Archaeology, University, & Writing

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Jul. 5th, 2004 @ 03:26 pm Personal Archaeology & History

Today marks the 34th anniversary of my birth. On this day, at 4:58 p.m. I came howling into the world with a voice so clear and loud that my mother could hear me through her sedation; now they have epidurals for the pain, back then they practically knocked women out with gas and medication.

I’m not sure what to think at the moment, or should I say that I’m not quite sure how to parse it all out and write it.

It has nothing to do with growing old. My family has a history of not only making it into their nineties, and doing so with a lot of vim, vigor, and mental cohesion. In short, the only thing that kills in my family is disease, or the occasional accident. So, needless to say, being thirty-four still means I’m a “kid.”

I do have to admit, though, that as of late my mind has steered very much towards time and change as it is found in people’s lives, as well as the perceptions tied to them. Before the discovery of my grandparents’ love-letters during World War II, while my mother was putting things into storage for her future move, well, being the snoop that I am, I took the liberty of going into our family photo box.

Some people do genealogies to find out who they were related to, but for me, you might say I was doing a genealogy on myself, a kind of personal history. Actually, I should clarify and say that I am doing a genealogy of myself, present tense.

What I mean is this. I am rediscovering and remembering who I was growing up, finding old photos and trying to place an age to them, how old I was, what was going on that year. It’s a kind of research that both challenges both the personal memory as well as the normal research structure. While historians look at writings, and archaeologists look at artifacts and the settings they were found in, I’m having to work with my own memory.

I am also having to contend with a few other things, mainly realizations and discoveries.

Looking at old photographs from when I was a child, it’s hard to believe it was me. Back then I was vigorous, energetic, and slender showing absolutely no signs of the overweight woman I was to become. I have to admit, looking at the pictures, there’s a kind of mental separation, as if I’m looking at the photos of someone else, some other soul. More than a few times I look at them and wish that I had a child like that, a little, smiling, red-headed bundle of energy full of laughter and covered with freckles (I freckle less nowadays and burn more). It’s me, though, and there’s no doubt in my mind about it, even now my two front teeth are ever so slightly crooked, and one has a small chip out of it (slipped in the shower when I was eight or so and knocked it against the wall, all the dentist could do then was smooth it out).

The thing about archaeologists is that we live our lives working with the past, and always with the past of other people be it the rare individual or more normally a whole community, if not a whole culture. Even as a young girl I loved the past, from my days wrapped up in ancient Egyptian books to Greek gods and long-ago Rome. And yet I still love my present day sciences, downloading images online from the Hubble Telescope like a madwoman, and trying to learn new languages. I see the future, and it is rooted on the foundations of the past, on the people of the past, building, learning, creating, inventing, and above all passing on their knowledge. Some see the present and either don’t know about the underlying layers of history and knowledge, or have forgotten about them.

Example: Someone found out that seventy-five parts saltpeter (potassium nitrate) finely ground, fifteen parts charcoal, and ten parts sulfur combined made an explosive compound later called gunpowder (75% Potassium Nitrate(KNO3) + 10% Sulphur (S) + 15% Carbon (C)). Since then, aside from neat fireworks and idiot-proof guns, it’s lead into the creation of rockets to launch items for space exploration as well as the science of aeronautics.

And so it goes, I dig for the layers underneath, to find the history that hopefully won’t be forgotten, or if it has, to bring it to light again.

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Jul. 4th, 2004 @ 11:18 pm Grandparents' Letters from World War 2: Initial Research

Interspersed with my grandfather’s letters, I’m also finding letters to my grandfather from a fellow named “Mike.” I think I’ve seen his picture, a photo of him in front of a tent, smiling and shirtless as he’s knelt down, holding his golden retriever. I don’t know if I still have the picture, or if I put it back in the family collection. I’ll have to check, and indeed in checking I find that I have it not. I don’t have many of the old photos come to think of it. I have one of my great-grandparent’s Noonan, my mother’s mother’s parents, and a photo of my grandmother Bergmann in her heyday of young-womanhood in my daily planner.

As I organize the letters into date order, I’m struck at how cutsey some of them are. A conversation in writing, my grandfather even notes how in love he is with my grandmother. I have to admit, I wonder if I’ve inherited some of this as that Lloyd and I can be cutely-affectionate towards each other, a kind of loving play.

I’m also finding bits and bobs of other things, a page torn from the Friday, August 13, 1943 Examiner covered with want ads (help wanted – woman and girls 18-45, Help wanted Men age 38-50 for example.

Also among things, I have found what looks to be a pen-pal letter to my grandmother from a Pfc. Everett Heacock based at the Army Air Forces Technical School a the Lincoln Air Base in Lincoln, Nebraska.

There’s even a little insert on the war by Southwestern Bell Telephone Company.

I also found an unopened letter from a Pfc. Harry Kowalksi based out of the U.S.M.C. Air Base in Mojave, California, dated July 9 1943

There’s a hand-written note in pencil given to my grandmother calling her “babe,” but I’m confounded as to who it is. Although no name is given, the author mentions that he’s the “guy” to get her to my grandfather. Interestingly enough, this person strikes me both as a Roman Catholic, as well as someone who knows my grandmother’s parents since they mentions “pray just a little harder also for the sinner you have for a mother.”

An added note here...I found another letter addressed to “Dearest Baby & Ernie” written in the same hand. Reading it, everything points to my great-grandfather Noonan, my grandmother’s father.

One more added note...I found yet a third letter in the same hand addressed to “Baby,” it’s signed “From Mother” which would mean that it was from Genevieve Noonan.

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Jul. 3rd, 2004 @ 10:47 pm Historical Finds in the Family Basement

I went over to what once was my grandparents’ house today to help my mother pack things up for the big move on the 12th of this month, and was immediately given the odious chore of packing up the stuff on my grandfather’s work-bench in the basement. Actually, it wasn’t that bad, there was just a lot of stuff to pack. On the other hand, though, my mother told me that I could go through the boxes on the shelves against one of the walls and sort out what I wanted to keep.

This was a good thing.

This was a very good thing.

Apparently both my mother and my aunt haven’t been entirely on top of things, then again my grandparents had a lot of things they’ve gotten over the years to sort through, and being the inquisitive person that I am (i.e. a professional snoop/researcher since I was four) I made a number of finds they missed.

The first was a black faux fur coat that had been stuffed away. It looks like a cross between a wrinkled velvet blanket and a teddy-bear skin gone wrong but I liked it, must be my grandmother’s side of me poking up.

Come to think of it, if I was leaning that way in my thoughts, I would have said that the spirits of my grandmother and grandfather were guiding me in a way, or at least bludgeoning me because I’m the only one in the family who apparently pays attention in a half-assed sort of way.

You see, aside from the coat, I also found five boxes of L.P.s (yep, good old vinyl) of all kinds of music, although most were of a classical or operatic nature...which means they had to have been my grandmother’s.

Add to that, I found three boxes of sheet music and old books on music, and I do mean old! There are more than a few that will need to be re-bound, and one of them had the date of 1909.

The above two things were important because music was very important to my grandmother. For most of her life she had been taking singing lessons and was very, very active in the music community here in St. Louis. Both an opera and a night club singer, she was one of the hands that built an opera company here in the city, as well as for a time had a night club called "The Lorelei” in Gaslight Square (a very ritzy, night-club area of town in the 50’s and 60’s).

To say she was a character would be like saying that a diamond was just shiny. She was a big woman, both in height and personality, a real grande dam. Among her possessions was a navy blue dress studded with a wide swath of rhine-stones around the collar and cuffs. I won’t tell you how many shoes she had specifically because I’ve never bothered to count, but she loved shoes, and being the only member of my family with big enough feet to fill them, what my aunt didn’t take for her remembrance, I inherited, and there were a lot! And all in their own labeled shoe-boxes.

As for personality, I can sum up my grandmother into two small anecdotes. The first I learned of shortly before she died...that when she and my grandfather owned “The Lorelei” not only did she sing, but her last song for the night would be “Let Me Entertain You.” This would have been no big thing except for the fact that as she was singing she would pull the falsies out of her dress and throw them into the audience. Note for those of you too young to know what “falsies” are and those too old to remember...to sum up they were the old-timey version of the wonder-bra, only instead of it being a bra, it was just two pads that you stuck into your bra to lift, create cleavage, and make the breasts look a bit bigger.

The second of these small anecdotes: the morning my grandmother died from her long fight with metastasized melanoma, barely able to speak clearly because of the second tumor in her brain, she sang “Let Me Entertain You” with all the energy she could. Grasping the arms of the hospital bed we had put in her room at home (she had wanted to die in her home with my grandfather), she shook the bed while belting out the song as best she could and laughed when she was done. On the 5th of November 1999, shortly after 10 p.m. she passed away.

My aunt, the eldest of the two daughters my grandparents had, and the only two children they had, practically beatified my grandmother into sainthood when she passed, or so it seemed. Seeing it from my perspective, and with what I know, although my mother thinks my aunt is off of her rocker, I can understand where my aunt is coming from to some degree, and that it’s part of her grieving process. Note: after my grandfather’s death, my mother and my aunt finally came to terms with the blatant truth that while my aunt is the emotional one, my mother is the logical one...and both of them can take it to extremes.

What can I say, my aunt and my mother are human...and then I can laugh, because I know I’m human too, and have my own quirks.

The big find of the day though came when I found a box marked “souvenirs & letters.” Opening it up, I found a hard-cover, leather bound notebook/binder with “Students Note Book” embossed on the cover sitting on the top. The first lined page was dated 28 November 1934, and as that the rest of the notebook had all the hallmarks of a Roman Catholic school education, I assumed it to have once belonged to my grandmother, and as that she was born in 1923, that at the time of writing this, she would have been 11 years old.

If that had not been enough, right below it was a manila folder marked AG-201—Klatz, Harold D. (Civ), and within the folder were letters my grandfather had written to her while he was serving in World War II, and interspersed with them are letters she had written him and other odds and ends from what looks to be May 1943 through September 1943. I still have to sort through them, and as I do, I’m typing them into the computer with the full intents of making them available on the internet as well on the grounds that even if my computer goes belly-up, I will still have access to them. Not to mention, maybe someone else will find them interesting as well.

I have to admit that when I first found the letters and rifled through them, I came across a hand-written “Notice of Divorce” with another line right below it which read something like “so we can get married again, and again, and again.” Beneath the introductory phrase was a kind of running list of what my grandfather apparently liked about my grandmother, and I couldn’t help but bust out laughing. One line read “built like a brick shithouse in a strong wind” which is very much the way I view the youthful version of my grandfather’s wild sense of humor. Not long after that I was in tears, sad because I miss both of my grandparents (my grandfather died in June of 2003), and sad because their house had been sold...a kind of physical reminder of their existence. I’m still kind of grieving, which is fine, it’s a part of life and I can contend with it...so long as I find something besides my shirt to blow my nose on.

Lloyd’s comment upon seeing the box once we got it home was “You could be going through this for the rest of your life.” We found neat clippings of news articles, camp newspapers, and comics in just the second bundle of letters wrapped in a “Victory Pack.”

Well, it’s already getting late, so off to bed I go.

Needless to say, I’ve had a couple of great inheritance’s plopped into my proverbial lap. A real find for a history and archaeology junky like myself. :-)

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Jun. 11th, 2004 @ 12:48 am A Whole Weeks' Worth

Beginning note:

Although I will still be posting here, there is now a sister diary over at http://ghost_horse_woman.blogspot.com where I will be posting pictures as well as diary entries. In short, that site will be the illustrated version of this one as that they have free picture hosting.

It’s been a busy week to say the least, but isn’t it always when looking back, and as that I have not been keeping this updated daily as I would have liked, it’s going to be a long entry.

HARRY POTTER: THURSDAY 4 JUNE
Last Thursday was of course the midnight showing of “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” Through fortune, and Lloyd mowing the lawn, we got the chance to go to the show, and I was rather...well, surprised. For starters, only one theater in St. Louis was doing a midnight show, and amazingly enough it was very easy to get tickets even at three in the afternoon. Admittedly, with the popularity of Potter, I had expected something on the level of “Star Wars Episode I”-style attendance making both for sold out tickets as well as a lot of people in costume and long lines. I was wrong on all three counts.

Showing up at 9:30 p.m. Thursday night, I had expected to find a long line, or at least a sizable one, but found instead only three people there for the movie, and all of them were sitting at the little tables in the cafe area of the theater. To say the least, I was beginning to wonder if I wasn’t coming off as a fan-girl type of person; I mean I enjoy the Harry Potter books, but I’m not up for doing costumes and whatnot, though I do find it neat to see young people all wrapped up in it all. About 9:40 a gaggle of young ladies came in dressed to the nines in Hogwarts uniforms armed with both wands and the English school robes that usually are only seen (and cheaply so) at graduations in the states. Hoping that folks would show up in costume, and wanting to share the event later with my friends (costuming is a real bear sometimes, and I laud folks for taking up the effort both for their enjoyment as well as others’), I had trundled along the digital camera that my sister and her husband had given me for Christmas (given to me along with an order that when I go to Ireland for school that I take LOTS of pictures). I almost fell over with the vocal shout of enthusiasm when I asked the young ladies (very lively teenagers! I only wished I had a portion of their energy) if I could take their picture. So...for those of you on my “Illustrated Diary,” you can see the picture below, though it still needs fixing.

Oh, yes, and I need to make a note here that I stopped by the local YMCA and picked up an application. Wednesday I had seen that they had a help wanted sign out, called, and found out that they had a front desk position open part time.

FRIDAY 5 JUNE
As per every Friday, I took my nephew along with my sister and my niece to have Brendan (found out it’s spelled with an “a”) meet with his speech therapist. Beforehand I had to drop Lloyd off for job training over at the community college where, while going to school, he’ll be maintaining their computers. So, for an hour it was myself and Meghan, and I actually found something that she enjoys doing. Usually I bring a huge box of crayons (the advantage of being older...no one can say “no” when you want the bizillion different colored crayons out there) and a pad of paper, but this time I brought the makeup and manicure bag (this coming from a rather plain woman). So, for an hour I did her fingernails and put a little makeup on here including glitter to make her look like a little princess. Oh she loved it! :-) I got a picture of it, but as that I’m still learning the oddities of my camera, the glitter didn’t show up all that well.

I also received my financial aid award letter, also known as how much I can accept for student loans. Aside from it being more than I got last year, I also don’t have to worry about paying for student housing in the dorms, so I’ve got a little something extra to pay other bills with.

SATURDAY: 5 JUNE
This and Sunday were kind of rough days for me as that I had promised to run five role-playing games at the Die Con gaming convention and I could not make it, and it was just eating me alive not to be there. There was a problem with my car (to say the least!), and had I been thinking straight I might have gotten a lift from someone, but even off the top of my head now I can’t even think of anyone who would have been available to take me.

Well, Lloyd’s mom was talking about getting me a cell phone, maybe it’s about time, as well as getting contact numbers for the folks I’ll be running games for.

Sadly, we got word on Saturday that one of the long-time members of the church I attend (when I have the time, although Mom Sungcha aka Lloyd’s mom, goes every week) passed away while she was in the hospital. We were told of the funeral and memorial arrangements, and asked if we could help out since she really didn’t have a very large family.

As if to add to this, although the day started with CNN Headline News saying that Ronald Reagan was very ill and it was thought that he would pass away in a few months, later in the day it was announced that he had just died.

Let me start by saying that at almost 34, I was old enough to experience and remember the Reagan years in the White House, and although I didn’t hold with everything he did and didn’t do, I do have a portion of respect for the man. I also have a healthy respect for the relationship he and Nancy had, and how hard it must have been both physically and emotionally to take care of him over the later years with his struggle with Parkinson’s disease. It comes across very clearly that president or not, she very much loved the man.

Anyhow, with all this looking at my own past, my own personal history, it’s made me even more aware of the memories I carry. I remember being on a school-sponsored spring-break trip to Washington D.C. when the “line in the sand” thing was going on with Muammar Al Qadhafi of Libya and how close the U.S. battleships could sail to Libya (this after it was found that the people who had blown up a West Berlin nightclub and killed U.S. service-people were linked to Libya). Makes me wonder how many people remember the invasion of Panama and the ouster of President Manuel Noriega on December 17, 1989, Noriega when the elder George Bush took over from Reagan. Then of course, there was the Iran-Contra scandal with Oliver North in the mid-80’s. Before the fall of the Berlin wall, and that blessed soul Mikhail Gorbechev who headed the former Soviet Union, I remember how terrified I was that some idiot somewhere would become mentally unhinged and launch a nuclear warhead and start a war.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/rr40.html
http://www.qadhafi.org/

Speaking of old memories. A couple of weeks ago I stopped by my storage locker and picked up a pair of old cowboy boots I had. One of the first things out of my mouth was a thanks to my dead grandmother for having them cleaned, because they are now about 22-years-old. Yep, my boots are older than some of my friends, and here’s the kicker, they still fit! My old boots that I had gotten before I went to horse-back riding camp at the YMCA camp, had worn to a wonderful looseness, soaked repeatedly in creeks (it’s like air conditioning for the feet) and walked in for I don’t know how many miles...boots that I used to wear around our family farm.... it was suddenly like meeting my 12-year-old self, and all sorts of memories I hadn’t thought of in so long came pouring back in a good way. Things like being up in the barn loft and sitting on the hay and writing while reading “The Neverending Story” by Michael Ende, ice skating on the pond in winter, seeing the full moon go down outside my window in summer, the sound of the frogs around teh pond, catching tadpoles every year, it just goes on.

Oh, yeah, and thanks to me being home on Saturday, I also got a call from my mother. Admittedly, I was left wondering if she was calling me to make arrangements for both Lloyd and I to come out and help her move something, but that wasn’t the case.

Apparently my mother has found proof that what has been told to my grandfather’s side of the family (my mother’s father) has been true...we are indeed descended from royalty. Now let me add this caveat here and say that we’ve never thought that we belonged to the house of Stuart or even the house of Windsor let alone the house of Hannover. It’s just that we knew somewhere in the German lineage there was talk of nobility, and my mother found the who, the what, and the wear.

To sum up, I am apparently a princess of the house of Ruess. Between 1200 and 1300 A.D. one of the first Heirich’s in the family (named after the Holy Roman Emperor Henry who had given the title of duke and then prince to the family) went to Russia and not only found a wife, but fell in love with the land. When he returned, he took on the new name of Ruess, which means “Russian” in the German of the period. Now the area of the principality of the house of Ruess was sort of medium, pushed up near Czechoslovakia, only with the fights with Saxony to the west, it got shrunk down even smaller to the point that after the Ruess line split into two halves (in 1564), the Elder and the Younger, that as of 1919 it was the two smallest principalities in what was to become Germany. Gera was the capital for the younger line of Ruess, and is in an area called “Thuringia” in Germany, not far away is Greiz, the capital of the older line. Sadly, Gera was largely destroyed in 1945 by allied bombings. Anyhow, Franz Ruess, a member of the elder line, came over to the U.S. in the 1830’s and founded my family.
Needless to say, my niece, Meghan fits the bill of “princess” perfectly, although we’ve dubbed her “drama princess.”

SUNDAY: 6 JUNE
Aside from lamenting the fact that I felt like I had let down the folks at Die Con (purely my feeling, and not the head of the convention or anyone else saying anything...I even sent an apology letter along with an explanation of my absence), I have no idea what I did on Sunday. And yes, I do take what I promise to do seriously, and that includes running a game.

MONDAY: 7 JUNE
Ran over to campus to drop off my financial aid award letter and found out that the disbursal of the funds won’t happen until a week before school starts. The bad news is, I still owe the cashier’s office a little less than $100 for health stuff, and a couple of things I needed to pick up at the book store.

I also went and picked up the books I’d requested on archaeology and language, and...well...I think I’ve found my niche: Archaeological Linguistics. And yes, it’s indeed a real field, and apparently a very active one. The thing is, though, not only do I need to have German (for current research), Latin (for older works) and Ancient Greek, but I also need French (for current theories) before moving on to graduate school. Hmm...I wonder if I ever mentioned that I want to learn Korean and Russian as well along with Irish Gaelic, Welsh, and Old English? :-)

I also stopped by the YMCA and dropped off my application for employment with hopes that maybe I’d fit.

TUESDAY: 8 JUNE
Well, I had written up a long entry on this day for the diary, but my computer locked up and I lost it (which is why I’m writing this on Word before posting it to the net). It was a year ago that day that my grandfather had passed away, and although I missed him, and my grandmother, I didn’t feel super-sad or weepy. I did take care of myself, and kept active by helping Lloyd work on the shelves for the storage garage out back; it’s turning out to be a really complex-ish task, not to mention a very warm one with this latest weather.

WEDNESDAY: 9 JUNE
Found out that there’s a book called 501 Latin Verbs. YES!!! All the verbs are put through their tenses and declensions, and when I have the funds, I’m getting the thing, along with a copy of the book we’re going to be using for Ancient Greek at school. I have to admit, after looking at a sample page, I’m a little nervous of the Greek...it’s a whole new alphabet that I’m going to have to learn, but at least the professor and I know each other so I should have help.

After running to get lunch for my sister and the kids, she was stuck at home, there was a phone call on the answering machine from Lisa at the YMCA, she wanted to get me in for an interview. I of course gave her a call back and had a delightful conversation with her, and we set up the appointment for Thursday at 2 p.m. for me to come in which worked perfectly.

THURSDAY: 10 JUNE
The morning started out a little earlier than usual. Mrs. Arbogast’s funeral service at the church was at 9 a.m., and we where there to help out as well as be of support. After not being at church for almost six months and then some because of school, the bishop and the others were glad to see me back, and said as much very clearly, and teased me about being gone. I also found out that aside from being a practicing lawyer (yes, the clergy of my church have regular jobs to make ends meet), I found out the bishop is also a linguist. Needless to say, when he has the time, I’m going to have to talk more with him, also I do enjoy the fact that he doesn’t just go through the motions of a service and then give a sermon, he actually literally sits down and tells us the history of what is done during the service and whatnot. So, yes, as a history-type of person, you can see why he sort of appeals to me as a person, although the poor gentleman always seems so hurried.

Lunch at Denny’s with Mom Sungcha, Lloyd, and Sister Jane (cool lady), followed by a brief time at home to change and check mail before hurrying off to my interview.

Well, the interview went rather well. The interview itself lasted an hour, and at the end of it Lisa and Nick (who will be my two supervisors) offered me the job at the YMCA. So, not only do I get to work a part-time job where they’re very willing to work around my schedule (Nick’s going to college as well), but I also get a membership to the Y, and health and dental insurance as well as life insurance! The folks there too are great, I mean I’m really impressed with them. The work environment is comfortable, relaxed, and supportive. The thing Nick and Lisa stressed to me was that the Y is a non-for-profit organization, that they’re there to provide a safe and healthy place for the community as well as support. Did I mention the place is huge? I mean this is the perfect job for me right now. It gives me a break from studying, makes me socialize, lets me share something I enjoy (the Y is just that kind of place where it encourages getting exercise and playing), and I get a paycheck. Add to that, it’s a job that will make me healthier!

You know, I was a bit concerned about my weight. I mean sometimes I just don’t like the way some cloths look on me, and frankly I’ve avoided shorts for years. So, I’ll be in a place where I can get exercise as well as education on how to do so. I still have to giggle that Mom Sungcha had me go grocery shopping yesterday. I’ve been concerned about being sure I have fruits and vegetables that that’s the majority of food in the refrigerator: corn, strawberries, grapefruit, watermelon, carrots, salad, and golden delicious apples.

Speaking of which...I need to go get something to eat. :-)

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Jun. 6th, 2004 @ 12:12 pm Debt, College, & Jobs

Well, for good or ill I've been gearing up my Quicken accounting program for use to the almost fullest extent (I don't do internet downloads from accounts)...and I've now got a very clear picture of where I am financially: how much debt I've got as well as interest rates. Well, the good news is...I guess it's a tad bit below average...then again, I calculated in my student loans which aren't due to be paid on yet.

That's the down side of going to college on student loans. Since I have no other means to pay for school, that's it. Last academic year I had a total of $10,500 in student loans. This upcoming academic year they're offering $12,600. So, in the span of two years I've racked up a debt of $23,100. Now I understand why it's taking so long for my mother to pay of her student loans! Well, on the plus side I'm going to a state university, if I'd been going to Washington University it would have doubled that debt without a doubt in the same span of time.

Meanwhile, as if my academic and mental life isn't exciting enough...I mean how many people keep studying throughout the summer...reading things like "Archaeology & Language" by Colin Renfew, or start in on Plato's "Republic."...then again, I'm the type of person who feels she's behind on knowing this stuff anyhow (yeah, at this rate, I don't think I'll suffer from Alzheimers)...I've gotten semi-bitten by a new bug of interest. Actually, it's right up my proverbial alley...Archaeological Linguistics, and aside from one crackpot out there who thinks he knows it all, there's only one professor in the field...and it sounds like the field is small...a perfect place for me to fit in and develop new things, although what I don't know at the moment.

So, here I've been suffering wondering if I should go ahead and take Latin and Ancient Greek along with my German class, giving me fifteen hours of course work, and without any archaeological courses for the semester... Boom! I find out that I am indeed on the right route of study to become a linguist, and that after Latin, Ancient Greek, and German, I pretty much need to learn French as well. To sum up, to get into graduate school I'll need German, French, Latin, and Ancient Greek if I'm going to do linguistics.

I guess this means I'm going to be in college a little bit longer than I expected before getting my bachelor degree.

Minkvile...I'm hoping to get a job up at the local YMCA workign the front desk part time...and I'm hoping to keep it through next semester as well. We shall see.

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Jun. 2nd, 2004 @ 12:02 am Brendon and Meghan

"Girl" by Farschian

Gasoline Price today $1.81

Not too much of an exciting day. Got up in time to take my sister and my almost 4-year-old nephew for a 10:30 a.m. meeting about where he was going to be going to school.

A year ago last January, my nephew, Brendon, was diagnosed as being severely hearing- impared in the right ear, and completely deaf in the left. We had been noticing early on that he wasn’t responding to noises like a normal child does, and after we ran some home tests over Christmas, we knew something was wrong. Add to that, the local Parents as Teachers program person had also noticed as well. So, this past December a cochlear device was implanted into his left ear.

A cochlear implant is a relatively simple device...well, relatively, as well as a small one. The device itself is installed under the skin of the scalp just up and behind the ear. A microfine wire from the device is run into the cochlea and therefor sends sound vibrations to the ear. To make the whole thing work is an electronic processor, which is worn in a fanny-pack, and has a wire with a magnet on it to connect it to the device (note: hair still grows in the place where the device is) and thereby activate it. The processor is programmed about once a month to turn up the volume level that Brendon can hear so that he’s not overwhelmed with sound all at once, and his neural pathways can be built in his brain to handle his hearing.

Oh, and to say the least, Brendon’s deafness hasn’t affected his personality to say the least! He’s a vivacious boy with curly blonde hair and the most expressive a person can be both with is face and with his body. He loves to goof around and flirt as well. He knows he’s cute and boy does he use it to the fullest extent...especially when he knows he’s in trouble with me or his mother. It’s so hard not to laugh when he does it, too. He just gets these riotously cute or goofy expressions on his face, and it’s obvious that he’s deliberately trying to get us to laugh, and himself out of trouble. Getting the implant has only made his personality jump five-fold. I keep telling my sister and her husband that we need to watch him when he gets into his teens, I have a feeling he’s going to be a heartbreaker or an actor. I mean really, watching “A Knight’s Tale,” he gives me the impression of looking like a four-year-old version of Heath Ledger, or even Heath Ledger’s character. Heck, I’ve even gone so far as to keep him in mind when I’m thinking of one of my characters in the “Tanwin” series...Carver ap Hugh...although I can’t say that I’ve ever written about Carver when he was four (only at 10 and 18 thus far), I can easily see him being a bit like Brendon...but as an only child.

Brendon has an older sister, Meghan, who is just about five and a half now, and she’s a personality unto herself. She’s a drama queen and we wonder if bits of her aren’t hopping ahead into teenage-hood with all the dramatics and fits she throws. It’s almost as if she’s trying on emotions, blowing them way out of proportion to see how they work, and driving us all nuts in the process because we’re trying to figure out what’s going on.

The great thing about all this is...well, for starters both Lloyd and myself are sort of getting a training course in how to take care of kids, and seeing how the other gets on with children. Needless to say, Lloyd has no problem at all, Meghan and Brendon love playing with him, and he’s definitely a kid at heart...although the body is having fits trying to keep up at times. Add to that, they’re my sister and her husband’s children, so when our nerves are close to being shot for all the attitude my niece gives us when she’s tired, cranky, and just wants her way (“Are we going to the grocery store?” “Yes Meghan, we’re going to Aldi’s.” “Aldi’s isn’t a grocery store!” “Yes it is, Meghan.”). Add to that, she’s gotten into her head that every time I take my sister somewhere then we also must go to McDonalds...or at least she subjugates us with the question “Are we going to McDonalds?” constantly. She’s got this thing about willful, stubborn, persistence. She has her view of the world and that’s that.

Tomorrow morning I get to climb out of bed to take my sister to the OB-GYN for her ultrasound. Yep, there’s a third child on the way, although it’s doing a great job of giving her aunt (me) the fits, or at least the worries. My sister has spotted early on in the pregnancy, but the doctor checked her out repeatedly, kept an eye on her, and said all was well. Then last week my sister mentions that she hasn’t felt the baby kick yet. I probably turned white as a ghost while she just looked at me and said, “What?” My sister is Mrs. Pregnant-Mother-Knowledge-Woman. Although she hasn’t gone to medical school, she seems to know the stuff like the back of her hand, and what she doesn’t know she talks to her doctor about; thankfully she doesn’t take chances. Then there’s me, who is more fearful than normal folks about her loosing the child. Granted, she’s never miscarried before, and the baby’s heartbeat has been found...I just have vague memories of my mother’s miscarriages and the one baby girl that was still-born when I was five; it wasn’t until I was in my mid-teens that it got explained to me why my mother hadn’t come home from the hospital with a baby back then. Note: my sister is just shy of eight years younger than I am. Anyhow, something I’ve come to realize is that part of me is very much tied in with my niece and nephew and my sister, and that a still-birth or a miscarriage effects more than just the mother and father...it effects the whole family. That, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever have children. I’m hoping that I do, but I’m not sure when it’ll happen or if it will happen.

So, that’s the day in a nutshell. Meanwhile, my future mother-in-law, I guess I’ll dub her Mom Sung-cha (her nickname is Sandy, but I like her Korean birth name better) since I call her “mom” anyhow...she’s pretty much adopted me, although she’s not giving me chores...yet. As I was saying, though, she’s working on going to visit her daughter, Chris, down in Nashville. Lloyd’s younger brother, Court, used to work for an commercial airline and part of his package for leaving was that he got tickets for a year. The catch is, those tickets are only valid if there’s a seat available. If not, then the ticket gets bumped to the next flight out. She’s hoping to go Thursday morning and be back Saturday morning, but who knows. Admittedly, I’m up for some private time with Lloyd when Court’s out of the house. I just have a mental lock on getting all lovey-dovey when someone else is in the house. I don’t know, I just get embarrassed at the thought that someone will hear me, and worse it being a relation that will then perhaps tease me or just give me funny looks. I’m self-conscious in that manner.

Meanwhile, I have a gaming convention to prepare for Die Con 4 only I now have to e-mail the head of the con that I won’t be able to make it for the Friday 2 p.m. game I was scheduled to run because I need to run my sister and nephew to his speech therapist. I also have to e-mail my friend Mike to tell him I won’t be able to make the game this Sunday because I’d already scheduled to run a game for Die Con that day.

You know, for being off from school I’m awfully busy. It’s almost as if folks, namely my family, have been waiting for me to get out of classes so that I can do stuff for them.

My life is not boring!

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Jun. 2nd, 2004 @ 12:01 am Early to Rise on a Holiday

Skitter-Boo agreeing that 5:30 a.m. is just too early to be getting up.

So much for sleeping in on a holiday, I got up at 5:30 a.m. this morning to help my beloved Lloyd build shelves in the garage. I should have gotten up later. Already it's afternoon and I'm finally feeling awake even after a 32 oz. Rooster Booster Lite (taurine, guanine, but no caffine) at 9 a.m.. Now that I'm hearing the footsteps of my possible future mother-in-law upstairs, I think perhaps it's time I go wake someone up from his brief nap so we can get back to work. I want to get the organization of the garage done and his room cleaned out before my sanity breaks or I go batty hearing his mother complain just one more time.

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Jun. 1st, 2004 @ 11:59 pm Remembering the Dead

Vardzia Medieval Cave Monastery, Georgia

A year ago today my grandfather was laying in a hospital bed in his room in his own home with an oxygen tank helping him to breathe. It was a rough Memorial Day for me then, living with him and my mother to make sure he was cared for. He was dying, and on June 8th he passed away shortly before 10 p.m. I must say that I miss him, and my grandmother too; she had passed away from cancer on 5 November 1999. Until they died, I could never imagine a time when they wouldn't be around for me, when they wouldn't be alive, my grandfather watching golf and making running commentaries on the football game while poking through one of his thick tomes on history. Meanwhile, my grandmother would flit around the house like the Titanic before it sank, big and grand. My grandfather had worked as a banking executive, my grandmother as a night-club and opera singer. They both had their imperfections, things I could barely tolerate about them, but those were things that made them who they were even if my grandmother had too many shoes and a dress dripping with rhinestones.

I miss them.

My grandmother left me a legacy of showmanship, that if one was to be showy, one had to do it with style and grace. She gave me a love for the arts, although she said I could never make a living being a writer let alone an archaeologist. Oh, yes, and she also left me the legacy of her shoes. When she passed away I was the only one in the family with big enough feet to fit them. Most of them I've had to store away, beautiful as they are, they are not walking shoes, and for now I need practicality over beauty.

My grandfather left me curiosity and a love of science and learning. He was always reading: books, newspapers, magazines. He had the requisite National Geographic as well as the Smithsonian magazines, and I got raised with a healthy dose of PBS, "National Geographic" programs, and "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" along with my Scooby-Doo cartoons. I guess it's in part because of him that I'm very interested in languages and their origins, most notably the Indo-Europeans and Proto-Indo-Europeans.

Well, I shall see what I can do about making this day a bit more cheerful.

Guten Tag

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Jun. 1st, 2004 @ 11:55 pm Stuttered Beginnings

Utinam barbari spatium proprium tuum invadant!
"May barbarians invade your personal
space!"
You are highly confrontational and possibly in a
bad mood. You would have sworn in this quiz,
if I had made it an option.

Which Weird Latin Phrase Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Frighteningly enough...with what I know of Latin this is pretty close to right, and yes staying up until the wee hours of the morning, although enjoyably creative, puts me in the irritable side of moods.

*sigh* Someday I will learn how to make my blog look at least halfway interesting. I've taken a peak at others and mine's just downright boring, but such is life. Not only do I try to keep things simple, but I also don't get a lot of free time to beat my head against the wall learning HTML. :-)

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Jun. 1st, 2004 @ 11:44 pm Ithaca

Ithaca

Ithaca

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thought remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches y our spirit adn your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will encounter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you a beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean

- Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)

The above poem was given to me at the end of the autumn term by my Greek Archaeology professor, Dr. Michael Cosmopoulos. Referring to the journey home of Odysseus in Homer's poem "The Odyssey," I find it quite fitting to this time in my life, as well as the view I hold of my future...a string of adventures and discoveries making for a life-long journey that ends in my own "Ithaca." For as it is said, it is not the destination that makes for an interesting trip, it is the journey itself.

And so this pale representation of my life comes to pages, poorly written I think, at least in comparison to the tales and lays of old, but hopefully understandable.

A long journey begins with one step at a time.

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May. 21st, 2004 @ 07:07 pm Dreams & Strawberries

Well, last night was a late night...I was up until past two crying...feeling stressed and horrible about the lack of funds, about feeling out of step and not "worthwhile" as it were (i.e. why was I born, I don't feel like I'm doing much for this world). Then there's this war going on in my head, a back and forth of feeling anxious and depressed, while the other part of me is saying, "Excuse me, but you're wallowing, and doing so very badly. You certainly can't think clearly at this hour, let alone do much, and don't go feeling wretched or angry at Lloyd because he's not comforting you because you haven't gone to him and told him what's going on."

At one point in time I was wondering if there's something like a proverbial "family curse" that I'm dealing with, something that my father couldn't get past, and here I am warring with it myself. At school, I saw progress in myself...heck a 3.12 GPA is hell of a lot of progress for someone who graduated high school with a 1.8 I think; college is more interesting, that and I'm paying for the classes. Still, going to classes, having to study, I felt like I was doing something productive, something good, I was learning and chugging away at it. Now this. I wonder if retirees face this in their lives, this sudden shift of gear to some completely different purpose. Anyhow, back to the family curse...call it a combination of depression, low self-image, and not quite running around like a chicken with their head cut off so much as soundly beaned and recovering.

You know, I've been slowly making inroads towards changing my last name back to my "maiden" name, also known as...my father's last name. Running it through my head, and seeing it in writing...this old name I used to go by...it was like coming back to myself, becoming a whole person. I also have to admit, it would also be a great karmic cleansing to be a Turner, and be successful...might even be able to "karmically cleanse" the family name.

I dunno, I can't point a finger to say that it was all so-and-so's fault for me being like this. This is me, and I'm responsable for me. I gotta make my bed, brush my teeth, feed myself, and wipe my butt when I use the bathroom, I also have to wash myself. Boom! There it is! I gotta take care of myself...it's not as if no one else can take care of me, it's just that frankly not only am I not too enthused about the thought of having someone else in the bathroom with me when I'm on the toilet...and, if I'm going to make a mess I'd rather clean it up myself so that if it gets messier I'm the only one I can fuss at.

*pointing to the above* Yeah, if I ever end up in a nursing home or in a hospital heavens help the staff...and me come to think of it! I just remembered, my mother's now a nurse, too, amoung all her other degrees...and she can make the crankiest patient ever! I dare not have her for her bedside manner, I just might just seak around and do everything myself so she'll leave me alone. :-) Sorry, just remembering what a busy-body she can be when she's in her own element.

Well, I can laugh about this, which is good, because last night just wasn't. I mean, I've cried out of sadness and fear and seen it for what it was, but this...this was just dispair...and with two sides of me arguing to boot. Granted, one side kept the other side in check pretty well...I was crying over the lack of funds, and the sadness and fear. I'd been hoping that my mother could possibly financially help me out as I thought she would before I went to college...and both she and my grandfather had promised before he died that I'd be in college...but honestly, she's not in financial shape for it (at least not that I know of). She's trying to save up the funds and show the bank people that she's good for a loan to cover buying out my aunt on the family house. My sister and her family aren't in the greatest spots either... after a spat between the two of them, and my sister calling me breathing fire about her husband and his mother doing the bills...well, I'm glad to say that I helped out a fair deal to give my sister and her husband a peace of mind. I pointed them towards Quicken and told them it's a huge help in keeping track of finances. Add to that, his parents are out of town for three weeks so right now it's up to them to take care of their own bills. :-) I'm hoping it goes well.

Had a bit of a disturbing dream this morning, and it's rather telling of where I guess I am mentally...especially with my subconscious joining in to give me a boot to the head to see reason.

I dreamt last night that I was so depressed, so unable to handle my life, my schooling, my fiances, everything that I was just...well "freaking out" doesn't quite work so much as hurtling towards a stone wall, seeing it coming, but not seeing a door in it to get through it...that "do something!" mentality while not knowing what to do that's helpful. So there I was just at my wits end, so full of pain, so full of turmoil, a sitting body of pain (I was sitting down in my dream) that I just had to let it all out someway.

Looking back at the dream I can only shake my head and feel thankful that my own inability to commit suicide (there's just some sort of fear there) goes to the subconscious level as well. So, there I was, shirtless, bra-less in this dream, and I had a knife...a sharp, large, smooth-edged knife (serrations just tears up the skin). I figure want to die, to take my life, although in the back of my dream mind I'm thinking "nahh," and that bit takes over. *rolls eyes* I end up cutting a six-inch gash into the flesh over the breast bone...yeah, down the breast bone... the "Nahh" voice had apparently made sure that I aimed for something I wouldn't bleed to death over, let alone cut through.

Realizing what I've done in this dream, and before I start dripping blood, I grab a white shirt, clump it together, put it between my breasts over the wound, and promptly put my head in my right hand while holding the shirt with my left. "Brilliance," I think to myself in my own special tone of sarcasim, "just absolute brilliance, I have now cut this gash into my chest and it hurts like hell. I don't care it if did get my mind off my depression for the moment, it hurts!"

Some lady comes in and sits down across the table from me. She's a friend, although no one I know in my waking life. We get to talking, and I just tell her I nicked myself, that I'd be okay. Yeah, right, while I'm fibbing to her by telling her the injury is all right, I'm not saying a word about what a wreck I am emotionally at the moment. Then I start feeling woozy and pale, and she kindly begins to look for the phone number of my doctor on the phone book, but with no success. I end up telling her to just call 9-1-1, that I think it's worse than I suspected...not saying aloud that I'm beginning to think the cut didn't just go skin deep, but a whole lot deeper.

When the paramedics arrived in the dream, I felt a whole lot better, or at least I thought I did (even in real life when I go to see a doctor I usually buck up, granted I'm still sick, I just act a bit more cheerier). As they guided me towards the ambulance under the power of my own feet, at my insistance I was walking, I started to wonder if I really needed it, and if I couldn't just have my friend drive me to the hospital because I was concerned what the ambulance bill would look like since I have no insurance. Then I tossed the thought to the side considering that I wasn't sure what I'd done to myself specifically, the E.M.T.'s were there, and frankly I could pay the bill later.

I got into the ambulance and laid down on the gurney feeling rather sad and upset that I was there, and I'd put myself there out of my own foolishness. My friend was talking to the paramedics about my injury and how I'd gotten it, unknown to what had really happened, and that's when I fessed up. She didn't know, she hadn't seen, and I hadn't told her. Covering my eyes to hide my own shame and tears, I told her and the paramedics that it hadn't been an accident that I was cut, that I had done it to myself, that I had been suicidal. The aura of the area went from one of comfort "okay, we can take care of this, it's just an injury," to "oh shit! This is more serious than we thought!"

And that was where the dream ended....

To end on a good note...after waking up late, well, just shy of 9am late. I went with my sister and her kids and Lloyd out to Eckert's Farms to pick strawberries and had a lot of fun...it was draining, but it was fun.

And I'm feeling okay right now...and I've got a box full of strawberries to do something with. :-)

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May. 20th, 2004 @ 10:27 pm Going Through Limbo

I need to start making this journalling more of a regular habit, I'm getting lax, rusty, and I need another reason to clean off my desk now that school is out.

I'm really not doing well with being out of school. It's my first week since my last final and I feel a cross between traumatized and completely lost. Just a little lamb who has lost my way...bahh...bahh...bahh. No, wait, that was part of the theme song to "The Black Sheep Squadron." :-)

Saw "Shrek 2" this afternoon with Lloyd and enjoyed it. Not only were there songs from the '70's and '80's, but just all the jokes poking fun at everything from "E.T." to Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." Pretty much, it's just a simple tale about a married couple undergoing the stresses of what others (especially the in-laws) think about them, or what they should be. It's also about people being who they are...something which I honestly think folks in this day and age need to be bludgeoned with to get past the plastic and airbrushed twig-models on the cover of magazines.

Heck, I'm finally coming to terms with figuring out my own style. Yeah, it's frumpy and comfortable...but I like loose, frumpy, and comfortable...although I'd like to try cute out sometime when I have the money. I'm beginning to face the fact that I enjoy wearing jeans and t-shirts, and that's who I am. I'm not trying to impress anyone but myself, and frankly at this moment in time I don't feel up to doing that. I mean I've finally convinced myself that wearing pigtails is just me. I mean it keeps my hair out of my eyes, keeps it off the back of my neck, and I don't have to worry about getting it cut; I'm trying to grow it out long...although I wish it wasn't as flat as a board.

Speaking of hair flat as a board. I think I've found the perfect young actress to help me visualize my Tanwin character at 10-years-old. My sister lent me a copy of "Ghost Ship" which is a pretty good "haunted-house" kind of story, only at sea, and with intelligent adults. And on board this ship full of ghosts is the ghost of a young girl who plays a pivotal role in the movie. I don't know if they colored her hair, but it's red, and flat, and pulled back. And although she's in a dress she still looks as skinny as a really active little girl would be...and she's got the most expressive face. Add to that, she's great at talking to one of the adults, being very straight forwards while also trying to be friendly and gentle...you know how ghosts can freak people out. Emily Browning is the young actress' name (found out at www.imdb.com (Internet Movie Database).

*sigh* I haven't written creatively since I turned in the "Event Horizons." I've just felt so lack-luster, as well as disorganized.

Funny enough...I've seen my sister and the kids more now, along with my friend Brian, and I haven't baked a loaf of bread in over a week...we're out of margarine, milk, and eggs. Tomorrow, Lloyd and I are joining my sister and the kids in going strawberry picking. That's of course if I'm not as sore tomorrow as a I was today; yesterday Lloyd and I walked for a half an hour with Brian at the park...but before that, we walked the mile and then some to the closest McDonalds for lunch.

Refilled my meds today...although it was twice what I expected. The first time my prescription was only just shy of $20 at the Medicine Shoppe on St. Charles Rock Road. Today, I go to one on Olive, and the same prescription runs me $40! The lady there said that since it's a generic, different companies make the medication, and charge different prices. I think before I get a re-fill, I'm going to see what I can do about moving my prescription over to the one on St. Charles Rock Road. Oh, yeah, and although they share a name, each store isn't affiliated with each other.

Well, at least I've got my meds. I'd say that a higher power was looking our for me because Lloyd had said that he'd be willing to pay for them, and this morning he got a call from an associate asking for a ride to work, as well as for him to answer a survey for her work. The money he got from that just covered the suprising price for my meds. Lloyd said it was a gift, and no bother to him, that someone wanted to be sure I had my medication.

Yeah, I've been running on the low side, but like I've said before, it's a mixture of things...mainly the shock of not being in school. There's no place I have to be, nothing I have to study. I don't even have a job...which is already starting to wear on me...I don't have any income, and the bills are starting to chatch up to me. I even owe my university. I also am feeling like I'm not contributing again...although it's all me, as it always is.

12 weeks and 6 days left until school starts up again.

Oh, got my grades...A, B+, B, and B-...so I've got a 3.21 for the semester. With that GPA, I'll be on the Dean's List again...huzzah! I figure I'll hear something by August or so. I'm wanting to graduate at least Cum Laude, but once again...it's all me doing it for myself. :-)

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May. 19th, 2004 @ 12:45 am A Higher Level of Annoyability?

Well, my transition to being out of school for the summer has been a very rough one. It also doesn't help that I don't have the money to cover my meds, so I've been off of them for about three weeks now. Boy, can I feel it!

I've found my tolerance level is hitting a not quite so nearly all-time low. I joined a supposed online group for the discussion of writing, but instead they were comparing The Iliad to the new movie Troy. I put in my two cents from archaeology, and promptly got trounced for being a "whinney girl" amoung other things. When I checked on the guys who were commenting like this, I came to find that they were pretty much 17-year-old kids...and they were acting like kids. They didn't even know how to discuss, let alone debate properly.

Look...even my diary entry is shorter.

I'll have to work on this....

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May. 14th, 2004 @ 11:10 pm Preliminary Grades

Well, I popped in on the internet to check my grades, and although they've been posted in "My Gateway," they haven't hit the official grade page-thing yet. It's a fairly good mix: an A in Intermediate Fiction Writing, a B in German, a B+ in Culture, Politics, and Social Organization, and a C+ or B- in my Statistics class.

CULTURE, POLITICS, & SOCIAL ORG.
I'm a tad bit bummed. I was hoping for the full 80 points on my research paper, but only got 74, and I'm kinda wondering why...aside from the fact that it was nearly a week late. *chuckles* I want to know what I missed saying and what I may have messed up. It's just me and my writing, especially with research papers, I want to be sure I get the information across clearly. I e-mailed my professor about it, so I figure I'll know sometime this summer.

Speaking of which, Tim Baumann, one of the two archaeology professors, and the one who was over "Culture" class...he's a great teacher and very relaxed. I got a chuckle Monday when I went to apologize about not turning in my research paper, that my focus had shifted from horses to this one excavation. He told me to just get the paper done, keep it simple, and that I had the rest of my life to research it and learn more. Needless to say, in that area he and Lloyd most heartily agree. Granted, with my personality I want to know it all, I want to know it fast, and I want to tell someone all about it.

INTERMEDIATE FICTION
I was pleasantly surprised about the A in my Fiction class. The first day the professor was talking about how one really can't grade art, and that officially everyone was starting out with a B- in the class. She expected class participation (no problem here on that), and perfect attendance with everyone being on time. Oh, yeah, and she flat out stated that she didn't want anyone writing in genre because it provided too many crutches. That and honestly she hadn't read much fantasy, although Tolkien by her standards was very good since the hobbits seemed to be more like little people.

Well, I think I made a convert out of her. :-) Writing straight fiction for me is a bit difficult because I'm not sure how well I can make the average and the everyday sound interesting (everyone gets a broken heart in their lifetime). Writing fiction with an aspect of the fantastic on the other hand is very easy for me. Thinking on it now, I wonder if perhaps it's a bit of how I look at the world...that there are bits of the fantastic in reality, and what I do is just make it more obvious, blow it up and out of proportion to make it seen, perhaps even to prove a point. Or, in the case of the Tanwin story and novel...doing what Tolkien did and making a world where the fantastic to us is reality to others, quiet, subdued, and just there...such as elves.

I could just go on and on about writing and story-crafting. Thinking about it now, I'm wondering if why I write fantasy is a bit of an enjoyable holdover from the good aspects of my childhood. Since there were only a couple of children in the neighborhood where I grew up, and they were in the same family, whenever I wasn't playing with them I was keeping myself occupied...and I _loved_ to read. My favorite books were of course the Beatrix Potter ones, I loved how colorful the stories were, and how smooth, silky, and special the paper felt...that and how the animals lived in families and acted like adults and children. My other favorite book was my Children's Bible published by Golden Books. Looking back, I can say that I was a spiritual child, though my parents didn't raise me with any particular religion or religious beliefs. I remember pouring over the stories looking for the morals on how to be a good person, which was the same thing I did with fairy tails, too (although some didn't seem to have any...like "The Princess and the Pea"). Later I would get hooked on King Tut...and Greek Mythology...there's a book to this day I still love on Greek myth that was absolutely wonderful. At one point in time I even had the gods memorized as well as the names of the muses.

STATISTICS
Another thing I'm ever so slightly bummed about, but content with the grade. I can live with a C+ or a B-, at least I passed the class! I ended up selling the book after I studied on Thursday, found that I got more information from my notes than the book, and was _still_ lost to some degree. Sadly, I walked out with a 13.2 out of 20 points on the last test, and there were things I just couldn't answer, but hey, I passed, and considering the class, I'm satisfied.

GERMAN
Walked out with a B, and along with Latin, I'll be reviewing over the summer. :-)

CAN'T RELAX YET
Speaking of which...it may be Friday, but I'm still up and running at moderate tilt in regards to school and being active. I guess that's the big thing, being active. I started going through my Latin book and writing up flash cards. I even read the first chapter and translated it to my neice. I mean I got home from driving my sister and the kids around and out of habit I sat down to study...and although I don't have classes, I just made something up to do...Latin. :-)

I'm a little concerned about my sister and her husband, and today I tossed some suggestions her way. To sum it all up, they're having trouble financially communicating, and it's just making things more stressful for them. The big thing is, once a week Matt goes over to his mother's house to pay bills, and she's the one who has their checkbook, tells him what their budget is and all that. Granted, she works at a bank and opens accounts as well as helps client balance their checkbook, but she's no accountant...and add to that, being that she's his mother, in my honest opinion she shouldn't be so intimate with their finances, especially since she's making judgement calls and putting pressure on Matt that he doesn't need. A great example is that here he's been looking for a house, and suddenly his mother is telling him that he can't afford one because he can't pay the inspection fees!

As they say, knowledge is half the battle, and with money, knowing what's going on with it can keep one's sanity. So, anyhow, I suggested to my sister that I loan them my copy of Quicken...a really easy and user-friendly program to keep track of not only checking accounts, but cash, credit cards, and loans. It also does thinks like gives a balance sheet and helps set up a budget.

It's an organization thing, and I figured if Matt and Carolyn knew where things were, how much money they had, when bills were due and did it together it would help.

BUT I DID SLEEP
I had a early morning today. Got up at shortly before 8 a.m. so I could drive Carolyn and the kids to St. Joesephs for a tour of their pre-school and grade school. To sum it up, they do a great job at that school by teaching the kids through involvement and play. I could relate immediately how they gave one-on-one attention to the kids or did small groups in teaching them how to speak and listen. It was exactly like teaching a child or anyone for that matter a foreign language. I also got a smile when Meghan was talking to the principal about Brendon's processor and how it worked...the woman's reaction was "she's hired! She knows more about this than most people!"

Something I've noticed about myself. I don't see a handicap as a handicap, just a difference, something to work with and work around. I was watching and listening to these children and I wasn't thinking about their hearing imparements in a negative manner...I was wanting to learn myself how to communicate better so they could understand me. There's a lady that I met through writing some years back I have to thank for this, I doubt she even know that she was doing it, but she taught me things that are hard to describe. In short, she was blind, and had an aide-dog helping her out, but she was also a writer and worked for the government. I learned from her about how to do descriptions to make them richer, just because she couldn't see them with her eyes didn't mean that she couldn't see them with her mind. She showed me her braille computer and how she could "see" artwork and how descriptive services worked on her television. I guess in a way she showed me that no matter the problem, there are ways to work with it and around it...and to do it with patience, and sometimes with help.

Oh, yeah, I got home in a none-to-good a mood...feeling stressed about my own financial situation, and trying to let go of my sister's problems. Admittedly, I growled at Lloyd a little, but it was too much for him and he walked away. He hadn't had a good day either. So, I went down stairs, checked my e-mail, wrote some Latin flash cards, made a couple phone calls, and at about 5:30 felt so tired that I went to bed and slept unil almost 10:30.

Lloyd left me alone, which bothers me a bit. I think I hurt his feelings, and here I am fighting not to think like a child...that action-reaction sort of thing. "Well he hurt my feelings by not listening to me when I was grouchy, so I'm not going to talk to him." Unfortunately for right now I can't talk to him...apparently he went to bed early, which is unusual for him, but he needs the sleep. That and I can't exactly go into his room and cuddle up next him while he sleeps, let alone just give him a kiss on the cheek. There's so much stuff between the door and the bed in his room. *sigh*

Somewhere along the line I need to get money so I can get my generic prozac prescription refilled. I've noticed quite distinctly that I don't get depressed so much as anxious, tense, and because of it cranky, irritable, and snappish.

And that's it for the night...

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May. 14th, 2004 @ 01:23 am Last Forced Late Night for School

It's over! It's finally over! After muddling through the last test today (Statistics), and emailing a text-only version of my research paper "Culture on the Hoof: Kurgan Woman of the Pazyryk" to my professor...well, I still couldn't let things be. I felt bad that I didn't get it done in time to get it the health offices at UMSL before they closed. There's a lady there that has been an absolutely wonderful help to me through these past two semesters, and aside from reading two of my stories, she was also interested in seeing my research paper. *sigh*

Sadly, the twistings of technology didn't help either. UMSL e-mail can only handle a certain amount of meg and even with a few pictures it choked and spat it back out at me. Which is why my professor got a plain copy.

Well, as that I can't possibly leave things alone when they're not the way I would like them, and it's of my own creation...well...I sort of solved the problem. I'm not html savy, but I threw together a simple webpage and I can only hope it works. It's my paper, but with all the photos and pictures I had originally wanted to include.

here's the page before I forget:
http://www.geocities.com/mary_lynn_e_turner/Pazyryk-Kurgan-Woman-Research-Paper.htm

Now I just have to get past being up until 1:30 in the morning. ;-)

Tomorrow's going to be an active and early day. My sister is stopping by with the kids around 8am so that we can run over to St. Joeseph's School to have a tour of their pre-school program. A space came open when one of the students moved with their family, and now Brendon will be put in that spot. Although my sister knows and trusts the school immensely, they have voiced that they want her to see the pre-school in action so she's aware of how they do things.

*chuckles* I'm looking forwards to seeing my neice and nephew grow up. Brendon will probably be the gorgeous heart-breaker with those strawberry-blonde curls of his, and the way he can just flirt with people. I'm not sure quite what Meghan will do, she's a force to be reconed with, that's for sure! :-)

By the way, if you're wondering about the "Turner" part, although I don't know what loops I need to jump through, I'm going to see what I can do about taking back my maiden name. Sure, it's a name attached to my father and his family, but there's something inside of me that says "Do it...you'll be a great counterbalance and example to that side of the family if they ever see you!" It guess it's also part of a kind of combination renewal, and accepting part of myself.

That, and from a professional aspect...I'd like to be able to keep my research written under just one last name. :-)

Okay, off to bed!

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May. 14th, 2004 @ 01:23 am Last Forced Late Night for School

Archaeology, University, & Writing

A Diary in the Making

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