A Good Weekend

Well, I had a pretty good weekend. TAFH came in with her significant other, a great guy whom I shall hereby christen UP for Uncle P_____. I had a day and a night off. I left the house Saturday around 10:15 to go to the library and came home after seeing Nanny McPhee with Mom around 11:30. I only stayed in TAFH's presence for about twenty minutes, so reduced her chances of yelling at me. According to Mom, she was pleasant the whole visit. I think I heard something about Hell freezing over lately, didn't I? Anyway, she gave us the time off. In her defense, she usually does.

I went to the library with the intention of doing genealogy research, but ended up looking at college stuff instead. Yes, yours truly has a better than good chance of going back to college this fall. I've been looking at an online college based out of New Jersey. Thomas Edison State College does have classes at its location, but it really emphasizes distance learning. My brother is using it to get his degree while in the military. I had looked at U of Phoenix and even spoke to a person, but the tuition is too much. TESC has much better tuition AND they actually offer a Bachelor's in History, rather than the Criminal Justice degree I would have had to settle for with U of Phoenix.

So, since I wanted to maximize my options, I looked at two books that list other online colleges with History degrees, a book on scholarships and a CLEP test book. I took the sample CLEP on Humanities. Um, I really need to bone up on composers and artists. I suck. Out of 150 questions, I missed 58. I think I'll be getting a CLEP test book on Friday. As for the scholarships, well, if I could change my heritage or have already published in the History field, I'd be doing great. As it is, I'm not going to get a heck of a lot of help through the scholarships listed in that book. Back to Fastweb.com! There were quite a few schools that offered either History Bachelor's degrees or Masters in Library Science online. I have hope again!

Sunday we had a lecture on the Molly Maguires at the ICS (Irish Cultural Society) and had an adventure trying to put together a slideshow for it on Friday. All I wanted to do was watch my television programs, but Mom kept needing me to help her with a program and function I've never used on the computer! ARGH! All I wanted was to watch the Stargates, Numbers and House, but I had to keep recording bits to watch later. Sunday was good, though. I dragged poor Kim to the lecture, but I think she enjoyed it.

Deb Randall (nice lady, very talented) had written a one-woman play about the Molly Maguires for her theater company the Venus Theatre, out of Baltimore. Mom convinced her to come up and put it on as the first part of a lecture on the Mollies. A professor from New York, who grew up in Scranton, Jerry Furey, gave the second part of it. Both were great. Deb's play centered on the women and gave some details. Jerry's part gave more background on the Molly movement (and similar groups) throughout Irish history.

It was quite interesting to watch Deb go through her final rehearsal on the stage. She was muttering parts to herself and then making last-minute changes to the script. It was fascinating. She asked me to help her with the sound checks a few times and then asked me to make the hammering sound she needed at a certain part of the show. I fobbed that off on Mom, not wanting to draw any attention to myself.

Did you know that the words "boo" and "hubbub" came from an Irish word originally? Apparently, the ancient Irish warriors would scream "abu!" as they went into battle (naked as jays, of course) as a sort-of "charge!" The fact that a bunch of naked screaming men and women would be disturbing to the other side probably played into it, I'm thinking. Anyway, the British and Americans that hated the Irish and Irish immigrants took the word and corrupted it into "boo" to insult people (mostly the Irish at first) and "hubbub" to mean an indecipherable noise that means nothing. Cool, huh?

Cheers