Amishland

Today Alyson and I decided to have a little adventure, so we drove about 30 miles north of Charleston to a little town named Tuscola, Illinois. It's home to Flesor's Candy Kitchen, which supposedly has some of the best hand-dipped candy in the U. S. They have a cute little restaurant there, so we ate lunch (I had a Philly cheese steak sandwich) and tried one of the maple pecan chocolates. They have bread pudding there, but I did get a little bread puddinged-out in Mississippi, and no one, not even Felsor's, could have as good of bread pudding as you can find in Mississippi, so I figured that if I had bread pudding and it wasn't up to par with that from the South, it would just make me miss the South even more! So I stuck with a chocolate. They also had yummy fountain drinks there too. On our way back, we stopped at this gigantic red barn that said "AMISHLAND" on the roof. Inside it was a huge village of Amish shops. I had never seen anything quite like that before. I found some tasty-looking apple butter to buy. Next to Amishland is an outlet mall, and as Alyson and I were driving through the parking lot, she said, "Is that a horse and buggy?" I looked over to the far end of the lot, and sure enough, there was a horse parked next to a street lamp, hooked up to a buggy. Can Amish people shop at outlet stores? I guess they can--because I don't know who else the horse would have belonged too. A horse parked in a parking lot just isn't something you see every day, but it was kind of fun. A good thunderstorm blew through as we were driving back to Charleston, and it looked really pretty with the dark clouds out over the miles and miles of corn fields. The rain even cooled things off a little, so that was good! Alyson and I have decided that we're going to try to do fun things on the weekends, like go to the fall festivals in surrounding communities. Fall festivals seem to abound in this area, so that should help the fall season fly by quite quickly. Well, I've got to go read a lot of stuff to prepare for school on Monday, so I'll sign out for now. If anyone ever decides they need any oak furniture or anything like that, I could hook you up with the people at Amishland. Oh, and I almost forgot--the party punks were at it again last night, but at least it didn't last as long as the night before. Alyson and I snuck out of the apartment to go find the exact location of the noise, and even though we previously thought it was coming from the apartment below us, we pinpointed it as the apartment right above us. We'll have to talk with someone about that.

Settling In

I thought that when I left Mississippi, I was supposed to leave the extreme heat, but this has not been the case. It's really hot here in Illinois right now, but I'm going to try to enjoy it because I know that when it turns cold here, it's really going to turn cold. I think that the last week has worn me out because today, when I could finally sleep in, I slept until 11:30! I never sleep that late, but I guess my body needed some good rest. Today I hung up pictures in my room and continued the unpacking process. It's starting to feel like home in here, with all of my things around, but it's still a little too messy-looking to take pictures just yet. Once I get everything put away I'll post some pictures so you can all see the place. Last night I was reminded of why I never had any desire to live in an apartment while I was going to college--some punks who live down below us had their crazy rap punk music BLASTING out of their room until about 1:30 a.m. After that, the people in the apartment next to us had their radio on until about 3:00 a.m., but at least they had pretty cool music playing--that didn't make me as mad as the punks downstairs. BUT, I will not complain because I am very fortunate to live here in the situation I have. I could be stuck with some random roommate who throws parties like that in our apartment, or I could have been stuck at one of the scary apartment complexes in town, or I could have been stuck at that scary apartment I almost moved into last fall in Macomb. I really do like it here at Campus Pointe, and Alyson and I are hoping that last night was the last hoorah for the party punks before school starts--if not, the apartment managers will definitely get a piece of my mind. I've often had people tell me that they would be interested to see what I would look like if I were to get really mad, so I'll let you know if I end up having to go talk to apartment management--that could be your big chance. This afternoon I went to this fun little bookstore on the Charleston Town Square and had a great time just browsing through all of the books. I also went to campus and paid my school fees ($900 instead of $10,000--thanks to the assistantship!), got a parking permit, and turned in my health forms, so I think I'm all ready for school to start on Monday. I already have a lot of reading assignments--even though classes haven't started yet--but I guess that's how it goes in grad. school. It's a good thing I like reading!

The Dudleys

Today was the last day of orientation! Whew--it's been quite the week, but now I can just focus on getting unpacked and gearing up for school on Monday. This morning I had graduate assistant orientation, which was an extremely long and rather monotonous lecture about all of the rules and regs that go along with being a university employee. I feel really fortunate to have the assistantship--which will cover all of my housing and food costs, not to mention my tuition! I got all of my W-2 forms and everything filled out, so that's one more item crossed off the checklist. Then we had the introduction to our public interpretation project at the Tilford Dudley House here in town. Basically we're going to be creating a display about the Dudley family and will have a three-night open house for the public where they can come view artifacts and listen to lectures about the Dudleys, or the "Duds" as I'm going to start calling them. In a nutshell, Tilford Dudley was a liberal New Deal lawyer who was big on human rights and all of that. He made a pretty big mark on society for someone who was born and raised in the little town of Charleston. His house is cool, so it will be fun to work with the exhibit there. Well, Alyson and I are going to go watch "High School Musical" on the Disney channel in preparation for the premier of "High School Musical 2" tomorrow night! I'm really excited to have the day off tomorrow!!

Finally, a Place to Call Home!

Hello everyone! Greetings from Charleston, Illinois--home of Eastern Illinois University where I will begin work on a Master of Arts degree in Historical Administration. Yesterday night we made it back from our pre-semester field trip to Grand Rapids, but we haven't stopped running since. Yesterday in Grand Rapids we saw the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, which was totally awesome! We even got to see his private office that he used when he would come to visit his home city. We also saw where he is buried, and we got a behind-the-scenes tour of the curatorial storage room that is locked away in the innards of the building. They have all of Betty Ford's gowns for various occasions in there! We saw Gerald Ford's golf clubs, his college football helmets, a baseball given to him by Pete Rose, the chair he used in the Cabinet Room, the wine glass he drank from on the day JFK was killed, and even a copy of the Declaration of Independence made entirely out of macaroni noodles that was sent to him by a Girl Scout troop! I'll try to post my pictures from the trip sometime soon. We didn't get back until about 11:00 last night, then it was up bright and early this morning for a walking tour of Charleston architecture. We were walking down a street, and Dr. Small asked us what architectural terms we would use to describe the houses. The only thing I could think of was "low-rent," but I knew that might not be appropriate architectural lingo. Turns out that the houses were actually Italianate, Classical, Gothic, Art Deco, etc., etc. Who knew? We then went to the Charleston Public Library and learned about all of the genealogical records they have. Randomly in the middle of the librarian's speech to us, she said, "We even have some microfilm that the Mormons put together with all of the historical records for Coles County." I wanted to say, "Hooray for the Mormons!" but thought that maybe that was not the appropriate time to do so. After the library we went to the county courthouse to check out all of the probate land and court records they have there. Then we went to Dr. Reid's house for lunch, and then walked back to campus for the introduction to our museum exhibits class where we will be creating a museum exhibit to be displayed at the university's public museum next semester. We were all zoning out by this time, however, so the professors thought it would be best to let us go get our textbooks and call it a day. There was good news and bad news about the textbooks. Bad news: we have about 25 million textbooks (actually more like 19 big ones). Good news: Eastern Illinois has this cool textbook rental service where you can just check your textbooks out, and you don't have to buy them unless you decide later that you want to. That rocks! I would have easily spent $700 on textbooks today if it weren't for the textbook rental. After that Alyson and I were pretty much pooped, but we then had to go move into our apartment. It was sooooo hot outside today--it felt like I was in Mississippi--so that made it all the more difficult to do the move, but Dr. Small, Dr. Riccio, and their son Nick helped us move all of our things into the apartment. Our apartment rocks!!! It is really, really, really nice, and I am grateful to be here. Everything is new and clean--slightly different from the apartments I encountered at Western Illinois University last fall. Alyson and I each have our own bedroom and bathroom, then we share a living room and kitchen/dining room. We even have digital cable and a dishwasher in the kitchen! My room and bathroom are huge, and the furniture in here is really nice. I have a large walk-in closet and plenty of space to spread out. As soon as I get everything unpacked and put into place, I'll take pictures of the place and post them for you to see. We are located right by Wal Mart, so when Alyson and I needed to make a grocery run this evening, we just drove down the street! It really is a nice place, and I think Alyson will be a great roommate. We like the same kinds of TV shows, music, food, and, obviously, school subjects :-) Alyson really reminds me of Ann Hathaway (the "Princess Diaries" actress). It's funny how people can remind you of other people you know. One of the professors, Dr. Debra Reid, reminds me of Judy Christensen in the ward at home. Kristen, one of the girls in the program, reminds me of Lynda who worked in Natchez last summer. Another of the students in the program, Catharine, reminds me of one of the cousins. One of the guys in the program, Dan, reminds me of one of my high school friends, and Sister Stowell (the bishop's wife) kind of reminds me of my sister Lindy. Well, it's getting pretty late, so I'd better head to bed. I've got graduate student assistant orientation in the morning, then all of the students from the program will be meeting with our professors at the Dudley House in town tomorrow afternoon (we're going to be doing a project about the Dudley family this semester--I don't know who they are, but I guess they're important here). Hopefully by tomorrow afternoon and Friday I'll have some free time to finish unpacking, etc. before school starts on Monday. My mailing address, should you ever feel the need to send me gifts, cards, money, food, etc., (just kidding--you don't need to, unless you really want to!) is:

Tiffany Taylor
2350 Bostic Drive
Apartment #202
Charleston, IL 61920

I'll still have my same cell phone number (801-361-3230) and e-mail address: nauvootiff@yahoo.com. Thanks for keeping in touch everyone!

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!!!