President Pierce was a hot drunk, US Marshalls are pretty damn attractive and a Prof wants to "humble" us

So I am writing this posting which is very long due past (seems like a recurring theme with my postings).  However, I felt the need to write this post more sooner rather than later as we are under a Hurricane Sandy warning where we may be powerless for a bit, technology will die when the juice runs out or the satellites get all wonky and in a lack of tea twitchy state.  So I am going back into the memory vault to see what I have been doing the past couple of weeks. 

After what seemed like a hiatus in the touristy aspect of my life, I decided to change that and go do something not school related.  So, it was off to a history day for me, and along for the ride was Riya (who loves the one president most of our day was geared towards), Kayln and her brother.  I figured who better to be around than Americans to learn about American History (note to people - I would make a horrible guide when doing something Canadian history like).  As well, I learnt that movies do lie (**shakes fist up at movies**).   So first stop, Ford's Theatre (http://www.fordstheatre.org/home/plan-your-visit) .

Now, for some of those who don't know what Ford's Theatre is, that is the place where President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth.  And plus, who does not like all the controversy surrounding his death and all who were involved with the planning (see the movie The Conspirator as it does not lie unlike some other movies *cough cough National Treasure: Book of Secrets*).  It was a nice day, in my books, and standing outside, waiting for our turn to get into the Theatre, I got quite a lot of 'she's crazy' looks; probably because I was wearing a tank top when everybody else was wearing long sleeved shirts and jackets....Riya said that I should be wearing a sign that said 'I'm not crazy, I am Canadian'. 

 

Anywho, we got inside the place and it was quite amazing to see all the history and information on Lincoln.  There was an area that was dedicated to all those who were known to be involved with his assassination.  To be able to look at the gun that shot President Lincoln was quite amazing as well as to see the actual balcony where it happened.  They have not touched the balcony since that night so to see it exactly as it was that night was quite a historical feeling.  We got a talk from a Ranger about the events around that night; at first his voice was quite the 'waaa waaa waaa' (the teacher's voice from Peanuts) but it gradually grew on you.  And, for future purposes sake, a line that apparently people just cracked up when they heard back in the day was "Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal; you sockdologizing old man-trap!" Saying that nowadays will give you crazy looks......wait, I get them anways, so might as well go around saying this line to peoples.....hahaha.  Oh, so one thing that I knew that the American's didn't know, and don't ask me how I knew this, is that a Civil War Union General Joesph Hooker popularized the term 'hooker' because of all the ladies that would fratnerize/follow Hooker's troops.  Or something along those lines.  Anywho, the purpose of this is to say that I knew something of American history that the American's didn't know.  Who would have thunk....hahaha. 

 

From Ford's theatre, we got to go see the Petersen House which is where President Lincoln actually died.  Now Lincoln was a pretty huge guy, standing past 6', and the bed that he was brought to seemed to be like a 5'5 bed, so imagining him laying on that bed just seemed off.  After the Peterson House was to the Center for Education and Leadership.  The best part of this was the 34-foot tower of books all about President Lincoln.  Also here was the Aftermath Gallery where we got to see his funeral travels from Washington, DC to Springfield, IL.   I can honestly tell you that people came from miles around to see his body and mourn their beloved President. 

 

After Ford's Theatre, we went to Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum.  The one in Washington (I went to the one in Las Vegas) has all the presidents as well as movie stars, sports people and news people.  It was fun to see all the presidents as I could probably recognize about 5 of them hahaha and learn some fun facts about them all.  Like, for example, President Howard Taft got stuck in a bathtub. One of them, President Pierce, was actually pretty hot for back in the day.  And me being me, I, of course, think that the drunk and a guy who ran over an old lady with his horse was the hottest President for back in the day.  I know how to pick them right?? hahaha.  And I can't forget about Johnny Depp - oh dear lord I was about to jump that statute right there and then it looked so much like Johnny....oh so hot......(http://www.madametussauds.com/washington/)

 



After that weekend, it was nose to the books for school - midterms, papers, presentations and a field trip was on the list for school.  The field trip was to St. Elizabeths Hospital - this is the state hospital for forensic patients.  Now, it was kind of saddening as it has been totally revamped and doesn't look like your imagined psychiatric hospital (I was thinking like Souris Valley) but not so much (old St. E's is top, new St. E's is the bottom).  The way it is set up is that the one side is for the transitional patients (the civilly committed folks) and the intensive patients (the forensically committed folks).  We were not able to go over to the intensive side, so that was saddening, but at least we got to walk around the place and see how it works and is set up.  I would have loved *loved* to have run into John Hinckley Jr. but we had no chance of that happening.  My goal is to still work there, so one day it will happen.  Our psychopathology professor works on the intensive side at St. E's and she always tells us stories about the patients she sees there and it just makes me want to work there all the more.  One day it will happen; one day. 

 

I finally started to do my volunteering with Survivors and Advocates For Empowerment with their Court Watch Program.   What this entails is that I go and sit in Domestic Violence Court and take stats about who the Respondent/Petitioner are, their sex, their race, if they got the Protection Order, if they didn't, yadda yadda yadda.  All the statitics then gets entered into a program and it will say if a particular judge is more lenient towards some people, rude towards others, and how to make the system better overall, so it is quite interesting.  I did learn that the US Marshalls (who are supposed to be in the courtroom for all the hearings) are quite hot, like very hot.  It must be a requirement to be hot to join the Marshalls, like Firefighters.  So sitting in the courtroom for 4 hours looking at a US Marshall is not a bad way to spend one's morning hahaha.  And also, there can be some Judge Judy like drama.  I saw a case where it was two roommates (which can be domestic violence fyi) arguing back and forth about rent and if one can go into the others' bedroom.  It got quite heated.  But on a better note, while I was heading towards the DC Superior Court, I stumbled upon the Canadian Embassy.  I should probably remember where this is just in case I ever need it......

 

So, back to school.  It is getting kind of stressful - lots of people getting tense and heated about the way classes are going, the feeling that classes are useless and papers due that we had no clue how to do.  The paper that we didn't know how to do was a Case Conceptualization (basically you take a client's behavior and justify it with a theorist - Freud, Adler, Erikson, Horney, etc etc) and this paper was a beast of a paper - mine turned out to be 22 pages long.  With no clue what I was doing.  So here comes the day to hand in the paper, and we all happily hand it in, just to be done with it.  The prof, as nice as she is, tells us that she will mark us more on the lenient side as we didn't have time to go through most of the theorists before this paper was due and had to basically muddle through the theorist ourselves to apply it to the behavior.  Oh wonderful - great news.  Especially since getting anything below a B- is considered a fail.....not a happy thought.  So yeah, she tells us that she will leniently mark us.  Then, in the same breathe, she tells us, however, that everyone needs to fail a paper to "humble" them, and if we fail this paper, consider it a gentle fail. Oh, okay, that doesn't sound nice at all anymore....hahaha.  So now I am in limbo waiting for this paper to get back to me seeing as we have another Case Conceptualization due the week of Thanksgiving.  Oys.  Gotta take the bad with the good when it comes to school I guess.  As such, I will leave you with this picture of a sculpture in a sculpture garden I stumbled upon a couple of weekends ago. I call it "The Alice in Wonderland version of The Thinking Man". 

 

So, with all this being said, sadly no touristy stuff is happening this weekend.  Hopefully next weekend will be something fun done.  Take care and I love and miss you all!!!  I will have a countdown going once I book my tickets for coming home for christmas!!!!!