I need ideas.

As I said in my last post, I am taking a class that is basically a guided undergraduate thesis. I have recently learned that the paper can be on basically anything in Europe from the French Revolution to the present. The only qualifications are that it has to be something interesting that people will want to read, I have to argue something (it cant just be a narrative), and it has to be broad enough that there will be sources on the topic that I can research but narrow enough that I can do a research paper in 25-30 pages. If you have any ideas, please let me know. For some reason, my mind is pulling a blank on this one and I have to give my paper topic with bibliography in 2 weeks.

1 down, 15 to go

I just finished the first week of my last semester last night. This is going to be the hardest semester so far. I am taking 15 units.
I am taking an online class called Teaching Literacy in Secondary Education. It does not sound the least bit appealing to me, but it is a pre-req to get into the Credentialing Program at CSUF.
On Tuesday afternoon, I am taking a class that is basically an undergraduate thesis. I have to write a guided 30-page paper on European Identities. I have to choose something that twentieth century Europeans can identify with such as nationalism in an increasingly de-nationalized EU or dealing with Islamic religiosity in secular Denmark, for example.
On Wednesday afternoon I am taking a class on urban history in medieval through twentieth century Europe. This is going to be heavy research and writing class (by the end of the semester, I will have written at least 80 pages for this class alone!) and is my first upper division cross-disciplinary class. This class utilizes methodologies from Geography, Sociology, Urban Planning, and History among many other disciplines.
On Thursday afternoon I am taking a class on the Roman Empire. This is the earliest period of history that I have studied so far and seems like it will be really fun. Luckily, I am able to supplement this class with a set of lectures from a class on the exact same subject at UC Berkley taught by Isabelle Pafford. I am able to listen to her lectures while at work, so that should be very nice to get two different sources for my instruction on this topic.
I have saved the best for last…
On Thursday evening I am taking a class on Ancient and Medieval Britain. It is such an amazingly broad topic (covering almost 1.5 millennia and all 4 major regions of Britain). Not only is the topic awesome, but the teacher is everything I could hope and dream for in an upper-division university professor. He is really strict and harsh and loads you with more work than you can handle, but this is only so he can weed out those who don’t have what it takes to be a historian and are majoring in history because “it’s the easiest one.” I am so excited for when I will be on the other side and have learned everything that he will have taught me. He is perhaps the only professor at CSUF that has what it takes to teach such a broad subject in 15 weeks. I don’t know why I haven’t taken him before for other topics.
So, it is now the last day of week 1 of the hardest 16 weeks (including finals week) of my life. Please wish me luck and if you don’t hear from me until May, its because I’m buried in a huge pile of books. I am so excited to be done and everyone who is reading these words is invited to my graduation party in May.

Cloverfield

Cloverfield came out last night and I saw it with Michelle and my good friend Ryan. I can't even begin to say how disappointed I was! I knew going in that it was going to be shot in first person, like Blair Witch, but they made it really shaky. I couldn't even last the whole movie. I tried to tough it out, but about 30 minutes into the movie I couldn't take it anymore and Michelle and I left. I stayed until I was a second away from puking and I regretted that I stayed that long because I felt really sick for the rest of the night. We made Ryan stay in the theater so he could tell us what happened. Luckily the movie was only 1 hour and 15 minutes, and the movie concept that Ryan described seems really cool, but I get really sick from the first person point of view in movies and video games and stuff like that. If you get motion sickness at all, DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE! About 25% of the sold out theatre left because they were getting sick, and they guy who was handing out the refunds said that they have never had a movie where they had to give out so many refunds for motion sickness.

Why I love History

I figured I should start posting about history, or else I'm going to have to change the name of my blog to The Geek. I found one of the best quotes about history and this completely encompasses the reasons why I love history. It describes history as a discussion without end.

"You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers you; you answer her; another comes to your defense; another aligns herself against you, to either the embarrassment or the gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress."
- Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form

Trekkies Unite!!!

For all the trekkies out there who check my blog (basically the one trekkie...you know who you are!) Doesn't this make you almost pass out with joy???? This is the first photo released of the new Enterprise which appears in the new movie coming out on Christmas Day this year. You can read more about the movie here. I am so excited for this one because its directed by the coolest nerd alive, JJ Abrams!

Tim-Tam Slam

If you have been around me at all within the past few months, you may have heard me mention something called a Tim-Tam. I heard about these a few months ago from a fellow volunteer in the high-school group from church. Here is how it was described to me: it is a square, crunchy, English biscuit that is covered in chocolate. You bite off opposing corners, then you use it like a straw and suck up some warm beverage (i.e. hot chocolate, coffee, etc.) into the biscuit and as soon as you taste it and the biscuit it saturated, you slam it into your mouth. Hence the Tim-Tam slam. It was described to me as the most amazing flavor-texture combination in the world. It is evidently huge in England and is this underground thing here in America. You can find more info here. So, I was intrigued by this and I started looking for these at grocery stores. Every store that I checked does not carry them and I was beginning to get a little skeptical that they even existed. Then my wonderful wife surprised me with one last birthday present last night and got me several packs of these Tim Tams, shipped from Australia! And I must admit, they are pretty amazing. They come in different varieties (normal chocolate, carmel, dark chocolate, double chocolate, etc.) I tried them last night with hot chocolate, and it was one of the best things I have ever tasted!

Confession Hour

I have a brand new addiction. I am addicted to Guitar Hero (see previous post). At night, my dreams are filled with those notes dropping down the fret board. Whenever I hear a song on the radio, I am playing it on Guitar Hero in my head. Every time I hear a song I rate it in my head on how good of a song it would be to play on Guitar Hero. I have issues. I think I need to stop playing that game for a while.

Day of Guitar Hero

Today is my birthday and my wonderful wife got me Guitar Hero. Both of us took the day off and stayed home today. So I got to play 5 straight hours of Guitar Hero today. I first played the game over the holidays with my cousins and I was immediately addicted, and so I didn't give Michelle much choice in what she got me for my birthday. Five hours of Guitar Hero has done 2 things to me. 1. it has shown me that with enough practice, I might be able to beat my cousin by Easter. 2. too much Guitar Hero can give you severe carpal tunnel.

Exciting Day at Work

Every now and then, work gets exciting, especially in the default servicing industry. When I was working at Countrywide, some disgruntled homeowner made it past security with a baseball bat and managed to destroy half a dozen computers in the foreclosure department before he was tackled and removed by security. Another baseball bat incident occurred during my Countrywide tenure when an ex-husband of an employee came to the building to find the employee who had an affair with his ex-wife and caused the divorce. There was a third incident where a man was tackled in the lobby by security before he could do any damage. I guess Countrywide realized early on that they need a very large and well trained security detail in their corporate buildings. The default servicing industry (especially Bankruptcy and Foreclosure) creates a lot of angry and disgruntled customers who, evidently, are willing to take out their aggression on the company property and employees who did the foreclosing or other negative action. Most of the people that I work with came from other mortgage companies and have told me countless similar stories to the ones above. (every now and then on slow days, we will tell eachother our stories to see who has the worst one.) Today was similar to one of those exciting days at work. This morning we were on lockdown at my office for about two hours. There is a bank in one of the suites in the building right next to my building and it was being robbed and there were police with guns drawn taking shelter behind their cars. I did not hear any gunshots, but it was all very exciting. When you work in an office, and you hear a message over the PA system from someone who is noticeably distraught say, “Nobody leave the building, we have an emergency” I must say it gives a nice little shot of adrenaline.

Lifebloggers

I found something interesting online today and just felt like sharing it. Lifeblogging is something relatively new, I guess, and its pretty big in Europe. People take pictures of themselves over long periods of time and put it on their blog. One person took a picture of whatever was the first thing in his right hand every day. Another guy took a picture of himself in the same position every day for 8 years (so far) and turned it into a video that you can watch here. Its kind of cool how you can watch this guy age 8 years in a minute and a half. Anyway, I just thought this was interesting (but not interesting enough to take a picture of myself in the same position every day for 8 years!)