The plot thickens! There is a labor union on campus called UPI, and today Catherine and I were informed that all of the UPI members, which I understand includes a large number of the faculty, have been notified about and encouraged to attend Sunday's presentation about Tilford Dudley and his work with labor unions. Hmmmmm, it's cool that there is all of this interest in the program, but the million dollar question is: where are we going to put everyone, and how is Norma Winkelblack, the president of the Coles County Historical Society, going to make enough cookies and punch for all of these people? The Dudley House really is not very big. We were joking today that we could close down 7th Street and hold a street meeting outside with megaphones :-) The only thing we have going for us is that there is a Chicago Bears game on Sunday afternoon, and people here get pretty fanatical about their Bears, so hopefully a lot of them will stay home to watch the game. I mean, it would be cool to have a lot of people there, but too many would be a little hard to manage.
Today I've been trying to hammer everything into place for my part of the presentation, then tomorrow night Catherine and I are going to put all of our stuff together and have a practice run. Everything is coming together really well--it's just that there is sooooooo much information to sift through, and the hard part is putting it together in a way that makes sense to people who don't already have a lot of background information about these topics. (Especially since I don't have a lot of background information about these topics!!) But, everything seems to be coming together. In fact, I think it's going to be such a good presentation that everyone will start calling him Tilford Studley! Family issues aside, Tilford really did do a lot of work for people during the New Deal years. Catherine and I are a little nervous because this is the final Dudley lecture, and our topic covers the fruition of all of T-Dud's work. We are basically giving the culminating lecture that is supposed to get at the "meat" of his work and explain the significance of his life. No pressure there! It's okay though--because I have been learning a lot and the previous experience I've had with presenting at conferences has been coming in handy. Most of the other students haven't ever done anything like this before, so I've been able to offer some good advice based on what I've learned in the past.
Today after class, I went to the Charleston Public Library to the genealogy room to look up some stuff about Charleston during the Great Depression. There were three ladies working there in the genealogy room, and they were just tickled to pieces to have a student come in there. They were really funny and nice, and they told me all of their stories about living through the Great Depression and surviving the dust storms in Kansas. It was all very interesting. Tonight we students are going to go hear Dr. Small give a presentation about Nathaniel Hawthorne's use of architecture in The Scarlet Letter, and then we have to meet to work on a Museum Exhibits project--it never ends!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Lincoln Gardens
Tonight, as we students were all frantically reading Historic Preservation articles for tomorrow, we realized that none of us had really eaten truly substantial meals for a while. So, we thought we'd go try the "family restaurant" called Lincoln Gardens (of course it has "Lincoln" in the name!). It is a funny place. It's definitely some "down home cookin'," but I think I got spoiled with the down home cookin' in Mississippi. Tonight's meal was okay, but it wasn't anything awesome. It was fun to go to dinner though and just hang out for a little while. In a few minutes I'm off to go vi sting teaching--our last visit for the month.
Today's presentation in Museum Administration went really well--Mrs. Miller loved the MET Memory game, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the Oh Henry! candy bars. It's good to have that presentation under my belt, and now I need to finish getting the T-Dud presentation ready. Speaking of which, we found out that there are going to be at least 60 or 70 people there at the presentation on Sunday--since that Political Science professor has offered extra credit to his students (and he has about 200 students). I have no idea how everyone will fit inside the little Dudley house--we've had about 30 people the last couple of Sundays, and it was pretty crowded. Now I'm totally feeling the pressure since there are going to be so many people there! Oh well, it's all good. Dr. Reid is very excited. I can't say the same for Catherine and myself, but it will be all good.
Speaking of Dr. Reid, today we figured out that she visited Natchez during June of 2006. She was in Baton Rouge for a conference and decided to take a day to come up and see Natchez. I told her that I was there at that time, so we decided that we must have crossed paths but not known it at the time. It makes me wonder--how many people that we see each day will we end up meeting at a later date? Hmmmm. It would have been really funny if I had taken Dr. Reid on a tour of Melrose! She said that she drove past Melrose, but the park had already closed for the day. The other day on my date with Greg, we decided that he and I would have been in Nauvoo at the same time during the summer of 2002. After I graduated from high school, Mom and I took a trip back to Nauvoo to attend the temple open house. Turns out that Greg was a security guard at the open house and checked everybody's bags before they went inside, so we probably saw each other then but didn't know it! It's kind of funny how that all works. Speaking of Greg, he called today, and we're going to do something this Saturday, AND he's planning on coming to the Dudley stuff on Sunday--so I'd better get everything ready before Saturday!
Today's presentation in Museum Administration went really well--Mrs. Miller loved the MET Memory game, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the Oh Henry! candy bars. It's good to have that presentation under my belt, and now I need to finish getting the T-Dud presentation ready. Speaking of which, we found out that there are going to be at least 60 or 70 people there at the presentation on Sunday--since that Political Science professor has offered extra credit to his students (and he has about 200 students). I have no idea how everyone will fit inside the little Dudley house--we've had about 30 people the last couple of Sundays, and it was pretty crowded. Now I'm totally feeling the pressure since there are going to be so many people there! Oh well, it's all good. Dr. Reid is very excited. I can't say the same for Catherine and myself, but it will be all good.
Speaking of Dr. Reid, today we figured out that she visited Natchez during June of 2006. She was in Baton Rouge for a conference and decided to take a day to come up and see Natchez. I told her that I was there at that time, so we decided that we must have crossed paths but not known it at the time. It makes me wonder--how many people that we see each day will we end up meeting at a later date? Hmmmm. It would have been really funny if I had taken Dr. Reid on a tour of Melrose! She said that she drove past Melrose, but the park had already closed for the day. The other day on my date with Greg, we decided that he and I would have been in Nauvoo at the same time during the summer of 2002. After I graduated from high school, Mom and I took a trip back to Nauvoo to attend the temple open house. Turns out that Greg was a security guard at the open house and checked everybody's bags before they went inside, so we probably saw each other then but didn't know it! It's kind of funny how that all works. Speaking of Greg, he called today, and we're going to do something this Saturday, AND he's planning on coming to the Dudley stuff on Sunday--so I'd better get everything ready before Saturday!
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Night at the Museum
Tonight I am surely going to dream about the movie "Night at the Museum" because I've been thinking and writing about museums all day in preparation for my presentation about Henry Watson Kent tomorrow. For Museum Administration, we were all assigned a "museum master" to research and make a presentation about. I happened to end up with the most obscure of all museum masters! It took me a while to understand why exactly Henry Watson Kent was so important, but I guess he is. He was the secretary to the Board of Trustees at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for about 30 years. During that time he developed systems for organizing collections and really stressed educational programs and public outreach. So I guess he's cool. The trick is that I need to speak about him in front of the class tomorrow for 10 minutes--and I only have about 5 minutes-worth of info., but I have a wonderful solution. Everyone likes games, right? So, I devised this way to play concentration, or "MET Memory," as I call it, in my Power Point presentation. It's pretty neat--you can click on a box, and then a painting from the MET's collection pops up, then you can go back, click on another box, and try to match the painting with its title and artist. Mrs. Miller was very specific about our 10 minute time limit though, so I didn't make the game very large or complicated, and I can cut it short if need be. The best part of the presentation will be the candy! Since I will be talking about HENRY Watson Kent, it is only appropriate that we will be eating "Oh Henry!" candy bars. :-)
This morning we had our Historical Interpretation class with Dr. Barnhart. When he got to class, his voice sounded really scratchy. He announced that he wasn't feeling well and that in order to save what he could of his voice for his two classes tomorrow, we would "only meet for a couple of minutes to touch base on things," and then he would let us go work on stuff. Well, in typical Dr. Barnhart fashion, the "couple of minutes" turned into an hour. We were all kind of smiling at each other in class because he would get started talking about something, then he would totally change topics and remember something else he wanted to say, so he ended up talking for 60 straight minutes. Poor Dr. Barnhart--hopefully he can get his voice back. I'm quite impressed though, that even with no voice, he can still talk for an hour! I really like all of our professors--they're all cool and have funny senses of humor.
This afternoon I helped Dr. Hardeman grade some papers. He was very tired today and kept falling asleep, but the crazy thing today was that even when he would stand up, which usually keeps him alert, he would fall asleep--standing up! It was amazing--I didn't know that people could do that and still keep their balance.
Tonight we had our weekly HA meeting. I forgot to say that last week our meeting only lasted for one hour--it was incredible, and I fear that we will never have that short of a meeting again. Tonight's meeting went from 8:00 until almost 10:00, and I think that the only thing we accomplish at these meetings is making ourselves more stressed out. Theoretically the meetings are supposed to keep all of us on the same page, but I think we actually all end up in different books! When I think of everything I have to do between now and Sunday, I get totally stressed out, so I'll try not to think about everything all at once. I tried writing down a "To Do" list last night, but it got too long, so I gave up. There is not enough paper in the whole world to contain this week's "To Do" list, let alone a list for the rest of the semester! Would anyone like to volunteer to come cook for me, eat for me, do my laundry, grocery shop for me, exercise for me, balance my checkbook, and, most importantly sleep for me? That would be wonderful and very helpful :-) I could also use some help getting through some books and writing some papers. I'll just do as Mom and Dad say and take everything one day at a time--then it all seems more doable.
This morning we had our Historical Interpretation class with Dr. Barnhart. When he got to class, his voice sounded really scratchy. He announced that he wasn't feeling well and that in order to save what he could of his voice for his two classes tomorrow, we would "only meet for a couple of minutes to touch base on things," and then he would let us go work on stuff. Well, in typical Dr. Barnhart fashion, the "couple of minutes" turned into an hour. We were all kind of smiling at each other in class because he would get started talking about something, then he would totally change topics and remember something else he wanted to say, so he ended up talking for 60 straight minutes. Poor Dr. Barnhart--hopefully he can get his voice back. I'm quite impressed though, that even with no voice, he can still talk for an hour! I really like all of our professors--they're all cool and have funny senses of humor.
This afternoon I helped Dr. Hardeman grade some papers. He was very tired today and kept falling asleep, but the crazy thing today was that even when he would stand up, which usually keeps him alert, he would fall asleep--standing up! It was amazing--I didn't know that people could do that and still keep their balance.
Tonight we had our weekly HA meeting. I forgot to say that last week our meeting only lasted for one hour--it was incredible, and I fear that we will never have that short of a meeting again. Tonight's meeting went from 8:00 until almost 10:00, and I think that the only thing we accomplish at these meetings is making ourselves more stressed out. Theoretically the meetings are supposed to keep all of us on the same page, but I think we actually all end up in different books! When I think of everything I have to do between now and Sunday, I get totally stressed out, so I'll try not to think about everything all at once. I tried writing down a "To Do" list last night, but it got too long, so I gave up. There is not enough paper in the whole world to contain this week's "To Do" list, let alone a list for the rest of the semester! Would anyone like to volunteer to come cook for me, eat for me, do my laundry, grocery shop for me, exercise for me, balance my checkbook, and, most importantly sleep for me? That would be wonderful and very helpful :-) I could also use some help getting through some books and writing some papers. I'll just do as Mom and Dad say and take everything one day at a time--then it all seems more doable.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Woolly Mammoths and Winter Weather
It's starting to feel more like winter outside today--it's been cold and rainy all day, but later this week it should be nice again. I popped a picture up here of a pretty fall tree out behind the castle here at school today. Even though it was a dreary day outside, the leaves were still bright and beautiful.
Today for our Museum Exhibits class, we went on a field trip up to Taylor Studios--great name--in Rantoul, Illinois. It is about an hour away from Charleston. Taylor Studios is a fabrication company that makes exhibits for museums all across the country. In fact, they just shipped some exhibit materials out to the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake City! They're doing a project right now for Gettysburg NMP, the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, the Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans, and a whole bunch of other places. They are a really neat company! You can check out their website here: http://www.taylorstudios.com/. Everyone who works there is very nice, and we got to meet with their CEO today who is especially nice. She said that if any of us want a job there she'll hire us. It would be a cool place, but would one want to live in Rantoul, Illinois? Hmmmm, maybe. Our favorite part of our tour today was seeing the LIFE-SIZE woolly mammoths they're making! In the picture here, we are posing in front of the momma mammoth, but she's not quite done yet. At this time she has not hair on her head, and her body is separated from her legs. Her legs are gigantic though! I think they don't have her legs on yet because she would be too tall for the building she's stored in. They also had a cute little baby woolly mammoth who was probably about six-feet tall. It was a really cool place, and we had a fun time there. I tried reading New Deal books in the van on the way back to C-town, in preparation for the T-Dud presentation on Sunday, but the books were terribly boring and I kept falling asleep on Angie's shoulder.
This afternoon I did more T-Dud stuff, then went to Institute class this evening. I was the only student who showed up, so class was nice and short, and then I went over to the library and read microfilm for a couple of hours. The funniest thing I found was when a senator from Michigan spoke angrily of the "glib-tongued, smiling and curly-haired boys of the NLRB." Tilford was the trial examiner for the NLRB at this time, so he was surely one of the "boys of the NLRB" to which the senator referred--though T-Dud didn't have curly hair, but "glib-tongued" is probably a good way to describe him. :-)
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Fabulous Fall
Wow--today was a pretty fall day! It was about 80 degrees and sunny outside. It was, however, a little too windy. Today on my way to and from church, which includes about a 10-mile stretch of open prairie land, my car was almost blowing away, but it didn't. I can't believe how pretty all of the leaves are right now. It's supposed to change a bit tomorrow and turn about 15 degrees cooler and perhaps rain a little. It should be in the 60's through most of next week though, so that will be nice. It sounds like a different story at home in Utah! I can't believe that it snowed so much last night!! Winter seems to have come to the West early. I'm sure we'll get our turn out here eventually.
So I went to church today and had a nice time there. Greg stayed at his parents' house last night, so he came to church down here today. We had a good time chatting, and he said that if no one dies this week, thus mandating a viewing next Sunday, he'll plan on coming to my Dudley presentation. So, let's cross our fingers and hope he's free next weekend--all of the girls in the program are dying (pun intended) to meet him! Speaking of Dudley presentations, we had #2 today at the Dud's house. Laurie and Alisha presented today, and we finally got to meet the mysterious Matt, or the boyfriend that we have hear so so so so so so much (too much!) about. I was beginning to wonder if he was real, but I guess he is. I'm pretty nervous about my presentation next week--as I mentioned before, I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around everything I need to talk about. I'm sure it will come together though (it will have to)! Well, I'm off to go visiting teaching in a few minutes, so I'd better eat the rest of my egg fu yung really quickly before I leave.
So I went to church today and had a nice time there. Greg stayed at his parents' house last night, so he came to church down here today. We had a good time chatting, and he said that if no one dies this week, thus mandating a viewing next Sunday, he'll plan on coming to my Dudley presentation. So, let's cross our fingers and hope he's free next weekend--all of the girls in the program are dying (pun intended) to meet him! Speaking of Dudley presentations, we had #2 today at the Dud's house. Laurie and Alisha presented today, and we finally got to meet the mysterious Matt, or the boyfriend that we have hear so so so so so so much (too much!) about. I was beginning to wonder if he was real, but I guess he is. I'm pretty nervous about my presentation next week--as I mentioned before, I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around everything I need to talk about. I'm sure it will come together though (it will have to)! Well, I'm off to go visiting teaching in a few minutes, so I'd better eat the rest of my egg fu yung really quickly before I leave.
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