Bitting off more than you can chew

So this semester has already found me wanting to pull my hair out.

I am only taking 13 credits, but I am putting together an PowerPoint presentation on the history of Hampden-Sydney for the President's Inauguration this November. Chairman of a new committee for this school year. Working as design editor of the Yearbook. Tour Guide. Student Court Investigator. CCM. Working the Museum and Library. Taking my Senior Thesis course. Taking Literary Criticism. I don't know when I have time for anything else.

Oh well it will be a long and interesting year

Week One

So I only have one more day of my first week with researching the archives at school. I went through two boxes filled with miscellaneous material ranging from commencement addresses to letters from the past Librarian at school.

Some of the highlights:

-a one-third dollar from the 1770s

-a diploma from 1851

-a really cool photo of a float from 1922

-commencement schedule from 1853

Some questions I'm wondering:

-why are these all in one box

-why are they not more organized

-why can't we get them more usable

I am enjoying my research though. It is a looser schedule than at the Museum of Confederacy since I don't have to work 9-5, but can come and go as long as the work is done. Until next time.

End of Junior Year

Long time, no post. Junior year has flown by and I'm not ready to be a senior. I'm only signed up to take 13 credits next semester a nice slow pace compared to my 18 each this semester. This also being my last real summer I'm spending 10 weeks at school working with a professor on the archives of the college so I will likely post more often out of boredom.

FML

So these two weeks are killer. I have four exams and four papers due within them. Again why am I taking 18 credits? I don't even have a good answer to that.

Rhetoric
Creative Nonfiction is enjoyable albeit strenuous to my mind. I enjoy writing, but I also enjoy having a life. I have written one essay so far and have started a second one. My first was on Colonial Williamsburg vs. the real Williamsburg and I'm glad we get to rewrite and revise because I know I did not explain my thoughts very well. This next essay I'm writing about the Battle of the Wilderness and my freshman seminar where we dissected the battle day by day. I'm hoping it turns out better the first time around than my first essay

American History
I'm enjoying Emmons as a teacher, but not the fact that she is explaining basic ideas, i.e. thesis, primary vs. secondary documents, to us. I realize we have freshman in our class, but seriously if you don't know what these are than go back to your high school. It seems like we are going over information drilled into me since elementary school so I'm thinking I should have taken Colonial American history instead of a survey.

Spanish
Hola. That is about all I know. But seriously I'm better at writing and reading the language from six years of Latin than actually speaking Espanol.

Latin America
I'm really enjoying learning about Indians before Columbus. We got it so damn wrong it is not even funny. They were just as civilized as the western empires in their day but by the time of the Spanish, they were backwoods again.

The Coming of the Civil War
My second Pilkington class and I have to say way better than the first. I'm actually taking notes and paying attention. And he is actually teaching. He still wears goofy ass ties and makes werid ass jokes, but overall way better the second time around. Maybe because I actually like this time period over the Western Culture bs HSC makes us take.

Museum Practices
This is my independent study, but it is more like job. We are catalouging a ton of pictures and trying to id all the men we can in order to put them on exhibit one day in the musuem.

Is it Fall Break yet?

So I haven't even finished a full week of classes and I am already looking forward to Fall Break. I mean I wish it was this weekend.

I'm taking 18 credit hours, a mistake I'm quickly realizing, but I am determined to stick it out and finish all 18 even if I'm buried six feet under by the time I am done.

I am however determine to blog more this semester as I am taking a creative nonfiction class and I hear this will help me get in the mood to write daily. It might not be a daily blog but I will make an attempt.


Well off to read 1491, America, and Liberty and Power
This is me right about now:

Servant Heart

This past summer I wanted to dedicate to God my service to WCRC's summer camp. I struggled all summer with letting Him take control of everything. I don't know if I succeeded but I do know that it was only because of Him I survived.

I was an assistant Program Director for a summer camp and I did the job part time. I ran around three and a half days a week trying to get a weeks worth of stuff done in that time frame. I saw others around me moving through the motions of their job without taking initiative to even help out a little and frankly it pissed me the hell off. There I was moving like a maniac throughout the day so I could have some time off to enjoy my summer with some really cool people and my other staffers were inside rather than out with the campers, participating in their activities, or really making any effort to what I saw.

I am indebted to this camp because it saved me (in the protestant sense of the word) 9 summers ago. I have been back ever since. This summer was my last out there (like two summers before this) and I leave without any deeper since of His presence because I allowed myself to take control and my feelings to cloud my judgment of people.

But all in all the campers enjoyed themselves and that is the only thing I could have asked for.

I guess I'm just a work in progress...

summer so far...

so I've been at the MOC for a couple weeks now and have thoroughly enjoyed my experience. I've worked on numerous projects like catalouging thier library with the Library of Congress call numbers, catalouging prints and sketches, research requests, and helping collections reorganize thier photo collection.

On the days I'm not at the MOC I'm back at Williamsburg Christian Retreat Center working with thier summer camp for the sixth summer. I'm a part time Assistant Program Director. I am working with camper registration, cabin assignments, and helping counselors with what they need. I'm glad I'm back and I'm glad I'm only there a couple of days a week.