Seven double-spaced pages of pretentious BS about the creation of American racial and class consciousness against the framework of a designated "other," and the construction of white American identity via print media in two hours. With an introduction and conclusion.

I am the woman.

Now let's just hope that my history professor doesn't think I cheated and took extra time (no, really, sir, I can generate BS quickly. Online fandom has taught me how to meta and wank on a dime. And my prose is always laden with subordinate clauses and SAT vocab words).

And then I sent off my two discussion questions (generated without reading more than the introduction and conclusion of the book, but I don't think that's evident), a little late, but I can blame that on the midterm I emailed in thirty minutes before sending in the questions.

And then I proofread a friend's 31-page historiography paper (my sister is now giving random Air Force officers my email address as a paper consultant. We ought to charge money). Said Air Force friend can work with high explosives and fly an F-15, but he cannot use a semicolon correctly--it's always one word past where it should be, ex: "Friedman elaborates on Foucalt's theories however; he disagrees with him on the potential longevity of the Iranian Revolution." Clearly, the "blow shit up" part of the human brain is not connected to the "how to punctuate" part.

I am a whirlwind of academic industry. Hopefully, I can bang out a five-page literature review for archives class just as easily tomorrow night. If not, I'm screwed, since it's due Wednesday and I put if off to study for the history exam.
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Clearly, I only thought some of my history texts were boring (ex: the one that seems to consist mainly of infodumps about 18th century Philadelpian marriage and divorce stats) because I had not yet begun to read the articles assigned for my "Principles of Archive Management" class.

I'm sure Terry Cook is a brilliant man, but God, it's like reading Ralph Waldo Emerson. "I have an SAT vocabulary. Now watch me show it off. I could express this concept in two sentences using words of one syllable, but I think I'll take a page and a half and use as many long words as possible. Simple explanations are for the weak!"

Ironically, it's starting to look like a year's worth of keeping records for the airport (done because of an unplanned gap between graduating college and getting accepted into grad school) is going to be as useful to my MLS studies as the actual readings are. Thanks to my former boss's fear of the computer, I've got experience using, updating, and backing up computer databases (as well as explaining them to others in words of one syllable), as well as filing hard copies of records (because everything in the computer had to have a printed back-up as well, and some stuff never made it into the computer).

But positive MLS-related news, I have an interview tomorrow for a possible job in the UMD library. With that, volunteering at the College Park Aviation Museum, and school, I should end up with something approaching a full work schedule.
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Drove up to DC this Sunday to meet [livejournal.com profile] blukitten, and we went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the Alberta, Canada cultural festival that was randomly taking place on the Mall. She saw the Hope Diamond, I cringed and averted my eyes from the giant sloth skeletons, we listened to Canadian folk music that sounded kind of like French bluegrass (which I pathetically attempted to translate, ex: "Okay, um, she remembers her lover. She hopes he remembers her. She is sad... um more about remembering. Something about her heart. Remembering again..."), and talked about grad school.

It's good to have at least one non-fangirl friend, to remind me that the sex lives of fictional characters aren't the only subject for conversation out there. just the best subject

Drove up to DC/College Park again Monday, to fill out grad-school and apartment related forms.

I still haven't seen PotC 2, but I look forward to it with pleasure. Soon, my pretties... soon.
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Driving to work in the morning, I go past the flattops, a section of largely-condemned slum housing that was built just after WWII as housing for enlisted personel. They're decrepit, crumbling, and three-quarters of them have orange "keep out" mesh over the missing windows and doors. They also have a small forest of sakura trees that were part of the same assortment of trees planted in DC (they sent the left-over ones to our naval base), and they're all blooming a brilliant pink now, with petals sailing on the wind just like every shojo anime you've ever seen.

The first time I saw Yami no Matseui my Freshman year, I recognized the trees around the Diet building instantly, and was startled to discover that they had them in Japan, too ^_^.

In other news, my sister's home on Spring Break this week, and this Monday we went up to College Park to the History Graduate Program's open house. Never have I seen so many pompous people gathered in one room (of course, I could just be bitter because they're all PHD candidiates with grants and assistantships, and I'm a Masters student who's going to have to take out massive student loans). Sarah decided that the entire thing was some terrible academic circle of Hell, and that if that's what she has to go through to qualify for major some day, she's going to retire as a captain and go fly for SouthWest.
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elspethdixon: (PonderosaLizzie)
( Mar. 9th, 2006 05:08 pm)
I got accepted into University of Maryland's History department, too, which means I'll be doing the double degree program!

Yay!
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