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Kansas City, Missouri, Alexandria, Virginia, United States
~ About: A 1961-65 Park College Diary ~ As a high school girl and then a college coed in the first half of the 1960s, I wrote nightly entries on the pages of one-year diaries. In January 2010 I began transcribing the entries into a blog and gave each one a title. I grew up on three farms within 30 miles of Iowa City and the University of Iowa with its Iowa Writers' Workshop. As the oldest of four daughters, in my diaries I sometimes referred to my sisters as "the kids" or "the girls." We helped our parents, but we also had good, wholesome fun - a characteristic I took with me to Park. Park is 300 miles southwest of West Chester, Iowa, in Parkville, Missouri, on the Missouri River 10 miles northwest of Kansas City, Missouri, and across the river from Kansas City, Kansas. In 2000 Park College became Park University. Today Park's flagship campus is in Parkville and there are an additional 41 campus centers across the nation. Park was one of the first educational institutions in the United States to offer online learning. My last post was on May 22, 2018. I may be followed on Twitter @BarbaraMcDWhitt.

May 27, 2017: From Park College to Book Expo America

Park College (now Park University) in Parkville (suburban Kansas City, Missouri) was and is about books, books and more books. Book Expo America is the book publishing industry's largest yearly event, being held in New York City from May 31-June 2, 2017. Its schedule of author presentations and list of publishers showing their books can be found at http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/.

Book lovers and bloggers who will not be attending the event in New York can participate in a corresponding Twitter event May 31-June 4 known as ArmchairBEA that can be found at http://www.armchairbea.com/ or on Twitter @ArmchairBEA. My Twitter handle is @BarbaraMcDWhitt. I have registered as a 2017 participant. For my May 2017 update on A 1961-65 Park College Diary (http://parkcollege1961-1965.blogspot.com) I've chosen to find titles of some of the books I read at Park and what I said about them (in excerpts from longer diary entries for each day shown):

September 17, 1961: I just finished reading the first two books of Ovid's Metamorphoses. If only I hadn't had to read so fast, I would have had it down pat.

November 25, 1961: I'm reading The Cyclops chapter of The Odyssey. I remember that story - I wonder if we had it in grade school.

December 1, 1961: I got a B+ on the examples and C on the essay of The Iliad test in world literature.

January 20, 1962: I spent the afternoon reading Lucretius in the library and in the women's lounge in Mackay.

February 25, 1963: In French we have been reading the play, Orphee, that we are going to see at the University of Kansas next Monday night. I finally got the part in Cocteau: Scandal and Parade read that we were supposed to read, so now the play reading will be much easier.

March 4, 1963: Tonight the French class and Dr. Hampl went to see the French plays, Orphee  and L'Apollon de  Bellac, at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. They were very good and I understood most of what was going on in the second one and understood nearly everything they said in Orphee.

April 10, 1963: By getting up at 5:00 and reading in every spare minute until 3:00 (about three and a half hours) I managed to get enough more of Les Miserables read to  give a decent report on it. After all my times of renewing it before I started reading it, it felt good to take that book to the library and leave it.

February 24, 1964: I'm enjoying reading Facing Mt. Kenya that Karanja loaned to me.

April 6, 1964: I gave most of my oral report on Facing Mt. Kenya today in geography. I'll have to give my conclusion on Wednesday.
 
July 26, 1964: I started reading George Orwell's 1984. Maybe someday I'll get more of the books read I should have read long ago.

November 30, 1964: John Dewey's The Quest for Certainty is interesting but I'm getting bogged down in it. I need to condense 300 and some pages into a four-page book review for philosophy that is due tomorrow since I didn't turn it in today.

May 5, 1965: James Koerner's The Miseducation of American Teachers, which Mr. Carey mentioned a long time ago, upsets me, but it's nice to know some of the criticisms.

August 18, 1965: This afternoon I read more of The Elementary Teacher in Action that Mr. Fuller gave me to read this summer. It has a lot of good ideas covering most areas connected with teaching. I've decided it might be fun to arrange for pen pal correspondence with another third grade class.

10 comments:

Steph said...

This is a wonderful twist on Armchair introductions. I love it. Hope you have a wonderful time Participating.

http://cover2coverblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/armchair-book-expo-day-1-introductions.html

Elizabeth said...

I love this...thanks for sharing.

Very clever.

Thanks for sharing, and have fun this week.


Elizabeth
Silver's Reviews
Armchair BookExpo Introduction

Barbara McDowell Whitt said...

Elizabeth at Silver's Reviews, I love your blog's cover photo of the pastel colored houses, the water and the distant hills. I went to the British Isles when I was still single in 1969, 17 years after I began exchanging letters with a woman (my grandmother's English correspondent) when I was ten. I had invited her to go with me on a ten day tour of England and Scotland. I,too, began blogging in 2010.

Elizabeth said...

Thanks, Barbara.

That is Portree, Scotland. An adorable village.

2010 was a good year. :)

Barbara McDowell Whitt said...

http://parkcollege1961-1965.blogspot.com/search?q=Vermont

Steph Gorelenor, when I read on your blog that you are from White River Junction, VT, I had a strong impulse to look up your town and Hartland, VT in a road atlas. In the index I saw that they are both located at H6 and are only a few miles apart on the map of Vermont. I did a diary search for Vermont. The 1965 entry I found shows that sometimes FACT is stranger than FICTION. You can click on the above link to see it.

Katie Fitzgerald said...

What a unique introduction post! I hope you enjoy Armchair Book Expo!

http://www.readathomemom.com/2017/05/armchair-book-expo-2017-introducing-me.html

Barbara McDowell Whitt said...

Katie Fitzgerald, thank you very much.

Barbara McDowell Whitt said...

Thank you, Steph, for seeing and responding to my link on your blog, Cover2Cover.

Cafinated-Reads Molly said...

Love this post! Nice to "meet" ya!

Armchair BEA Cafinated Reads Intro

Barbara McDowell Whitt said...

Thank you, Molly. I'm glad you left your comment.