This year I have started work on my honours thesis for my BA Honours in History. I had a topic change at the beginning of my summer from restaurants to cemeteries. It seems a far cry from each other, but the library assures me it is not as the books on death are strangely close to the books on tea and food... Go figure! (See above picture.)
Anyhow, today I finally finished reading my first book for my research, so I am pretty pleased. I have been trying to get through a bad cold for the past few days, and was feeling really unproductive with my time as I was falling asleep anytime I tried to read. So today I was worried about my meeting with my advisor, especially since I had been so productive last week with my readings and making contacts for research. To my surprise I picked up my book this morning and began to read "in the final chapter we will examine." Huzzah! Hope! I was feeling well enough to power through to the end! And I did! That was a great feeling. It is nice to be able to say I actually finished something on my route to writing my historiographical introduction to my thesis.
Also I have been finding it funny how people think my topic, cemeteries and death in Southern Alberta at the turn of the century, (that is the gist right now, I am still working on what exactly I am going to write about and how), is morbid. I don't find it to be as all the practices surrounding death are for the living. Today though I did have an interesting morbid thought. In the late 1800s embalming became really popular, and people became increasingly concerned with preserving bodies. Some even ordered metal caskets that would help aid in the prevention of decay. I am just curious... Did it work? If we were to go dig up a grave with one of these fancy metal caskets with an embalmed body inside, would we find a successful attempt at prolonging the decay of an earthly body, or would it disintegrate into dust the moment we open the casket lid?
Just some thoughts.
