Once again, this incredibly busy semester has completely taken over my time, and I've sorely neglected my lj. Right now I'm in the middle of Hell Week #2, which is actually worse than the first one. I've finished all the readings for my last week of classes, so right now I'm about to start the process of writing my last three assignments (one for each class). I've got a grant proposal due Thursday for Intro to Public History which I've heard isn't as bad as it seems once you actually start writing it, and I'm counting on that to be true. Because on Thursday I also have to turn in a 10-12 page paper for British Empire. And then next weekend I have a 6-8 page final exam essay for Historiography that isn't nearly as fun as the midterm was. The only bright spot is that I made A's on the two previous British Empire papers, so I don't feel nearly as stressed for this one, so I should (hopefully) knock it out pretty quickly. Even with a B on that paper, I should be able to get an A in the class.

I've spent the past three weekends in Georgia working on various assignments, and I came back yesterday after a brief 48-hour break for Thanksgiving. But it was a very good Thanksgiving, and now that I've been able to take a little bit of a break, I'm ready to tackle the next two weeks before the long-awaited Christmas break begins.

Sadly, my Christmas break won't be 100% homework free, since I plan to do a little work on my thesis. I've got a few books I want to re-read and take more notes for, and I've got to organize all the notes I've already taken. If I can get them typed up and organized on my computer, then I'll be able to start writing some of it as soon as the new semester begins.

I don't have much to say since I have literally spent the entire weekend stuck in front of my computer for this stupid historiography paper, but I figure that saying that I have nothing to say will keep me in the habit of updating.

So, about this paper.  My historiography professor "strongly recommends" that we turn in a rough draft of our big paper tonight, and since I really want an A on the paper and I've never had him before, I figure I'll do what he asks.  However, I've spent all semester reading and writing for other assignments that I didn't touch the five books for this paper until last Monday.  And honestly, I've only read four of them.  My topic is disfranchisement in Alabama, and only one scholar ever wrote a book about just disfranchisement and just in Alabama.  Everyone else looks at the whole South or includes it in their history of Alabama in the late nineteenth century.  And guess which book I haven't read?  His introduction gave me enough information about what he's going to say that I've been writing this whole paper without quoting him once.  Hopefully the professor won't notice....

It took forever to organize my thoughts and think of a thesis and make some coherent thoughts about this topic, but I think it's ok now.  I know it's just a rough draft, but I want it to be a good rough draft.  Something that shows I didn't wait til the last minute (though I did) and actually put thought into it (which I also did).  And the better the rough draft is, the less time I have to spend on the paper later, and the better his constructive comments will be.

That's been my whole weekend, though, so there's nothing else to say.  Except that it's the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and I'm planning to celebrate it/reward myself for my hard work this weekend by watching Goodbye, Lenin tonight after class. 

Oh, and I still haven't found time to go through my friends list.  Bah.

I have a confession to make - I've been avoiding livejournal for over a week now.  Why, you ask?  Because I got so incredibly busy in the days leading up to fall break, during fall break, and in the weeks after fall break, that I was constantly forgetting to check livejournal, let alone post.  And by the time that I remembered that I hadn't visited in a week and a half, or more, I was a little scared to go check it.  I'm a member of so many communities that I just knew it would take a solid hour of going through my friends lists and looking at all the posts (especially the ones with icons), which I just can't spare right now.  But I've decided to take baby steps and at least update my lj, so that Effie knows I'm still alive and surviving grad school.  And since she's probably posted some entries in the past month that I haven't read/commented on and she might think I've forgotten her.

And really, livejournal, you shouldn't feel so bad about yourself.  I'm just now starting to watch TV shows that aired three weeks ago, during fall break, so it's not just you that I haven't found time for.  I've literally watched no television besides Supernatural and Project Runway the last three weeks because I've had so much crap to do for class.  However!  There is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Next semester I'll only be taking one class, and an online one at that.  I have to take nine hours to keep my Graduate Research Assistantship, and six of them will be thesis hours.  I will obviously be doing a lot of reading and writing, and writing a hundred-page thesis using original research will certainly not be easy, but I'm ready for a change of pace.  I love my classes and my professors and reading all these fascinating books about fascinating subjects, but I'm so tired of writing papers proving that I read the books and understand them.  I know the thesis will be waaaay more stressful, but at least it's not another book review or historiographic essay!  I've had my fill of those, thanks.

So what have I been up to?  A lot of work and a lot of procrastination, all at the same time.  The last time I posted was right before fall break, so I guess I could start with explaining how that went.  I went to Montevallo Wednesday after work, so that I could get up bright and early Thursday morning to go over to Montevallo's library to take another look at the constitutional convention transcript.  Since I knew I wouldn't have time to do any significant amount of research, I did the next best thing - I took pictures.  For a couple hours on Thursday and Friday each, I stood in the little archives room taking 600 pictures of 600 pages.  I knew which two issues I wanted to address in my thesis, and I knew roughly where they were in the transcript.  Most of the time was spent flipping through the pages, making sure that I got the complete debates, from beginning to end.  I haven't had a change to look through them yet, obviously, but that's what they invented Christmas break for, right?  To work on theses and dissertations?

I saw all of my friends Wednesday through lunch on Saturday, and then I headed back to Carrollton to get some homework done.  I don't even remember which assignments I had to do, but they must have been pretty important.  Wait!  Historiography mditerm.  That's what I had to do, and it was due on Monday, hence the early return.

That week flew by, and on Friday, I headed back to Montevallo again for Suzanne's wedding.  Technically she got married in Huntsville, but I went to Montevallo Friday night to see all my friends, and then a bunch of us carpooled up there Saturday morning.  And it's a good thing I didn't attempt to get there on my own because it was ridiculously confusing.  Not only did we have to navigate our way around Huntsville, but we had to navigate our way on a military base.  We drove past the NASA buildings, past the missile buildings, past the fallout shelters, and then we found the little "rustic lodge" where they hold weddings and other events.  It was really gorgeous, though, and looking through the pictures, you'd have no idea that there were fallout shelters just a stone's throw away.

I got very little homework done over fall break, and I got even less done the weekend of Suzanne's wedding.  However, those were incredibly productive times in comparison with Halloween weekend, where I gave up on doing homework all together.  That was my last hurrah until Christmas break, so I made sure to enjoy my friends' company rather than halfway paying attention to them while I read a book for class.  My friend Haley had a Halloween party, and I dressed up as a Magic 8 ball.  I must confess that I can't completely take credit for the idea.  I googled "cheap Halloween costumes" and the best suggestion I saw was an 8-ball.  I did, however, think up the "magic" part all by myself.  I cut a circle out of white poster board and drew an 8 on it, and we duct taped it to my back.  For the answers, I cut triangles out of blue poster board and wrote official Magic 8 ball answers on them.  And "42."  Laura thought that one up, and it was such an obvious choice that I kind of hated myself for not thinking of it first.

So, now it's a week after Halloween and I've spent the week furiously working on my big research paper of the semester for Historiography.  The professor "strongly recommends" that we turn in a rough draft on Monday, but I'm not entirely sure that I'll get it done.  I'm shooting for a good ten pages that have been revised to the best of my ability, and then a little paragraph explaining what the other five pages will be about.  That should give him a good enough idea of what I'm doing that I'll get constructive comments back.  However, I've gotten so used to taking weekends off that I'm horribly unmotivated and I'm growing more and more inclined to give up and take the chance that I'll get a good grade on the final draft of my paper.  *sigh*  Maybe I'll be able to power through and reward myself with something Monday night for turning in a draft, like some Doctor Who.  I always work better when there's a goal in mind.

At last, the long awaited fall break begins tomorrow afternoon.  I have work in the archives from 10-3, and then after grabbing lunch at my apartment, I'm heading home to Birmingham.  The plan is to spend Wednesday night with my family, renew my drivers license Thursday morning, and then head to Montevallo.  I'll have a couple of hours on Thursday and most of Friday free to spend in the archives working on my thesis, and at night I'll get to see some of my friends.  I'm really excited about all the DVDs we'll get to watch.  Between the last two seasons of Coupling and some movies that I've recently purchased, we'll have some very good times indeed.

Tonight was supposed to be a productive day before I headed out and began my fall break, but the break unintentionally started early.  Right after work I went to the Blockbuster that's going out of business and bought several movies for super cheap.  All for British actors, obviously, and it was quite a decision to decide which ones to take home with me.  Actually, scratch that.  Only two were bought specifically for British actors.  I did buy Goodbye Lenin (finally!), which, as a German movie, has no Brits in it.  It does, however, have the gorgeous Daniel Bruhl.  And I bought Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day for Lee Pace (an American), but...to my delightful surprise...it has Tom Payne in it!  Effie, you'll remember him as Linton in the Wuthering Heights I gave you...Healthcliff's son that dies at the end.  I promise he's way more handsome when he's not playing an invalid.  I also bought Brideshead Revisited (Ben Whishaw and Matthew Goode...swoon...) and Shark Attack 3: Megalodon with John Barrowman.  Oh yes, you read that right.  I now own a campy Sci-Fi original movie starring John Barrowman.  Obviously this was before his little stint on Doctor Who, back when he actually had to find jobs to pay the bills.  Now England just throws money at him for being so awesome.  And for providing the world with Shark Attack 3: Megalodon.

After my hour-long excusion to the Blockbuster, I went home and attempted to read the last thirty pages of next week's British Empire book.  It took two hours.  Apparently it's really hard for me to be motivated the day before freedom.  =/  I actually got some work done while watching Miss Pettigrew, in between the swooning over Tom and Lee, though.  I scribbled down some sentences for my historiography midterm, and they don't sound half bad.  I didn't get a complete first draft finished like I hoped, but two pages sound near perfect, another two are kind of all right, and the final three pages are still thoughts floating around in my head.  I figure if I can write them down sometime during the next few days, I'll be not too stressed when I come back to Carrollton Saturday night.

In the middle of my productive spurt, my two roommates decided we should go get Blizzards from Dairy Queen, and then we sat around talking for a couple of hours.  Obviously we all had more important things to do, but we also obviously dreaded doing them.  So now it's midnight, and I'm not even going to pretend to be productive.  I'll just waste a little more time on the internet, like updating my lj, and then I'll head to bed and hope to be a little better tomorrow.  Maybe the happiness of being at home will help my brain recover a little from all the thinking it's been doing, and the next couple of weeks will fly by as I continue to count down the days until Halloween.

I have come to the conclusion that even when I don't have deadlines pressing down on me, this semester is one of never-ending work.  I read and read and read for class, and no matter how fast I read, I just don't seem to get as far ahead as I need to be.  Fall break is a week and a half away, and I really need to make a list of everything I absolutely have to get done before I leave.  It doesn't help matters that my Historiography professor assumes we have nothing better to do than read for class AND write a take-home midterm.  I think it's one essay that will be eight-ish pages long, and without a laptop, there's no way I can work on it while I'm at home.  I'm really hoping that we'll get the topic tomorrow night in class (so we can work on it for two weeks), but I doubt that will happen.

So, basically, my life for the past week can be reduced to one word: reading.  Although I have been able to find time to keep up with all my TV shows, thanks to the power of the internet.  I hate using a hair dryer, so while my hair dries in the morning I watch an episode that I may have missed a night or two before.  Or, if I'm completely caught up, then I just re-watch an episode of Glee or Supernatural.  I haven't even really been attempting to find new Korean, Japanese, or British shows to download/watch on youtube (besides the new season of Merlin, which started a couple weeks ago, but I count that as one of my must-see TV shows).

Sadly, it goes without saying that all reading for fun is definitely done for.  I haven't even picked up Les Mis, which I read 300 pages of during the summer, twenty or so pages at a time.  Surely I can find time to read a little bit of Les Mis every night, but I genuinely don't think about it anymore.  Which sucks because I really, really want to be able to say that I've read the unabridged version of Les Miserables...I'm pretty sure it's one of those things that most people want to do but never actually succeed at.  Mostly because Victor Hugo goes off on too many unrelated tangents and gives too many flowery descriptions.  Do we really need a good thirty pages about the Bishop before we even meet Jean Valjean?  No.  Right now, Les Mis is the only book I can think of that is probably better in its abridged form.

Yesterday I made a little free time for myself between readings.  I watched the first two episodes of Supernatural (one of which was the one where the hot guy from Glee is killed by a wendigo...score!  for the hotness...not the dying....), and I attempted to go shopping.  I have a gorgeous skirt that I need to find a top for, and I was wanting a new jacket, but I failed on both attempts.  The day was saved when I got a much-needed haircut, though.  I ended the day by finally watching The History Boys, and it is now one of my favorite movies ever.  Not only were several of my obscure British actors there, generally being quite adorkable, but there were several serious discussions about the nature of history that actually made me think!  History and obscure British actors - two of my passions combined in one movie!  And then the icing on the cake was when Samuel Barnett sang for me. Three. Times.  And once was in *swoon* French.  He has a gorgeous voice too...hopefully he'll show it off in future movies.  For the movie alone, this was a fantastic weekend.

For the past week and a half, I've been experiencing a severe drop in my level of stress thanks to the fact that I've had practically nothing due for class.  I like reading books and articles much more than I like writing, so even though I have an awful lot of reading to do, I don't mind so much.  I've got all my syllabi out and am crossing off readings for both this week and next (and soon for the week after that), which means my plan is quite successful so far.  I'm in the middle of a month-long stay in Carrollton, and then I have three weekends in a row to go home (for fall break to research for my thesis, for Suzanne's wedding, and then Halloween weekend).  And of course, I have two big papers due right in the middle of that three week stretch.  So, in order to get ahead, I'm reading as much as I can for the next couple of weeks, and theoretically I'll have all the readings done for the weeks that papers are due.  And I'm not even putting off the papers because I'm a huge paper procrastinator (which I am).  Both the papers are historiographic essays (one for Historiography and one for British Empire), and they're based on the readings for class.  Which is excellent, because the last thing I need is outside reading for papers when my days are full of readings for class discussions.

Besides reading for class, not much has been going on.  My class last Monday night was cancelled due to the flooding (finally!  inclement weather worked in my favor!), and my British Empire class had been cancelled because the professor was at a conference.  So I only had one class last week, which was really nice.  So far I've been able to keep up with all my TV shows, even a couple of new ones (specifically Glee and FlashForward).  As the semester goes on I may have to cut back on a few of them and wait for Christmas break repeats, but right now I'm watching as many as I can.  And actually, I've watched every episode of Glee and Supernatural both as they air, and later online because they're just that addictive.

Speaking of Supernatural, I had a most ingenious idea the other day.  The music in Glee is amazing, and I know that they're going to be putting out a soundtrack eventually which I will definitely buy.  But, the music on Supernatural is equally amazing, but they don't put out soundtracks (because the cast isn't singing the songs, like in Glee, and it's music that's readily available).  So, I decided that I'm just going to make my own mix CDs of all the songs in Supernatural, going in order.  I need to start watching the show again from the pilot anyway, so I'll just make a list as I go along.  Theoretically, I'll have a whole CD for each season, with "Carry on Wayward Son" being the last track on each one (for tradition's sake, of course).  I'm not sure how long it will be before this project is started, let alone finished, but it's something I definitely want to do.  If nothing else, I'll at least have a season 5 soundtrack ready by the end of the season because I've already grabbed the songs for each episode they've aired.

Now that the stress leading up to last Thursday is several days behind me, I'm feeling a lot less panicky about how behind on assignments I am.  I spent the weekend in the apartment, and although I did spend the whole of Saturday with my butt on the couch watching movies on TV, I did do a lot of reading too.  I've read everything I need to read for class this week, and I'm already half-way done with next week's readings.  And I'm beyond excited that the only writing I have to do over the next two weeks is a book review.  I do hate writing them, but I'd rather write a three-page book review than a ten-page something else.

Some of the more interesting events of the past week -

-Tuesday and Wednesday were spent reading the two books for Thursday's classes and writing a presentation for one and a book review for the other.  I managed to get it done a few hours before class, and I literally felt a weight lifting off of me as the day went on.
-My presentation in British Empire went pretty well.  It was oddly more nervous talking to six people than to a class with more people, but I'm glad it's over with.  And, since I had read the entire book and took lots of notes, I talked more than anyone else during discussion.  Always a plus.
-For Intro to Public History, my group took a field trip to Bremen to do some on-site scouting for possible stops for the walking tour.  A very necessary excursion, since only a few of us had actually visited the town.  The best part was that we missed the first two hours of class, and it was a legitimate excuse that the professor encouraged.
-Thursday night was spent doing absolutely nothing besides gushing over the boys on Supernatural and watching Project Runway.
-Work on Friday was boring, as usual, and I spent the rest of the day watching TV/reading for class.
-I found a surprising amount of obscure British actors on TV on Saturday.  I watched Gone in Sixty Seconds (for Chris Eccleston...looking very young and very nice) and 300 (which is pretty much obscure British actor porn).
-Last night I watched the Emmys and am convinced it's the best awards show I've seen in years.  NPH was an amazing host, I agreed with most of the winners, and it was really entertaining (I especially loved how they introduced the presenters with the most obscure acting job they ever had).

Sooo...I spent about an hour working my way through all the new Supernatural icons that people made after the season premiere.  Lots and lots of good ones, and I kicked off a couple of my old icons to make room for them on here.  *curses the fifteen icon limit on free accounts*  But this one *points to the upper left corner* was totally worth sacrificing a Captain Jack Harkness icon.  Now please excuse me while I continue to giggle uncontrollably at the picture of my Sammy as Yosemite Sam.

Side note - I realized over the weekend that I've started collecting Sam's.  I've got Sam Winchester (the only fictional one), Sam Troughton (of Robin Hood and grandson-of-Patrick fame), Sam Crane, and Samuel Barnett.  Two of them I picked up a few weeks ago in the same miniseries, and I've only had Sam Troughton a year.  It's weird how I find actors with the same name all at once.

All I really managed to do today was make a lot of progress on all the homework I have due this week.  Since I got back from my massive Supernatural marathon over the weekend (totally worth the stress I'm feeling right now!), I managed to take notes and get ready for tonight's class, write the two-page essay that was due tonight, finish the book for Public History, and start the book for British Empire.  I still have a book review to write and a presentation to make, but I don't feel too behind yet.  The book for British Empire is going to take forever because it's 440 pages, but I'm already 80 pages in (and with notes already typed up for those pages).  Plenty of time, right?  Sadly, I'm having to forgo most of my television shows until Thursday night, but I'm down to just a handful anyway.  So long as I survive through class Thursday and get to watch Supernatural that night, I'll be a happy girl.  After that, I'll have the whole weekend to get caught up on assignments.  And pine away for the next episode of Supernatural to air.  It's kinda sad that my busiest day, which should be the one I dread the most, is actually the one I wait all week for.  Such is the power of my obsessive nature, I suppose.

Oh!  And when I was walking to class tonight, I passed by the supply room and totally saw a guy who totally reminded me of the new Doctor.  He was tall and lanky like Matt Smith, and the brief glance I got of his profile reminded me of Matt's face too.  I have no idea who he is...probably a grad student?  I know he's not a professor, so that's the best explanation I've got.

I suppose it's time I updated this thing.  Between having absolutely nothing going on (and therefore feeling like my life is too boring to talk about) and too much going on (leaving little time to even check posts on all my communities, let alone blog myself), it's apparently been two months since I've said anything.

So.

I have decided that today was one of the best days I've had in a long time, for the following reasons-

-finished the 10-12 page paper that's due tonight for British Empire, and I think it's actually half-way decent.
-managed to review all the readings for British Empire, so I won't sit there with nothing to say during discussion.
-FINALLY gained access to a copy of a BBC costume drama I've been looking for...now the only problem is when to find ten hours to watch it.  =/
-found lots of videos of my newest actor on youtube.  I found Matthew Morrison on Glee last week, and I even took an hour off from my paper last night to watch it.  I fell in love with him all over again, promptly googled him, and found out that he used to be a musical theatre actor who was in several hit shows on Broadway.  And I'm talking Original Cast hit shows on Broadway.  I maintain that there's nothing hotter than a hot guy singing Broadway songs, so those were a very nice find this morning.  ^_^
-set up the VCR to tape the Supernatural season premiere tonight while I'm in class, which I will then take to Anniston with me for my Supernatural Season 4 Extravaganza with Effie this weekend.

Clearly today was so wonderful that I just had to share it.  Other points of interest about the last two months of my life -

-I'm LOVING my British Empire class, pleasantly surprised by my historiography class, and tolerating my Intro to Public History class.
-I spent two weeks in Montevallo reading the constitutional convention transcript for my thesis, and I am anxiously awaiting the fall break so that I can do some more research.
-I am still incredibly bored by the collection I'm going through at work.
-I've adjusted my sleeping pattern and have reduced myself to about six hours of sleep a night in order to have more time for homework...not cool.
-I saw Inglourious Basterds twice in theaters because it is one of the best movies I've ever seen, with several of the hottest actors I've ever seen.  More movies should make use of my German actors.
-I weighed myself over the weekend, and I've lost ten pounds since the beginning of summer vacation.  Proof of success has made it much easier to continue with my routine of exercise and eating better.