this was probably the best thing.

So, I got up, had breakfast, got dressed, and then it was off to the Dudley House. One of the people from church showed up at the Dudley House. Turns out he's one of the directors of the Coles County Historical Society! I told him sorry that I wasn't at church, and he said, "Oh, that's okay. Today the academic ox was in the mire!" There were a lot of people at the opening of the exhibit, and everyone seemed to love it. Angie and Sarah presented lectures about Tilford's childhood in Charleston, and everything went really well. Next week Laurie and Alisha will be talking about Charleston and the Dudley family during WWI, and then it will be two weeks from today, October 28, that Catherine and I will be presenting about Tilford's career as a lawyer and labor advocate. Everyone seemed very enthused about the exhibit and lecture series, so that was encouraging. A man named Harold Marker, one of Tilford's childhood friends even showed up today! He's super duper old, and Angie and Sarah said they were afraid they were going to lose him up on the front row a few times, but he perked up there towards the end and was telling all of these funny anecdotes about life in Charleston back in the day. You can check out the exhibit on our new web page I made! The direct link to the Dudley info. and pictures is: http://www.eiu.edu/~history/ha/2008ActivitiesDudley.htm.

After all of that was over, it wasn't too long before we had to have a class meeting to talk about one of our transportation exhibit assignments that is due tomorrow. It never ends! Catherine assured everybody that the meeting wouldn't go longer than two hours max. BUT, I'm sure you can guess what happened. It was a three-and-a-half hour meeting. It's sad when that seems like a "short" meeting--I was just glad that it didn't go for seven hours! Kristen said, "Maybe next time we should say that we're going to have a six hour meeting just so we can finish sooner than we plan for once." I immediately said, "NO!! We all know that if we planned for a six-hour meeting, it would turn into a ten hour meeting!" She concurred. I have decided that I really, really, really, really don't like school meetings. If someone is in charge and you have a purpose, that is one thing, but otherwise it's a total waste of time. And I hate wasting time--especially when I have other things to do. I get really antsy at these meetings, but everyone else seems to love them. Are all of my classmates crazy? I often wonder. The one bright spot at the end of the long meeting was that tomorrow we only have one class--no more Digital Applications for now! I miss the days when I had real weekends :-)