I haven't posted anything for a month and really don't have an excuse. Summer would have been the perfect time for me to sit down at the computer and write blog after blog but it didn't happen. I think it's partially because I have had virtually no routine all summer long and blogging has been one of those things that's gotten lost in the shuffle. So, even though I think everyone who reads this blog already knows the stuff I'm about to type, here's a quick synopsis of the last month and introduction to the next six or so posts I intend to write.
July was in some ways a really busy month and in some ways a really boring one. I spent most of the month working at the one part-time job I was able to get--grading the fifth grade social studies portion of the standardized test for the state of Kentucky. Suffice to say that it was simultaneously hilarious and depressing. The job was filled primarily with educators making some extra cash during their summer recesses, employees of the temp agency Kelly Services who had recently finished up other assignments, and people like myself, who had enough college credits to qualify for the job, and needed something to do for a month or two. I signed a "confidentiality agreement" stating that I wouldn't reveal any student responses (despite the fact that all of the responses were anonymous), and even though I've passed some of them along in private conversation, I feel it's probably not appropriate to post them here. But, for a taste, let me just say that around 15% of Kentucky fifth graders seem to think that Martin Luther King, Jr., freed the slaves, spoke at Abraham Lincoln's funeral, and single-handedly ended the Civil War between North and South America.
The only other major thing that happened in July was that Kirsten and I took a trip down to South Carolina to visit Clemson, look for an apartment, and for Kirsten to look for a speech-language pathologist position. We have, in fact, secured an apartment in Central, South Carolina, which is about a 12 minute drive form campus. The Upstate, or Upcountry, region of South Carolina is quite beautiful. It is essential the far southern tip of the Appalachian Mountains and the Blue Ridge chain is only about 25 minutes north of where we'll be living. We already went hiking once and it was gorgeous. Plus, though the area is sparsely populated by most standards, we are less than 30 miles from Greenville, SC, which has over 100,000 people and around 20 miles north of Anderson, which is about half of that. Clemson is extremely beautiful as well, and a bit different from what I'm used to. Indiana University and Michigan State are both very large state schools of nearly 40,000 students, and Clemson's student body is only around 17,000, but it was the size of the campus, which one could walk across in maybe 20 minutes (as opposed to nearly an hour at the others), that really amazed me. It is small but exactly what I want a college campus to look like: quaint, idyllic, and quintessentially Southern in style. Magnolia trees line the streets, and the buildings are largely an old Southern colonial style (from what I can tell, I'm not that great with architecture) with deep red brick walls, and columns on the larger buildings. I got to meet some of the staff in the history department as well as a very helpful graduate student. All in all, it was a pleasant experience and I look forward to beginning my scholarly journey in just a few more weeks.
Finally, I want to briefly preview the next few blogs I'm post. Those of you who are Facebook friends may remember a little over a year ago when I posted a six part series of notes on medieval philosophy (or, likely, that you don't). In any case, I am planning on reposting them here over the next few days, not so much so that people will read them again, but more for my benefit, because I was rather proud of my work on them and there are some edits I would like to make, some extra research I'd like to do, some hyperlinks I'd like to insert, and some intellectual avenues I wouldn't mind strolling down again. If you've read them before, feel free to ignore them, but I'd like to move them to my blog, since it's obviously a far more appropriate place for the content than in Facebook notes. After that, my next blog should be coming to you from the Palmetto State! Hope you had a great summer!
July was in some ways a really busy month and in some ways a really boring one. I spent most of the month working at the one part-time job I was able to get--grading the fifth grade social studies portion of the standardized test for the state of Kentucky. Suffice to say that it was simultaneously hilarious and depressing. The job was filled primarily with educators making some extra cash during their summer recesses, employees of the temp agency Kelly Services who had recently finished up other assignments, and people like myself, who had enough college credits to qualify for the job, and needed something to do for a month or two. I signed a "confidentiality agreement" stating that I wouldn't reveal any student responses (despite the fact that all of the responses were anonymous), and even though I've passed some of them along in private conversation, I feel it's probably not appropriate to post them here. But, for a taste, let me just say that around 15% of Kentucky fifth graders seem to think that Martin Luther King, Jr., freed the slaves, spoke at Abraham Lincoln's funeral, and single-handedly ended the Civil War between North and South America.
The only other major thing that happened in July was that Kirsten and I took a trip down to South Carolina to visit Clemson, look for an apartment, and for Kirsten to look for a speech-language pathologist position. We have, in fact, secured an apartment in Central, South Carolina, which is about a 12 minute drive form campus. The Upstate, or Upcountry, region of South Carolina is quite beautiful. It is essential the far southern tip of the Appalachian Mountains and the Blue Ridge chain is only about 25 minutes north of where we'll be living. We already went hiking once and it was gorgeous. Plus, though the area is sparsely populated by most standards, we are less than 30 miles from Greenville, SC, which has over 100,000 people and around 20 miles north of Anderson, which is about half of that. Clemson is extremely beautiful as well, and a bit different from what I'm used to. Indiana University and Michigan State are both very large state schools of nearly 40,000 students, and Clemson's student body is only around 17,000, but it was the size of the campus, which one could walk across in maybe 20 minutes (as opposed to nearly an hour at the others), that really amazed me. It is small but exactly what I want a college campus to look like: quaint, idyllic, and quintessentially Southern in style. Magnolia trees line the streets, and the buildings are largely an old Southern colonial style (from what I can tell, I'm not that great with architecture) with deep red brick walls, and columns on the larger buildings. I got to meet some of the staff in the history department as well as a very helpful graduate student. All in all, it was a pleasant experience and I look forward to beginning my scholarly journey in just a few more weeks.
Finally, I want to briefly preview the next few blogs I'm post. Those of you who are Facebook friends may remember a little over a year ago when I posted a six part series of notes on medieval philosophy (or, likely, that you don't). In any case, I am planning on reposting them here over the next few days, not so much so that people will read them again, but more for my benefit, because I was rather proud of my work on them and there are some edits I would like to make, some extra research I'd like to do, some hyperlinks I'd like to insert, and some intellectual avenues I wouldn't mind strolling down again. If you've read them before, feel free to ignore them, but I'd like to move them to my blog, since it's obviously a far more appropriate place for the content than in Facebook notes. After that, my next blog should be coming to you from the Palmetto State! Hope you had a great summer!
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