Presentations and Power

I've emerged from last week slightly sleep deprived and over caffeinated. Last week went much better than I expected on most accounts. I have to thank my professors for a couple class-wide extended due dates.

I gave my longest academic presentation on Wednesday. Thirty minutes! I definitely could have gone for forty though. I managed to weave the history of "textbooks/curriculum" spanning from Hornbooks to McGuffey Readers (briefly touching on the Dick and Jane Basal Readers) with how they perpetuated the social norms and contributed to national stability and unity. Webster's desire for a national identity was an important part as well as the shift from oral literacy to written literacy. We sped through the Puritanism, Presbyterian/Calvinism, Protestantism and Victorian morality. Year II of Worldviews of the Western World came back with a vengance as I explained who Cromwell was, spoke about "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", defined creed vs. catechism and gave a brief overview of the Calvinist beliefs. Thanks, Mom and Dad! I even had a little hornbook and recitation activity. I was out of breath by the end trying to cover all the material. Dr. W. had that goofy grin on his face for most of my presentation that means he's pleased (either that or he was stunned). :) He only stopped me once to emphasize something so I think it went well. I'm not trying to sound my own praises but this was one of the most notable and exciting things this week.

Well, that and the electricity issues, we've had.

We had half of the breakers in the kitchen, laundry room and my room go out. We switched the breakers and nothing happened, so we put a work order in. A couple hours later, I looked at the breakers and realized that one whole bank of breakers were off. We had flipped them on and back off not realizing which direction they should go. We canceled the work order. ;)

Today, when I came home from church, I went into the kitchen and turned on the lights. The incandescent lights were really dim. I went into the bathroom where the lights are really bright, but they were dim too! I thought I was going blind... either that or my eyes were taking way too long to adjust from coming inside. Then the florescent tubes went out. My roommate lost power at that point and we watched appliances and lights turn off one by one. It's a little creepy. I called the management company who referred me to the electric company. Turns out there was an equipment failure. We got power back around 2:30.