Barbie Nation

When my phone rang this morning, I thought for sure it must be Mrs. Miller calling to cancel class, but alas, it was not. The voice said, "Hi, I'm looking for Jackrabbit Shipping." I get calls for Jackrabbit Shipping all of the time! I guess it is a Utah shipping company that went out of business a few years ago, and I ended up with their old phone number. One day when I answered the phone, the person said, "Hello. Is this Jack from Jackrabbit Shipping?" So unfortunately it didn't snow enough last night to prevent class from happening this morning. It didn't really snow at all here--just a few flakes--but oh it is FRRRREEEEEEZING here!! This morning the wind was blowing so hard, and Aly and I thought our faces were going to freeze off just walking from the parking lot to our classroom.

Today was my last day of Wednesday classes, and they were both really fun and interesting. Even though Wednesdays have been my busiest days all semester, they've been my favorite days because I learn so much. This morning in Mrs. Miller's class we watched this movie about a slave auction reenactment they held at Colonial Williamsburg in 1994. The group of African American interpreters they have at Williamsburg wanted to do the slave auction reenactment to put a face on an aspect of history that most people can't really comprehend. But then came the NAACP :-( There were Virginia NAACP people there protesting the reenactment--even though it was black people who thought to have it in the first place. The NAACP guys said that it was a disgrace to their ancestors to turn their trials into entertainment. The key is, it wasn't going to be entertainment--it was going to be education! Some people are totally lame. So the NAACP people made a big ol' ruckus, but finally the reenactment was able to take place, and it made all of the people in the audience--including the NAACP people--cry because it was pretty powerful. They had one married slave couple get sold to different people, and even the angry NAACP people couldn't deny that it was an effective educational presentation. So that was a cool video.

Then in Material Culture today, we also watched a video. It was crazy! It was called "Barbie Nation," and talked about the history and evolution of Barbie and how she and Ken have had an effect on American culture. We watched the movie as a part of our discussion about material culture and popular culture. The movie had some pretty outrageous stuff in it, and we were pretty much laughing the whole time because it was so off-the-wall. There was some seriously messed-up stuff in there.

Remember how a few weeks ago Dr. Reid and Dr. Barnhart nominated us to receive an award from the graduate school for our work on the Dudley project? Well, we just found out that we received it! The award is for about $550, and we thought of splitting it up amongst ourselves, but we've decided to reserve it to use on the spring field trip we will have at the first of next May. Well, I'm off to write more on my paper (shouldn't I be done by now?) and finish my house surveys--projects that will take me all night and then some.