A Great Day

Today was a really good day, even though nothing terribly exciting happened.

I woke up early, spent the morning starting my paper for my independent study, and then went to work at 10:00. At work, I got to play around on Facebook because it is legitimately part of my job to do so (I update the Study Abroad and Reves Center Fan Pages, plus invite people to fan us, and update listservs), and then continued to transcribe evaluations. I only have half of a program left though! I should finish up these evaluations tomorrow, which is really exciting, considering that I have been working on them since last semester.

After work, I spent a little time on Gmail e-mailing with Emily and Dana about Disney World, in what proved to be a very long, very humorous e-mail thread. I really miss those two, so getting to have a "conversation" with them today for an hour or so made me incredibly happy. Meanwhile, I finished my paper. It was a paper which essentially wrote itself, but it wasn't a very good paper, necessarily. That is, the information was right, and it flows, but because this week was an introduction, I had some difficulty deciding which themes to pick up on.

As it so happens, many themes which I could comment on, and many "dialogues" among the authors, were illuminated during my meeting with Professor Popper. I love my indepedent study. Besides the fact that the reading is great, interesting, and that I actually want to sit down and learn, the meeting with Professor Popper really helped me to pull things out of the text that I hadn't consciously thought of before. He also helped me to place the authors historical arguments as I hadn't before. I did feel smart though, because I picked up on something in Gurr that struck me as false, and he picked up on it, too. It has to do with land, ready cash, and their relative importance; if you really want the details I can tell you, but if I explained it all here it would simply be nerding out on Renaissance and eighteenth-century history. He also posed the question "If you were Queen Anne of Denmark, why would you pay for a masque?" and we discussed James I and his historical reputation. James fun facts: in addition to practicing homosexuality, which obviously scandalized early historians, James practically led the witch-hunts in Scotland pre-becoming King of England; he even wrote his own Daemonology!

Anyways, the point is that, without a doubt, my independent study was the right choice for my third class this semester. As I mentioned, I find Race Relations more interesting than I anticipated, and on Tuesday I had "Field School in Material Culture" and I think it will be really fun, but there's no third class I could want to take more this independent study.

Then, to top the day off, I went to Trader Joe's! Grocery shopping CAN be fun. I got some amazing food, and for dinner had fettuccine, naan bread, and a baby spinach salad with dried cherries and balsamic vinigrette. Best meal I've made in this house in ages (Stephen made some great flank steak the other day with pasta and bell peppers, and that would be the best meal I've had in this house lately, but I didn't make it). And my food tonight only took about 10 minutes to prepare! I can eat well every day without ever going out for a meal again!

A good class, a good meal, and a productive day certainly make me happy.

Also, I'm learning Spanish on Muzzy and I'm making great progress! Although, it is Spain Spanish, not Latin American. Oh well, I want to live in England anyways, so the Spain Spanish will come in handy, and the basics will help in the USA.