Sunday, August 26, 2007
Fortune Cookie?
Last night Alyson and I went and tried Charleston's one-and-only Thai restaurant: Bangkok Thai. It was surprisingly delicious! Who would have thought that out in the middle of Illinois, there would be a really good Thai restaurant? That was so cool of Aunt Karalie to treat us to dinner! It is sure nice when people send you money for food (hint hint!--just kidding). Alyson and I had some spring rolls, Pad Thai noodles, massaman curry, and for dessert: mangoes and sticky rice. Yum! They gave us some fortune cookies after dinner, but my fortune didn't make me very happy. It said, "You will make many changes before settling satisfactorily." Oh great--we all know how much I dislike change! At least is says that at some point I will settle satisfactorily. We ran into three of our friends from our program, Laurie, Kristen, and Catherine at the Thai place, which was fun. Charleston is a small enough town with few enough restaurants that there's a pretty good chance you'll see someone you know if you go out to eat. Church was fun today, and I didn't even get lost in the cornfields on my way. Time hasn't been going by very quickly these days. I can't believe I've only been here for two weeks--it feels like it's been about seven years. At this rate, by the end of the semester, I will feel like I've been here for 98 years!
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Tacos and Tornadoes
Hi everyone! Yesterday morning it was all sunny here, but in the afternoon, we got some nasty weather here. There was a band of thunderstorms that stretched clear up into Michigan, and we were kind of on the southern end of it. There weren't really any tornadoes here, but at about 4:30 yesterday afternoon, it got really dark outside, and the wind was blowing all of the corn over, and it was raining so hard that you couldn't even see across the courtyard here at the apartments. There was lightning everywhere, but it blew through pretty quickly. Alyson and I decided that it was a good night to camp out here, so I made some tacos (which were quite delicious, if I do say so myself), and we watched "Princess Diaries 2." Last night, it was so quiet upstairs, that it almost made it hard to sleep (knock on wood)--I had gotten used to sleeping with a pillow over my head. Maybe the police incident did the trick--we can only hope. Today Alyson and I are just doing homework and hanging out. We even made omelets today, which were also delicious. Aunt Karalie, who is always making sure I have tasty cuisine available, no matter how far from home I am, sent me some money to go to the local Thai restaurant for dinner. Thank you Aunt Karalie! She looked the restaurant up online and scouted out the menu for me so that I know just what to get. Alyson and I think we'll go try some Thai food this evening. The weather here is better today, but it did rain quite a bit last night and this morning. We now have a lake in the courtyard outside! Some birds were hanging out there this afternoon. I wonder how long the lake will stay--it looks quite substantial. Well, I'm off to hit the books.
Friday, August 24, 2007
My New Job
Today I got to go meet my new employer, Dr. Martin Hardeman in the history department at EIU. I will be his graduate assistant and will work anywhere from 15-19 hours per week. He is a very nice man and is excited that I have an interest in Civil War history, history of the South, and historical research. In addition to assisting with grading papers, he is going to have me help him do research for an article he is writing about the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. One of the debates took place here in Charleston--that's the city's claim to fame (also that Abe Lincoln's dad and step mom lived right outside of town). I think I will learn a lot from Dr. Hardeman, and I hope I can be of help to him. He was born blind, but had his eyes operated on when he was a baby, so he had partial sight for a number of years, but has since lost that partial sight and is now completely blind. He gets around remarkably well, but says he'll rely on me for reading and typing things for him. He has a full-time assistant named Ellen who is also really nice, and on Monday we're going to figure out what my work schedule will be. Here's a coincidence--Dr. Hardeman went to grad. school at the University of Chicago with one of my BYU professors, Dr. Mary Richards! It's definitely a small world. He was excited when I told him that she taught my History of the American South class, my senior capstone research course, and also my readings seminar on American slavery.
Both Dr. Hardeman and Ellen, as well as three other people this past week, have told me that I have a slight Southern drawl. I tell them that it's just their imagination, and if they were to listen to someone with a real Southern drawl, they would realize that I don't really have one. (One of the other people who told me I have a Southern accent was the anger management lady.)
Several people have asked if we got hit here by the bad weather that blew through Chicago yesterday. Fortunately we are far enough south that we didn't get in on the nasty tornadoes and flooding, but supposedly it's going to get a little stormy here tonight. I learned in Mississippi that if weather.com says "a few thunderstorms may be severe," they are usually correct. That's what it says for Charleston tonight, so we'll see what happens. I feel bad for the people up in the northern part of the state though--they got hammered yesterday, so hopefully it won't rain up there anymore today.
So, last night I finally snapped. I realize that college kids will be college kids, and it's fun to have parties every now and then, but I was getting sick and tired of the nasty music our lovely neighbors upstairs had blaring for the past five nights. At about 2:00 in the morning, it sounded like they were throwing stuff around, things were crashing to the floor, people were stomping around and yelling, and the music was still blaring. I'm pretty sure there was a whole crowd of drunk kids up there. At one point someone was bouncing a basketball in their kitchen. So I played the part of the party pooper and did as the apartment management had instructed us to do in this situation, and I called the local police department. I also yelled "You guys are going down!" but they couldn't hear me. The PD sent an officer out to tell the kids to shut up, and it seemed to work, because it soon quieted down. Sometimes you just have to play the part of the bad guy I guess. I'm usually pretty easy-going about things like that, but the little sleep I'm going to get this semester is too valuable to be interrupted by the punks upstairs. Maybe if I wasn't taking 16 hours of grad. school classes, I wouldn't be so grouchy about the whole deal. Besides, don't those kids ever sleep? Can they seriously function on zero hours of sleep?
Both Dr. Hardeman and Ellen, as well as three other people this past week, have told me that I have a slight Southern drawl. I tell them that it's just their imagination, and if they were to listen to someone with a real Southern drawl, they would realize that I don't really have one. (One of the other people who told me I have a Southern accent was the anger management lady.)
Several people have asked if we got hit here by the bad weather that blew through Chicago yesterday. Fortunately we are far enough south that we didn't get in on the nasty tornadoes and flooding, but supposedly it's going to get a little stormy here tonight. I learned in Mississippi that if weather.com says "a few thunderstorms may be severe," they are usually correct. That's what it says for Charleston tonight, so we'll see what happens. I feel bad for the people up in the northern part of the state though--they got hammered yesterday, so hopefully it won't rain up there anymore today.
So, last night I finally snapped. I realize that college kids will be college kids, and it's fun to have parties every now and then, but I was getting sick and tired of the nasty music our lovely neighbors upstairs had blaring for the past five nights. At about 2:00 in the morning, it sounded like they were throwing stuff around, things were crashing to the floor, people were stomping around and yelling, and the music was still blaring. I'm pretty sure there was a whole crowd of drunk kids up there. At one point someone was bouncing a basketball in their kitchen. So I played the part of the party pooper and did as the apartment management had instructed us to do in this situation, and I called the local police department. I also yelled "You guys are going down!" but they couldn't hear me. The PD sent an officer out to tell the kids to shut up, and it seemed to work, because it soon quieted down. Sometimes you just have to play the part of the bad guy I guess. I'm usually pretty easy-going about things like that, but the little sleep I'm going to get this semester is too valuable to be interrupted by the punks upstairs. Maybe if I wasn't taking 16 hours of grad. school classes, I wouldn't be so grouchy about the whole deal. Besides, don't those kids ever sleep? Can they seriously function on zero hours of sleep?
Thursday, August 23, 2007
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.
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.
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