Author Archives

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Overwhelmed

Let me be brief (because I have little time and because I don’t know what to say).

This was an overwhelming day…

Breakfast was great. Though I had the feeling (anyone with me on this?) that we were sitting in steats that “belonged” to regulars. Oops.

Then we were off to visit Oklahoma City University. What a beautiful place. Green grass, lovely buildings, and what fun students! I really enjoyed the class time, discussing/exchaninging maps, and looking around thier campsu. What a cafeteria!

And then off to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum. This is where I have very few words. I know many of is wept, and for good reason.

Where we are staying... The Skirvin Hilton.

This doesn’t even touch on that crazy day yesterday: late flights…fancy dinner…freezing cold…

More posts to come. And pictures.

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Oklahoma City Bombing by the Numbers

Let’s look at the numbers. Here’s a compilation of vital facts about the Oklahoma City bombing and what happened before and after, all just by looking at the numbers.

4.19.1775 date of the Battles of Lexington and Concord
1977 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building built
1983 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was targeted by The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord
1988 McVey and Nichols, co-conspirators, meet at Fort Benning
4.19.1993 conclusion of the Waco Siege, the poor handling of which inspired McVeigh
51 days of the Waco Siege
84 dead at the Waco Siege
1994 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building visited by McVeigh and Fortier
9 stories in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
14 federal agencies housed in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
4.16.1995 parking of getaway car
4.17-18.1995 building of the bomb
5,000 dollars, McVeigh’s approximated cost for the bombing
7,000 pound bomb
4.19.1995 Oklahoma City bombing

Events by Time
8:50 AM McVeigh enters Oklahoma City
9:02 AM Time of bombing
90 minutes later McVeigh was arrested on other charges
7:00 PM last survivor, fifteen year old girl, rescued

Deaths and Injuries
169 total deaths
168 confirmed deaths
1 unconfirmed death
163 dead in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
1 dead in the Athenia Building
1 dead in a nearby parking lot
2 dead in the Oklahoma Water Resources building
1 dead, a rescue worker killed by debris
99 dead were federal government employees
19 children killed
680+ injuries
5 percent of deaths caused by glass
69 percent of injuries outside the building caused by glass

Other
55 miles away, the bomb could be felt
1,800 9-1-1 calls
665 rescue workers
12,000 people participated in relief and rescue
16 blocks damaged
324 buildings damaged
652,000,000 dollars in damage
4.21.1995 Terry Nichols, coconspirator turns himself in
4.24.1995 McVeigh’s trial begins
5.23.1995 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building demolished
6.2.1997 McVeigh found guilty
6.11.1997 McVeigh executed

What did I learn from this? Wow. While it’s clear McVeigh was thinking and planning for a long time…it took such a short time to happen. 169 lives in a matter of minutes.

I’m very excited to attend see the memorial and museum. How exciting to the able to be there on the anniversary of the bombing.

See you then: 4.19.2012.

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Finished!

So thankful to have this finished… Paper and pictures all posted on my new page! About 2,800 words and fifteen pictures. Not to mention my slideshow and Works Cited and Consulted. I was going to keep my citations for the photos with the photos themselves…however… formatting everything, getting the pictures and words to come together correctly… For some reason I was having some strange problems with paragraph spacing. After wrestling it with some fifteen minutes or so…I finally got everything to work out okay. I chose to keep the side panel off in order to let this feel like more of a paper…but it is so different without the indentation and line spacing… 

Anyway, the whole thing was a bunch of fun. The pictures especially were so much fun to work on. It wasn’t easy to get most any of them square…but the colors turned out nicely. 

As to the paper itself…at first, I had a hard time, or thought I would have a hard time, making the word limit. Don’t know why I thought that. I mean I never have a problem with reaching word limits…I normally surpass them. But for a while on Saturday when I was finally getting a chance to work on more than a parcel rough draft, I was a whole thousand words short.

Yet when I got to analyzing, everything came together. My thoughts all made a but more sense.

And while this is a very strange thing to note…the only thing I dislike about this whole thing is that maps I am using in my discussion don’t really match my blog’s color theme. Too bad. The maps I have later in my paper, maps from my personalized map, match my blog very well. 

And now that this step of the project is over, I’m looking forward to what is coming next…the rest of class…our next project…and especially the trip to Oklahoma City.

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Somewhere I want to go…

I’d really like to go see the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum while in Okalhoma City. Its about a 15 minute drive from where we are staying. Do-able, but not walk-able… $9.75 for us students. Anyone interested?

Other places…

http://www.myriadgardens.com/index.html# Close to us. Gardens rock!

http://www.okczoo.com/hours-and-admission/ I love zoos. Maybe too much for our short trip.

http://www.americanbanjomuseum.com/plan-your-visit/operating-hours/ Yes. Banjo place sounds cool. $6.

http://www.okcmoa.com/visit/hours-admissions/ Art. $10.

http://www.45thdivisionmuseum.com/Exhibits/ Soldiers and history!

and Bricktown of course.

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Paper Progress Post

Been working this morning for quite a while… Well, this morning and afternoon! Paper is 1,644 words and I have more thoughts to put in (not to mention all the editing). I just got finished working on the pictures for my paper and of my map — Note to self: email pics to Dr. W! — and now I’m ready to work on the paper some more…

For a while I thought this would be difficult, but it actually is not. My thoughts are coming together well; making sure I’ve got my bibliography done right will be more difficult.

It is 2:30 and my day is not far from over. Gotta keep working on this and then think about homework due the week we are gone in Oklahoma City. Plus next week will be crazy as the Honors Program needs to raise $500. (We’ve already got $100; praise God!) But I’ve got a fundraiser to run. Tie-dye galore! And my room is an utter mess… I know some people are okay with their space being messy, but it is just not how my family lives and I feel so, so, so bad for leaving it such a mess. Hopefully I will have time to get to that. Plus I need to think about work over the summer… Oh yes. What a Saturday!

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Do I Look Like a Thief?

Censorship is really, really dangerous. Big companies and the government — that’s a scary combo.

Of course it is necessary to protect what is yours, mine, someone else’s…  But when you’ve got the internet where I can say and share and link to whatever I want…things get tricky.

Clay Shirky discusses this whole issue in a TED talk. Like he says: the people — not the domain pages etc. — are the ones getting punished. Again, he explains that the burden of proof falls upon the people who are sharing. We have to prove that we’re not sharing something that is not ours…

Why not — instead of taking away the rights of people to share, talk, think, learn — punish people who are found guilty of theft?

Why not? Because that takes away power from those with power and away from us — who give the power — and the law.

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What’s Next?

What a day yesterday… Very good history class (got some grading done!) and then off to lunch. Since my dad has jury duty this week, we ate together out front of the Archives; such a great time! Then a tour with some adorable and sweet 4th graders; I got two hugs afterwords! I then attempted to unlock an office door…but couldn’t do it. So I waited for another student worker and somehow it worked for him. Spent 1/2 an hour retyping inventory lists… and left for school. Time to take that Cultural Anthropology test, right? Get there. Study with friends. Wait. Talk. Study some more. We remember that we’re supposed to have a proctor to give us the test…and now its been a 1/2 hour and no one is here…! When I’m finally home, my user (not my log in screen and guest account) shows a black screen… So I spend 45 minutes backing up all my files through my guest account…only to find that after trying to log back into my account, everything is normal. Then I get an email from the Cashier’s office saying I owe $200 that I know was charged — or should have been charged — to scholarship.

And I’ve still got that paper to work on…

But! I’ve also got a review Wednesday for a Intro. to Philosophy test that I have to take Thursday night… A writing intensive class…yea…you know what that means. Tons of answers to fill out before hand. Tons. (And I’ve got this little article I need to write for the Honors newsletter looming over my head…) So I stay up till about 11:15 preparing for my test…

Then I remember I need a shower! Oh yes.
Is it clique to remember “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

I don’t think so. I’m getting frustrated because I really want to give my all to this paper — without wearing myself out! But every time I worry and doubt I’m reminded of how much I really do need help. From friends who listen to me rant, from siblings who every once and a while understand I need some silence, and from parents who are so loving…but mostly from a Lord and Savior who provides just what I need.

Though this paper (and everything else!) is kind of freaking me out, the Lord will provide.

(Image: Words: John Newton.

From http://matthewsmith.bandcamp.com/track/the-lord-will-provide)

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Almost There

With my map almost completed, I have only my paper to complete. The only thing to do for my map is to add maybe one or two more places and then place my name and blog title on it.

My paper’s breakdown will follow this pattern…

  Introduction

  Body

     Analyze

  • Look at the original city map. D
  • Describe this map.
  • Analyze this map.

     Compare

  • Describe the visitor map and the downtown map.
  • Compare the elements, usages, and facets of this map to the original.
  • Discuss the crime and church map, and how – or how not – these are reflected in the other maps.

     Reflection

  • Describe the personal map.
  • Why did I map what I mapped?
  • Why did include this theme and these decorations?
  • How does this map compare to the others?

  Conclusion

So this is how I am working. And I’ve also got to get some photos. Sadly, I know that these photos will not show everything clearly. The reproduction of my map will not be anything like the original, but I guess that will just have to be okay…

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Magic at Work

I’m so excited about my map — things are really coming together. After my run to Hobby Lobby, I’ve gotten a lot of work done on my map. It is now pretty much complete.

Pretty colored paper, stickers, and extra maps make my map what it is. Surprisingly, my map is more about the stuff I added to it and decorated it with than it is about being a map. (Gasp!) Because of the way I have labeled, driving with my map would be impossible; you cannot see all the roads! But it is a beautiful map…

My problem again will be transport. How am I going to move this thing? With the papers I’ve glued or taped on…rolling and folding are both going to be difficult. It will be hard to even bring it to class tomorrow!

One thing I am glad about is that my map does have a unified theme. Through color and imagery, I’ve  been able to point back to my blog and my Scarlet Pimpernel theme.

And I’ve still got to get onto that paper. All of these posts about my map will be of no use, but thankfully I do have my maps for my paper picked out: the original Montgomery map, my Montgomery map, the Montgomery church map, and the Montgomery crime map (maybe even an AUM map).  I am looking forward to the paper…just need to get to it!