Where Am I Going?

I think I've hit the mark in my college career that most people come to fear: the mark where you realize you're actually close to graduating and it scares the living daylights out of you.
So far I've done okay...mostly just cruising along. But lately, I've been thinking, "What am I going to do when I graduate? What do I have to offer anybody?"
And trust me, those are pretty scary thoughts. As some of you probably know, Print Journalism is my major, but I don't think it's something that I want to do for the rest of my life. I am so indecisive that it was so hard for me to pick a major. Now that I'm close to graduating with this degree, what in the world am I going to do with it?

I've heard several people say, "What you major in doesn't really matter anymore, just pick a major and graduate. Most people just want to see that you have a degree." Sure, that makes me feel a little better, but I can truly say that I have no direction.

Anyone remember those career tests you took in middle school? Does anyone remember what they told you to do? 

Sigh. Life is so hard to figure out sometimes. 

With all the scary careers and paths that I don't want to do, here are a few things that I do like:

(I hope you enjoy the random images.) 

1. Baking

   

2. Cooking

3. Traveling

4. Cuddling with my cat (even though she hates it)

                                                                             

 

5. Sleeping (probably on my list because I am tired)

6. Making things with yarn

Maybe I should search for a degree in baking. Or maybe I should see if there's a knitting degree.

I'm good at sleeping, do you think I could make a career out of that?

My Lesson Actually Learned: History and Being a True American

Before you read this, I should mention that the theories in my professor's lecture have all been debated. Although there are plenty of ideas why racism came about, I'm going to talk about in this post is the theory that my professor believes had the most impact in determining how it evolved.

Today I came to understand the real value of my history classes.

I went to my History 1500 class today where the discussion was about slavery and racism. I was enthralled, because slavery is really interesting to me. My professor talked about how racism didn't really exist until the 17th century with the further advancement of slavery. He claimed that slavery actually brought about racism.

Allow me to recite some of what I learned today (if you don't mind, this helps me remember). Although slavery had already existed in various parts of the world for centuries, the basis for enslaving people was different. Up until the discovery of the New World, the justifications for slavery was mostly based on religion (mostly Muslims vs. Christians). The other would need slaves for work and would justify using the other religion's peoples as slaves because they were deemed inferior. Because of this, there were only small amounts of people in Europe they could justify using as slaves. 

The discovery of the New World gave countries and kings more opportunities to make money. Sugar, in fact, was one of they key products grown and one of the main causes of slavery in the New World. It was a huge commodity and it made people wealthy. The problem with sugar is that it was so hard to harvest and to produce, hence the need for more slaves who would be forced to do the work. The location mattered too, because sugar could only be grown in the tropics, mostly on the islands in the Caribbean. But where would they get the people to do this?
I think we all know the answer. And Africans were initially enslaved because they were thought by Europeans to be pagans. But what I learned today was that there actually was a considerable amount of indentured servants who were forced to do the labor in the New World, too. Indentured slaves were contracted slaves (usually not Africans) who were set to work for a certain amount of time. They actually got treated worse than the Africans because the slave owners wanted to keep the Africans around for as long as possible and were more profitable, whereas the indentured slaves only had a short time doing the work.
Then came the rebellions of the indentured slaves, mostly in the form of Fort George in New York City. Here the indentured slaves, including Africans, Irish, and other "inferior" people, burned the city.
This scared the slave owners, so they sought out a means to make the population of these slaves smaller and to isolate only one type of people. Because slavery encompassed a larger variety of people before this time, they needed to somehow reduce the amount of slaves to reduce the chance of an uprising happening again. White people were considered slaves at this time too, so the idea of making someone seem inferior because of the color of their skin came about to section off a smaller part of the workers. So racism, especially toward Africans and people of color, is a relatively new belief. Racism evolved because of slavery, not vice versa.
So why am I talking about this and rambling on forever? I think the real value of knowing history is to learn how it applies to our day.

Lately, I've become really disheartened with how the election is going. (Yes, I'm going to get political once again.) It really breaks my heart that religion, race, and gender are being dragged into the mix. One of my biggest problems this year is people who have talked about not voting for someone based on these factors. Haven't we learned to look past this all? 

I was really disappointed with how people treated Mitt Romney. He got so much criticism for being a member of the church. This is so hard for me to believe! I would not criticize a candidate just because they were Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, etc. I thought that he would have been an amazing president. His experience as a businessman would have helped out our country in this economic crisis. Of course, I had hopes that McCain would have picked him for the VP nomination, but I had an inkling that would not happen based on people's reaction in the primaries. 

I hate to say it, but Obama has had so much garbage thrown at him. Not only has his race been questioned, but his religion has too. I watched a video clip where one of McCain's supporters, talking right to McCain, said, "I can't trust Obama. I have heard about him and he's not...he's uh...he's an Arab."  I am amazed at the anger, hate, and myths flying around this election. 

Obama is not an Arab, a Muslim or a terrorist. What happened to learning the facts? What happened to researching a candidate without the help of email forwards and the media? Racism is something that has not been around long, so why is it so hard to give up? 

Although this lady does not represent all McCain supporters in any way, I just can not understand how there are people out there who still have problems with other people's skin color. It must be said that there are extremes on both sides of the fence, but I think people have stooped pretty low by saying that Obama is a terrorist based on the fact that his father was a raised a Muslim in Africa but later became Atheist before he moved to the states (but some people think he is because of his supposed associations with Bill Ayers. That is a recent development). I think the fear of Muslims is largely based on 9/11, but doesn't each religion have a bad example? 

Aren't we reverting back to our old ways? Since our country is largely Christian, isn't this Christians vs. Muslims yet again? I understand that not all McCain can't be Christian, and some Christians support Obama, but why all the hate? 

I hope we can all elect someone whom we think will do a good job and not let emotions, feelings, or hate get in the way. We need to focus more on who will best represent us, not focusing our anger on someone who we think will destroy America. 

The reason why we study history is so we learn from it and don't repeat it. Our nation has progressed in so many ways and done so much good. Why not learn from this and keep going forward, accepting people from all religions, skin colors, and backgrounds. Isn't this the true American way?

And after all, aren't these Christian beliefs?

Introducing Our Fourth Roommate...

Late Sunday night, our fourth roommate (our third being Mr. Hobo) decided to come out and introduce himself. I have to admit it; Mark and I knew it was only time before we would get to meet him. So who is he?

Mark and I lovingly call him Gerald.

Our neighbors have had problems with mice lately, and we were so thankful that we didn't have any problems. (That was about a week or two ago.) Our top floor neighbor asked Mark if we had any, then went on to inform us that they had found four of them. Holy smokes!

So I was taking a nap late Sunday night, peacefully resting in bed. All of the sudden, Mark says, "Candice...Candice....CANDICE....CANDICE!" So I got out of bed and asked him what was happening (I knew he saw something, but I thought it was only a huge spider.) But Mark told me that there was a mouse behind our desk, right by our bedroom.

I whipped out a flashlight and found him hiding by a speaker on the floor. Poor little Gerald looked so scared!

We tried to trap him to put him outside (I'm not killing the thing, and I don't think Mark can do it either) but we failed, and he DASHED into our bedroom and hid behind our armoire which is right by the head of our bed. We looked behind the armoire and he had vanished...nothing that we did could make him come out of his hiding spot in that area, where ever that may be.

So needless to say, here we are at Mark's parent's house staying the night. Thank goodness we have family nearby to retreat to in emergencies. The problem with our bedroom is that there hardly is any room for our bed. Yes, it really is that small. Mark can touch three of the four walls and the ceiling with his long limbs while laying on our bed. So the armoire basically touches our bed right at the top in the corner. I don't know about you, but I don't want to wake up to a mouse sitting on my chin or nibbling on my finger (true story--but not mine) in the middle of the night.

What happens next? Who knows, but little Gerald has got me scared to go back to my hole of an apartment. I mean, I knew it was pretty rundown, but adding mice to the mix makes it a completely different ball game. I just don't want to see anything dart or scurry across my foot in the middle of the night.

I'm hoping that Gerald will take the night to peacefully make his way out of our apartment and tell his little mouse family to steer clear of the grouches in number 4.

I do know one thing for sure--any time that I complain about going to school, all I will have to think about is little Gerald and how getting an education will help us to get out of this dump that we live in. Who would think that a mouse would be motivational for some people?

Bringing Life to Genealogy

Even saying the word is about enough to make me yawn. For some reason, when I think of genealogy, I think of stuffy, old family history libraries and hours spent staring at those family tree things. Granted, I'll probably love to do it when I'm older, but right now it's just not that interesting. 

For whatever reason, my mom has had me scan pictures of our ancestors and it has been awesome! There is nothing more interesting than looking at old pictures. So I thought I would share some with you. 

My great grandpa Bauman, Grandma Viola, and her brother in Montpelier. 

My great grandpa Mattson and his family on the east side of the lake.

On the far left and right are my great grandma and great grandpa Bauman. The girl with the hat in front is my grandma Viola, and the boy to the right of her is her brother, Glenn. I don't know for sure, but it appears as if this is a trip that my great grandparents (who immigrated from Switzerland) made back to their homeland to visit. 

I believe this picture is from the same trip. I think it might be a boat on one of the lakes in Switzerland. 

Sadly, I don't know for sure who this is. I think these are some ancestors on the Bauman side of my family, in Switzerland. 

Grandma Viola and grandpa Rex on their wedding day. Cute, huh?

My dad as a baby. Isn't he adorable?

You know, as tedious and time consuming as genealogy is, I'm so thankful that people have cared enough to preserve this records and pictures. Scanning these pictures has helped me become so much more interested in my ancestors, because I have faces to connect with the names. Thanks, Mom! 

OOoh...October!

Even though it's about halfway through the month of October, (scary! time goes by way too fast) I just realized how much I love this month. And of course, I've compiled a list of reasons why.

1. Halloween--I love this holiday! Although I secretly wish I was 11 years old again, tromping around the streets of Paris with Laura in our bellbottoms and platform shoes. What good memories. When we were little, my family and I used to decorate the house with fake cobwebs and pots of dry ice and water. I love Halloween decorations. 

The good thing about my apartment is, all the cobwebs are natural! We basically live in a haunted cellar. I'm afraid that I don't have to do much decorating around this place to get it to look spooky. 

Can I just tell you how much I love carving pumpkins? We got together with Sue and Ryan last year on Halloween, ate dinner, and carved pumpkins. Here's some pictures: 

Here's Mark's pumpkin. I love its evil eyes. Not too bad for his first one ever, huh?

This is my disaster of a pumpkin. Apparently I was going for some sort of Egyptian Cat. Weird, I know. There's whiskers and a mouth, but they wouldn't show up on my camera phone. 

Ryan carves the best pumpkins every year! This pumpkin cracks me up. 

I've always wanted to go trick-or-treating in Logan. Can you imagine all the candy that you'd get? It makes me want to dress up and try to pass myself off as a 12-13 year old. Do you think I could do it? ;)

2. Unbeknownst to me, but October is Vegetarian Awareness Month! Although I'm sure there's a awareness month for everything, it makes me excited that there is a month for this. So for this post I'd like to give a shout out to some of my favorite celebrities, some of whom I had no idea were veggies! 

Doris Day

Gladys Knight

And some well-known vegans:

Joaquin Phoenix

And last but not least, good ol' Paul McCartney.

3. As I'm sure you are all aware, it is also National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I am thankful that this is becoming more well-known and that many more women are able to detect it earlier, even in the case of my mother. I love that many companies are coming out with Pink Ribbon products. Thanks for helping to educate and spread the word! 

4. And one of my favorite reasons...

Ahh...I love the leaves of fall. 

Get the Facts!

For the truth behind the finger pointing at the debates, click here.

Etsy

Have any of you heard of Etsy? I just barely found out about it, and I think it's fabulous. If any of you have any crafty items you want to sell, you can sell them on here! I love the knitted and crocheted section. What a great idea. 

Here's a little number that I quite like:

Now if only I had some money...