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!