Friday

Today is Friday, which is a good thing. Sorry if I sounded a little upset yesterday--it was just a long day of crazy classes. Thankfully this semester I don't have classes on Fridays again, so I was able to get some other work done around the apartment. I still hadn't really had a chance to unpack, so I did that this morning, did laundry, did homework, etc. Then I had to go over to school and start on the exhibit website with Dan, which was totally pointless since we don't have anything to put on it yet, and it's not even supposed to go online until April. But Dan insisted that we get started on it, so I sat there and watched him mess around with text in Photoshop for a little while, and then I thought to myself, "This is lame," so I told him I had work to do and that we could work on the website later. Then I left. I figure he already dislikes me anyway (and acts accordingly), so why go out of my way to cater to what he wants to do? This is why this semester is going to be better than last--I'm going to do what works for my schedule--not everyone else's :-)

Tonight Aly wants me to make stir fry, so I guess we'll do that, and then tomorrow I get to go up to Springfield to see Greg! That will be a good change of pace after a crazy first week of the semester. It's been quite cold here this week--after the warm weather and tornadoes blew through. I guess they had some nasty tornadoes in Mississippi--but luckily not in Natchez. Speaking of Natchez, Ranger Donna called yesterday and I told her the big news about the engagement, and she was quite excited. After Donna knew, the word spread like wild fire :-)

Dudley won't Die

As you will see at the bottom of today's blog entry, I finally figured out how to add the "Comment" feature, so if you would like to say anything in response to my mindless rambling, please feel free to do so. I enjoyed Lindy's comment on yesterday's post. :-)

Unfortunately, I have only been back at school for four days, and I already strongly, strongly dislike this semester ("hate" is a better description, but it is such a strong word). I am afraid that this semester is going to be a disaster. You'll notice that I didn't feel this way until after having Mr. Riccio's class this afternoon. The Dudley website he wants to do for our Digital Applications class is going to be a mess. He's thinking that we'll have to re-scan a bunch of the stuff we scanned for the Dudley exhibit last semester so that it will be able to go up on the web. Scanning more Dudley junk is the last thing I want to do--especially since then we'll have to figure out how to put it online! It would be really nice if he knew what he was doing, but he doesn't, and then he expects us to figure it out. Also, even though our Museum Exhibits class won't be starting until February 12, we had to talk about it today in class, and as I have said before, that whole thing is going to be a disaster. I'm not usually pessimistic, but my common sense won't let me be otherwise when it comes to Mr. Riccio's projects.

Thursdays have definitely become my least-favorite day of the week. In addition to Mr. Riccio's class this afternoon, this morning we had Dr. Barnhart again for the Archival Methods class. Talking about archives is not exactly the most exciting topic, and when you couple that with Dr. Barnhart as the teacher, a lethal form of boredom emerges. The other bad news is that in all FIVE of my classes, we have to write a research paper! We only had two research papers to do last semester. Five will stink. In addition to the research papers, among other things, we have to write three 10-page book reviews for one of our classes. Yes, this semester stinks big time.

I made my reservations to go visit Angie in Pennsylvania next week before I knew that I would be having two classes on Thursday. So when I first found out that there are two classes each Thursday, I got a little worried because I'm leaving for PA next Thursday morning and will be unable to attend either class. But after today, I am thanking the heavens that I won't have to be in those two classes next week. They are both extraordinarily boring, and all of Mr. Riccio's new ideas for the website, the exhibit, etc., etc. make me a little insane. I've only been here for four days and I'm already needing a break--this is not a good sign! :-)

Sombreros and Styrofoam

Why am I doomed to always have to wear the sombrero at Mexican restaurants? I can't escape it--whether it is really my birthday or not, I always end up looking like one of the Three Amigos. The top picture was taken in June 2006 when the park rangers took me to La Fiesta in Natchez, Mississippi to celebrate my birthday. The Wesselmans and McClures took me to La Fiesta again on my birthday this past year, and again I had to wear the sombrero. The picture on the bottom was taken last night at Los Potrillos here in Charleston where the compadres decided to take me for my "half birthday" (since we'll be done with classes by the time my real birthday rolls around). Except--it wasn't even my half birthday yesterday--that was back on December 29, but since we were not here at that time, they decided that last night after one of our crazy meeting,s we needed to celebrate something (I thought we should just celebrate Elvis's birthday which was really yesterday). So, once again I got stuck in the sombrero with a sopapilla and a chocolate cake in front of me. Sorry that the picture from last night isn't very good--it's a scan of the Polaroid picture the Los Potrillos people took of me :-) I guess if we have to have one of our lame meetings, we might as well have fun too.

Today was the first day of my Care of Historical Artifacts (aka Museum Collection Management and Artifact Preservation) class from Dr. Reid. It will be a great class, but it is going to be freaking hard!! Basically we're going to learn all about preserving different types of materials and cataloging large quantities of artifacts. Today we had to identify a whole bunch of archival materials. I never knew there were so many types of foam! There's of course styrofoam as well as polyethylene foam, polypropylene foam, ethafoam, and ester foam. Styrofoam is bad for artifacts whereas the others are good for artifacts (except for this one type of gray mushy foam we talked about, but I can't remember what it's called). There are also many types of plastic document protectors (actually referred to as archival polyester), papers, adhesives, packing materials, and fabric gloves. It is going to be a chore to keep all of this stuff straight! This class will entail much, much, much reading and many field trips. We'll be going on a field trip pretty much every week. We go up to Springfield five times (the first time is next Wednesday) to meet with people at the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, the Lincoln Library and Museum, and, of course, Abe Lincoln's house. The unfortunate thing is that for each of our field trips, we have to leave Charleston at 6:30 a.m. and won't return until 6:00 p.m. or later. Dr. Reid is going to try to cram two class sessions into each of our field trip days so that in April, when we're having to set up our exhibit over at the Tarble Arts Center, we won't have to meet for this class.

Today's class will also require us to each write a new collections care plan for the Coles County Historical Society, as well as a research paper about some aspect of the course material. After having only three out of my five classes so far this week, I already have three research papers to write this semester! :-( If tomorrow's two classes also require a research paper, I might as well just throw in the towel right now (just kidding). It will indeed be a busy semester, but I will surely learn a lot. I've already learned far more than I ever wanted to know about foam.

Weird, Wet Weather

No tornadoes came through here last night, but 'twas not the case in other parts of the state. There were a number of reported funnel clouds throughout central Illinois--the closest one to C-town was probably the one that was spotted in the city of Auburn which is about 80 miles west of us. I was reading today that they haven't had tornadoes in Illinois in January since 1950! Though there were no tornadoes in C-town, there certainly was a lot of rain. Alyson and I went to campus this morning to work out at the gym, and when we came outside after, we got SOAKED. I was wearing my rain jacket, but I was still sopping wet. We had fun at the gym today--Angie and Catherine were there too! We've all decided to start out the semester well, but we'll see how long that lasts :-) I went and picked up my text books today too. There are not as many as there were last semester, but there's still a pretty hefty stack of them. I have a number of riveting titles such as "The New Museum Registration Methods." That one will surely be a page-turner. I also went and visited Dr. Hardeman and Dr. Reid to tell them my big news and they are both very excited about "The Gregster," as Dr. Hardeman calls him :-)

Now I am back here at the apartment trying to get some finances, unpacking, and other miscellaneous things done that I didn't have time to do before school started yesterday. Dan has been bugging me about getting our museum exhibit website up and going--in fact he wanted to work on it today. BUT, the Tarble Arts Center lady said she doesn't want the website to go up until April, and we don't even have our Museum Exhibits class until February 12--so why would we work on the website now? We don't even know what to put on it yet. Dan is crazy. I think he is trying to punish me for not being in love with him. Oh well, I told him I'm too busy today. He seems obsessed with having all of his work done months in advance.

I haven't played basketball for a while, but for some reason I've really been wanting to lately. So today at the gym, after the elliptical machine and lifting weights, I checked out a basketball and shot some hoops. It was so much fun! I think that is a good way to burn off nervous energy--which will certainly accumulate in my system this semester. I hope Mitt Romney wins New Hampshire today.

Tonight we're having our weekly meeting and going out to eat in celebration of my half birthday. I told them I thought it was silly to celebrate my half birthday, but they're always looking for an excuse to go out to eat or something like that. So, I need to go finish some things before the evening's festivities. I don't think I'm going to have many free evenings this semester. I talked with Angie on the phone yesterday and we discussed some of the things we're going to do when I go visit her next week. I am SO EXCITED for a trip to Pennsylvania (for Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend)! She told me that she's going to need to take me on a very detailed tour of the Gettysburg National Battlefield to practice for when she has to take a Bulgarian general on a tour there in February. She gets to do weird, cool stuff like that for her job. The problem is that said general doesn't speak a lick of English. I told her I'll try to learn some Bulgarian words to make her practice tour with me seem more authentic.

Travel Delays and Tornadoes: Welcome back to C-town!

Today I had to face reality and, as they say, get back to the grindstone. Yesterday was quite the eventful travel day after having an eventful travel day on Saturday. I went up to the airport with Greg yesterday morning, and his plane left at about 10:00 a.m. Mine was supposed to leave at 11:30, and they even boarded us on time, but we sat there and sat there on the plane. Come to find out, they had shut down the airport AGAIN to clear off the runways (it was snowing outside again). So we sat on the plane for about two hours, then we got de-iced, then we got in line out on the runway to take off. Just when we were the next plane to go, our pilot got on the speaker and said, "Sorry folks. Our de-icing fluid has expired, and we need to go get de-iced again." So we had to go wait in line to be de-iced a second time, then had to get back in line on the runway. We didn't end up taking off until about 15 minutes before we had originally been scheduled to land in St. Louis! I was sitting by these really nice people from St. Louis (originally from Tennessee) who shared their chicken salad and crackers with me and talked with me about their grandkids for the entire six hours that we were on the airplane. :-) They were very excited to hear about my recent engagement. They were so cute, and when we finally got off the airplane, the lady gave me a big hug. Instead of getting into St. Louie at 3:00 p.m., I got there at about 5:30. Greg was nice enough to wait for me and drive me back to Charleston. We didn't get here to C-town until about 9:30 p.m., so it had definitely been a long couple of travel days, but I was glad to be with Greg and to make it back here before school started today.

Speaking of school starting, it was kind of a long but good day. It felt really early when I went to Dr. Small's Architectural History in America class at 9:00--since my body is still on Utah time. There were many surprised classmates when they noticed the ring on my finger. A couple of them knew already, but most did not. Everyone was excited except for . . . you guessed it: Dan. He seemed mad, but what's new? I think that Dr. Small's class will be a lot of fun, but over the break I forgot how hard it is to sit through a two-and-a-half hour class. After class, Aly and I went to Jimmy John's for lunch since we hadn't had a chance to go grocery shopping yet and didn't have any food here at the apartment. Jimmy John's is a gourmet sandwich joint which originated here in Charleston in 1982. I guess it's becoming a national chain now because I saw one in St. George when Mom and I were there a couple of weeks ago. There are two things that Charleston is famous for: Jimmy John's and Tony Romo (the Dallas Cowboys quarterback who went to school here at Eastern).

After lunch I was so pooped that I went back to the apartment and crashed for about three hours. Then Aly and I went over to Wal Mart and got groceries. Unfortunately I have a Monday night class this semester, so we then had to go back over to campus. Our Monday night class with Dr. Barnhart is called Social and Cultural History of 19th Century America. I think it will be very interesting. One of our books is about religious revivals near Rochester, New York in the 1820s and 1830s--I know about that! Dr. Barnhart is a big Ohio State fan and wanted to let us out of class early so he could go watch the big National Championship game against LSU, but in typical Dr. Barnhart fashion, he ended up talking for the entire class period anyway, so he probably missed most of the game. I've never seen anyone be able to talk as much as he does--for two-and-a-half hours straight, he can talk nonstop!

After class I went over to Catherine's house to chat with her and help her administer some earmite medicine to her cute cats. I guess that the kitties picked up earmites somewhere (nasty!) so she needed to roll them up in towels and put this goopy stuff in their ears (which they did not enjoy). The best news of the century is that until February 12, I won't have any classes on Tuesdays--since our Museum Exhibits class this semester is only 2 credits. So I don't have to deal with transportation corridors until next month. Tomorrow I'm planning to work out in the morning, go pick up my textbooks, meet with Dr. Hardeman, and then have a meeting and go to dinner with the compadres here. They have decided that since we won't be here in June for my birthday, they need to celebrate my half-birthday which was on December 29, so I guess there will be cake involved tomorrow.

The weather here is seriously messed-up!! When I landed in St. Louis last night, they said that the temperature outside was 72 degrees--that is NOT normal! Today it has been in the 60's here in C-town, and it is very wet and humid outside. Unfortunately this abnormally warm weather is now encountering some normal cold weather, and some nasty severe weather has been developing. There was a tornado watch here in C-town earlier today, and tonight we are supposed to have severe storms. Weather.com said that "some storms may contain tornadoes." That's comforting. Oh well, I'm off to bed.