A Pre-Weekend Post

Hello readers,

Usually I write about my weekends on Monday but I am starting this weekend with a pre-weekend post.

As you guys have probably gathered I have been captivated by the mini series Downton Abbey (I know a little late to the game). But I have decided to take my new love of this show and actually use it in class. What, how can this be? No I haven't switched studies to film or creative writing (though both very cool). I have decided when ever I am able to explore more into the Edwardian life style. Even though I love the romantic drama between Mary and Matthew it has been her sister Sybil that actually captures my attention. She is so independent and wants to change the world. (Don't worry I am not revealing anything from the second season).

Lilly Elsie (Edwardian Actress)
Lady Sybil (Downton Abbey)

So in my history class we have to take a secondary source's footnote and track down the primary source to back it up. My topic is going to be Edwardian women... I would really like to explore Edwardian women who do not get married and the up rising professional girls. 

For example why did women take on professions as librarians? As a future librarian and historian I'm really interested in how that became a woman's job (though I do have male class mates). Just a curiosity of how it is now primarily women. 

The Music Man

These are just some thoughts but I do hope to explore them more.... I mean after all one day I will have to write another thesis. Woo hoo!

My weekend loves

Found at Pinterest




Found at Pineterest

  

Found at Pinterest

Found at Pinterest

Okay you might looking at these photos thinking what Psych, Downton Abbey, Panda Express, and books have in common... well they have me and my weekend.

This weekend was not all that exciting but I thought I would share my weekend loves as a way to start off the week.

My weekend started much too early on a Saturday morning to be in Somerville (about a 30 minute commute via bus and T) to be at my church's new site by 9:15 in the morning. Yeah I am not a morning person so it was a little rough. But I got to watch some excellent kids play around and that was fun. Kids are very creative and funny about what they think is great. A little girl decided she was going to take a nap and she did this by putting her head in a little mesh box and trying to sleep on the floor. Well the boys thought this was fabulous and continued to climb into boxes and curl up to fit in them. I was thinking how bad my knees would hurt doing this. There was also this spiral couch that they looked at as a jungle gym and minus a few incidents was really fun for them to be all over. Then sadly my time of play was over and I had to do a few hours of work for my company to prepare for billing... but I got to go to work in jeans and that felt a little rebellious.



I got home at 5 and crashed and took a great hour nap. Then I got up and watched a few episodes of Psych. If you haven't watched it...it a great comedy crime solving show and not at all graphic like CSI or Law and Order. There are moments when I grab my pillow worried if Shawn and Gus will survive (of course they will they are the stars and producers of the show) and then the next minute burst out laughing. There is also the under tone love interest of Shawn and Juliet (which is another grabbing the pillow moment). But it is basically a fabulous show about a fake psychic detective and how he solves crime.

Also I discover Downton Abbey... I know, I know I am a little slow to the greatness of it. But a lot of my blogs talk about it so while I was looking around Hulu for something to watch I looked to see if they had Downton Abbey no but PBS.com does so on Saturday night to relax I watched Downton Abbey. Yeah not a relaxing show. A great show set in 1912-1913 but not relaxing it was sheer will power to turn off my computer and go to bed. I say it is not relaxing because now I am captivated by it and I am left wanting to know more. My roommate asked me what I was watching because I was squealing and laughing and watching it on my computer as I brushed my teeth. Yeah! Go Wireless Internet! Yeah I basically got addicted and as a treat to myself on Sunday night after finishing my homework I watched Episode 2 and 3. I really should not watch intense shows before bed. But I just get swept up... the plot is so interknit with both the stories of the upstairs lives and the downstairs lives. I told my roommate it is like Godsford Park but on steroids (minus the murder). Even though I think Lady Mary can be cruel I want her to be happy with Mr. Crawley (if you know what happens please don't tell me).

So now my parents are probably wondering did I do my homework yes I did. I did a bit of it on Friday night and mostly on Sunday but before I go to that I will talk real shortly on my procrastination tool of  yummy and cheap Chinese food. After church I tried to get friends to go out to lunch but every one had plans poo :( minus a guy from my bible study so we grabbed lunch together and that was nice to learn a little bit more about him. To digress further away from homework talk I find it interesting how many layers people have (maybe Shrek is right we are like onions). I mean before that lunch I knew he worked in computer science industry and was from Atlanta but I learned he also plays the piano, and was home schooled. While I told him, yes I love history but I have thought about going to culinary school and learning how to make those fancy desserts (after grad school) and more for a hobby then professional aspirations. But I so want to learn how to make eclairs. What I am getting at is that people are more than they appear so have some cheap Chinese food and a good conversation.

Now I have procrastinated long enough and I had to do homework. Fortunately part of my homework was really fun. In my cataloging class we have to make rules for a made up collection. Mine is on 19th Century Women's Literature. And I want to organize it based on date published date from 1800-1899. I know as a historian I think it would be cool to have books in chronological order. So we have to take five (example) objects (books in my case) and write a rule of how they should be cataloged in collection but we have to pretend that collection could have 1,000+ objects. This is really fun for me and I came home from the library with Charlotte and Emily Bronte, George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskel under my arm. Now I have the fun job of writing my cataloging rules for my project this semester.

My sister called me out

My sister who has now become a blogger, chatting about the daily works of her family (that I love to read) called me out for not writing much.
" I know," I said with a sigh. "I don't have time to write besides school papers."
Believe me they would not be fun to read. But I read blogs. Sometimes I get to work earlier than I would like and before I am ready to answer all my emails, I sit with my travel mug of coffee and read blogs. But my sister is right I don't blog much... but as my blog is titled "A journey through writing" this would be the low period of my writing.

I do imagine characters all the time though.

I have a wonderful little dialogues in my head of a librarian, no surprise, since that's what I am going to school for, digging through the of her library vaults and discovering letters from the 19th century (my passion in history). These letters might be from some one famous that everyone has heard of but no one knows her true history because these letters or maybe a diary has been hidden for 100s of years. Or maybe its a no one just a woman who seems to have a simple life (but there always has to be a secret). I don't have it all figured out yet.

What I have been doing with my time is....
http://womenmovement.wikispaces.com/
It is a path finder or resource finder as project for my reference library class. In it I am suppose to be helping a student/ information seeker that is looking for information on a certain topic. I have done my path finder on the Women's Rights movement of the 19th century (something that has always intrigued me).

Also for my history research paper I am doing my paper on a mostly unknown woman who was an abolitionist and a women's rights leader, Abigail Kelley Foster AKA Abby Kelley. I am finding her life quite fascinating.

What I am also loving about both my path finder and Abby Kelley is that these are women that pushed the mold of what a woman should be. Back in the 19th century the ideal woman was expected to stay completely in the "home sphere" and the women that pushed these boundaries I have loved to explore into their lives. Though I do often explain to people I am 19th century feminist not a 20th century feminist (for many reasons). But what I have loved doing about these projects is they have inspired my story ideas.

So Hunter, I will try to write more.

Awh Grad School

I would like to blame the fact that I haven't written in a year on the fact I have been in grad school but the truth is I have only been in grad school for a month. I have been filling up notebooks of story starters but I have yet to finish one.

This morning I got to work, way too early for me and I wasn't quite ready to start my day so I found this blog I haven't written in forever and decided to look at the blogs I used to follow when I made time for it. I sat at my desk sipping on my coffee reading these blogs and realized I do miss writing. Even though I write papers and read text books I miss writting for fun and having that creative flow again. My life isn't very creative now. I wake up go to work, where I work in accounting/processing, then I go to class two nights a week or go home and do homework. Its pretty much the same day in and day out. But I do need to do something creative or I think I will go crazy.