What I did on my Christmas vacation, Part 1:

Not much.

My brother got his driver's license today. The boy who a few weeks ago let his girlfriend poke a needle through his ear may at this very moment be operating a motor vehicle in the dark, in the rain, alone. Or worse, illegally not alone. God help us all.

Last week was Christmas (just in case you missed that). I ate a lot of food. I got a coffee table. I don't know what it looks like, since it is going to stay in the box until it gets to St. Louis. I also got a coat and a Mah Jong game, so I am now trying to learn to play it. I have yet to get three other people to want to learn with me, but I got my mother to play with me once, since she gave it to me, but we had to pretend to each play for two people. In return, I gave my mother a small lead coffin, for use after the heart attack induced by Jake's driving. (actually only an unusually heavy jewelry box) It being Christmas, we also went to church, where we received a sermon about how, despite the peace on Earth described in the Christmas story, there is actually war and suffering going on all over the world. We all agreed this was a most fitting and uplifting Christmas Eve message.

Yesterday I went to see Something's Gotta Give with Jack Nicholson. I have yet to see Lord of the Rings, but that's okay, because Jake saw it three times in three days. So I figure he can just recite it for me sometime, if he comes home in one piece, of course.

That's about all that's happened this week. In my plentiful spare time, I have continued to research my family tree. I seem to be able to do this for hours at a time, though my family no longer seems interested in hearing about every new person and place I discover. Even so, I think I'll share with you some of my favorite stories I've found:

"Tyre [a brother of one of my ancestors] was out alone one night and thought he saw a man dressed in his white shirt sleeves descend from the heavens and chased him around a tree top, then descend again. He ran home scared to death and only lived one week after that. "

"In August 1791 at dusk of evening, Sally was shot through the body by Indians as she stood in the doorway of the Stephenson cabin. A silk handkerchief was drawn through Sally's wound and she soon recovered - though shot completely through the body."

"Kingston court records again In 1670, a Maritie Hansen appears incourt, as wife of Jacob Jansen, suing Edward Whitaker for doctorbills, etc, because Edward beat her husband senseless, leaving himunable to work. She "further requests to be relieved of the farmbecause her husband can no longer manage same."

From my newly discovered Quaker branch of the family:
At Providence meeting-house, Second month 8, 1703, Walter Faucitt was dealt with by the meeting, the charges being set forth in the following extract from the quaint minutes:
"This meeting having Duly taken into their Consideration the disorderly practis of Samuel Levis in keeping on his hatt whilst Walter Faucitt was in prayer, at a monthly meeting at Robert Vernon's, on the 11th month last; therefore the meeting doth appoint Joseph Baker and Paul Sanders to spake to him and Indaver to bring him to a sence of his disorder; and that hee do acknowledg the same to the satisfaction of this meeting, which if he doth not promise to do, then to order him to appear at the next monthly meeting."

Also, I discovered an ancestor who was disowned by the Quakers! Gotta be proud of that. I can't find the exact quote, it was something about his "evil" ways of lying and drinking.

Okay, that's all for now. Tomorrow my cousin is coming to spend the night. I think she's in fifth grade. I am responsible for finding something to amuse her with in this thrilling city. I should begin planning now, especially if I expect to arrange to part my brother from the car.




- posted by Darcey @ 9:13 PM

 
Sorry if this publishes twice.

My mother has been refusing to take my calls (by means of refusing to be at home at the same time as me), so I keep talking to my father, who is probably sick of talking on the phone now. But I still feel the need to briefly summarize my past few days to someone, for no particularly interesting reason. So here it goes:

Friday
-The LCM board cooked a nice Christmas dinner for Free Food Friday. I was slightly disappointed that there was macaroni and cheese instead of the good potato dish thing that they have served in the past. I do not support macaroni and cheese. But there was other good stuff.
-I went caroling with ECM. What do caroling Episcopalians need if not a Lutheran who can't sing?

Saturday
-I wrote my final paper for CS467, which was nothing but a summary of the three ridiculously pointless other papers for this class that we all got A+'s on. In the words of Carl Hammerschlag, M.D. and spiritual healer, who wrote the poignant masterpiece we read for this class that I just can't stop admiring, "Bullshit has become a prominent ritual in our culture." This seems particularly true of my participation in this class. Unfortunately, he goes on to say that this "steals your heart's song and that's where the spirit lives." You see, according to my buddy Carl, if I don't say what I feel, my spirit will run away and leave me and then either my teeth will fall out (see page 65) or I'll just die altogether. So I would like to take this opportunity to confess that I had no idea what I was talking about in any of those papers.
-Then I went to Rory and Ryan's house. We think we might move across the street next year. Then we had Thai food. Then we watched Johnny Depp and his undead pirate friends.

Sunday
-I had dinner with the church dinner-eating group that Emily and I are in. We were supposed to bring a salad. Luckily she made something, because I had forgotten about it. Her fiance was here this weekend. Her parents were here at some point too, but I never saw them. Her fiance stayed in the apartment, but I don't think I actually saw him until we went to dinner. I just heard a boy a couple of times (while I was shut in a room sleeping, bathing, etc.) and hoped it was someone with Emily. It's amazing how we manage that. Anyway, we had dinner at Pastor Yancey's house. He has a very cool house, a hundred years old and all fixed up with all kinds of cool stuff.
-The dishwasher broke. I will call maintenance tomorrow.

Monday
-I had my last classes and finished all the writing and assignments I have for the semester. One final left.
-I tried to be in two places at once and failed. One of the places was the Eliot in View, where people who got into the Eliot Review read their work and such. I don't really find poetry readings that thrilling, but I am trying to be a good little student activity participant. I really am not that involved in that much, so why do the few things I do have to do happen at the same time? The second was a meeting of the intern committee at LCM, which I felt I should go to because it only meets once a month and it is mostly adults, so I would feel like an irresponsible little student for not showing up, even though they probably wouldn't have cared a bit. So I went early to the Eliot in View to make an appearance and see if I could help set up. But they were done setting up and were just sitting around waiting for it to start, and so I stood around for a few minutes, but then I felt really weird, because I wasn't there waiting for it to start, so what was I doing there at all? So I went and I hovered around awkwardly for a few minutes and then I left feeling strange. And I went to the intern meeting, which was basically a discussion between the intern and the guy in charge, where the rest of us sat around and listened. And then we left. And now I am home and have nothing to do for a week, so I have sat here and turned what I had intended to be a pretty short little posting into something tediously long, as I seem to have a habit of doing. I'll stop now.
- posted by Darcey @ 10:25 PM

 
I am done with half my classes (on account of my being a genius and everything)

(If by genius you don't so much mean smart as you mean nerdy and unnecessarily studious.) I had a pretty not fun week this week up through yesterday morning, when I had my first final. Then I was relieved just because I had a three day break from anything being due. But then my schedule got even better. First I went to my CS201 class, after having just taken my OMM final. In that class, the professor had decided to compute our final grades, by using a low estimate on how we would do on the final based on our grades up to that point. If we liked our grade with his low estimate, we don't have to take the final. I had an A. I'm thinking that'll do just fine. I liked that class, even though other people probably wouldn't agree with me. It was basically a math class, and math classes can be nice in a way, because they're never stressful. There's never any big paper or project. You just do the homework once a week and life is good. Usually, though, math classes are extremely boring, but this time I actually enjoyed this professor. He was cute. Not cute like attractive, but cute like you want to pat him on the head and give him a lollipop. He bounces around like a five-year-old and yet somehow managed to talk about logic and discrete mathematics in a way that I actually paid attention.

Anyway, then today I went to my pass-fail Japanese History class. We spent the class period going over the final take home essay that we were going to have to write, which I was thinking was just going to be a pain, because even though I wasn't actually going to try to write a good essay, I would have to take the time to fill a few pages with words. But then she asked the people who were taking the class pass fail to stay after a few minutes. And then she told me I didn't have to take the final or write the final essay in that class either, because I was already passing. I guess that's one way to pass a pass-fail class - do all the work well the first half of the semester, and then you don't have to do the second half at all and it all balances out. So now I am happy and done with three of my classes. I have to turn some things in on Monday, and then I will be done with five of my classes. Then I will sit here for a week waiting to take one final. But that's just fine. I think I have spent the semester complaining about a couple of classes, but I actually had some really good classes this semester too, so yay for them.
- posted by Darcey @ 2:56 PM

 
Thanksgiving
The good news: I've discovered a new dorky way to waste time on the Internet
The bad news: I have too much to do this week to play with it

I had a good Thanksgiving. Wednesday was my brother's 16th birthday, and so we went to Benihana's, a Japanese restaurant where they play with knives and chop up your food and cook it at your table. The restaurant was interesting. So was being driven there by my little brother and bringing his girlfriend along. Then Thanksgiving we went to my Grandma's and did Thanksgiving things. The rest of the weekend I didn't do a whole lot. We did need to shop for toys for the place that gives them to needy children for Christmas. Usually this is fun, but I had to go to Walmart the day after Thanksgiving, and that was scary.

And now I am back, and I have work to do, but I would just like to rant for a moment like I'm the only college student who's ever been giving an assignment. So here it goes: Why are all my projects and papers due this week, mostly tomorrow? It is the week after Thanksgiving! After next Monday, when "reading week" is supposed to start, I have nothing to do for a week! Studying for a test takes no where near as long as writing a paper. So from Dec. 8 to 15, I will be sitting here twiddling my thumbs.

Or, during that time, I can be pursuing my new waste of time. Researching my genealogy online! I discovered this this weekend. My findings so far: My mother's family is pretty much what I always figured: poor German Lutheran farmers (apparently a lot of them from a little town called Venne) who all got on a boat one day in the 1800s and moved to Jackson County, Indiana, where they went right on being Lutheran farmers to this very day (though they did eventually learn English - you probably would have to call them American rather than German now). I figured my dad's family was pretty much the same thing, only English and Irish. But I've found some more varied things. Apparently some of them have been in the U.S. a long time. I found one site that had traced a line back to England in 1490, with some rather interesting stories about some of the generations along the way. They came to Virginia in the 1600s where they owned "1630 acres, plus several slaves." I never figured I was related to anyone rich or important enough to own slaves. Does that mean I now should feel personally guilty about that whole slavery thing? Then I also learned about my relatives that were some of the first settlers in Kentucky and Indiana, where us nice white folk were also busy being nice to the Indians. So there are stories about my ancestors being scalped and kidnapped by Indians. But then my dad tells me I also have some Cherokee blood in me. I'd always heard other people say that about themselves, but I always thought I was about as generic a Caucasian as they come, but I guess not. Anyway, then I got to read these people's wills and learn about them fighting in all those wars, which I found interesting, but I'm a dork and need to go do better things now. I'll save the inbreeding story for later.


- posted by Darcey @ 12:09 AM