One week until...

NORTH WILDWOOD!
I went online to the Wildwoods' website and signed up for a brochure. In addition to getting the brochure, we got a book of coupons and a 2008 calendar of activities. The book of coupons excites me the most! We'll try to use some while we're there. And those we don't use, we'll leave with my family because they will certainly be around to use them!
Well, I have a midterm tomorrow and I must finish the week's work...

Chris and I watched Gangs of New York last night (don't worry--Clean Flicks version, courtesy of our friends David and Lisa Aaron). Wow. Quick synopsis: essentially one enormous war, Natives vs. Foreigners in NYC, specifically within the Five Points neighborhood (1846-1862). The Natives, born and bred New Yawkers, loathed the Foreigners (aka Irish people) and killed, murdered, and plundered their people. Now, I'm not sure how historically accurate this movie is, but the torture the Irish endured regardless was horrific.
I had to laugh at the Natives--where did they think they came from? Surely they didn't believe they had ALWAYS been from New York. America was an extremely new country at the time (it still is, compared to other societies and countries, some of which have been around for thousands of years) and their predecessors came from overseas. Fact--they came from England--the country right next to their hated Irish brothers! They established themselves "earlier" than their Irish counterparts, but still--they were foreigners themselves, technically. I'm sure if anyone had pointed out that stream of logic, his head was blown off in frustration by a Native.
The plights many people had to endure (even still endure, even today) scare and baffle me. For instance, we all grow up in grade school believing that our relationship with the Native Americans was peachy; after all, the Pilgrims and the Indians celebrated Thanksgiving and it was fun! We recreated it in the fifth grade and it was wonderful. It was not until I reached my senior year in high school where I discovered...well, the explorers and other settlers who came to claim the New World as profit, not to make friends, were downright cruel to the Native Americans who inhabited the land.
History is an interesting subject. If I weren't an English major, I would have been a History major (History Teaching, probably--a History major all by its lonesome qualifies for the "I picked a major I like and I will one day live in a box" group). Our history is fascinating, and it is fascinating to think one day, WE will be in the history texts and students will learn about our era.