Test test, test test...

 Donc je pense que j'ai déjà indiquer que ma nouvelle ordinateure a quelquechose de différent, en comparaison avec l'ancienne: ce qu'on appelle un "number pad" en anglais. (J'ai toujours du misère à trouver la vocabulaire pour les choses éléctronique en français. Beaucoup du temps c'est seulement le mot en anglais avec "le" ou "la" en avant.) Bien, maintenant je trouve que les accents (é, à, ï, etc.) sont beaucoup plus facile à ecrire à cause des "shortcuts". Je voudrais seulement faire une post en français car je n'ai pas beaucoup d'opportunités à la faire. 

Je n'ai pas encore entendu des positions en France ou Québec, mais il y a encore du temps. Je pense qu'ils nous contactent par poste et non pas par courriel ou téléphone aussi. Néanmoins, je suis encore très anxieuse. 

J'ai besoin de penser au sujet des choses plus positives, (Bien, j'ai besoin de penser au sujet de mes devoirs, papiers et dissertations, mais... ;) ) donc à ce but je voudrais vous introduire à une filme excellent, "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis". Je l'ai vu quand j'étudiais en France, et je la trouvai très amusante. :3 C'est tout au sujet des cultures différentes en France... et les difficultés qu'on trouve quand ils se rencontrent. 

Les soustitres anglais ne sont pas la meilleure, mais je sais que les dialectes sont très difficiles à traduire. 

(J'espère aussi que mon français est passable.)

Don't turn off brain, I need you...

Yeah, so my last post was a bit short (although it had a nifty video!) and I realize that only a handful of my friends list can read it, so I thought that I'd write an English-language update with extra information.

Stuff is slowly getting done. Last night, I all-but finished my thesis. I should feel more jubilant, but it's not done yet. I made edits based on the comments on the final rough draft that I just got back from my research supervisor. A lot of it was "good!", "excellent!" and checkmarks, with the occasional "typo" or "move this here" or "this should be your topic sentence, not this" and so on and so forth. I've also had to redo some formatting. I wasn't consistant with where I put my punctuation, outside or inside of quotation marks. I still have to chase down a few more examples/citations, double-check my formatting, and give my conclusion a bit more "oomph", but I'm essentially done!

Which is good because it's due a week from today. It'll get there. My bigger problem, now, is to finish all of the research papers that are due in the two weeks after I hand it in. I've done most of the research for them, and I have loads of reference books sitting beside my desk, so if I run across a point I need to double-check, I won't have to take the bus all the way down to the university or scour the internet for extra sources... which is good. I've just got to sit down and write the darn things, and you know what? I'm tired. And when I'm tired my brain doesn't like to be creative.

I have next to no readings to do this week (huzzah, professors understand our workloads at this point in the semester?) but now I have nothing to passively absorb: I have to be actively creative. I'm tired. I feel so done with school. But I'm going to have to keep on chugging along until I can finally rest at 4:00pm on April 21st. That's when I finish my last exam. I won't even be able to begin to study for exams until the week before. Luckily, I just have gigantic research papers in lieu of most of the exams, and they're due in the final week of classes.

Anyway, this Saturday is a complete write-off as far as doing homework goes, because I'm going to be presenting at the History of Medicine Conference at the U of A! If you're in Edmonton on Saturday, feel free to pop by. It'll be in Classroom D (room 2F1.04) at the University Hospital. I know a bunch of the presenters, and it looks to be very interesting. It's an interdisciplinary conference with undergrads and graduate students, from the history, English, and medicine departments (and possibly others like art history, dentistry, psychology, etc.). Highlights will include talks on "The Evolution of Kotex advertising and the Introduction of the 'Negro Market'", "Eugenics in Alberta: Lasting Effects".... The guest keynote speaker is Dr. Jackie Duffin who will talk to us about "Medical Miracles: Doctors, Saints and Healing in the Modern World", which will "explore how medical science is used by the Vatican in the canonization process."

My presentation is right after the break in the morning and will begin at 10:20 (so hopefully nobody will be figeting because they have to go to the washroom or something). I'll be essentially presenting a condensed version of my thesis argument, on Civil War medicine and surgery and how it wasn't as bad as you think, really... immediately afterwards we'll have a presenter on prosthetic technologies from the 1850s through the 1880s in America (which works really well, leading off of my talk) and then we'll have a guy talk about cholera epidemics in the mid- to late- nineteenth century, which can also build off of what I say about the miasma theory of disease. The subjects lead nicely into each other!

As a side note, there's free food, too! Breakfast, lunch and snacks. :) A friend of mine on twitter said that as long as I didn't advertise with posters saying "Breakfast, lunch and cholera!"... ;) But they go so well together! Everybody loves cholera, y/y? D:

Anyway, it will prove to be super-interesting, I know it. I'll write about the highlights the next day, possibly including pictures from my powerpoint presentation. :)

Saturday is also the fifth anniversary of my little brother going into remission! This means that he's officially cured of cancer! \o/ He works in the morning, but we're going to go out to a fancy restaurant for dinner to celebrate. :)

Aaand... I was going to end off on a history linkspam note, but it kept growing so it shall be a separate post, soon to follow. (Can you tell I'm procrastinating working on my papers? Bad beboots! D: )

Another history linkspam!

In a continuing effort to avoid doing much-needed homework, here are some random history links I've found over the past little while that may interest some who haven't yet seen them on my twitter feed:

Historically Hardcore Posters.


Upholsterer finds 200 year old love letter inside of chair. 

Queen Victoria and Abdul - "Previously undiscovered diaries have been found by an author based in the UK which show the intense relationship between Queen Victoria and the Indian man employed to be her teacher." Accompanied by good photographs!

Audio Slideshow: mapping Africa. Really interesting look at how Europeans perceived Africa over the centuries.

Getting Negative with Edward Curtis - an interesting article and video about this famous 19th century photographer of Native Americans, and the early "photoshop" techniques he used. 

Two Minute History of Film & TV Title Design 

The voice of Florence Nightingale, recorded in 1890.

While we're on the subject of audio files... Here is the transcript of a 1949 interview with Fountain Hughes, born 1848, and his memories of his childhood as a slave. This one includes some audio files of a few of the lines, so you can hear his actual voice as you read the transcript. 

The Year 2000 as Envisioned in 1910 - by this amazingly creative French artist. 

And not quite history, more like news, but awesome nonetheless:

The 8 Most Ridiculously Badass Protesters Ever Photographed

Some uplifting news coming out of Japan - Badass of the Week, Hideki Akaiwa, who scuba-dived to rescue his wife and his mother, among others, while the tsunami raged.