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Sep. 12th, 2012 07:04 pmMy head is above the metaphorical water today! Though I have a couple things to work on tonight while I'm here at the help desk (I need to do some preliminary poking around at the catalog for the archives, and do some reading for my stats class), I feel caught up enough on school to spend a little time online. So if you left me an email, or a response on Livejournal or Facebook, I probably just wrote back! If I missed you, I apologize; let me know?
So school is pretty great so far. My reading has all been interesting. Even the stats book, who's author has a sense of humour that's sometimes pretty amusing. The ethnographies we're looking at in my cultural anthropology class seem engrossing, if sometimes a little bit of a downer. I was feeling really bad for Elizabeth Fernea by the end of the first chapter of her book, wherein she talks about going with her anthropologist husband to a small Iraqi village. Certainly at first, she seems not very happy to be there or to have to wear the veil more to avoid being on the recieving end of gapes and stares rather than by her own choice. She seemed to be on the short end of her marriage's power dynamic, and I felt a lot of sympathy for her, and even some level of anger with her husband. Of course that's not really the point of the book, but it was my first response to it.
My first session in the archives for my history class was fantastic. I tried to restrain myself as I wandered up and down the aisles, past hundred-year old leather books with bindings like decorated columns that stood two feet tall on the shelves. The archivist talked about some of the random oddities they have like a sticker-book from pre-World War II Germany full of smiling pictures of Hitler, and a book of heraldry from the 1600s (their oldest book). Neither of them had any information about who gave it to the university or where it came from. They're just kind of there; more of history's mysteries. But most interesting to me were things like giant record books from a local insane asylum, or hand-written court records, or the city directories I looked through from the mid-thirties, full of people listed by name, wife, occupation, and (four digit!) telephone numbers. I frequently felt awe-struck by being able see and smell and touch these pieces of lives long past. It was hard not to run around to other random classmates wandering the stacks, calling "Look! Did you see this! This is so *cool*!"
My first paper is going to be about the year 1936 in Kenosha. What it was like to live there. This assignment is free-form, and doesn't need to present an argument or even explain what the significance of the information is. Just write about life in Kenosha (we could also choose Racine) in a year of my choice. I picked 1936 'cause that's the year the Southport Beach House was built by the WPA, and I'm interested in Depression employment and arts programs. And I'm an architecture geek. This is going to take a bunch of work in the archives since we're only allowed to use sources from there, and I'm pretty excited about looking through whatever unexpected treasures I'll turn up.
So in my Data Collection and Analysis class (the one with interviewing) today, we found out about a big change to the course. I think it's related to the fact that so many people are enrolled concurrently in it and it's predecessor class, Research Methods. But it could be something else too; the professor said that the department felt like putting everything all together was too much for one semester, even though the last class got through it. But anyway, it turns out we're not doing the whole process start through finish. Instead, we're going through the process of deciding on topics, developing questions, and writing a research proposal. Then there'll be another class after ours that follows up on our proposals by actually doing the research and data analysis.
I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I'd like to have experience in doing the entire process. On the other hand, I've felt a little bit in the dark about expectations in this class this whole time anyway, and I feel a little better now abut the workload, as well as having a better idea of what we're doing and when. Maybe I'll take the class again for the second half of the project next semester. I'll have to see what my advisor thinks. I should stop by and chat with her some time. I want to talk to her about politics and things anyway.
In both my sociology and anthropology classes today, we spent some time just paging through some scholarly journals in the field as the respective professors talked a little bit about how to approach reading journal articles. I was grabbed by an article in the issues of American Anthropologist that I picked up; it was about how gay men in Martinique have created this sort of idealized image of the Canadian province of Quebec as a paradise for gay men, and why that's the case. I'll have to run that by my Canadian girlfriend, who I think might find it amusing. I also managed to leave my wallet in the sociology research lab; fortunately the department secretary was kind enough to walk back with me and unlock the room so I could grab it. I'd adjusted it in my pants 'cause I was sitting on it kind of funny, and it fell out without my noticing.
Bicycling has been great so far! Today was the fourth day out of five that I've biked to school, making for a total of about 65 miles I've biked in the last two weeks. The exercise feels great, I'm pleasantly awake and energized when I get to school, and my books and folders and things have been just fine in the new panniers. This weekend I'm going to buy a CO2 inflater just in case I get a flat on the way. I'd hate to miss classes for something like that. I've found a route that's mostly city streets and misses some of the parts that have the most bumps and potholes. I've learned that Kenosha actually has a couple of streets with bike lanes! They don't go all that far, but one of them is actually perfect for me.
I've realized, though, that on Mondays and Wednesdays I have next to no time. I leave for school a little before eight. I get back at 4:30 and have just enough time for some dinner before I leave again (this time by car) to work the help desk. I get home at 11:00 and have to be up the next morning even earlier since classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays start at 8:45 instead of 9. I hardly have time for a shower before I hit the sheets. But it's ok. I'm really feeling like I'm on top of everything right now. I'm managing my time well, getting work and reading done at least on schedule if not ahead of it, and am even getting tons of exercise and losing weight! I'm feeling really postive, and looking forward to the rest of the semester.
So school is pretty great so far. My reading has all been interesting. Even the stats book, who's author has a sense of humour that's sometimes pretty amusing. The ethnographies we're looking at in my cultural anthropology class seem engrossing, if sometimes a little bit of a downer. I was feeling really bad for Elizabeth Fernea by the end of the first chapter of her book, wherein she talks about going with her anthropologist husband to a small Iraqi village. Certainly at first, she seems not very happy to be there or to have to wear the veil more to avoid being on the recieving end of gapes and stares rather than by her own choice. She seemed to be on the short end of her marriage's power dynamic, and I felt a lot of sympathy for her, and even some level of anger with her husband. Of course that's not really the point of the book, but it was my first response to it.
My first session in the archives for my history class was fantastic. I tried to restrain myself as I wandered up and down the aisles, past hundred-year old leather books with bindings like decorated columns that stood two feet tall on the shelves. The archivist talked about some of the random oddities they have like a sticker-book from pre-World War II Germany full of smiling pictures of Hitler, and a book of heraldry from the 1600s (their oldest book). Neither of them had any information about who gave it to the university or where it came from. They're just kind of there; more of history's mysteries. But most interesting to me were things like giant record books from a local insane asylum, or hand-written court records, or the city directories I looked through from the mid-thirties, full of people listed by name, wife, occupation, and (four digit!) telephone numbers. I frequently felt awe-struck by being able see and smell and touch these pieces of lives long past. It was hard not to run around to other random classmates wandering the stacks, calling "Look! Did you see this! This is so *cool*!"
My first paper is going to be about the year 1936 in Kenosha. What it was like to live there. This assignment is free-form, and doesn't need to present an argument or even explain what the significance of the information is. Just write about life in Kenosha (we could also choose Racine) in a year of my choice. I picked 1936 'cause that's the year the Southport Beach House was built by the WPA, and I'm interested in Depression employment and arts programs. And I'm an architecture geek. This is going to take a bunch of work in the archives since we're only allowed to use sources from there, and I'm pretty excited about looking through whatever unexpected treasures I'll turn up.
So in my Data Collection and Analysis class (the one with interviewing) today, we found out about a big change to the course. I think it's related to the fact that so many people are enrolled concurrently in it and it's predecessor class, Research Methods. But it could be something else too; the professor said that the department felt like putting everything all together was too much for one semester, even though the last class got through it. But anyway, it turns out we're not doing the whole process start through finish. Instead, we're going through the process of deciding on topics, developing questions, and writing a research proposal. Then there'll be another class after ours that follows up on our proposals by actually doing the research and data analysis.
I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I'd like to have experience in doing the entire process. On the other hand, I've felt a little bit in the dark about expectations in this class this whole time anyway, and I feel a little better now abut the workload, as well as having a better idea of what we're doing and when. Maybe I'll take the class again for the second half of the project next semester. I'll have to see what my advisor thinks. I should stop by and chat with her some time. I want to talk to her about politics and things anyway.
In both my sociology and anthropology classes today, we spent some time just paging through some scholarly journals in the field as the respective professors talked a little bit about how to approach reading journal articles. I was grabbed by an article in the issues of American Anthropologist that I picked up; it was about how gay men in Martinique have created this sort of idealized image of the Canadian province of Quebec as a paradise for gay men, and why that's the case. I'll have to run that by my Canadian girlfriend, who I think might find it amusing. I also managed to leave my wallet in the sociology research lab; fortunately the department secretary was kind enough to walk back with me and unlock the room so I could grab it. I'd adjusted it in my pants 'cause I was sitting on it kind of funny, and it fell out without my noticing.
Bicycling has been great so far! Today was the fourth day out of five that I've biked to school, making for a total of about 65 miles I've biked in the last two weeks. The exercise feels great, I'm pleasantly awake and energized when I get to school, and my books and folders and things have been just fine in the new panniers. This weekend I'm going to buy a CO2 inflater just in case I get a flat on the way. I'd hate to miss classes for something like that. I've found a route that's mostly city streets and misses some of the parts that have the most bumps and potholes. I've learned that Kenosha actually has a couple of streets with bike lanes! They don't go all that far, but one of them is actually perfect for me.
I've realized, though, that on Mondays and Wednesdays I have next to no time. I leave for school a little before eight. I get back at 4:30 and have just enough time for some dinner before I leave again (this time by car) to work the help desk. I get home at 11:00 and have to be up the next morning even earlier since classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays start at 8:45 instead of 9. I hardly have time for a shower before I hit the sheets. But it's ok. I'm really feeling like I'm on top of everything right now. I'm managing my time well, getting work and reading done at least on schedule if not ahead of it, and am even getting tons of exercise and losing weight! I'm feeling really postive, and looking forward to the rest of the semester.
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