Rejoice with me, readers: my history class has been given the list of term paper topics and doing a Mission project isn't one of them. This makes me very happy. For those of you just joining us, I started "History of Ethnic Peoples of California" last semester and dropped out because the teacher was a condescending nincompoop with a fixation on making us do a huge project on one of the Missions. Since he strongly implied anyone choosing a Mission conveniently nearby was going to get a lower grade than someone who went further afield I dropped out and waited to take the course from a teacher who didn't equate distance with learning and commitment. I definitely made the right decision, although I am marginally sorry I never got the chance to do my interpretive dance of the Spanish oppressing the Costanoans and giving them measles at the same time.
Anyway, I am very pleased that I don't have to do a presentation on a Mission. None of the topics interest me as far as the examples given, but that's all right. The professor (and this class is taught by an Associate Professor of Social Science, unlike the other guy who wasn't even on the faculty) made it obvious that we could write whatever we wanted as long as it had something to do with the experience of ethnic Californians prior to 1950. We can produce ten pages of text with no illustrations or two pages of text with eight pages of illustrations as long as we clearly demonstrate that we have done some research, developed and supported a thesis, and proofread our work. It isn't specifically on the list, but my topic will probably have something to do with de facto and de jure segregation of Chinese prostitutes in San Francisco. That's the kind of ethnic history that interests me, not the story of prejudice against athletes or military heroism in spite of discrimination.
My other good news is that I've hired a gardener to transform my crappy looking front yard into a display of attractive plants and stepping stones. The icky, weedy grass is gone and he's rototilled the soil. He put in a variety of shade and semi-shade plants nicked from the pots in my backyard and a few items he picked up cheaply at a nursery. He's got some perennials in there that will take over if not carefully watched, and I want him to move the rhodie eventually, but I'd have been grateful for almost any change. We are no longer the shame of the neighborhood. Even better, when church lets out next door on Sunday people won't come stand in my front yard as if it were an extension of the Fellowship Hall. Little kids won't race around jumping up and down the short wall because there's a big honkin' trellis there blocking them off. My yard looks like a garden. I'm thrilled, he's pleased, and we have the start of a beautiful relationship. I love a man with a rototiller.
[Added 9/5/02: you can see the new yard here at my garden journal.]
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