last-weekend-o-homework-for-a-while review

Friday: Met with advisor to talk about his final edits on my thesis, went to the library school at Chapel Hill to find out what I'm supposed to be doing to get ready for next semester, did a little research at the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, drove back to Raleigh and went to the grocery store, then came home to work on my documentary editing project.

Saturday: Worked more on documentary editing project, edited my thesis, went for a run, planned out my early republic paper and consulted with my Oregon Trail map maker.

Sunday: Slept in, more map consultation, and worked on early republic paper on and off all day.

shortcuts

I just inadvertently discovered how to insert a footnote using shortcuts and my keyboard alone without having to mess with the mouse. That is exactly the kind of thing I wish I'd discovered, oh I don't know, say four years ago? Or at least before grad school. Sigh.

Just ignore the talon marks.

Once way back when (Maybe 1841? I don't have my notes with me...) this guy was traveling to California. Somewhere around the Sierra Nevada he ran out of food and was pretty hungry. Maybe even starving. But lo and behold, a hawk flew overhead! And he thought "hey, hawks probably taste like chicken, right?"* So he shot it.

Only he missed.

But all was not lost because "Look! What is that falling from the sky? Not a hawk, but..."*

...the hawk's lunch! The shot startled the bird and he dropped a squirrel! Like manna from heaven. And the hungry man cooked up that squirrel for supper.


*I totally made these quotes up, even though this is based on a true story. A pretty awesome story if you ask me.

Home stretch.

This is the last week of classes. Unless I one day get a PhD- which is not a plan right now but hey, the future is wide open- unless that happens this is my last week of history classes ever. Am I excited about a summer break? Definitely. Am I excited about graduating and being done with (history) school? Not at all.

But right now I don't have too much time to think about that. Today I scheduled my thesis defense for May 9. If you're wondering, that is exactly one day before graduation. I need to have the thesis finished to turn into my committee by Monday. I'm tired of working on the darned thing. Next week I also have a 15-page historiography paper due, as well as my big documentary editing project. Sigh.

So if you're asking yourself, "Hey, what exciting stuff is Andi up to down there in North Carolina?" the disappointing truth is that I'm holed up in my apartment slaving away. Or kicking myself in the shins for procrastinating and not slaving away enough.

weekend review

Friday: Worked on my thesis all day, went for a run, and went to a show downtown with the video store gang.

Saturday: Enjoyed coffee and a walk with Allison in Durham, bought groceries, and returned home to work on my thesis.

Sunday: Worked on the thesis, went for a run, went to church, made a disappointing dinner, and worked on thesis more.

Wait, you don't want this whole wheat bread?

Today I went to the grocery store and bought a lot of food. While shopping I briefly parked my cart next to a wine display and went to pick out my sandwich bread. When I returned and reached down to put the bread in my cart the other things in there didn't look familiar. After adopting a puzzled look I realized my mistake and looked up, only to see a woman staring wide-eyed at me.

"Whoops!" I said with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders. "Not my cart! Sorry about that. Haha...uh...this is awkward."

And I quickly found my own cart and walked away.

It's always weird when this happens.

Last semester in my Environmental History class we read Mike Davis's Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster. He has a whole chapter on fires in Southern California, and a week after we discussed the Malibu mansions that stubbornly keep reappearing, fires went raging through the region. But I guess that's sort of a yearly occurrence.

Yesterday in my Early American Republic class we talked about the New Madrid earthquake of 1812. It shook about half the continent. And my professor mentioned something about how no one ever talks about the New Madrid fault line in the Midwest, but that surely it will move again. And what happened early this morning? There was an earthquake.

I would like to make a complaint.

My new loud neighbor has a puppy she never puts on a leash and she's leaving its poo all over the ground right in front of my apartment. I've never been one to complain about other people in official ways, but I feel like I might need to say something. Not to her, of course, because I tend to avoid confrontation like the plague, but maybe to the office. Because it's getting warm, and who wants a bunch of cooking poo right outside the window? Not me.

I turned 25!

This past weekend was my birthday weekend. It was pretty great.

As you may recall from last year, Tess and I share the exact same birthday. So this year, in honor of turning 25, we threw a birthday party! It was a fancy birthday party, which basically means we made everyone dress up. And they did!

















While everyone sang us "Happy Birthday" we held mini cupcakes with improvised candles (also called matches).














There was eating and chatting and drinking and dancing and an overall good birthday celebratin' time.

That was Saturday night. Sunday, my actual birthday, the fun only continued. Josh and I went to Historic Yates Mill, which includes a nature preserve so we walked around a marsh and mill pond and checked out nature. We couldn't go in the actual mill, but we still walked around it. This was a fun combination of history and being outside on a beautiful day.















While driving away from Yates Mill we just happened to pass a Putt-Putt place, so we obviously stopped. I beat Josh pretty badly, because I have some mini-golf skillz. We also played some sweet arcade games, including one I'd never seen before that is like whack-a-mole only you stomp on spiders with your feet and here the squish sound. A game with stomping on spiders is right up my alley.


















And we finished off the day with dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (thanks Uncle Richard!), where I had birthday cheesecake for dessert!

Another RVA summer, coming at me!

Today I learned it's official- starting in June I'll be back at the same internship I did last summer. I wonder if it will be like a time warp. Like I was never even gone...

Now that's a lot of pages.

I just finished reading an 850 page book for class. It's probably one of the longest books I've ever read, not counting the Bible. Anywho, if you're interested in American history from say, post-War of 1812 until 1840s, I highly recommend Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (2007). Yes it's long, but it's also very readable and a lot of important and interesting stuff happened during that period.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get busy writing a paper on the book...

***Update: Yesterday I said I liked the book and last night it won the Pulitzer Prize in U.S. history!

these weekends keep coming and going so quickly

This weekend I:

Ran, read, worked on my thesis, drove through the country, watched most of Superbad, practiced being a pool shark, played Ms. Packman, saw a cool site-specific art thing at an old barn, got rained on, napped, and did more work!

Also, a week from today I turn 25. Heads up.