One Down, Fourteen to Go (for this semester)!

Whew! I have successfully survived one week of graduate school. I know that the week isn't officially over yet, but our last class is on Thursday, so technically my weekend has already begun. This sounds like a nice thing, however, one must realize that I will not have any more ordinary weekends--my weekends will be spent reading, writing, assembling museum exhibits, visiting Monticello, reading, and reading. Then I will take a three-hour break on Sunday to go to church :-) I think it will be all right though, once I kind of get a routine down.

I also survived conflict resolution (aka anger management) last night. It actually wasn't scary at all, and we left feeling pretty much the same about each other as when we got there (we all liked each other anyway). We ended up just sitting around and talking about different sources of conflict (i.e. someone is a control freak), and how to resolve these issues (i.e. tell them that you don't like them being a control freak). Then we did some case studies on how to resolve conflict. My favorite example was the 6-toed cat issue at Ernest Hemmingway's house in Key West. I guess the neighbors are up in arms about all of the cats wandering around the site, so we had to decide how we would smooth things over. We basically decided that we would tell the neighbors it's all part of the ambiance, so they should keep quiet (I don't think that would solve much). My two cents on the matter stated the fact that there are already chickens running all over the place in Key West, so why not cats too? Maybe the cats can eat some of the chickens and help clean the place up! :-)

Today I found out what my graduate assistantship will be. I had been planning on being the "techy," as the person is called who does all of the website stuff for the department, or at least working for one of the Historical Administration professors, but instead I was assigned to work for one of the regular history professors named Dr. Martin Hardeman. He specializes in 19th-century US history, including the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Southern history, so I think it will be really fun to help him with stuff. The other day I passed him in the hall (I didn't know who he was) and I heard him saying something to one of the other professors about the Mormons being driven out of Illinois, so maybe he likes Mormons. I'm going to meet with him tomorrow morning to find out what he wants me to do this semester. At first I wondered why they didn't assign me to one of the HA professors, but then I realized maybe it's a good thing--because we're going to be seeing plenty of each other.

Alyson and I keep getting mail for the previous tenant of our apartment--and it's a good thing we're nice people, because if someone had wanted to steal his identity, they would certainly have all of the tools--bank statements, credit reports, grades, checks, etc. But we're not going to steal his identity, so we give all of his mail to the managers. Well, that's about it for today. I'm going to try to post the latest pictures of the apartment soon. I hope everyone is doing well, and I'll let you know about my assistantship assignment tomorrow.

Anger Management

Alyson and I are anxiously awaiting tonight's conflict resolution, or, as one of our classmates accidentally called it today, anger management training. We figured that the two are pretty much the same thing. We'll see how that goes. All that the professors will tell us is that we're going to be best friends after this evening (that scares me, greatly!). Today was a fun day of classes. This morning we had Historical Organization Administration, in which we will learn about how museums, historic sites, and professional historical organizations run, as well as how to write research grants. I have a little bit of grant writing experience from my time at BYU, but for this class we're actually going to be helping a museum write a grant proposal. We were all assigned different museums, and mine is the Piatt County Museum located in Monticello, Illinois. I didn't even know there was a place called Monticello, Illinois, but it doesn't surprise me because in Natchez we decided that there must be a town named Monticello in every state. There's for sure one in Utah, one in Mississippi, one in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, New York, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, and now we know, Illinois. I guess that the Piatt County Museum is in the process of revamping its whole image. They've received a barn from the University of Illinois, and they're going to be giving barn tours in October. I have no idea what the proposed grant will be for, but I'll meet with the museum people to find out. Maybe we could buy some cows for the barn or something like that? (just kidding) It should be a really good experience!

This afternoon we had our Material Culture class, where we will be learning about decorative arts in America. I think it will be a super hard but super helpful and fun class. For class today, we met at a house belonging to some people who live just outside of Charleston. They have been collecting antiques for years, and so we had our first lesson in identifying wood type, era of production, and origin. I'm pretty good at identifying things made of walnut now. Dr. Reid teaches that class, and she seems like a really, really cool/knowledgeable person, so I'm excited for the course.

I found out in kind of a roundabout way, through the grapevine, that one of the other students in the program is a Mormon! BUT, she cannot know that I know she's a Mormon because she doesn't want people to know she's a Mormon. She's from Illinois, so she doesn't have the Utah factor as a giveaway. The difference between the two of us is that she wouldn't be caught dead in a BYU t-shirt, whereas I proudly wear my cougar gear. Also, her creative way of telling people she doesn't drink alcohol involves something about her family having a history of alcoholism and she doesn't want to take the risk of becoming an alcoholic. I find it's easier to just tell people that Mormons don't drink alcohol--end of story. Oh well, different strokes for different folks. I won't let her know that I know she's a Mormon unless she decides to tell me sometime. I thought it was kind of a coincidence, though, that we both ended up in the program at the same time. Well, I'm off to anger management--wish me luck!

My New Favorite Class

Hi everyone! I do have more pictures of the apartment, but I've got to run back over to campus in a little while, so I'll need to wait until later to put them up. This morning I had my Interpreting History for Public Audiences class, and I think it will be my favorite of them all--probably because it deals with historical research, writing, and other stuff I'm really interested in and have experience with from working in Natchez. Call me crazy, but I love writing papers, and so I'm excited about the research paper for this class. This class is also the one for which we'll be doing the Dudley project. I still have no idea what's going on with that whole thing, but I do know that by October we'll be having people lining up at the Dud's house to see something, so a lot is surely going to have to happen between now and then. I'm always up for a good challenge though :-)

Yesterday I forgot to tell you about making a business card holder out of paper in my museum exhibits class. Who knew that museum exhibit people do stuff like that? We were learning about scaling drawings up to larger sizes, and we had to measure and assemble our own paper card holder. Mine actually turned out pretty well, and I have it sitting here on my desk with business cards in it! Today I just had one class, but then tomorrow I have two again. The Baumans (from church) invited me over for dinner tonight, so that should be fun. Tomorrow night all of the students in my program have to go to something called Conflict Resolution training. Our professors told us that after working with each other for two semesters in such an intense program, we students are sure to get sick of each other, so we need to learn now, while we still all like each other, how to deal with other personality types. Everytime one of the professors talks about Conflict Resolution training, they get a big smile on their face, so I have no idea what this training will entail. They'll probably tie all of us up and throw us in a swimming pool to see if we can work together to get out or something like that (hopefully not).

First Day of School

Whoa! Today kind of felt like my first day of kindergarten all over again--a lot of uncertainty and anticipation. Now that the day is over, I am totally overwhelmed, but it's okay because I'm overwhelmed to the point that I don't feel overwhelmed. Does that make sense? It's like there's so much to do that I know I can't worry about it--I need to just take it one step at a time. (At least that's what I'm telling myself.) I think it will be a really good semester though--I'm sure to learn a lot and gain some valuable experience. This morning we had History Museum Exhibits for a few hours, then this afternoon we had Digital Applications for Museums. Tomorrow we have Interpreting History for Public Audiences, which should be especially interesting. After class today Alyson and I went over to the workout room here at the apartments to decompress a little. Now I'm going to eat some dinner and read, read, read!

My New Digs

Finally, here it is--the new bedroom! In the first picture you can see the area where I'll be spending most of my time: at my desk and in bed (probably more time at the desk than asleep). Then you can see my little hallway that goes into my ginormous bathroom, which is kind of hard to see the full effect of in the third picture, but as least it gives you an idea. Alyson is asleep right now, and I don't want to disturb her, so I'll wait until tomorrow to take pictures of the rest of the apartment, but I think you'll all love it. Also, I realized I hadn't put any pictures from the Michigan trip up yet, so here I am at Gerald Ford's grave on the grounds of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in downtown Grand Rapids. I can't believe that was only a week ago--it feels like about seven months ago!