Excitement and Frustration

Frustration:
I am trying to keep this blog about my schoolwork, and not my personal life, but that is very tough sometimes. I feel like I should have another place to rant and rave about what is going on in my head, but I know more than anything that it would alienate me more from my friends because of the way that I am feeling at this current moment.

Excitement:
The yearbooks came! I have both the 1936 and 1938 yearbooks from the Girls' Trade and Technology High in Milwaukee. From just looking over them the last two days I already have chapters of my dissertation floating in my head: curricula, activities, sports! It is really very exciting. Almost too exciting, mainly because I still have three papers to finish by next week to end this semester. Even more exciting is that both of these yearbooks belonged to a woman by the name of Dorothy June Fleischmann. Even better, she wrote her address in one of them! I am not wholly sure what to do with this information other than share it with people who might be interested in my dorkish pursuits. I will hopefully scan some images soon to share the 1930s style of the book.

Scary

I found another yearbook, from 1930 on Ebay. I will try and purchase it later this week, but I should be seeing the 1936 and 1938's yearbooks soon. I will share what I have found, once I get my hands on them.

Excitement!

I was very excited to find something really cool about the school that I want to research. On Ebay a gentleman has two yearbooks, one from 1936 and one from 1938. Why or how they ended up in this man's hands in Florida is beyond me. They are selling for $44 each including shipping. I have purchased one this week, and perhaps the second one next week. I want to see what this first one looks like, if there is anything that I can mine from it. When I told my advisor Pablo this, he was very excited and asked if I had purchased them, without any hesitation when I mentioned that they were $44. Ahh to be tenured and not have to worry about money as much.

So Here's the Deal...

I have a research project due on May 7th. I have been observing and interviewing a teacher at a school and observing his classroom. The problem is that after looking at this from the beginning of February until, oh about last week, I haven't really got anything useful out of it, other than another teacher contact. I am bored to tears during the observation. I don't know how much of this is because this is not the type of research I do and I am fighting it, or because I really am not interested in teaching methods of other teachers in action.

So I emailed my professor, who will let me change my subject, but now I have about 3 and a half weeks to compile all of this data, write new proposal, conduct interviews, and do the work for my other two courses. I have to keep reminding myself why I came back to school on certain days, and this would be one of them.

In other news, the Barenaked Ladies are issuing a kids album and this video/song made me chuckle. I love YouTube!

In the Beginning

The main goal of this is to document my progress in school, as well as journal my thoughts about what I am working on. I know that there will always be random posts about thing that are frustrating me in the world around me, when I back away from the computer long enough to notice them.

The current push for this blog is that I am looking for graduates of the Milwaukee School of Trades for Girls. If anyone knows a graduate of the school that is still alive, please contact me. I would greatly appreciate it.