So much to do

It really wasn't that eventful of a week, because I had so much schoolwork to do. I had to read five books for school. 

Fortunately, I'm not expected to read every word of the books—just enough to get the basic arguments. But that's still a lot of reading, and I did read basically every word of one of the books because it was so interesting.

This meant that I was only able to exercise two days this week, which is a problem, because all I want to do is eat Easter candy. Fortunately, the lack of time for exercising also meant a lack of time for buying much sugar.

Surprisingly, I slept through the night better than usual. Except that my body decided a few times to wake up at 6:30 or 7 (my usual wake up is 8) and then not go back to sleep. That was after I was up late reading. Why?? Some of that had to do with dreams. In one dream, I was a passenger when my grandma drove her car into standing water, and we all had to get out, and I was pushing the floating car toward the shore. In another dream, I was a passenger in a car (along with a cat) when the driver went over a cliff.

Schoolwork has calmed down for a little bit, except that I still have an essay to complete by Wednesday morning. But I should be able to pound it out in the next couple of days.

The one thing that was less usual was that I got to attend the open house for the new Pioneer Center at This Is the Place. Previously, you bought tickets to the park in the gift shop, but now they have made the visitor center where you buy tickets separate from the gift shop, which really does make sense. The new building showcases the This Is the Place Monument from 1947. I like the monument, but it is very much a product of its time. It is full of Euro-Americans and Europeans, many of whom had a very little impact on Utah and its history. It has exactly one Native American, Shoshone Chief Washakie, even though, you know, the Indians are more Utahn than anyone else. I wrote a paper last semester that explored why Washakie was remembered in the early twentieth century more than any other Native. He and many of his tribe were baptized in the 1880s, and there were not one but two settlements named for him. Of course, the monument does not include the three black slaves who were part of the vanguard company, though they are mentioned on a 1987 plaque that listed all the pioneer names. 

The new pioneer center is very nice, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't make any effort to retell the story of the monument. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, per se, but I wish it would have provided a bit more nuance.

What is really frustrating is that I learned this week that the park will now be fully operating on Sundays, which means that we employees will have to occasionally work Sundays. I thought seriously about quitting, but I reluctantly decided not to. It's just so frustrating that the new center continues to promote the Mormon-centric narrative (which I don't object to), and yet the new policy goes directly against that narrative. So please don't come to the park on Sundays. I want them to make no money so they reverse this poor decision.