Christmas!!!

So I finished typing, and now I'm revising, which means that I can reward myself with Christmas decorations. We put up our Charlie Brown tree yesterday (I'm pretty sure it's older than I am), and some of the giant box of decorations I've accumulated over the years. Unfortunately, they seriously frightened the cat. She acted like we were all about to attack her. Needless to say, we packed the rest of the decorations up and will try to put them up a little at a time so as not to cause her to have a heart attack. At least she hasn't tried to eat the Woodstock off the Charlie Brown Christmas figurines, or, for that matter, the actual Charlie Brown tree. So far so good. I LOVE CHRISTMAS!

I've done it!

22 pages later, and I've finished writing. I've still got to revise, do a bibliography, and come up with a title, but that won't take until Friday. I might be able to turn it in even earlier than I thought! I've never been such a good worker.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Potato dough rolls are in the oven, so it must be a holiday. I think the leaves are blowing off the trees with every second - everything had leaves 2 days ago :)

update

14 pages and counting - i've never been this far ahead on a paper before - i still have a week and a half to turn it in - hope the momentum doesn't stop

oh yeah and it was the weekend before thanksgiving and it was 70 degrees - we had lunch outside on sunday

You know you're in the South when...

Every once in a while things happen to remind me that North Carolina will never be "home" - the guy wearing shorts in November is one thing, but how about this:

During my tour observations, one of the tour guides spoke about a Native American tribe known as the Saura. She then proceeded to spell S-A-U-R-A to the first graders. I had no idea why, since first graders aren't exactly in the National Spelling Bee. A minute or two later, she referred to the Saura again, this time saying, "not like sad, but Saura." Well, I just kind of sat there, dumbfounded for a bit - sad and Saura sound nothing alike. And then it hit me: Saura and Sorrow - where I come from, those two words sound nothing alike, but when someone with a Southern drawl says them, they sound awfully similar: Saura (like Laura with an "S" at the beginning) and Sorra (as if the "ow" was an "a"). Now you're all a little more enlightened.

little kids at museums

I shadowed some tours at the Museum of History today for my paper. I just have to say that I feel better about the occasional lack of control I have, or the frustration about not being able to hold their attention for an entire program. I've pretty much learned that every program is about the same these days. They're way different than the ones I remember going to as a kid, although it's possible that my parents never bothered with the kid-style programs because I was always way into museums. Anyway, my whole paper is again not something that normal people care about (remember the dining room project), but it's pretty interesting to me. (It's only one semester, so I'm not sick of it yet.) However, I'm kind of at a road block. Other than describing these tours, I really don't know what to write about. I expected great discrepancies and huge revelations. Instead, everyone seems to have attended the same museum program school, and I'm searching for something profound to say about it. I think I'll just write about cheese. Who doesn't like cheese? Except Jimmy... hmm... maybe I need a new topic...

breaking news

ok so there is this guy in my class - you know you're in NC when he wears shorts EVERY WEEK! It was finally too cold yesterday for him, so he had pants on. I really wanted to ask him about it, but really, can youjust walk up to someone whose name you barely know and say, "dude, put some pants on" Probably not. I guess I could be more diplomatic about it. Anyway, I was glad to see that he had come to his senses and wore pants. By the way, it's not like the classroom is warm - like every other building at NCSU, it's either too cold or too hot - in this case, too cold. I wear my jacket every week.

on a completely different note, that picture Jimmy posted was way cool.

I think I fell off the face of the earth

I know I'll never fix the previous post, so don't even bother to read it. I'm sure you already have read it, and I'm sorry. I was in a hurry and then it got busy, and I never fixed it. I really feel like I fell off the face of the earth. I wish it was because I was writing my paper and doing lots of homework. Unfortunately, that's not really the case. I did write my statement of purpose for grad school, although it needs a little revising, and I have "started" my paper. I wrote a page. I guess that's something. One page out of 25 is closer than zero. On the plus side, I only have 2 more classes left. On the down side, I still have many more semesters left, assuming I get into grad school. Pretty much everyone I've ever met assures me that I'll get in, but I feel like it's a little presumptuous to assume that I will. Although I must admit that my statement of purpose looks spectacular and explains away those sketchy computer science grades. I was even able to point out that my B+ in my german history course demonstrates that I am a stellar history student - it takes a special person to be able to write a research paper in a foreign language. Expect sparse blogging as I finish up all these loose ends. Either that or I'll use it to procrastinate, like I am right now, and I'll be a blogging machine. We'll see...

one more...

Ok, one more political post and then I'll stop whining for a little while. Andy asked whether I was going to keep this up for four years. I'll try not to, but it all depends on how things go. However, I do want everyone to read part of this email that my mom sent me in regard to the outcome of the election:

At school the big concern of course is more of the NCLB [No Child Left Behind] requirements and testing stuff that has ended up costing the districts "stupid" monies.... For example to do the 6th and 7th grade math testing, all students had to have a certain type of calculator made available for each student by the school (Kids could use their own if they preferred but the school had to have one for each student... and since the tests all had to be given at the exact same time, we ended up spending another 2000 dollars just on testing calculators. That is equal to the both the entire 6 and 7th grade teachers' math budgets!!!)

I understand that every state has testing, and even my great state of Vermont has its own idiotic testing rules, but this one just made me laugh. All the other tests my mom has ever given allowed the tests to be given at different times on different days (although this might have been because different versions of the test were given - I don't know the specifics). That way, my mom and the other math teachers could pool their calculators and have enough without wasting precious $ on calculators that will only be used once per year (unless the whole school gets together for a math bee). $2000 could buy so many things! I know that even democrats voted for NCLB, but this is just one example of non-thinking by politicians in general, and a president unwilling to admit that he doesn't have all the answers as a specific. I know I didn't make a good point there, but maybe I can work it out a little better and edit it this afternoon. :)

Halloween

I'm so scattered, I forgot to talk about Halloween. I was worried that we would have a lot of kids, and then I was worried that we wouldn't have any kids. In the end, we had a lot of bad costumes, if at all, one princess, 2 spidermen, and 1 strawberry shortcake. it was really fun! I've always loved handing out candy - no idea why - so it was great to do it at my own house, where the kids weren't disappointed that I wasn't my mother (for most of my youth, she was the town's only 7th grade math teacher, so everyone wanted to trick or treat at our house). I gave out brand name candy that I got on sale with a coupon (for once I didn't go to Big Lots or the dollar store), and had a great time. I even colored a trick or treat sign. I love holidays! I can't wait until Christmas and all the great decorations!

It's Monday

I usually post on Mondays, since I don't have to work. Today I don't really have anything to talk about. The elections are almost here, and I can't wait. I'm so tired of all those ads - I can't even imagine how horrible it must be in a swing state where you have to deal with presidential ads on top of all the local stuff. Every once in a while we get a Kerry-Edwards ad, usually reminding us how Edwars loves the regular North Carolinians, but Bush must feel secure in North Carolina's republicanism, because I think I've only seen 2. Apparently the latest CNN/Gallup Poll has the race too close to call. Frankly, I'm frightened about the election. I'm frightened for many reasons, but the non-political one relates to how long it's going to take them to figure out who won. Many states were decided by only a few hundred votes last time, and I don't think this time will be much different. I know that the country went on after the last election fiasco, but you have to admit, people are a little more firmly rooted in their beliefs this time around. Or at least it seems that way. In any case, I hope that it doesn't come down to months of court cases in all those battleground states.

One of the Indian students told me to "Vote for the right candidate" after I left work on Thursday. I hope I did. I hope you do too. Unfortunately, it's hard to know who the right candidate is until you've seen him, or sometimes her, in office for a while. Maybe I should have started a write-in campaign for John McCain... :)