Tiffy Mississippi

Today is my roommate Aly's birthday. These days I call her "Alygator." She loves it when I say "See you later Alygator." I also call her Alybama sometimes too. She is turning the big 23 today, and since she and I both love the Disney Channel, I gave her a Hannah Montana wig for her birthday. She wanted to take a picture of me in it, so here I am! I look a lot like her, don't you think? Maybe my pop star name could be Tiffy Mississippi. We also thought that we looked totally cool in our shades this afternoon, so we took a picture of ourselves. I am finishing up preparations for the big birthday party/sleepover tonight. Aly wanted a sleepover, so we're going to watch a bunch of girly movies, paint nails, and the whole nine yards. We're also eating Italian food, and most of the girls will be partaking of some alcoholic beverages. I told Aly that the drunk girls have to use her bathroom tonight, and I don't want to wake up with any drunk girls in my bed! I had to take Aly to the liquor store this afternoon--which was weird. I hate liquor stores. I just stayed in the car while she went in, but it was still weird.

Earlier today I had some interesting adventures up in Tuscola. Dan and I had to go take pictures of some things for the exhibit, and I of course made him stop at Flesor's Candy Kitchen so I could have one of the BEST Reuben sandwiches in the entire world!!! We got our photographs--but I must say, Dan is waaaaaaaay too hardcore. As I was following Dan across some fallen trees on top of a frozen drainage ditch trying to avoid the tree branches covered with large thorns while trying to get a picture of the interstate, I thought, "This is insane." Aside from a few thorns in my jeans, however, no harm was done. I'm just glad I got my Reuben :-) Well, the masses are arriving, so I am off to fix some food.

Happy Leap Day!

Happy Leap Day, everyone! I wondered this morning if, like daylight savings time, Benjamin Franklin invented the concept of "leap year," but I investigated and found out that leap year is actually attributed to Julius Caesar in 45 B.C.--a little before Ben Franklin came up with daylight savings. So, February is a little longer than usual this year, but at least it's still a tad shorter than the other months. Here's one last picture from last night--only, unlike the creepy one with the portal to another world in it (I like Lindy's description of what it looks like), the one you see here was staged. If you look in the corner of the mirror, you will see a spooky face, but that's actually Laurie standing by the bed with a flashlight shining on her face.

This weekend is the big "interview weekend," where all of the prospective students for next year's Historical Administration class will be coming to campus to be interviewed by the professors. I didn't come to interview weekend last year--because it was only about two weeks after Mom and I had been out here for the Illinois State History Symposium, so I got to do my interview over the phone. There are supposedly about ten people coming this weekend, but as far as I know none of them will be staying here at Aly's and my apartment. My job is going to be giving campus tours to everyone. Maybe I'll make it a ghost tour! :-) ha ha ha. Don't worry--my current infatuation with ghost stuff probably won't last very long. I kind of go through phases of different things I'm interested in--right now it's ghosts and Jesse James. I am very intrigued by Jesse James. One time I saw a bank he supposedly robbed in Independence, Missouri, and I've seen his name carved on the wall of the Mark Twain Cave in Hannibal, Missouri (but he's probably not the one who carved it there).

In the past 24 hours, we have experienced all kinds of weather--last night when we finished bowling, we came outside and there was a mini-blizzard going on. It was snowing really hard, and there was ice on everything. Then, this morning it was cloudy and slushy and gross outside. Then, it started to rain really hard. Then, the sun came out and it got really warm. In fact, there was just a hint of the spring in the air. It's supposed to be 59 degrees here on Sunday, but then back down to a high of 30 on Tuesday. Pure craziness! I'm ready for spring to come for real.

ALPHA

Here is Agent Tiff from the newly-created Abraham Lincoln Paranormal Historians Association (ALPHA)! I put on my ranger shades today and realized that they make good ghost hunter specs too. :-) All those ghost stories I was telling last night made me want to go inside Pemberton Hall today, so when I was over on campus, I stopped in. It's a really old building--but it does look kind of ominous from the outside, don't you think? I didn't want to go upstairs though, because that would be weird since I don't live there, but I could tell that it's kind of a creepy place. I did my hair in piggy tails today! It's just barely long enough to do that. Why was I wandering around Pemberton Hall instead of going to class today?--you may be wondering. Well, Dr. Barnhart has decided to abandon us. He says it's because he needs to go take care of his mom in Ohio, which is a very good excuse, but he's still around campus. We see him working at the library and stuff, which makes us think that he's so engrossed in the book he's writing that he doesn't want to take the time to teach class. So, we didn't have Dr. Barnhart's class today, and our Digital Applications class with Mr. Riccio ended last week (unfortunately we still have class with him on Tuesdays!), so I had zero classes today. But I was able to sleep in a little, which was nice, and get some random things done.













This evening we finished filming our movie at the Dudley House. It was a great time to look for ghosts. Laurie and I even went back into the haunted bedroom upstairs, where the disgruntled ghost supposedly lives, but we didn't see it. I did, however, snap a picture of the master bedroom, and there appears to be a strange object on the table by the window. Very strange--especially since there isn't anything on that table in real life. What do you think it is? Tonight I need to go bowling because Kristen and Alisha are part of the graduate student council, and they had to organize an activity, and they decided to organize a bowling night, and we don't think a lot of people will be there, so we decided we need to go support them. So, I'm off to go bowling!

More Orbs

While I'm on the topic of orbs this evening, here are a few more pictures I've gotten. First, you will see the field out in front of Mount Locust Inn also located along the Natchez Trace. I took that picture the same night I got the one at Windsor Ruins I put up on my post earlier this evening. I zoomed in on one of the orbs that appears to be moving somewhere.


Then, here are some pictures from the haunted plantation I told you about that Sarah, Joel, Eliza and I visited in South Carolina. The house is called Woodburn, and this photograph here is of a cabin out behind the main house. I took this picture because I was interested in the architectural makeup of the structure, but when I zoomed in on one of the windows, there was a little orb in there!


Maybe I can start visiting some haunted places in Illinois. Here is a picture taken last Halloween at one of the Charleston city cemeteries when we were out looking for Tilford Dudley's grave. You can see some pretty good orbs in there. One of the buildings on the EIU campus, Pemberton Hall, is supposedly quite haunted. It was the first women's dormatory at any school in the state of Illinois. As the legend goes, in 1917 a girl who was living at "Pem," as it is called, went up to the fourth floor one night when she couldn't sleep. She was going to play the piano to try to relax. Supposedly a janitor who worked in the building snuck in there that night and attacked the girl. He thought she was dead, so he took off, but she wasn't dead. She crawled along the hallway, leaving a trail of blood and scratching at people's doors to try to wake someone. She finally reached the door of Mary Hawkins, the counselor staying in the dormatory. Mary opened the door to find the girl dead before her. This upset Mary so much that she was later sent to a mental institution where she committed suicide. So, supposedly the ghosts of both the girl who was killed and Mary haunt Pem today. Pem is still a women's dorm building today, but the fourth floor is closed-off. People have reported hearing a dragging noise upstairs along the fourth floor hall, as well as scratching noises on their doors at night. Also, some people have said that bloody footprints will appear on the floor and then disappear. Many residents think that the ghost of Mary Hawkins goes around checking on everybody at night. She locks and unlocks doors, turns radios on and off, and rearranges furniture. Creepy to the max! Maybe the ghost hunters need to come check out Pem hall! Also, people claim that Abe Lincoln's house in Springfield is haunted by a woman--either Mary Todd or a lady who later lived in the house named Mrs. Lucian A. Tilton. I wonder if I can ever arrange to be at the house in the evening sometime. I have also learned that the Dana-Thomas House, the cool place we visited for class a couple of weeks ago, is supposedly haunted. Mrs. Dana held seances there after her loved ones died, and many people think that she is still in the house today. There is a funny quote on a website about haunted Illinois places (http://www.illinoishauntings.com). It says: "If the reports are to be believed, Abraham Lincoln must be the most well traveled ghost in history. The martyred president is said to haunt the White House, his home in Springfield, the old capital in Vandalia, Illinois, Ford's Theatre and just about anywhere else he ever visited!" A lot of people think that Abe's tomb at the Oak Ridge Cemetery is haunted--especially since somebody tried to steal his body in 1875. Also, New Salem State Park--located in Petersburg, near Athens where Greg lives--is supposedly haunted (Abe used to live there). Unfortunately I didn't know this before we went to Vandalia the other day, but Abe Lincoln supposedly also haunts the old state capitol building there. Sometime I want to go to Alton, Illinois, where Elijah Lovejoy--the abolitionist I'm writing a paper about for Dr. Barnhart's class--was killed back in 1837. Supposedly his ghost has been seen around town, as well as ghosts of Confederate soldiers who were imprisoned at the Alton Penitentiary during the Civil War. So many possible fun ghost adventures are to be had in Illinois! Okay, well, I'm going to go to bed now. As you can see, I needed a little diversion from homework this evening :-)

Ghost Hunters!

It's Wednesday night--which means that my new favorite show, "Ghost Hunters" is on! It's a really interesting show. The ghost hunters, called The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) go around to places that are supposed to be haunted and set up cameras and audio recorders. Then they go through and analyze all of the things they catch on tape. Sometimes they get some pretty funky things! One thing that shows up quite often is the orb. Orbs are supposedly little balls of concentrated energy that can't be seen by the naked eye, but they often show up in photographs. They are not exactly ghosts, but, according to the ghost hunters, they signify paranormal activity and sometimes spirits take the form of an orb. I heard about orbs when I went on the ghost tour in Natchez, but I've always been skeptical because I've always thought they're just particles in the air. But who knows, maybe there is something to the orb theory!

My favorite orb picture is one I took at Windsor Ruins along the Natchez Trace during the summer of 2006. A friend and I were driving up to Port Gibson, Mississippi after a huge rainstorm, and it was very misty and spooky outside. It was just getting dark, and we stopped to see the ruins. Windsor Ruins is a spooky place even during the day, but especially when it's getting dark! One of the largest mansions in Mississippi once stood there, but it burned down in the 1890s, and now the ironwork and brick columns are all that remain. I snapped this picture while we were there, and as you can see by zooming-in, some very interesting little spots showed up on the picture. Orbs? Moisture particles in the air? Who knows?

My favorite ghost hunting experience was when Mom and I went to "the most haunted house in America" on Halloween in 2006! The Myrtles estate in St. Francisville, Louisiana has earned the reputation for being the most haunted house. I still need to see this episode, but the actual ghost hunters from the TV show went there and supposedly documented seven distinct spirits in the home! Mom and I were hoping to at least have our earrings stolen by the earring-stealing ghost named Chloe who lives there, but we had no such luck. We didn't see anything spooky while we were there, but we weren't about to hang around for the night tour. We went during the daylight. But, when the sun was setting, I did snap this picture of the house, and if you zoom in, you can see a little orb there by the porch. Hmmmm, very interesting. It's hard to top a Halloween at the Myrtles!

Sarah, Joel, Eliza, and I went to a supposedly haunted house in South Carolina during Thanksgiving break. The sun was setting when we got there, and there was no electricity in the home, so the tour guide took us through with a flashlight. At one point, when Joel had to step out with Eliza, the guide took Sar and me up to the third floor where someone had recently seen a ghostly figure in the window. It was really creepy up there in the dark! I think Sarah and I both were anxious to get downstairs. Another time I went to a supposedly haunted place was during this last summer when Angie and I went to dinner at King's Tavern in Natchez--the oldest building in Mississippi. We went upstairs to the bedroom where the ghost of a lady who was killed there supposedly lives, and even though we didn't actually see anyting, I had a really weird feeling the whole time we were in there. Once again, you couldn't get me downstairs fast enough. :-) Some people claimed that the house where I worked in Mississippi, Melrose, was haunted, but I never really saw anything there. Although one time when I was taking a tour group through, the pictures of Mr. and Mrs. McMurran that we had on a table next to a rocking chair where someone reportedly saw the ghost of Mrs. McMurran one time, were switched around. I went to point to the one of Mr. McMurran and explain who he was, but instead it was the picture of Mrs. McMurran. That was kind of weird, and I checked around but no one had been up there cleaning or anything. Hmmmm, very strange. I think it would be cool to go looking for ghosts at Vicksburg, or Gettysburg, or maybe even Abe Lincoln's house! Maybe there is something to this whole paranormal activity thing. I do certainly believe that there are spirits in our midst--and maybe some of them are just more unsettled than others.

Anyway, today was a good day but it was cold and snowy as usual. I spent a few hours at school processing the photographs we've taken for the museum exhibit. We still have quite a few to take, but at least we're making progress. One of the photos we need to get is of a covered bridge over the Kaskaskia River, which was supposedly located near Evansville, Illinois. We have a painting of said bridge, and the exhibit coordinators wanted a modern-day photo of the bridge to compare to the painting because there is reportedly a lot of graffitti on it today. The problem was--Evansville is 3 hrs. and 45 mins. away from C-town! That would mean an 8-hour round trip excursion to get one photo--not very efficient. So, I was checking online to see if there were any photos of the bridge, hoping that we could then just get permission from someone to use theirs, but I couldn't find anything about any bridges near Evansville. So, I put on my research cap and uncovered the truth--the bridge in the painting is actually located near Cowden, Illinois, which is only about an hour away from here. It's called the Thompson Mill bridge and was built in 1868. I'm glad I checked before we went off to Evansville! I also got to go take care of Dr. Reid's kitties today. They are so stinkin' cute! Katie is the little sneaky one and Eleanor is the big sweet one. They both like to follow me around the house while I fill up their food bowls and empty the kitty boxes. Then we like to sit on the couch and hang out for a little while. They both jump up in the window sill when I leave and cock their heads to the side as I wave goodbye. What cute girls! I hope everything went well today with Dr. Reid's dad's surgery. She's supposed to be home tomorrow, but she might need to stay there a little longer. I think I'll get to have my own ghost hunters experience tomorrow night. We're all going to the Dudley House to film the "night scene" for our archives movie. In the movie we pretend that there is a ghost at the Dudley House, but who knows--maybe the ghost will really come out tomorrow night! I'll be sure to take my camera and see if I can catch any orbs :-)

WANTED

Ever since Catherine, Laurie, and I went to Marshall, Illinois last October and ended up with some bricks from the old National Road, it has been the joke amongst everyone that if there's something we need for the exhibit, we'll just go "borrow" it from somewhere :-) We didn't really unlawfully remove the bricks from the road. Outside of Marshall there is a stretch of the 1920s brick National Road that is all grown over. For some reason we were driving along it, and there was a big pile of bricks that had been chopped out of the road, so we just collected a couple of souvenirs. Everyone wants to have a National Road brick in our exhibit, but Aly and Alisha are convinced that it wouldn't be "ethical" to use one of our bricks because we don't have any signed permission forms. :-) So I made this poster to hang up in the grad. lab.

There is a winter blizzard outside! It has been so cold, snowy, windy, and icy all day. There is a layer of ice on everything. When will spring come? It was so stormy this morning that the power even went out for a little while. I feel really bad because Dr. Reid called me today and said that her dad found out he's going to need to have his foot amputated :-( So she will be in St. Louis for a few more days with him. I told her not to worry--I'll take care of the kitties, and we went ahead and cancelled tomorrow's class. We were going to go to the Lincoln Log Cabin to learn about "living collections"--i.e. sheep, corn, pigs, etc., so it will be better to do that after it warms up anyway. Poor Dr. Reid and her dad. I feel really bad about that whole situation. I've been enjoying taking care of Dr. Reid's cats though. Eleanor and Katie are super cute, and today they were licking me all over and snuggling with me on the couch. Well, I'm off to tonight's meeting--if my car isn't frozen shut!

Hitlery

They bear a striking resemblance, don't they? She could be his daughter. Hmmm, maybe she is. Maybe the New York Times should write an article about that? Hitlery is really, really, really scary. As you all know, I am not a John McCain fan, but I think it's dumb that people are trying to conjure up things to make him look bad. The whole time they were talking about his possible "inappropriate" relations with his lobbyist--of which there is no proof--I kept thinking, "Hello, what about Bill Clinton???" People have just forgotten the whole gross fiasco about his immorality and his blatant lying about it. There is something seriously wrong with people who want Bill to be the new first lady. Anyway, I thought these pictures were funny :-)

I stayed up really late last night writing my scathing review of the book Shopkeeper's Millennium that I had to write for Dr. Barnhart's class tonight, but then this afternoon Dr. Barnhart cancelled class. I'm glad he cancelled it, but I could have used a few extra hours of sleep last night :-) Unfortunately a few of our professors are going through some hard times with their parents right now. Dr. Barnhart's mom who lives in Ohio was in a serious car accident, and he needs to go up there to check on her, and then today Dr. Reid had to go over to St. Louis because her 95-year-old dad was sent to the hospital. He had surgery on his foot a few weeks ago, and then his foot turned black, and he has been really sick, so she's quite worried about him. I am currently on-call to take care of her kitties if she ends up having to stay there longer than she is planning. I feel bad that they are so stressed about everything--I guess that we students aren't the only ones.

Today I graded papers with Dr. Hardeman for about four hours, and we got some funny test answers as usual. My favorite one was about the Anti-Federalists. The Anti-Federalists were a political party that opposed Federalists such as Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton wrote the famous "Federalist Papers," advocating the ratification of the Constitution). The Anti-Federalists didn't approve of the Constitution because they believed it gave too much power to the central government, so they refused to ratify the Constitution until the Bill of Rights was added. Anyway, one of the identification questions on the test was about the Anti-Federalists. This one student wrote: "The Anti-Federalists opposed the Federalists. They also wrote the Anti-Federalist papers." :-) There's no such thing as the Anti-Federalist papers, but it made Dr. Hardeman and me laugh. Well, I'm off to finish my paper so I can e-mail it to Dr. Barnhart. All of this talk about springtime and blossoms in South Carolina is making me quite envious of the Agate family! We are still marooned in the middle of winter here in Illinois. In fact, we had some freezing rain this evening, and we are currently under a "Snow and Blowing Snow Advisory." Luckily I don't have to go anywhere tonight. I want some blossoms on the trees!

Vandalia Vantage Point

Look at this picture I took of the moon last Wednesday during the lunar eclipse! That was pretty cool to see. Last night the moon looked a little crazy here. It was HUGE and it was kind of a reddish-orange color. Last night Greg and I saw the most exciting movie of all time--Vantage Point!!! It was crazy and intense. By the time the movie was over, all of my muscles were a little sore from being tense the whole time. It wasn't a very long movie--only about 1 hr. and 20 min., but they probably knew that if they made it any longer it could be a risk to people's health--keeping them in suspense for so long :-) It was really very exciting, and it was done in a different format than most movies.

Before going to the movie with Greg, I got to go on a little adventure to the town of Vandalia, Illinois with Laurie and Dan. It's funny that there is a town here called Vandalia because the town right across the Mississippi River from Natchez was called Vidalia--so sometimes I get the names mixed up. As there is in every Illinois town, they have a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Vidalia. You can see Laurie and me with him up there. He is sitting right across the street from the original Illinois state capitol building. Vandalia was the capital of the state until 1839 when it was moved to Springfield. It would seem like in Vandalia they would be kind of mad at Abe because I believe he was the one who was instrumental in moving the state capital from there up to Springfield, but I guess they like him because there was Lincoln stuff everywhere. In fact, we went into an antique store with a lot of random things in it, and I saw this cool, old picture of Abe Lincoln. I looked at the price tag, and it was $15,000!! At first I thought, "This can't be right. It must be $15.00," but it really was $15,000. Supposedly it was an original 1850s print. But that was the only really expensive thing at the store--so I'm a little suspicious :-) The main reason we went to Vandalia was to photograph the Madonna of the Trails statue for the upcoming museum exhibit. You can see her in the second picture up there--with Laurie and me trying to look like interested tourists. We must have done a good job because right after Dan took that picture, a man with a big, long, white beard walked by and said, "Are you all from Colorado?" :-) There is a series of Madonna of the Trails statues across the United States commemorating the pioneer spirit. Ironically, there is no official Madonna of the Trails statue in Utah--the #1 pioneer state--but at least we have a lot of our own statues there to honor the pioneers. I was really, really glad that Laurie wanted to come along because it would have been really weird to spend the day just with Dan. As it was, we all had a good time. It takes about an hour and 20 minutes to get to Vandalia, so it was a good little jaunt. We ate lunch at a funny little diner--and, as it always is at the little restaurants in little towns, the food was very tasty.

Speaking of tasty food, after I got back yesterday Greg came for a visit and we ate dinner at the Thai restaurant here in Charleston. They have exceptionally good food there, and I discovered what I believe to be my new favorite dish last night. I always love the pad Thai noodles and the curry, but last night I decided to go out on a limb and try the dinner special. I can't remember exactly what it was called--it was something like pad su-yum, or pad sa-yum, or pad so-yum. I think it ended in "yum," or maybe I'm just thinking that because it was so yummy! It was a noodle dish with big, fat, pan-seared egg noodles, beef, broccoli, and scrambled eggs, with their "special homemade sauce" on top. It was SOOOOOO good! The sauce was just a tad sweet. I ate my leftovers for lunch today, and now I want some more! After dinner we went to see the totally exciting "Vantage Point" movie, then we came back and had my new favorite treat--cherry chocolate Dr. Pepper floats. I can't find any of the new cherry chocolate Dr. Pepper here in Charleston, so Greg has to bring it from Springfield, but we tried it in the form of a float last night and it was really delicious. We also watched the crazy and exciting #1 Memphis vs. #2 Tennessee basketball game, and Tennessee won at the very end! Memphis previously had a home court winning streak comparable to BYU's, but after getting beat at home last night, BYU has the longest home court winning streak in the NCAA--cool! So, it has been a fun weekend. Greg stayed in Sullivan last night and was going to go to church with me today, but somebody died last night and he had to go take care of the body this morning. At least we got to have fun last night! My compadres wanted to come over to our apartment tonight for an "Oscars party" (they just invite themselves over these days), but thankfully the party has been cancelled due to the fact that we have a 10-page paper due tomorrow in Dr. Barnhart's class--which I don't think anyone had started on before today (because we've had other stuff to do). So, I'm off to write and write and write.