I is grammar bad

[Imported from Emily's Tumblr]

Tonight as I’m leaving for the gym I informed my sisters that due to my earlier diziness I wouldn’t stay too late at the gym and wouldn’t go as fast. And my life as I knew it, crashed, burned, was resurrected for a few seconds, and then murdered.

Me: I’ll go 2.5 instead of my usual 3.5.

Mary: 2.5 what?

Me: 2.5 speed

Mary: …..oh.

Me: Ok, how about 2.5 rabbits. That makes it cooler right?

Mary, Sarah & Claire:………………………………………………………..

Me: Cause rabbits are fast.

Mary, Sarah & Claire:……………muHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Me: *hangs head* See this is why I shouldn’t talk sometimes. Like last night when I was trying to tell you guys about @james_gunn tweet about Klingnons building spaceships. Cause it’s cooler than building cell phones.

Mary, Sarah & Claire:……………HAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahehe heh

Me: Stop laughing! It’s not like my rabbits are fat or anything! They’re skinny, so they’re extra fast!

Sarah: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! But rabbits’ legs are like *this* tiny!

Me: Shut up guys. I’m leaving now. You guys just don’t appreciate my creativitiv soul.

Sarah: *covers face with pillow to muffle insane laughter* grumfhahahahahaha

Me: *defeated*

Finding my Family: The History of the Entwistles of Wardle

As a favour for my grandmother I helped her finish part of her family tree of our British ancestors while I worked at the National Archives in London. The farthest you can go back in the census records is 1841, anything prior to that was a male/female head count; no names, address, or age. 

I was able to trace back our family to James (born 1800) and his wife Ann (born 1802) Entwistle who are my great great great great grandparents. I found this information this past March 2009.

The earliest census of the family, 1841, in the very bottom right corner reads James Entwistle

In August 2005, my grandmother and I went to London and travelled up to Wardle, just outside Rochdale, greater Manchester. We knew the name of the church her grandparents were married at and we explored it. The church, St. James, was under reconstruction, so we went through the graveyard. I was taking random pictures of headstones of names that could possibly be our family. But had no idea if any of them were.

The picture I took 4 yrs ago, having no idea it was my ancestors

Today I sat with my grandmother and we talked about everything I had found. I then asked her to get her copy of these pictures (they were film, not digital) and we started looking through them. Then I came across the first picture above and it HIT ME like a BRICK! I had, 4 YEARS AGO taken the picture of my great great great great grandparents, and just found out today!!!! OMG!!! I actually started crying! It was an amazing feeling to know that I had actually found them! Not just their records in a database, but their actual bones! I know that sounds crazy, but whatever.

I’m so stoked to get back to Britain and plan a trip back to Wardle, go back to St. James and look through that graveyard with a fine tooth comb! I also need to find out what the rest of the headstone says, because after listing James’ death, it lists their eldest son William below, but the picture is cut off so I don’t know what it says. From what the census records show William never married and continued to live with his father until James died. I can’t wait to get back their and find out more about my family. The church will have their death certificates, I’ll even be able to take a picture of the house my great great great grandparents, Jonathan and Rachel lived in across the street from the same church and perhaps they’re buried inthe graveyard as well.

I’m stunned, shocked, giddy, thrilled and ANXIOUS!!! I wish I could fly back now to investigate. People who hear that I’m a historian always joke that I should be a female version of Indiana Jones and even though family history isn’t as grand as finding the Holy Grail, I understand the thrill of adventure and not knowing what you find.

Squeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

I am geek, hear me squeeee!

Dear Interweb,

I am now in Seattle for the summer (which most of you know) and though I miss London very much, I’m enjoying Seattle immensely. Since I arrived, Seattle has experienced a mini heat wave and luckily I got in that action and managed my second worse sunburn ever. Luckily now it is a beautiful tan, but dude….life was pretty rough for awhile.

Thanks to @sheesidd ,who nudged me to update, I will update….so…..pretty clear cut.

I had been working on a blog post about my first experience with Lost, but I never got it up because I was waiting for @SarahSamudre to get her Lost post up (which I will bug her about in a few minutes). So I will actually weave that into this post. Awesome.

Big news: I graduated on May 14 2009 with my BA in History! I start my MA in Historical Research in October.

Yea…that’s pretty much it. Oh wait….I’ve become addicted to Lost! Which in my opinion is more awesome than my degree!

Enter in my FIRST Lost post……

Ok, ok, ok! Everyone’s been writing and hypothesizing about Lost for the last 5 seasons, so why do we need another voice in the ocean? Well…one, you can’t hear voices in the ocean very well, so you do need a lot of them. So have-at-you logic! And here I go…

My family has been into Lost from the beginning, but I was always working on Lost nights and never got integrated. I then moved to London and had no TV.

… *but*…

After joining Twitter and meeting (reading & typing with) so many different people, I’ve learned a lot about Lost and why I should watch and be invested in its story.

First kudos to my sister, Sarah Samudre, who was always *always* nagging me to watch Lost. I always said no, because I didn’t want to “conform” with the trend. Silly me, for I have to catch up on 5 seasons now before the last season of the series. Second kudos go to John Cabrera ( @johncabrera on Twitter ), who is wholly invested into different theories about Lost. I came across his blog http://www.johncabrera.com/ and read many of his posts, especially his most recent.

Specifically his theories about time travel, alternate realities and possibly Atlantis are what have pulled me closer to watching the show and joining in with everyone’s discussions. His more recent posts about hieroglyphics ( with the aid of @edrafalko ) are amazing and entertaining! So thanks John for enticing me into *finally* watching the show!

I watched the episode Follow the Leader and the season 5 finale. We had to stop once or twice to answer my questions. What made it a bit easier was John’s post on the episode and especially his work on the significance of the compass (see his website above).

I was soooo totally blown away and wanted MORE. Luckily I can get into complex plots quite quickly (plus I’m sci fi geek, makes it even easier). I really don’t have any theories *yet* but what made it really easy for me to understand at first was to put into the context of Lord of the Rings; (yes….total geekery, but if I wasn’t a geek, then I’d be like….Tom Selleck…and I do NOT want the responsibilities of that mustache, wa-HAY too much commitment there…).

I’m not gonna go thru the list I made of who fits who between Lost and LOTR, but so far it’s spot on. I just love being a geek sometimes, and that was a true shining moment for me…*tear*

Sarah and I began talking about Jacob and The Island, and the connection I made with LOTR sparked some brilliance! I suggested that The Island and Jacob were in this similar situation of dark versus light (hence black vs. white/Island vs. Jacob). When I got back to Seattle I began plowing through Season 1 and the major significance of the pilot was Locke explaining Backgammon to Walt and the key struggle between the dark and light! Squeeee!!!!  [Now Sarah is going to write more about her theory of what the 6^th season will be about, so watch out for www.sarahsamudre.com for her to post some Lost theories; they will be epic!]

Locke explaining the oldest struggle

This last Saturday night I went thru 11 episodes in one sitting and went to bed at 4:30am Sunday….that’s how good this show is. I watched another 5 Monday night, and hopefully I’ll get thru the last disc of Season 1 tonight, perhaps, perhaps not.

I can’t wait to write about this more, and maybe to do some collaboration with Sarah about what we talked about the other tonight! EPIC! Seriously, the anticipation will attempt to kill me, but since it’s not really *real*; nothing to worry about.

But then again, after watching a show like Lost; what is really real in this reality?

Registered Designs: Glass in the mid to late 19th century

I have just finished my internship at The National Archives in Kew, Surrey and so I have completed all of my tasks. It’s really sad leaving such an amazing place that fulfills a historian and researcher’s heart and creativity.

While working there, I catalogued a volume for the Registered Designs Office which spanned from 1842-1884 and dealt with Class 3 objects, all glass. I didn’t really like glass before I began, but now I feel a bit obsessed with finding pieces still surviving today that correspond to the designs submitted personally by the designers.

What I specifically did was transcribe the registration volume. The registration volume consists of hand written information: number of registration, number of parcels submitted, name, address, description of object, and date. My volume had 4 corresponding representations volumes. The representation volume had the original design, or photograph, of the object submitted for the registration and was pasted into the volume and stamped with its number. Not only was I working with a Victorian clerical book, but I was also working with the designers themselves, essentially, because these designs and photographs are all originals, sent from the firms between 1842-1884.

I have collections from Sir Henry Cole, the first director of the South Kensington Museum (later renamed the V&A); F. & C. Osler, who designed the 27 foot tall fountain as the centrepiece of the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London; Eugene Rimmel, who started Rimmel Cosmetics in 1832; and many many more!

Another volunteer in my office even had a submission from Charles Dickens towards the end of his life, submitting a new design cover for his journal ‘All the Year Round’. I was able to touch the cover and become one degree away from Charles Dickens….eeeeeeeeee!!!!

The V&A holds most of the glass that was submitted to my volume and I was tickled pink to be able to go there last week and see so many of the pieces I’ve worked with personally. As much as you can feel close to an inanimate object, I felt like I personally knew the pieces.

While conducting a lot of research about the different glassmaking firms from the mid 18th to early 20th century in Britain I became enthralled with learning all about the Crystal Palace that held the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park. The glass was handmade by one of the firms I had in my volume and the sheer architecture of the building is immense. I think I might pull this interest out for later purposes, a paper, a thesis….hmmmm….something to think about.

Well, all and all, I will miss the next 4 months of not being at TNA. I can’t wait to get back in September and work on some new cataloguing projects, and might even have the chance to lead some projects!

If you’d like to see some of the highlights I’ve worked with through my glass volume, please check out my wiki page on the TNA Your Archives site: http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Registered_Designs_Glass 

It’s fun and I guarantee you’ll like glass a little more. If you ever need a tour guide for the V&A please contact me, I’d be happy to show you around, specially the glass collections!

The Resolution—> My reason for blogging

The Glass Passenger- Jack’s Mannequin

The Resolution [click me to hear me too! (open in new tab)]

There’s a lot that I don’t know
There’s a lot that I’m still learning
When I think I’m letting go
I find my body it’s still burning
And you hold me down
And you’ve got me living in the past
Come on and pick me up
Somebody clear the wreckage from
the blast
I’m alive
But I don’t need a witness
To know that I survive
I’m not looking for forgiveness
Yeah I just need light
I need light in the dark as I search for
the resolution

And the bars are finally closed
So I tried living in the moment
Till the moment it just froze
And I felt sick and so alone
I could hear the sound
Of your voice still ringing in my ear
I’m going underground
But you’ll find me anywhere I fear

I’m alive
But I don’t need a witness
To know that I survive
I’m not looking for forgiveness
Yeah I just need light
I need light in the dark as I search for
the resolution
It’s a long road back from hell
Some stories I will never tell

Annie I’m almost home
And you hold me down

I’m alive
But I don’t need a witness
To know that I survive
I’m not looking for forgiveness
Yeah I just need light
I need light in the dark as I search for
the resolution