Slacking and Office Supplies

So while I am still making any kind of excuse to avoid anything that resembles school work, I have a peculiar obsession with office supplies that is well known to almost all who know me. Summer used to be a fun time of year where all of the pressures of school were removed and the urge to buy supplies was usually well repressed. Unfortunately the retailers have now decided that July is the perfect time to put school supplies on sale. Not just on sale, but the special isles full of fresh pens screaming my name and virgin notebooks calling for my chicken scratch to be scrawled all over their pristine pages.


It began about three weeks ago, while walking through Target, I noticed that most of the garden/patio supplies/decorations where beginning to not be restocked (whoa that's a lot of backslashes). The next trip to Target resulted in the discovery of these cardboard bins full of markers and pencils. While these make me smile, I could resist the temptation to walk those isles. That and I was there to purchase Mario Kart for our Wii (this is another reason that I have slack off). I then went on vacation with my whole family, so I was removed from this temptation, until today. I made an innocent stop at Walgreen's. I was paying my bills and ran out of envelopes and white out tape. I knew that Office Max would be way too much temptation when I just needed to get two things. I have more than enough pens and paper to get me through this semester, and I also am good on binders for this coming fall. I thought that I would play it safe and go to Walgreen's where the temptation is minimal for office supplies.


Wrong! Now mind you, I have been gone for almost a week, and do not know what sales are going on. I get to Walgreen's and everything is buy two get one free or better. I decided to peruse the isle looking for my white out tape. It was not in this isle, but there were binders of every size and color and priced at buy one get one free. I could not resist the empty binders. I go through two or three per semester, usually one per class. This fall I have two classes that I am taking, two that I am teaching, and I still do not know who I am going to be assigned to as a graduate assistant, so that could be more classes. I felt compelled to purchase at least two, even though I know that I have a few empty ones laying about the condo.


I grabbed two and continued on my search for the aforementioned items that I had come for: enevelopes and white out tape. From there I passed a display full of composition notebooks that were buy one get two free. Now I debated longer over the colors of the three that I would buy longer than I did over if I should buy them. I couldn't resist their solid uncracked bindings. I then made a bee line to the envelopes and quickly moved on to grab the white out tape as well.


I know to some this is silly, but to me this is like Christmas. Brand new school supplies are like crack, an addiciton. I told my husband what I bought, and he just laughed and said: "that's it?" He can be such an enabler when it comes to things like this. I need to stay out of the stores, at least until I have to buy books for this semester.

Too True!

Just a little bit of my favorite comic strip while I figure out my next move.

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.