Digital Applications Vacation

Yay--we can now take a vacation from our Digital Applications class until next semester! Hooray! Since it is just a one credit course, it only lasted for half of the semester. We will have the second half of the course next semester, but it will be good to have those extra three hours on Mondays to do other work. The test that we had in class today wasn't too bad.

This morning in our Museum Exhibits class, we ended up having a mutiny of silence. :-) Class had already gone over about 15 minutes, and we were getting very restless. You'd think that two-and-a-half hours would be sufficient time to cover everything, but Mr. Riccio was still talking away. Then he said, "Before we go I want to discuss our other readings about museum exhibit labels." We couldn't believe it--that would surely launch us into another half hour of analyzation, and then it would be time for our afternoon class. Seven hours of class without a break doesn't sit well with people. When he asked us a question about the readings, we all just kind of gave him blank stares. Finally he said, "Okay, we'll talk about it next time." Whew! We made it out of class. I guess Mr. Riccio made up for it though because he let us out of Digital Applications early this afternoon. So I had a couple of extra hours to work with, but I think my body is still trying to get back to 100% health, and I was wearing down, so I crashed at home and took a nap. When I woke up, Alyson was watching the movie "United 93" on TV, so I watched the last part of it with her. It was sooooooo sad!!!! We had to break out a box of tissues for ourselves.

This evening I had LDS Institute class. Institute is a program for college-age students all over the world where they can study gospel-related topics in a classroom setting. The University was kind enough to give us a room on campus on Monday nights so we can have class there. Tonight it was just our teacher, Jerry Cloward, myself, and one other girl, Alisa, but I guess that usually the missionaries come too. We had a good chat tonight. I used to work at the Orem Institute of Religion where we had about 5,000 students, so this is quite different, but it's cool to see the Institute program in action even in areas where there aren't very many Mormons.

After Institute, surprise, surprise--we HA students had another meeting. I've never seen people who liked meetings so much! Tonight we had to discuss research for the exhibit we're putting on next spring about transportation methods in the rural Midwest. I have been assigned the topic of researching early travel routes through Illinois to the West--that's right up my lane! Luckily we put a time cap of one hour on the meeting tonight, which is especially good since tomorrow we're having our usual weekly meeting. Tomorrow will be a crazy day--I have class in the morning, work in the afternoon, and then I need to head up to Monticello to meet with the Piatt County Museum Board about the grant application. Then I have to cruise back down here to C-town for the weekly meeting, but I'm not going to worry if I'm late to that because there will surely be plenty of discussion left for me to sit in on when I get back--no matter what time it is. So tomorrow will consist of a lot of driving and a lot of sitting--whether in class or in meetings. But, I'm glad to be here, and I feel very fortunate to be a part of this program. Well, I'm off to bed!

Summer in the Fall

It is definitely still summer outside! We had a few days in September that felt kind of fall-ish, but this weekend has been even hotter than it was for most of August. Today it got up to about 94 degrees, and it was bright and sunny all day. It's supposed to stay very warm for the next couple of days, but hopefully later this week it will cool down a bit. The high on Tuesday is forcasted to be 81, but that will drop to 61 for a high on Wednesday.

Today was a nice, relaxing day. I think I kind of wore myself out yesterday because I fell asleep at about 11:30 last night and slept until about 10:30 this morning. Don't worry--I didn't sleep through church. We didn't have church today because of General Conference. I was able to watch Conference online, and since we're an hour later than Utah out here, it didn't start until 11:00. It felt really good to just sleep until I woke up, but I can't believe I slept for 11 hours! I better enjoy the rest while I can get it though, because this week is going to be crazy. We have officially named next Sunday, October 14, D-Day--because that's when the Dudley exhibit opens. Basically between now and then, everything has to be printed and set up, so there are probably going to be some late nights and grouchy people. Technically I don't have to stress until October 28 when I do my Dudley presentation, but as I said the other day, since we're all in this together, if one group of people is stressed out, usually we all are.

Today I went back out to the Lincoln farm for a little while to take my pioneer clothes back and make sure all of the broom-makers on duty today were surviving. (The Fall Frolic is a two-day affair, but we only needed to work one of the two days.) I think everyone was even hotter today than we were yesterday. Unfortunately I enjoyed making broom handles on the shaving horse so much yesterday that I managed to break it just before we called it a day. Well, it wasn't really my fault--the wood inside the shaving horse's center post was rotting, and this wasn't the first time that the foot pedal had fallen off. All I did was sit down and put my feet on the pedal, and the pedal came off. So I guess they didn't get many new broom handles made today because it took a while to get the shaving horse fixed. Everyone thought it was funny that I liked doing the broom handles so much--because no one else liked doing it. I guess they weren't too disappointed that the shaving horse was down for part of the day today.

Tonight I went and helped the Dudley exhibit team do some more Photoshop work. Dr. Reid came to help too, after working both days at the Fall Frolic, so that was really nice of her. Luckily there wasn't as much that needed to be done tonight, so we're not still there!! Tomorrow is my last day of Digital Applications class for this semester--yay!!!!! I mean, "Oh rats! I love spending six hours in class on Mondays!" :-) It really will be nice to have Monday afternoons to get work done. Unfortunately we do have to take a test tomorrow though. We've had this one textbook for Digital Applications that there is only one copy of, which has been kept in our classroom. We were joking about hiding it the other day so that Mr. Riccio couldn't take it home to use it in writing questions for the test. We all thought we were just joking, but I guess that Alisha actually did hide it. She meant to get it out the next day, but she forgot about it :-) Oops!

Funnest Fall Frolic Ever!

Today was sooooooooooooooooo much fun!!! We had a great time at the Fall Frolic at the Lincoln Log Cabin. I don't think Charleston has ever seen as many people as there are in town this weekend. It is Family Weekend here, so everyone's parents are in town, and they had a bunch of vendors and craftsmen come to town for the Fall Frolic. I guess it's a pretty big event among historical artisans. What do you think of my pioneer get up? My ancestors would be proud, don't you think? The first picture you see is of me with the first broom I ever made! Then you see me with my expert tutor--Dr. Reid. She can whip out brooms like there's no tomorrow. The next picture is great--there I am on what's called the shaving horse. Before actually making the brooms, we had to shave all of the bark off of these gigantic branches we were supposed to make into broom handles. This was my favorite job of all! For some reason I have a shaving fetish. I love peeling potatoes, carrots, and cucumbers, and as I found out today, shaving bark off of branches. Yes, it's true--you do see me pulling the large blade towards myself, but don't worry--that is how it's supposed to be done. The blade is such that even if you slipped and hit your mid-section, no damage would be done. I also had enough layers of clothing to protect myself, so there were no injuries sustained today. In the next picture you'll see Dr. Reid patiently teaching Laurie and me how to use what's called "the kicker." That's the machine you use to tie the broom corn to the handle using sinew. It was a pretty fun job too, but I liked shaving wood the best. I made two brooms today. They are quite time consuming. This morning it was Laurie and me manning the broom station with Dr. Reid, and then this afternoon, as you can see in the last picture, it was Kristen, Angie, and me with Dr. Reid. We all had a great time together, and I have decided that if I had lived back in the day, in 1845 as we pretended it was today, I would have made brooms for a living. A lot of people were really interested in how brooms are made, and we had a fun time showing people how much work went into making something that was then used to do work.

It was super, super, super, duper hot out there today, especially in our hefty dresses (by the way, how do you like my Cinderella dress? It doesn't look too bad in pictures. It's in real-life that it looks extra funny). We drank a lot of water and lemonade. It was still better than if it had been rainy though. There were all kinds of fun arts and crafts being demonstrated. My favorite was the chair maker--probably since I've been learning so much about chairs lately. There was a gunsmith, a blacksmith, several potters, a palm reader, a sewing machine maker, a lot of knitters, and plenty of good food for everyone. They fed us exceptionally well today. For lunch we had ham and beans with cornbread. Then the post-frolic dinner tonight was awesome! They served a bunch of food that had been made there at the cabin today. We had roast beef, okra, potatoes and other veggies, pickled eggs, homemade cottage cheese, and the best part of the whole day . . . fresh homemade apple pie and molasses cake! Can you think of a more perfect fall meal? Everybody was really nice and seemed to have a fun day. People thought it was cool that we were out there volunteering today as part of our class. I think it would be hard to have a more fun class project that what we did today!

Tilford Deadly

Tilford Dudley is going to bring about the destruction of the HA Class of 2008! Just kidding, but I think Deadly is a good last name for him. Being the only person in the class who knows how to use Photoshop has its advantages--it makes me popular, but it also has its disadvantages--it makes me the only one who can do certain things for the Dudley exhibit. Even though I'm not officially on the exhibit team (since I'm doing one of the presentations), I was recruited by them today because they needed some serious graphic help. We're feeling the crunch because we have to install the exhibit next Saturday--and everything still needs to be printed! I have to admit though, this is a very effective way to teach us how to do this stuff--we are all learning quickly, and if we survive this, we'll have some real experience under our belts. If we survive--that's the key. :-) I escaped earlier this evening, but I got a phone call from Kristen who sounded so utterly desperate that I didn't have the heart not to go back. I just got home, and it's now almost 12:30 in the morning--but I figure that we're all in this together so either we'll all go down as one or we'll help each other get through this program.

I am currently trying to read up on making brooms for tomorrow's fall frolic at the Lincoln Log Cabin. Did you know that the introduction of broom corn to the United States has been attributed to Benjamin Franklin? He gets credit for everything :-) In this article broom corn is referred to as "the plant that swept America." Ha ha. It has turned from fall into summer again here in Illinois, so I have a feeling that we're going to melt tomorrow--especially in our pioneer dresses! It's forcasted to be 92 degrees tomorrow! What happened to fall? Isn't this supposed to be a FALL frolic? I hear that it's been super chilly back home in Utah. Too bad it can't be nice mild, crisp, cool fall weather everywhere right now. I will surely have many adventures to report tomorrow after the festivities. I'm supposed to report to Lincoln Log at 9:45 a.m. at which time I will receive a 10-minute broom-making tutorial from Dr. Reid, then I will work until 4:00 in the afternoon. We will get to take breaks and walk around to see other people's crafts. They are also feeding us lunch and dinner cooked in a Dutch oven! Heck, I'd dress up like a chicken if it meant getting Dutch oven food! Dinner is at 5:00 tomorrow evening, so I'm thinking it will be quite a long day.

Speaking of a long day, today was a long day. This morning Kristen, Aly, and I went out surveying houses. Remember how I said that somebody got attacked in that neighborhood? Well, everyone there is a little edgy--and I certainly don't blame them. A lady wearing black Hawaiian shorts came out and questioned us today because she thought we looked suspicious. Aly did look kind of like an FBI agent in her shades and her black shirt. Then I worked with Dr. Hardeman all afternoon, and though we did make more headway than we have in the past (we made it through grading two papers and four tests in three hours!), he was falling asleep more than ever today. I had to keep waking him up, but the problem was he didn't know he had gone to sleep. So I would ask him if he wanted to stand up and walk around, but he would say that he was fine--then the next minute he would be snoring. Sometimes he would be telling me what to write on one of the student's papers, but he would be half asleep, so what he was saying didn't make sense. :-) Actually, come to think of it, what the students were writing didn't make sense either! In an essay about the events leading up to the Revolutionary War, one student was talking about Rosie O'Donnell--comparing her to the Whig party in reference to the Bill of Rights. This made no sense. Needless to say, by the time I finished today, I was a bit exasperated. Dr. Hardeman offered to pop out his prosthetic eye to show me, but I told him I wasn't really in the mood to see a prosthetic eye today. Now I'm so pooped that I don't really feel like going to bed. But I will because I know I need to. I think my days of having a normal eating and sleeping schedule are no more--at least until next April. It's all good though!

Digital Dudley

I was able to astound everybody last night with my sweet Photoshop skills! :-) I made the promo poster pictured at the left for the upcoming Dudley festivities. Yesterday Dr. Reid look totally exhausted, and she still needed to finish the script for the Dudley exhibit. I felt really bad for her, and I knew she had a lot on her plate, so I volunteered to do the promo materials. She was ecstatic, and when I whipped out this poster at 9:30 last night (she was still at her office working), she was so excited. Today I helped her out with the Coles County Historical Society newsletter, then we made a couple hundred copies of everything, and I took them over to Norma Winkelblack (that's really her name!) who is in charge of doing mailings for the historical society. Dr. Reid was really glad that she didn't have to worry about doing that stuff, and I was glad I could help. Besides, I like a good excuse to play around in Photoshop, and it was fun to hang out with Dr. Reid while we pulled everything together. She is super funny! She keeps finding more funny stuff about the Dudley family. She came across an article from the Washington Post about Rick Dudley (the slightly bitter son) entitled "Rick Dudley: His Ship Blew In." I guess that he and his wife live on the coast in Washington state, and back in the 1970s, during a hurricane, this random boat blew by. They roped it in, fixed it up, and hung out on it with their dogs. I believe Rick is sort of the free-spirited type. Dr. Reid also discovered that Tilford's wife, Martha, was a children's book author. She had this series of kids' books called "Bad Mousie." How great is that! Dr. Reid ordered the books over inter-library loan, and all of us students decided that we'll have to do a Freudian reading of the books to see if said "bad mousie" may actually be a symbolic representation of her husband. :-)

Today in my Historic Preservation class we talked about the National Park Service and its responsibility to protect natural, cultural, and historic resources. Yay! I love the Park Service, and I love that I have a class where we get to talk about it. Later this evening, we all got together to study for our Digital Applications test on Monday. The bad news is that we have a test on Monday. The good news is that Digital Applications is only a one credit class, so this Monday is our last day of that class! I mean, not that I don't enjoy that class. It's just that the extra three hours on Monday afternoons will come in very handy. And, just having 15 credits of classes doesn't sound quite as menacing as 16.

Friday is typically my "day off," but it will not be so tomorrow. In the morning Aly, Kristen, and I have to go out and survey some houses (which we are always going to do in groups because someone got attacked by a guy in a ski mask the other day in the very neighborhood we're surveying!), then I'm going to go help Dr. Hardeman grade tests and papers for the afternoon. We only made it through one paper the other day when I was helping him, though we did get quite a bit of reading done in this book he's researching. Well, okay, I got quite a bit of reading done, and he took a little nap. :-) I would break into a coughing fit every now and then (which wasn't too hard to do), which would wake him up, but then he'd fall back to sleep again. I don't blame him--it wasn't the most exciting material we were reading. Dr. Hardeman has been sick, his assistant Ellen has been sick, and then I got the bug, so at least we don't have to worry about making each other sick there in the office.

Speaking of the office, tonight after our study session, everyone wanted to watch "The Office" on TV. Several of my classmates are obsessed with the show. They came over to our apartment to watch it because we have the "comfiest couch." My favorite part of the show this evening was when the boss guy was driving around in a rental car with a GPS, and when he came to a stop sign, the GPS said "turn right." He started to turn right, but the guy riding with him said, "No, she means veer right up ahead." The boss guy was insistent that if the GPS said turn right, he should. He said, "Maybe she knows a short cut." The guy in the passenger seat said, "No, there's a lake right there!" But the boss guy hit the gas and said, "The GPS knows best. She'll get us through this! We must do as she says!" Then they drove into the lake and ended up having to swim ashore. It was sooooooo funny! Oh, and good news--I'm getting a $100/month raise! Yay!! The dean of the college really took the First Choice award thing seriously, and it turns out that we HA grad assistants were getting paid less each month than the regular History grad. assistants, so the dean agreed to give us all more money for our assistantships. That will be a big help!