Christmas and Weddings

"Somebody's getting married!!!" ~Sara Duke, nee Strehle

My friend Sara got married last night. It's so strange having a friend get married. She was a senior when I was a freshman (in college). She was a beautiful bride. She had the prettiest dress I've ever seen and she and Kevin looked so happy the whole night. It really only hit me that she was married when we were gathering for a picture and Kevin said, "Where's Sara? Where's my wife?" Hannah (who was standing by me) and I both looked at each other a little shell-shocked.

Before the wedding though, we had my Aunt Mary and my cousin Hannah visiting. It was really nice to see them. They arrived on Christmas night and stayed until yesterday. It was sad to see them go. We went to Williamsburg the other day; I actually went to the historic area for an afternoon, which I haven't done in awhile. And we got Cheese Shop sandwiches!

Tomorrow Jacob arrives!

Well, that's my quick update. Hope everyone is having a good break!

Home for the Holidays

Finals are over! I'm home! Thank goodness paper-writing is over!

I got home a few days ago, and now I'm caught in a flurry of gift-making, gift-buying, gift-wrapping, and cooking. It's stressful in itself, but in a much different way than writing papers for class or worrying about studying for a final. Plus, the house looks so cozy with the Christmas tree all lit up and stockings hanging over the fireplace. Sphinx (my cat) loves sleeping under the tree, and it's very cute to look at him hiding among all of the presents. My friend Annie pointed out the other day that perhaps the reason Sphinx is rather effeminate for a male cat is because all Sphinxes of myth and legend are female. Oops. He's sandy colored and has a cat-like body (being a cat and all) so the name seemed to fit at the time. Maybe he would be less Cowardly Lion like if I had named him Theseus or Amun-Ra. Or even John.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to Christmas and all that it entails! Hope everyone else is having a lovely Christmas season!

Housing!

So, I got my housing assignment today, but I still don't know my classes (other than my tutorial) or my schedule (except that there are no Friday classes). I'm living in a Georgian apartment with four other girls. I'm pretty sure I have a roommate, though the other two girls have singles. I really hope my roommate and I will get along-- maybe we'll end up being really good friends, unlike some other roommates I've had in the recent and not so recent past. (But don't worry, Kay, you will always be my dolphin-speaking roomie best friend!)

The apartment description says it has spacious rooms, a kitchen, a common room with a TV and DVD player, and that it overlooks the River Avon. It sounds very nice! As my future roommate wrote in an e-mail, it sounds like the nicest of the housing. It's also just around the corner from the main program building, according to the description. Also, the description calls them flats, but Jacob got mad when I said flats, so I'll stick with apartments until I'm actually in England :).

Meanwhile, I still have this stupid Annales school paper to finish, I have a final in the morning, I have to write up footnotes for one paper, and I have to write up endnotes for another, and basically I want it to be this time tomorrow when I can sleep instead of pumping myself full of Wawa coffee. Ciao!

Um... This is Totally About the Annales School...

Currently, I should be composing a 10-page lecture/paper about the Annales School. I would prefer not to, not because I don't like the Annales School (I do, actually, quite a lot), but just because, papers, really? I have an outline. Shouldn't that be enough? It's a very creative outline, as well. If you know anything about the Annales School (or the work of Fernand Braudel) you'll appreciate this.

The Annales ‘School’

I. The Role of the Environment: La longue durée

a. The Climate of Historical Study in France Pre-Annales

b. The Conditions Which Made the Formation of The Annales ‘School’ Possible

c. The Historical and Political Climate in France During the Formative Decades of the Annales School

II. Collective Destinies and General Trends: La Conjoncture

a. Ideas of the Annales ‘school’ at its inception

b. Later innovations of the Annales ‘school’

c. Some general trends of the Annales in the 1960s and 1970s

III. Events, Politics, and People: L’histoire événementielle

a. Marc Bloch, The Royal Touch, and l’histoire de mentalités

b. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean, and his “longue durée” with the Annales, the sixième section, and the writing of history

If you don't know anything about the Annales School, and if you have any interest in history, historiography, French historical methods, etc. I recommend looking them up. It's very interesting! Much better than "boring, dry history." Although, I must warn you, they aren't very into "events" as such, though they recognize that events have the most human interest. Rather, Braudel likes the "longue durée" of geographical time, and slower moving processes, which are the structures upon which events ride. Events are simply "foam on the sea of history" and to understand history we must "dive beneath the waves," according to Braudel. Marc Bloch deals with history a bit differently, relying alot on mentalités, or the historical pyschology (though that's not an exactly accurate description). Lucien Febvre is another historian you absolutely must look up in regards to the Annales school, but my assignment doesn't specifically tell me to mention him, and since I have limited space he's short-shrifted in my lecture.

Ahem...right anyways...

Classes ended Friday, so now it's finals time! I have three papers due Thursday (one of them is this Annales school thing) and then a final in Literary and Cultural Studies. Part of me is desperately dying to finish up here and be home for the holidays, getting ready for England. Another part of me doesn't want these next few days to end, because that means I won't be back here until next August. Unlike some people, I like it here. And I'm going to miss it-- well, mostly the people (certainly NOT the workload). Sigh.

But England soon! Both exciting and scary... Just have to finish two more papers, work on some footnotes, and take a final!

And Now My Computer Screen Is Cracked

I got hit by a car today. Normally I wouldn't do two entries in one day, but this seemed like kind of a big deal. I was crossing the street at Confusion Corner towards CW. I thought that one of my friends was in a car that had stopped, so I turned back to see if it was them. Unfortunately, the car coming towards me didn't stop, and I didn't notice because I'd glanced back. Seriously, I was halfway across the pedestrian walkway. I really didn't think there was any danger that a car wouldn't see me and stop. Anyways, I got hit. Kind of hard. I rolled up on the hood for a second, then crumpled onto the pavement. I scraped my ankle and bruised my leg, but everything else is ok. I didn't get the guy's insurance information. Maybe I should have, but I'm really not hurt at all. And there's no point in making a mountain out of a molehill. Also, I wasn't thinking all that clearly at the time. I was pretty shaken up. Possibly in a bit of shock, too, because after I walked down the street for about twenty feet I started laughing and couldn't stop, but nothing was all that funny. The only real damage is to my computer screen. The corner is all messed up--probably happened when my bag smacked the pavement, or maybe when I landed on it. Luckily, I got to spend the next hour and half with Jake. He gave me Neosporin and a band-aid for my ankle and a great big hug for my shaking nerves. The strangest part is that I'm the most cautious street crosser ever. People literally make fun of me for it. They have since high school. And yet, it's me that gets hit. It's a bit vindicating. All my worry has been validated. Sadly, all of the hard work put into reversing my fear of crossing streets has been undone. So that's my story.

I'm really ok, though. Just a little afraid to cross streets again.

We Could Always Use More Sleep

Students are never functional at this point, are they? ~Professor Bossenga

I'm sitting at work right now working on a Precis for my Public History class. We are supposed to look at history.org and figure out how CW portrays one person on their website. I was browsing the Randolph Family when I came across Peyton Randolph House. "Peyton Randolph House?" I thought, "I've never heard of him!" Enormously interested in this apparent oversight in my Revolutionary knowledge I clicked on the link-- only to find that they meant the Peyton Randolph House... like, a real house. The big Spanish Red one that's apparently haunted. Obviously, they didn't mention ghosts, but you get the idea.

Then Josh, who is at work with me, said I should write my precis on Peyton Randolph House, the ancestor of Dr. House (for those of you who have seen that t.v show). Then my professor came in and I told her all about my planned precis on Peyton Randolph House. Josh and I could NOT stop laughing. I think Prof. Kern was laughing at us. It was this episode which provoked the quote at the beginning of this entry.

And yes, Professor, you're absolutely right.

Gobble Gobble Day?

Happy Thanksgiving! Or Gobble Gobble Day, as the conductor of my train home called it in an extremely perky "Welcome aboard boys and girls of aaaaallllll ages!" It was trippy, let me tell you.

It's been a very Christmas-y Thanksgiving. To begin with, I slept until after 11:00. I never sleep this late at school, but for some reason I've been exhausted since Tuesday. I think my body thinks that the stress is over for the semester since I'm home, but it's wrong-- I have a paper to write over the weekend, in fact. After I finally crawled out of bed, it was about time to head over to the Country Club for dinner. Because it's just me and my mom and dad we normally don't cook a full-out dinner at home; we go out instead. We used to go to Texas to visit family there, but after I got into college, what with the short break and never being home except on break, we tend to stick around the house. Dinner was great, as usual! Wonderful mashed potatoes, turkey, caesar salad, sweet potato pie, stuffing, etc.

Then we decided that tonight we would decorate for Christmas. Accordingly, this afternoon we made sugar cookie dough and molasses cookie dough (both doughs have to chill for a few hours). Then I made supper!!! I love cooking. I'm not exactly great at it yet, but I'm getting better. Tonight I made a dish that Kay makes me at school-- rice and chicken. I also made a dish that I was taught how to make at the Governor's Palace-- potato balls. The rice and chicken turned out fantastically! I added carrots to it, which we normally don't do at school, and some parsley. The potato balls were better than I remembered, and my mom and dad loved them. After supper, I spiced some apple cider to get us all in the Christmas-y mood, and we watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas" while we cut out cookies from the sugar cookie dough and baked cookies from the molasses cookie dough and decorated the tree. My dad actually stuck around for the decorating this year! (Normally he gets bored and goes upstairs.)

Then my favorite part: setting up the Nativity Scene. I put on quiet Christmas Carols and work alone, unwrapping every figurine that I know so well. The camels give me trouble every year, but I manage to fit them in. And the whole scene is crowned with the angel above the barn. Then sprinkled with 'snow.' There's something really spiritual in setting up the Nativity Scene. It's when I know Christmas is coming. I don't know how to explain it, exactly.

Anyways, I hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Hello!

Hello everyone. Welcome to my blog. I should be writing a paper right now, but this felt like a sort of productive procrastination. I made this just now because next semester I'm going to be studying abroad in Bath, England, and I thought it might be a good way for my friends and family to keep up with what's going on with me, as well as helping me to remember everything that happens over the semester. I wasn't planning to start writing until next semester, but the title is wonderfully ambiguous (because isn't life an adventure?), so I can start writing now if I want, and keep writing after I get back. Also, Melinda, Emily, and Dana inspired me.

Ok, now I should really write my paper. So, friends and family, if you're interested, keep visiting for updates about my oh-so-exciting life (especially next semester)! Bye!