Done, Done, Done, Done

My thesis is finished, turned in, and all the secondary sources are returned to the library. Thursday night, the History Department held a colloquium for the three of us who finished up this semester to present on our topics. I’ve tried to post the powerpoint presentation I gave, but I’m running into some problems uploading it. I’ll keep trying.

The actual title of the paper ended up being “Uphill/Downhill: The Separate Sphere of Women at Tufts College, prior to and following the establishment of Jackson College for Women.” I will probably go ahead and post a pdf/a of it on Monday (I would do it tonight, but the final version is at work and I didn’t get a chance to send it to myself today since we closed early for fear of snow.)

Anyways, here is a picture of my presentation and a picture of the books I returned today.

Shamelessly plugging my employer.

Books I hope to never see again.

 

Chicka Chicka BOOM BOOM!

So yesterday Thomas asked me to read him Chicka Chicka BOOM BOOM which is one of our favorite stories because of all the great rhymes and the beat of the words. I read the first line, and then Thomas recited the next one. I read another line; Thomas answered with the line that follows. We went through all but the last two pages of the book like that. I read a line and Thomas recited the next one back to me.

We had parent-teacher conferences today. We spent a very productive hour talking with his primary teacher, Ms. Lisa. They have started a new curriculum which he is breezing through and should really help his language skills. Also, she said that they have made some changes to the structure of the day that he has really responded to well. He’s transitioning between activities in the classroom more smoothly and they are having less trouble with him being “silly during serious time.” Outside the classroom he still tends toward the silly and that unfortunately often manifests itself in him bolting away from the group. We also talked a little about options for next year. Probably late next spring we will have a big meeting with all the teachers and the coordinator to get recommendations for whether he should move into kindergarten or if he should have another year of preschool or some combination. The school district is looking to set up a kindergarten similar to the preschool he is currently in where there would be a PDD-NOS/autism specific classroom, so my feeling is that he would probably start kindergarten in the fall. But we’ll have to wait and see how he’s doing later in the school year. It’s definitely going to be a challenge balancing his academic abilities with his social abilities. We want to keep him challenged and growing, but not overwhelmed.

On other fronts, I had meetings today with both my primary and secondary thesis readers and worked out what revisions I need to do on my first draft. The revisions are due on December 18th which is also the day I give a 15 minute presentation on my topic. After that, DONE!

At work, I’ve been invited to join the Content Committee of COSTEP (Coordinated Statewide Emergency Preparedness) that is working with cultural institutions (libraries, museums, archives, historical societies) on preparation and planning for dealing with emergencies and disasters. The first meeting I’ll be attending is in January. If it sounds at all interesting to any of you, check out http://www.nedcc.org/services/disaster.costep.php and http://statewideplan.pbwiki.com/. I’m actually pretty excited about it and think it will be a great opportunity.

 

Thesis Update-Hooray!

Not to step on Erik’s post by posting one of my own so soon afterwards, but I just have to share how my thesis is going. I sent my advisor the first draft of my second chapter tonight and then I pasted together the intro, chapter 1 and chapter 2. I’ve got 46 pages!!! And that is before I write my conclusion and I’m sure that I will add at least 5 pages (probably more) during the revision process. All I need is 50 and I’m going to make it. It’s such a relief. Hopefully my advisor will like chapter 2 as well as she like chapter 1 so there won’t be TOO much to fix up. Yay me!

 

Update time again

Sorry I’ve been falling behind on the family updates lately. Par for the course, Thomas is back in school and both he and I have gotten sick. We spent much of last winter under the weather as well, so I’m hoping we don’t have a repeat performance, but it’s not looking good so far. Thomas has already had croup and he’s had an intermittent cough and running nose for two weeks. I’ve been sick for the last two weeks as well, even missing two days of work last week. I thought I was finally over it, but I just can’t seem to shake it completely. My doctor thinks it’s viral, but she did give me a prescription for an antibiotic if I don’t get better soon. Sometimes the medicine can give you just enough boost to get over the illness, even if it is viral and not bacterial.

In other news, I turned in the first draft of the first chapter of my thesis today! That the intro and one chapter down-a second chapter and a conclusion to go. It’s going to need a lot of revision, but it still feels nice to have 26 pages total turned in (over half of the 50 page minimum!). My second chapter is due the first Monday of November and it’s going to take a bit more research to write. Plus I’m supposed to be writing a book review for the American Archivist journal, but I’ve got 400 pages more to read first. I can’t imagine why I’m tired and my immune system is worn down! I’ll be so glad in January when I’m done and can just pick up some silly pointless novel to read instead of historiography.

For those of you who want to get cards in the mail, don’t forget Erik’s birthday is next Friday. :-)

 

Family Updates

Thomas has had a rough week and a half. He was sick with croup and missed two days of school. Having his schedule thrown off seems to have contributed to a general sense of being overwhelmed and he had a few meltdowns at school. Those have subsided, but he was still having them at home through the weekend. Erik and I met with his teacher on Tuesday morning and she gave us some ideas about structuring his weekends a bit more so that he has a better sense of what is going on and doesn’t get overwhelmed or anxious. It was a productive meeting and we seem to be doing better with him.

In other news I had another thesis meeting today, this time with the group of people writing this semester, not just my adviser. I’m so glad I have a stricter schedule to follow-I don’t think I would be able to turn the whole thing in on November 23rd with no feedback beforehand.

 

Family Update

Things have been crazy busy since our return from vacation. It turns out that then you work in academia, it is really bad to be gone the week before school starts and the first week of classes. It makes you feel like you’ve had no transition whatsoever from summer to fall.

Anyways, we were very glad we got home on Saturday and not Sunday. We really needed Sunday to recover. Thomas started school the following Monday. He is in a new classroom this year that is specifically designed for kids on the autism spectrum and have multiple specialists as teachers. Unfortunately we also missed the Open House for his classroom due to our vacation, so we didn’t get to meet the teachers or see the classroom in advance (I still haven’t been in to see the classroom). The restructuring of the preschool classes also led to a change that we initially thought would be good, but is not: Thomas gets done at 2:30 instead of 2pm. The problem is that the high school (which shares a building with the preschool) also gets out at 2:30 and its a madhouse of cars and kids and parents and all in all a very unsafe environment for the little ones like Thomas (who if given the opportunity would run all over with no concern for safety or the word “stop”). So Erik and I have made our first foray into school politics; we attended the 1st school committee meeting of the year to voice our concerns. It seems to have helped in that Erik saw a few of the committee members out observing the situation with the preschool program coordinator on Friday. We’ve been assured that some sort of solution will be found.

Thomas is loving school, as always, and is charming his new teachers. Even better, he is also getting to see his teachers from last year, Miss Jean and Miss Phyllis, on a regular basis. Unfortunately he is also exposed to lots of other germy little kids and he has his first cold of the school year. We took him to the doctor on Wednesday and he has croup (again). He went to school today, but they sent him home a little early with a fever. He went to bed early and I’m hoping he doesn’t spend the night coughing again since he really needs the sleep (and so do I).

Erik’s started back at Borders a few nights a week. He was able to get back into the same store and department he was in before. Other than that, he’s plugging away at A New Nation Votes on Ohio data. It’s been a bit of a rough patch due to death of the  parent of one of his college friends and the illness/hospitalization and impending surgery of a co-worker, but he’s muddling through.

I’m glad to be back to work and I’m almost feeling caught up (although staying home Wednesday with Thomas threw me off a bit). I’ve turned in the first draft of the introduction to my history thesis and I met with me adviser today. We set up the schedule for the next chapter and I’m optimistic about finishing on time.

Those are the high and low lights of the last week and a half. Now that things are settling a little bit I hope to able to write in a bit more regularly again.