"Tell my father I died with my face to the Enemy."
"Tell my father I died with my face to the Enemy." - Inspirational quote of the day brought to you by Colonel Isaac E. Avery, 6th North Carolina regiment.
Snow Angel on Pristine Snow by ~Beboots on deviantART
What exactly have I been doing recently that merits such a quotation?
Well, I've been doing fairly well. I had a very good Christmas. I spent four days with my family in Jasper, in the Rocky Mountains, skiing (snowboarding in my brother's case). On the third day, we took a break and went down to Maligne Canyon, to see the ice waterfalls. I took the above photograph on that trip. :3 We drove each other crazy, but we had fun, right?
Maligne Canyon Ice Waterfall by ~Beboots on deviantART
Frost by the Waterfall by ~Beboots on deviantART
I have also learned how to make cheesecake - quite decently, too. I had a tea party with a group of friends as well - invited a half dozen people over, all of us dressed like Victorian/Edwardian/Georgian ladies, depending on what we had, and enjoyed tea, scones, cookies, cake, and conversation. :3 It went even better than anticipated, so I'll likely hold another one sometime next month. For photos of the event, see here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=365000&id=839240415&l=6067177dbc
If my writing isn't as animated as it usually is, that's probably because I finally got my Domesday Paper mark back. See, the only grade I got online for that Honour's History class was "IP" - In Progress, because it's a full-year class. Which was immensely frustrating... although I was very annoyed at not getting my statistics mark until the 24th of December, a full two and a half weeks after all of my other marks seemed to have come in... I mean, it was a scan-tron sheet! It's just scanned and inputted into a computer! My other teachers marked two hole essays - working through my messy handwriting! I don't understand what took so long! And stats was the one course in which I had no idea what I would get, because of the curve - anywhere from A- to C-, I'd imagine. Lucky for me, I got an A-... but then again, I actually attended class and did the homework, so... yeah. For my French translation, History of Ireland, and History of American Medicine classes... I all got A+. Which is ridiculously good, even for me.
But anyway, I went to the History and Classics office today, after learning from a classmate that our papers were available there. I had a moment of panic, because I flipped over my paper and saw "C", but then my heart restarted because that was just the "provisional" mark on my first draft (the "this is what you will get if you hand it in as-is, mark). The paper had my semester mark written on it, too: A-. Which I'm pretty pleased with. Don't get me wrong. I got an A for my presentations, participation mark... but a B on the final paper. :( I still wasn't insightful enough, I wasn't engaging with the topic... Apparently I had flashes of inspiration, but, "like lightening, quickly dissipated." Yep. My prof wrote that. In red ink. Which is psychologically scarring to me, I swear.
Okay, I'm probably taking this far too harshly. A "B" is still a good mark - just not A material, like I usually am. I know I can do better. I hated the topic, though, and didn't spend as much time on it as I did my other papers, although I DID invest quite a bit of time in it... But my heart wasn't in it. And we weren't allowed to cite secondary material. And I didn't know much about England in 1066/1086 in the first place, beyond the fact that there was a guy named William the Bastard/Conquerer and he and his Normans conquered Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings. That's what I went into the paper knowing, beyond what the document told me. I can see it has flaws, and I can see that I could have done better... but I feel frustrated that he thinks that I can only analyze things superficially.
I'm probably taking it too personally. But I've been spending time rereading some of my other papers, from last semester and last year. I can write well. I just have to remind myself of that.
And I'll have an "I'll show you" attitude for my preliminary honour's thesis, on a topic I'm actually really interested in: medical innovations made during the American Civil War. I've been reading up on it over Christmas. I have really good, extensive source material. I'll blow his socks off.
Snow Angel on Pristine Snow by ~Beboots on deviantART
What exactly have I been doing recently that merits such a quotation?
Well, I've been doing fairly well. I had a very good Christmas. I spent four days with my family in Jasper, in the Rocky Mountains, skiing (snowboarding in my brother's case). On the third day, we took a break and went down to Maligne Canyon, to see the ice waterfalls. I took the above photograph on that trip. :3 We drove each other crazy, but we had fun, right?
Maligne Canyon Ice Waterfall by ~Beboots on deviantART
Frost by the Waterfall by ~Beboots on deviantART
I have also learned how to make cheesecake - quite decently, too. I had a tea party with a group of friends as well - invited a half dozen people over, all of us dressed like Victorian/Edwardian/Georgian ladies, depending on what we had, and enjoyed tea, scones, cookies, cake, and conversation. :3 It went even better than anticipated, so I'll likely hold another one sometime next month. For photos of the event, see here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=365000&id=839240415&l=6067177dbc
If my writing isn't as animated as it usually is, that's probably because I finally got my Domesday Paper mark back. See, the only grade I got online for that Honour's History class was "IP" - In Progress, because it's a full-year class. Which was immensely frustrating... although I was very annoyed at not getting my statistics mark until the 24th of December, a full two and a half weeks after all of my other marks seemed to have come in... I mean, it was a scan-tron sheet! It's just scanned and inputted into a computer! My other teachers marked two hole essays - working through my messy handwriting! I don't understand what took so long! And stats was the one course in which I had no idea what I would get, because of the curve - anywhere from A- to C-, I'd imagine. Lucky for me, I got an A-... but then again, I actually attended class and did the homework, so... yeah. For my French translation, History of Ireland, and History of American Medicine classes... I all got A+. Which is ridiculously good, even for me.
But anyway, I went to the History and Classics office today, after learning from a classmate that our papers were available there. I had a moment of panic, because I flipped over my paper and saw "C", but then my heart restarted because that was just the "provisional" mark on my first draft (the "this is what you will get if you hand it in as-is, mark). The paper had my semester mark written on it, too: A-. Which I'm pretty pleased with. Don't get me wrong. I got an A for my presentations, participation mark... but a B on the final paper. :( I still wasn't insightful enough, I wasn't engaging with the topic... Apparently I had flashes of inspiration, but, "like lightening, quickly dissipated." Yep. My prof wrote that. In red ink. Which is psychologically scarring to me, I swear.
Okay, I'm probably taking this far too harshly. A "B" is still a good mark - just not A material, like I usually am. I know I can do better. I hated the topic, though, and didn't spend as much time on it as I did my other papers, although I DID invest quite a bit of time in it... But my heart wasn't in it. And we weren't allowed to cite secondary material. And I didn't know much about England in 1066/1086 in the first place, beyond the fact that there was a guy named William the Bastard/Conquerer and he and his Normans conquered Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings. That's what I went into the paper knowing, beyond what the document told me. I can see it has flaws, and I can see that I could have done better... but I feel frustrated that he thinks that I can only analyze things superficially.
I'm probably taking it too personally. But I've been spending time rereading some of my other papers, from last semester and last year. I can write well. I just have to remind myself of that.
And I'll have an "I'll show you" attitude for my preliminary honour's thesis, on a topic I'm actually really interested in: medical innovations made during the American Civil War. I've been reading up on it over Christmas. I have really good, extensive source material. I'll blow his socks off.