I Feel…Normal

I’ve been in kind of a weird mood today, so far. But then it occurs to me that this is the first time in quite a while I’ve felt, well…normal, at least at work. I’m not entirely sure why. All I know is I haven’t felt cheerful during the day in quite some time, so I figured I should document the occasion.

This is doubly weird because tonight is my class night, so I won’t get home until around 9:30 or so. I spent some time yesterday at my parents house with my laptop, trying to escape from the pull of Final Fantasy long enough to finish writing my essay assignment for my history class.

1776 by David McCullough

Speaking of history, It’s kinda interesting going back through and taking US history again, but at a college level. It’s intriguing to me what you don’t learn in high school about certain events. Everything seems to be slanted a bit to paint a rosier picture of the events of the past. Take Christopher Columbus, for example. All the history books mention that he set out from Spain to find Southeast Asia/India and ended up in the New World, sparking an influx of European interest. I hadn’t learned until recently, however, that he wasn’t a really nice guy…contributing to the torture and enslavement of many of the natives of the islands there. Oops. And the revolutionary war (which I learned about when I read 1776 last month), learning how desperate the struggle really was and how it could have fallen apart at any moment.

Perhaps it’s because I’m more aware of the events happening in the world today than I was in High School, or that my current class is showing me that things weren’t quite what I thought they were. It makes it even more interesting that my teacher was also my high school history teacher, so I can kinda compare and contrast what we learned there with the way the information is presented now.

Lies My Teacher Told Me - James Loewen

I guess the whole point of this is I’m started to get interested in historical type books. Like I mentioned, I read 1776 last month, which I finished in roughly 3 days, so I’m starting to wonder what else is out there. My teacher mentioned a book by James W. Loewen titled Lies My Teacher Told Me which kinda goes along with this subject. I just ordered it on amazon, along with the 4th book in the Wheel of Time trilogy (gee, anyone who looks at my order is going to be a little confused I think.) We’ll see how it is, from my teacher and the reviewers it’s a pretty good comparison of different history textbooks and what they say about specific events. I find it hard to learn about what books might be interesting to me though…can be hard to wade through the piles of crap, especially when I’m jumping into an area where I haven’t really had much interest in the past.

I’ve rambled on long enough about this stuff, so I should probably get back to work.