My research paper has finally been graded.  I got an A-minus.  Awwwwwwww-yeah!

*big sigh*

closure.

Time to submit my teaching license application.  Hopefully I'll be subbing before too long now.

Over two years after first registering for HIST 4961, I am done with that damn paper.  Coincidently, two years after registering for HIST 4961 my body is also done.

I'm really tired.

I need to get paper to print this nasty thing out and then take it over to campus to drop it off.

Thank god the paper is done.  After being up for something like 29 hours, I stink.  Time for a shower.

I've been up for roughly 20 hours now.  Daytime hours were productive on and off yesterday, but I've been productive with the fewest distractions in the hours since midnight, strangely enough.  I am editing my paper now, so the end is in sight.  There are a few things to add here and there (a conclusion, properly formatted citations, a works cited list, other MLA-required BS), but I am almost done.  I wound up cutting out a whole section about suppression/harassment of labor, but had I included that the paper would have likely been more like forty pages and I probably would have needed another week to have that fleshed out well.  As it is I will be a little over thirty pages of content and I don't think the paper will be half bad.  It might even be half good.

I just wish I had had the discipline to get this done long ago.

Simple pleasure - watching everything slowly get lighter out my window
Peace

EDIT:  I love looking through all these old documents.  In front of me is the Report of the Minnesota Commission for Public Safety (basically an unconstitutional dictatorial council with unprecedented power in U.S. history).  In this book is a list of who was on county commissions that worked closely with the MCPS. 

Many of the commissioners in Hennepin County were also members of the Minneapolis Civic and Commercial Association (and it's related Citizens Alliance).  These two organizations were comprised of the business elite of the city and were dedicated to crushing any union activity.  One of their activities as to establish Dunwoody Institute (you may have heard of it) as a trade school to train workers to break strikes and to provide a flow of non-union workers.  The MCCA created the Civilian Auxiliary, essentially a paramilitary group.  The Auxiliary trained at the U of M, which also armed the Auxiliary with Springfield rifles.  This group was used to break a strike in late 1917.  The Citizens Alliance was also the group in 1936 that clashed with Teamsters in four days of hand-to-hand street warfare, resulting in the deaths of four people.

Additionally, 175 men who were either in the MCCA or the Minneapolis division of the American Protective League (a group devoted to suppressing anti-war activities) were made "Peace Officers."  This enabled these businessmen to carry guns, make warrantless arrests, and even enter private buildings. 

Anyway, back to the book in front of me.  There are a few names on this list of commissioners that are familiar even now:  A.H. Lyman (the Lyman building, downtown), Alfred F. Pillsbury (Poppin' Fresh, anyone?), George D. Dayton (of what was once Dayton's department stores), Louis Bunge (possibly connected with the Bunge tower north of the university).

So just noticing contemporary connections to our kind of scary history.  Back to work now.

Oof-da.  I have about 22 pages written.  I have something of an introduction written, some gaps in a section where I detail the establishment of the MCPS, and little at all on the suppression of labor.  The large majority of what I have written is on the Nonpartisan League.  Though I've not read what I have all the way through yet, I think it is ok for a draft.  Once I fill in the early gaps and round things out at the end, I may not even have to write about the MCPS's actions against labor, or it could be diminished quite a bit from what I anticipated initially.

It feels good to have this much done, but I am going to still be writing like crazy for the next couple days.  I wish I was better at this, then I could conceivably write without having three books and multiple articles all open at once for me to refer to.  At this point though, I don't particularly want the practice.

Ugh, I'm tired.

Simple pleasure - reading again about how farmers and labor joined together to start a new era of Minnesota politics
Peace

I'm waiting for box 7 of the Minnesota Commission for Public Safety files to come up from the bowels of the history center.  While waiting, I made a new icon and it makes me happy.

Went and threw 54 holes of disc golf with Chris and one of his friends yesterday.  That was one hell of a course, very hard but very good.  The first round I threw a 93, only 8 over par.  They've put a lot of work into that course and it will be great to see it completely finished.  Also found three or four new discs while swimming for a couple lost discs while we played.  Woo-woo.

Had a real nice evening with Sarah last night.

Going to go see Yonder Mountain String Band tonight.  Pretty excited about that.  Hope it stays dry since it is an outdoor show.

Oops, here's my box.  time to look for files about the August 15 Minnesota County Sheriffs' Convention, where the Commission told the Sheriffs to prevent meetings by the Nonpartisan League (radical farmers' organization) if they might cause disorder.  Yay for trampling upon the 1st amendment!

simple pleasure - a nice evening walk
peace

It is 3pm and I have been here at the Historical Society Library for about five hours.  I spent about an hour and a half or two looking through microfilm of 90 year old newspapers.  I was particularly happy to find copies of a newspaper that is particularly useful but that I didn't think they had.  I have spent the remainder of the time here finding and pouring through a few boxes of letters and documents.  Like before, it took a while for the boxes to arrive, but this time I found some very good stuff.  That was very gratifying.  I do need to come back tomorrow though and find more.

I need a break now though.  I was up until 3:30 this morning and got up a bit before 8.  So after I pick up my photocopies I'm headed over to the Nomad to meet some people from work for a couple beers and some bocce.

Simple pleasure - looking at very neat and beautiful handwriting
Peace

I've been here at the historical society library for the last hour and a half and have had a hell of a time finding what I have been looking for.  It could take a full day it seems to find everything that might be useful.  here's the process:
1.  Search through my notes for needed materials
2.  Find the 3-ringed binder that lists the materials in that person/group's archives
3.  Find the needed item within the listings
4.  Fill out a request form for a box of materials
5.  Wait
6.  Repeat one through 4 for other items
7.  See #5
8.  Look through folders in delivered archive box for needed item
8a.  Swear to yourself if what is in the box doesn't match what the binder said
9.  Fill out photocopy request to the copy services desk
10.  Wait
11.  Hopefully receive a new box of archived materials soon
12.  Pay for photocopies... they'd better be worth it.

Add to that that for some reason, my computer is making whatever window I have up inactive regularly, so I can be typing along, and suddenly nothing is happening.  ... just like it has done twice in the last 10 seconds now

Grrr... stupid computer.  What the crap!

This library is closing in 25 minutes.  I should probably go to Wilson Library at the U now for a couple more things, but I'm hungry and kind of want to see my wife.  *sigh*  I suppose I can see her after this paper is done, right?

EDIT:  Working on the paper is going well.  Internet went down as I was composing this entry earlier.  Little break now and I can post it.  C'mon creative juices, keep flowing.

I'm sitting in Bearaboo coffeein the crap-tacular town of Cloquet, Minnesota with my brother Matt.  He's finishing a social studies paper for my step-father's class where he examines a topic of his choosing (the Iraq debacle... errr... genocide... err... war... errr... international cluster-fuck) and investigating its connections to events in the past, The Versailles Treaty, etc.  I am sitting across the table from him and as soon as I am done with this little entry I will be turning off my internet and working on my debacle... err... self-inflicted torture... errr... history paper.

It's been a pretty good weekend, with a few small exceptions.  Sarah and I arrived on Friday night, the night of the Wrenshall High School dance.  After the dance was over, my siblings came home with about 20 of their friends in tow after midnight.  Sarah and I didn't get to sleep until after 2am.  Oh well.  My sibs have good friends and aside from being loud they never cause any trouble.  Yesterday Sarah and I went on a little backpacking trip on the Superior Hiking Trail.  We did a short loop and stayed at a great site on the Split Rock River.  Unfortunately, it got colder than either of us anticipated.  So we both had a hard time sleeping and when we did sleep, we had weird dreams - Sarah about a crazy Twins game, and me about Joe, hookers, and dog racing.  Go figure.  After it had been getting light for a while we decided to give up on trying to sleep and broke camp.  Since my stove is broken (we discovered), we didn't even have any warm breakfast or coffee to get us going.  But the sun came up and things warmed up before too long.  We finished our very nice hike and had a big breakfast on the way back to Wrenshall. 

Sarah is making up for lost sleep now, and I'm here at this hokey little coffee shop soon to be working and waiting for Joe to call so we can give him a ride back to the cities.

Simple pleasure - talking with my brother... he's a good guy.  Funny thing about little siblings getting older, maturing, and being able to have good conversations with them.
Peace

Thank you, U of M Writing Center history expert. I think I've got it!

The Minnesota Commission for Public Safety, established during World War One, used its mandate to ensure loyalty as a vehicle to carry out actions against organized labor and radical groups which previously threatened Minnesota business interests.

Damn, it took me about 15 minutes to make that the least bit coherent.

*gigantic sigh of relief*

Now I can go home and have some lunch.

Simple pleasure - reading about the Twins on the bus to campus
Peace

I'm sitting here in Wiley Hall, trying to motivate myself to get some reading done. I am meeting Sarah and her dad at Town Hall in a couple hours so I came to campus to get some work done. Instead of even opening up my folder of journal articles, I have gone through Livejournal, checked email, looked for evening lectures on campus with large enough attendance that I could sneak in to listen, finished a crossword, etc. This is frustrating. I know I need to read. I even have some deadlines now that I've been to the writing center and will have regular appointments with them.

I know my Adderall is doing something as I have noticed side effects and that I am a little less fidgety, but I still have a hard time getting myself going. The woman I met with at Disability Services on campus gave me a few things that help me manage my time and I know I need to use them. It doesn't help that I developed an aversion to systems from when I was living at home with my mom's many different attempts to get people to do chores. "The Job Jar" was the worst. *shudder*

It is so frustrating. I know what needs to be done. I am able to get work done sometimes, but there are more times than I would like where I get very little done, which depresses and at times angers me.

Ugh.

One of the strategies that was suggested to me is to commit to doing whatever work I need to do for ten minutes. After that if I need to stop, I can stop. If I keep going, I keep going. Doing this helps fight the problem with just getting started. So I think I'm going to pack up here and just go over to Town Hall now and commit to working for ten minutes... and I'm going to hope that once I get into my next article, time will start to fly.

I've been in a relatively good mood today. This post has been a little depressing, but I'm not going to let it get me down. Today has been a good day overall and I am looking forward to the evening. I have strategies for managing myself, I am going to try a few of them until I find something that works and I will be more productive.

Simple pleasure - Solving 10-down
Peace