SOOOOOOOOO TIREEEEDDDDDD....
I just got back from Local & Regional History... the ground was all snowy-sparkly again so that balanced out the cold again. Still, I'm just WIPED OUT after today. Thursday is my busy day - classes at 9:35-10:55, 2:20-3:40 and 4:30-7:15. Normally I work from 11-1 too but it's installation week and they didn't need any help today. I just sat in the 5th floor lounge in Hart and read, waiting for D to get back from class so we could go to lunch. Which was yummy today - tomato soup and grilled cheese, wheee!
Found out more about that James Watkin Seward story... turns out, he WAS involved in a murder/arson... he and three friends robbed a bank, killing a clerk and burning down the bank to get rid of evidence. Well, his three friends talked him into it anyway, and he was present tho he didn't much participate. Before that he'd been a compulsive gambler and an extremely good counterfeiter. Nice guy, eh? Really I think he DID get dragged into the arson/murder stuff, and just didn't have the willpower to get out. Even when he tried his friends threatened to hurt him. Anyway, there's that story settled.
I finished reading Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome. My opinion on it can be found HERE (scroll down).
We worked with census records from the 1860 Oswego census today in class. My eyes were threatening to cross after a while. I've never been so frustrated - but it wasn't really the records themselves, it was just that I was confused as to which people we were counting and which we were leaving out, and I kept getting different numbers than the people next to me. We were only counting the African Americans (and mulattoes) and Irish Americans, but then it was only the ones over 18, and then it was only the first ten families worth... auuuuugh. Anyway it was interesting to see that a lot of the Irish Americans probably came into Oswego as a result of the potato famine. For instance, there was a servant girl named Bridgit Donovan (which incidentally is the name of one of the characters in the Galway Chronicles Mom bought me for Christmas!) who was 15, but was born in New York State. If you count back 15 years from 1860, that's 1845... and the potato famine hit its worst in 1848. Most likely, her family got out just before it, or maybe they were lucky enough to be here already. Interesting stuff.
Let's see... not much else to tell, really. I'm going to scan the Dale Earnhardt thingie for D which she is putting on eBay, and then I'm going to just relax for a while, maybe even read a book that's not for class (like The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, maybe).
More later, if I don't fall asleep.
Found out more about that James Watkin Seward story... turns out, he WAS involved in a murder/arson... he and three friends robbed a bank, killing a clerk and burning down the bank to get rid of evidence. Well, his three friends talked him into it anyway, and he was present tho he didn't much participate. Before that he'd been a compulsive gambler and an extremely good counterfeiter. Nice guy, eh? Really I think he DID get dragged into the arson/murder stuff, and just didn't have the willpower to get out. Even when he tried his friends threatened to hurt him. Anyway, there's that story settled.
I finished reading Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome. My opinion on it can be found HERE (scroll down).
We worked with census records from the 1860 Oswego census today in class. My eyes were threatening to cross after a while. I've never been so frustrated - but it wasn't really the records themselves, it was just that I was confused as to which people we were counting and which we were leaving out, and I kept getting different numbers than the people next to me. We were only counting the African Americans (and mulattoes) and Irish Americans, but then it was only the ones over 18, and then it was only the first ten families worth... auuuuugh. Anyway it was interesting to see that a lot of the Irish Americans probably came into Oswego as a result of the potato famine. For instance, there was a servant girl named Bridgit Donovan (which incidentally is the name of one of the characters in the Galway Chronicles Mom bought me for Christmas!) who was 15, but was born in New York State. If you count back 15 years from 1860, that's 1845... and the potato famine hit its worst in 1848. Most likely, her family got out just before it, or maybe they were lucky enough to be here already. Interesting stuff.
Let's see... not much else to tell, really. I'm going to scan the Dale Earnhardt thingie for D which she is putting on eBay, and then I'm going to just relax for a while, maybe even read a book that's not for class (like The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, maybe).
More later, if I don't fall asleep.