A+++++

Last night, I had a great time in class. Yes, I am a major dweeb. I accept it and embrace it.

In my first class, we did some document editing on a letter written by a nun from St. Elizabeth's Hopsital in 1863. The letter went like this:
Dear Mother Nun Lady,
This prominent Baptist Preacher in Covington had a sick slave. He called us to come check her out, probably because our services are free. She wasn't allowed to worship as she pleased, probably because she doesn't worship exactly like the Preacher, oh yeah, and slaves don't have souls, according to most rich white dudes, so why would they need to worship. Idiots. She asked us to take her out of ole Preacher's crib and take her to the hospital. The Preacher let us take her, probably because she was about to die anyway and so that was one less thing he had to worry about. Once we got her to the hospital, she was practically dead. We prayed with her, we baptized her, and then she died. We didn't tell the Preacher about the conversion, but he's a Baptist and is stupid, so no biggie.
Love Jesus and Go Catholics,
Sister Nun Lady

We read the 3-page document and tried to figure out the relationships among those discussed, as well as came up with a plan of how one would be able to find in records each person mentioned in the letter. Way cool.

Cooler still was my second class. Here we watched an interview between my professor and her parents. The interview was about outward migration from Appalachia. Dr. B's parents were from VA and moved to Chicago in the '60s. They talked about how they adapted to city life, how folks in Chicago treated hillbillies, and things they did when they got homesick. One of my favorite stories shared came from Dr. B's mother: There was a park near the apartment they rented. When spring came, the city plowed a little patch of earth to plant flowers. Dr. B's mother would take her shoes off and walk barefoot in the fresh tilled soil, just to get a taste of home, and to feel the cool dirt between her toes. To me, the 2 minutes it took to tell that story made the whole interview worthwhile.

While we're on the subject, I'll go ahead and tell you that I had a Ralphie Parker (from the Christmas Story) moment in class last night. I am so pumped to begin my practicum (thesis) project. I wrote up this little 2 pager about my ideas and such, and I just stood there fantasizing when I turned it in. As if Dr. B was going to proclaim, "Listen to this sentence 'When I go home to Dwarf, I am taken back to a place where time stands still, and the front porch is exactly the place to be!' Poetry! Sheer poetry! Allison! Allison! An A+++++++++++!" And then the dream sequence ended, and I went back to my seat, back to anonymity. Until, that is, I professed to the world be true level of geekdom. It went something like this:

Girl: I have been obsessed with CSI UK lately.
Me: Someone I know is in that show. Who is it? Oh! Apollo from Battlestar Gallactica! Oh god,
did everyone hear that?
Dude: The old BG or new BG?
Me: New BG, of course!
And then I went on to talk about plot developments and characters I didn't like and how Boomer is now on Hawaii 5-0. Why don't I have an off button? However, in my defense, several folks in there were familiar with BG, and I got the impression that they liked the series just as much as me. Praise Jesus for dorks!