Wednesday, February 25, 2009

GiST Day 35

1. You know, I had a good day today. I felt energetic, and I got out of the house, and got more work done in a single day than I've done in weeks. I'm feeling excited about my work.

2. My sister surprised me and sent me this t-shirt in the mail. It's because I can speak dinosaur. (I also speak Robot Dinosaur, but that's another story.) I wore it when I taught tonight, under a buttoned-up cardigan (so that I wasn't too distracting while we discussed World War I). The problem is that now I keep roaring.

3. My wee Celeste kid is home from the hospital! I was glad when Brandy called to say they were home. That kid was so brave. (And adorable: she named her IV unit "Wall-E" and would talk to it and stuff. Three years old is a pretty cute age.)

4. I'm such a grad student: I ate ramen noodles for lunch and it was the most satisfying lunch I could think of. Oh, ichiban. I didn't even realise how much I'd missed you. (It was particularly delicious with sliced green onions.)

5. When I went for my allergy shot today, I had my fun nurse who is taking history classes. It was slow in health services, and so we sat down and talked about her next assignment for a while, and I convinced her to phone the BC archives about some cool research she's doing. I've seriously had a good day of undergrads exceeding my expectations. Tonight, while my students were discussing the World War I poets, it turned out that one of my students had read Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War and explained the basic argument to the class, which allowed the group to discuss some pretty meaty historiographical debates. In the beginner-level "Plato to NATO" European survey course.

4 comments:

The Blog Fodder said...

Martin Gilbert's book The First World War, a complete history, quotes a great many WWI poets. Some day when I have time I will follow up on several of them.
It would be an interesting course all on its own.

Queen of West Procrastination said...

I took a history class where we dealt with the World War as the "literary war". It was really good.

Rob-bear said...

That's a very extensive course. It covers a lot of territory (in terms of the time span, and geography).

When you get to feudalism, and compare it to today, remember: "In a modern democracy, your vote counts; in a feudal society, your Count votes."

P.S.: When you get to WWI, will you do "In Flander's Fields"?

Queen of West Procrastination said...

Welcome, Rob-bear! The European survey course always is that extensive. It's really more "Medieval Period to 1989ish", but that's still crazy to try to cover.

I wish we did "In Flanders Fields". We were doing all European sources, and so we didn't get anything Canadian like that. It was all Wilfred Owen, Siefried Sassoon and Erich Maria Remarque.