Early Christmas

Sad story . . . BYU lost to Michigan State today in basketball :-( This was a very important game for them to win because one of my fellow inmates, Laurie, is from the town where Michigan State is located and is a huge fan. I was really counting on BYU to defend my Cougar pride today, but I guess I have to accept defeat and prepare myself to face Laurie. It would be easier to face her if we hadn't trash-talked each other so much this week :-) I guess it's okay though because when Michigan State played Michigan in football, Catherine, who is a Michigan graduate, had a good time taunting Laurie, so I guess Laurie needed something to be happy about.

Today was a very fun day--I got to have an early Christmas! I went up to Sullivan and met Greg at his parents' house, and he made the most delicious lunch ever. It was awesome! He even made pumpkin pie! We had a fun day together, and since I'll be out in Utah for Christmas, we exchanged gifts today. He gave me a beeeeautiful string of pearls, which I totally love. Earlier today I had to go meet with Dan to finish up one of our Mr. Riccio projects, and he was nice for a change, so that was good. Tonight I need to do some homework and stuff like that. I should probably also clean my room. It kind of looks like a bomb went off in here because during the week I didn't have time to put any clothes or papers away, so it's quite the mess. Hopefully the forecasted freezing rain won't really come tonight--that would make it a little hard to get to church tomorrow, so we'll see what happens. I am NOT a fan of freezing rain. I like it better in Utah where it either rains or snows--none of this in-between freezing rain junk :-)

The First Real Snow

Hooray--last night we had our first real snow, and this morning we woke up to a winter wonderland! I wanted to go outside and enjoy it, but I was barricaded in my room until about 3:00 this afternoon trying to put the finishing touches on the paper--or we could call it the icing on the cake :-) I had hoped to finish the paper last night, since it was due today at 4:00 p.m. and I had other stuff I needed to do today, but for some reason I worked on it all evening and into the late hours of the night yesterday, but just couldn't quite pull it together. It was like the never-ending paper, and it felt like the more I did on it, the more I still had to write. Anyway, the paper was printed out this afternoon and delivered to Dr. Reid at about 3:30. I hate turning things in at the last minute, I did the best I could. I also don't know if I like the paper very much, but I added some pretty pictures to it, so hopefully that will make Dr. Reid happy :-) After handing in the paper, I read to Dr. Hardeman for a while, then picked up some pizza and came home to meet with Alisha to work on part of an assignment that is due for Mr. Riccio's class on Monday. If it weren't for Mr. Riccio's assignments, life would be totally good. We got the assignment done, but when Alisha went to leave this evening, her car wouldn't start. Her battery is probably toast, but hopefully we can figure out what to do about it tomorrow. I took her home this evening. Tomorrow I have to get up and go work on the website narrative with Dan--which is due tomorrow night, and I am not looking forward to this! I've decided that if Dan is going to be a jerk, then I'm not going to go out of my way to try to be extra nice to him--because he's acting totally lame. So I imagine our meeting in the morning will be very short, curt, and cold. As Patrick would say from Spongebob Squarepants, "Dan has issues!" I am really looking forward to taking some time to relax tomorrow and hanging out with Greg up in Sullivan.

The Eleventh Hour

Well, it is the eleventh hour, as it were, here in Charleston. The time has finally come that my paper has to be done, so there is no putting it off until tomorrow anymore. For the last few nights, and I can imagine that is how it will be tonight, I have been on the 5:2 sleep schedule. I sleep five hours at night, then two hours in the afternoon. The problem is that I don't always have time for the 2 hours in the afternoon. But, after I turn in tomorrow's paper I'll only have one more research paper to finish (and a whole bunch of other stuff, but I won't think about that right now), so hopefully everything will fall into place all right. Like they say, if it weren't for the last minute, a lot of stuff would never get done.

This morning I had my very last class of the semester! We'll still have finals next week, but classes have officially ended for us. I have loved Dr. Small's historic preservation class. Speaking of Dr. Small, she and Mr. Riccio (they are married, but she still goes by her maiden name because that's how everyone in the world of academia knows her) have rescued some horses from a mean guy here in Charleston. I guess that the guy would beat his horses, and they were pretty much starving, so the police seized all of his animals and tried to find good homes for them. The Small/Riccio house has a barn, so they fixed it up and have adopted two horsies. The poor horsies are quite traumatized, but they're working with them to help them get used to people--nice people--and are nursing them back to health. They said that the horsies are really skittish and timid around people--understandably so, so they have commissioned me as the "horse whisperer" to come over on Sunday afternoon and talk to the cute horses. I'm totally excited! Some of the other girls want to go with me so we can shower the horses with love, affection, and carrots, and hopefully make them feel happy. The mean guy who abused these horses should be put in the stocks on town square and left out in the cold (I think that the stocks should be reinstituted as a form of public humiliation, or humility as Dr. Hardeman's students would call it).

Speaking of Dr. Hardeman, I worked with him for a few hours this afternoon, but we didn't get much done because he spent the whole time telling me stories. When I got there, he told me to kick up my heels, take a seat, grab a mint julep, and relax, and then I made the mistake of asking him if he'd ever had a mint julep (because I've heard they're really quite gross). This launched him into a whole slew of stories, most of which were about these Ukrainian girls he knew in college who had hollow legs so they could drink and drink and drink alcohol without it ever affecting them. :-) We also had to read some judicial affairs documents to prepare him for some cases he has to oversee tomorrow to decide if the dumb students (and in this case they really can be called dumb because they do some really stupid things) should be kicked out of school. I won't elaborate, since I was sworn to secrecy, but there are some messed up students here. Then Dr. Reid came upstairs to eat some candy with us, and we had a good time chatting. She's big into politics, and so she brought up Mitt Romney's speech today about religion. Even though she and Dr. Hardeman are very emphatic Democrats, they both agree that it's kind of lame that Mitt has been given such a hard time about his religion. Dr. Reid said what I've been saying all along: "If someone's religion keeps them from being voted as President, then America really isn't as free as we all claim it is." Amen. Well, unfortunately my procrastination has gone far enough and I must be off to finish the paper!

The Other Boyfriend

Sorry Greg, I'm afraid you're going to have to share me with another man. His name is Lincoln, and he is my latest boyfriend :-) Just kidding--Lincoln is a cat, but everyone teases me about him being my boyfriend because every time I go over to Catherine's house, he sits behind me on the couch, puts his paws on my head, and tickles my ear with his tail. Isn't he cute? This picture was taken at Catherine's house last Sunday. It was ridiculously cold outside, so I had put on my black gangster hat to keep me warm, and Lincoln loved it. The hat is now covered in white kitty hair because he liked it so much. Catherine adopted Lincoln from the Charleston animal shelter earlier in the semester, and he is one of the most adorable, cuddly cats I have ever seen. She also adopted Lincoln's sister, Sassi, but Sassi doesn't like me as much as Lincoln does.

Well, it is now 2:00 a.m. on Thursday morning. The last time I remember looking at the clock it was 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday night, but then I kind of got on a roll on my material culture in slave life paper, and time got away from me. It's so much easier to work on papers at night because you don't have the interruptions that always pop up during the day, but the problem is that it's hard to stop writing to go to bed, and then when you do go to bed you keep thinking about your paper. I'll try to go to bed anyway though. This seems like the never-ending paper, but it will have to end soon because it is due on Friday!!! I've got plenty of information, but I'm just having a hard time piecing everything together and saying what I want to say. I seem to work better under pressure though, and there will be plenty of that tomorrow (actually later today--since it's already Thursday morning), so maybe I can pull it together then. Then I have one more research paper to do before next Wednesday, but it's about Tilford Dudley, and it's mostly done, so it will be a piece of cake (one of the academic cakes I am becoming very proficient at baking!) to finish it up. Okay, well, I'm going to head to bed. I think I am becoming nocturnal.

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.

Baking the Cake

I know that I already posted something today, but I think when it's late and I'm trying to work on stuff but having a hard time focusing, it helps to just take a second and write something on the blog--especially when it's something I've been thinking about. As school has gotten more stressful lately, I've needed a little bit of motivation to keep myself going. One thing I have found helpful is reflecting on a conversation I had at BYU in 2006 with the infamous Dr. Daynes who was, at the time, the graduate coordinator for the history department. (The new graduate coordinator is Dr. Richards--one of my favorite teachers--how come she couldn't have been the coordinator when I applied to the grad. program???) Thinking about Dr. Daynes, however, makes me a little bit upset--but in a good way, because the thought of her motivates me to keep going and do a good job on all of my school work. (If I have told this story before, please forgive the repeat.) You see, when I applied to the graduate program in history at BYU in 2005, I got a prompt reply early in 2006 that I had not been accepted to the program. I was quite distraught by this and did not understand the reasoning of the graduate committee in making said decision, so I went to talk with the grad. coordinator--Dr. Daynes. I had never had a class from her before, and she didn't know who I was until that day. I asked her why, with all of the practical history experience I had in researching, writing, publishing, etc., what more I could have done to be accepted into the program. Her response was:

"Well, Tiffany, you have shown that you can put the icing on the cake, but can you actually bake the cake?"

My first thought was, "Did she really just say that to me?" Then I thought, "What on earth is she talking about??" She seemed to think that I had my priorities all messed up and that I put more emphasis on work and outside projects than my actual school work. But what good is it to bake a bunch of cakes if you can't frost them? And of course I know how to bake the cake! Take a look at that cake up there that I baked . . . and frosted last year--I bet Dr. Daynes and Stanley Thayne couldn't do that! :-) So anyway, I am here at graduate school showing that yes, despite what Dr. Daynes or anyone else thinks, I can bake cakes--real cakes and figurative school cakes. When I get worn down by school I just remind myself that one of my goals is to prove Dr. Daynes wrong and show her (and myself and everyone else) that I can bake academic cakes. I think after I graduate from EIU I'm going to bake an actual cake and take it to Dr. Daynes and say, "Hi Dr. Daynes. You once asked me if, even though I had shown that I can put the icing on the cake, could I really bake the cake? Here's your answer--I bake freaking awesome cakes and frost them too." That will be a happy day.

I am praying for snow tonight because I could really, really, really use the extra couple of hours in the morning to get stuff done if class had to be cancelled because of bad weather. I mean, I don't want Mrs. Miller to get stuck in snow on her way down here from Champaign, but if it would snow enough that when she wakes up in the morning, she sees that driving would not be a good idea and cancels class, that would be wonderful. This afternoon I took Dr. Hardeman grocery shopping for egg nog and apple cider--that was quite the adventure.

Dan Needs to Go to Japan

My sister Lindy always finds the coolest stuff online! Today she introduced me to www.brainfall.com, which I now love. I found out all about myself! I needed some introspection this morning to help me deal with my stressed-out situation. So, here's a little bit about me that you didn't know:

Which Disney Princess am I? Like Lindy, it was a tie between two of them.

You are part Jasmine. You are loyal and would visit the ends of the earth for what you believe. You would never let obstacles stand in the way of true love.

You are part Cinderella. You are hard-working and never complain, however, your trust is sometimes misplaced and people sometimes take advantage of you. Still, you are beautiful inside and out, and one day you will realize it and find true love.

Which "24" character am I? Hooray--she's my favorite!

You are Chloe. You are the doer in any group. This is not a bad thing, as you are the only person who can do those things beyond the control and realm of other beings. As a very caring person, you're emotionally attached to others, though from the outside you might seem to be very aggressive.

Which "The Office" character am I? Hooray--she's my favorite too!

You are Pam. You are sweet and likable, but your shyness makes it hard for you to express yourself sometimes. Regardless, you are always there for your friends and will usually come out of your shell to help anyone.

Which female action hero am I? Hooray again--she's also my favorite!

You are Princess Leia. You are down-to-earth and stick to a rigid sense of ethics. Nerds may lust over you, but everyone looks to you for your grounded logic and intellect.

Which animal was I in my previous life? Didn't unicorns die off because they wouldn't get onto Noah's Ark? :-)

You were a unicorn. You were mysterious and noble. You have fairytale traits, and other people can only dream in envy. Your nature is completely impossible to decipher and behind all that, you know that you shine bright, for only the luckiest people get the chance to know you.

What city should I live in? Hmmmm, I don't know about this one.

You should live in New York City. America's largest city will ensure that you will blend into the crowd. You are the brooding type--introspective, creative, and eccentric--and NYC's cutting-edge, individualistic culture and ambiance will appeal to you.

What car am I? I always knew I loved Volvos.

You would be a Volvo Station Wagon. You may never be the snazziest, but who cares what others think about you? You power-steer your way to soccer practice with assuredness and confidence.

Ha ha ha. That was a fun little distraction from my school worries. And now that I know that I AM Chloe from "24," I should be able to handle anything. I slept with my phone by my bed last night--just in case Dr. Barnhart called again this morning to cancel class, but alas, he did not. At least class was kind of short today, but he added some things to our list of things to do, and I have a bad feeling that our weekly meeting tonight is going to be really, really, really long and painful. Things are really, really, really weird with my classmate Dan. I think I've discussed the situation before--how Dan is mad because I like Greg and Dan likes me. It's like Dan keeps getting more and more bitter towards me. We have to work on a narrative of our website that we'll be doing for next spring's exhibit, but when I asked Dan about it today, he just scowled at me and said, "I thought we're not doing the website until next semester." I said, "That is true, but our narrative is due next Monday." He didn't really seem to care, so whatever--I'll take care of it and will send it to him to look over and make suggestions on. All of the girls are mad at him because he's acting like a jerk towards me (and because he's already done with all of his papers and everything, and he likes everyone else to know it). Oh well, in a graduate class of only ten people, there's bound to be some drama.

It's supposed to snow tonight and be quite chilly tomorrow. Mrs. Miller, who teaches my museum administration class, drives down from Champaign every Wednesday morning for class. She e-mailed us to say that if she can't make it because of the weather tomorrow, she'll initiate the phone tree by calling Tiffany. I wonder why I'm always the first one to be called? I guess I'll sleep with my phone by my bed again tonight. Well, I'm going to write papers for a while (and probably fall asleep because I'm really tired) and then I need to go work with Dr. Hardeman at 2:00. Then later tonight I have to pick up a cake for Alisha's half birthday (some of us who have birthdays in the summer are celebrating our half birthdays instead), meet with Catherine to transfer some stuff from her computer to the school computer, and head to the dreaded weekly meeting. I also need to read some microfilm, finish my house surveys, compile everyone's Dudley presentations to be put online, compose a website proposal for the Dudley archives project, write the exhibit website narrative, finish two research papers, update the professor pages on the HA website, and send out a bunch of e-mails. Sigh.

Starrfadu / Kleenex US Advert

I love the new Kleenex commercial! The song "Let It Out" by the band Starrfadu is one of my new favorite songs.

Fire and Ice

It is sooooooooooooo cold here! I guess that the temperature isn't too abnormal, but with the wind blowing all of the time, it feels really nasty outside. The lake here at the apartment did freeze over last night, and now we have a gigantic place to ice skate. When Alyson was coming home yesterday evening, all of the vents at our apartment complex were blowing steam out of them. She passed one vent that had a light right by it, and she totally thought that the building was on fire--the steam with the light behind it looked like flames. Luckily she realized it wasn't a real fire before she called 911.

Today was our last museum exhibits class (for this semester). Next semester we will have that class again, only by then we'll actually be assembling our exhibit--not just learning about light bulbs and such. Even though we had our last session of that class today, we still have many, many, many, many museum exhibit projects to be completed before next Monday :-( Remember last week's assignment that took us until 2:00 on Monday morning to finish--the one with the cool floor plans I drew? We got an A- on it--can you believe it?? Grrrr. Nothing is ever good enough for Mr. Riccio. My theory is that whether we spend five minutes or five hours on an assignment, we'd probably get the same grade--which would never be an A because, like I said, nothing is ever just how he wants it.

Today I talked with some people at the Abraham Lincoln home in Springfield about possible internships. The lady who is the head curator there now is a graduate of the program here at EIU, and she said she'll try to hook me up with an internship there (although since it is the federal government we're talking about here, there are not guarantees). It would be really cool if something could work out--I would love to work there! Well, I'm off to write a paper and then head over to the Cloward's house for fajitas.

Weird Weather

I'll start off by saying that today was a much better day than yesterday. Life is good again (except that papers and other assignments still need to be finished, but they're not due tomorrow--and there's no need to truly panic until the night before they are due). The weather today was so weird! After yesterday's freezing rain (which, by the way, created a solid coat of ice over my car--I've never seen that happen before), it warmed up to 65 degrees this morning! Definitely not normal. Greg came down here today and we went over to stake conference in Mattoon together. During stake conference it was pouring rain outside--but still wasn't very cold--but then this evening the cold front hit. It's now about 25 degrees outside but feels like 15 (or less). It's only supposed to get up into the 30's tomorrow for the high. Too cold! The worst part is that it is SO windy outside! I had to be out and about a little bit this evening and almost got blown over. The lake out behind the apartment is back after the rainstorm, and it is bigger than ever. I think that in the morning we'll have a nice ice skating rink outside.

It was very nice of Greg to come down here today, and we had a fun time sitting behind the Stowell family at stake conference. I babysat the Stowell kids the other night, and they are too cute. Greg brought me a very beautiful arrangement of Tiffany roses--aka pink roses. (I've always called them Tiffany roses because Grandpa Farnsworth planted a pink rosebush at the house in Provo before he passed away, and he told me that they were Tiffany roses.) We ate some lunch here after conference, and then he headed home and I headed over to Catherine's house for a little while. Her cats are so funny! We think that Lincoln, the boy cat, has a crush on me because every time I come over, he sits on the back of the couch behind me, puts two paws on each of my shoulders, rests his head on mine, and tickles my ear with his tail--definitely flirtatious behavior. :-) Well, I'm off to bed to gear up for the last week of classes, then I'll have a few days of finals, and then I'll be heading home for the holidays!