History Department

By Jonathan Hagood

With the help of my eight-year-old son (Tyler) I was recently reminded that I like to travel. It’s a longish story, but here’s the short version.

When my wife and I moved to Michigan in 2008, our oldest son (Jackson) was almost five and Amy was pregnant with Tyler. The three of us had lived in Northern California, Kansas City, Texas, and Buenos Aires; and Jackson has traveled extensively—including a three-day layover in Miami on our return from a year abroad in Argentina. Tyler, born in Michigan at the start of my first full-time job in higher ed, did not travel nearly as much. What’s more important, nearly all of his Michigan friends and classmates have either been to Florida or have grandparents who winter there.

So, since he was about three years old, Tyler has been asking us to take him to Florida. I told him I’d try, and I did. I applied for various grants marginally related to my research. None came through, but I did learn that having your preschooler ask you if you got that grant application in on time and then, later, whether or not you’d heard back about it is a different kind of pressure from the normal pre-tenure anxiety. Finally, a little more than a year ago, I saw an announcement for a conference in Florida for which a paper I’d been working on would be a good fit. I applied—this time without telling my pint-sized academic coach—and last summer heard back that I had been accepted.

Amy and I didn’t tell Tyler until two weeks before the trip, which was November 2-5 and, in a meaningful plot twist, just before Tyler’s eighth birthday on November 6 (as an aside, Tyler got quite a kick out of various security and airline personnel wishing him a happy birthday after checking his passport). So, Tyler finally got to go to Florida. We stayed on a beach, and all it cost him was two hours sitting in the back of a hotel conference room listening to his father and three other people drone on about “Varying Approaches to the Political and Diplomatic History of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Latin America: From Transnationalism to Populism.” Tyler is an excellent travel companion. We enjoyed the airports, he was happy to spend an unplanned night in a Newark hotel thanks to a weather delay, we played at the beach, and we ate a variety of junk food. He and I enjoyed trips to the local Zoo and Aquarium, and we went on a boat and saw wild dolphins.

 

This trip gave me an opportunity to reflect on all of the travels I’ve made “for work.” My first academic conference, in fact, was in Amsterdam. You can imagine how the conversation with Amy, who was at home with a one-year-old Jackson, went when I explained the “necessity” of that experience. Here are some of the travel highlights that I’ve culled from my c.v.:

Dublin, Ireland: We took both kids to this one. Amy had been to Ireland with her grandparents when she was twelve, and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take Jackson when he was the same age.

Honolulu, Hawaii: This was thanks to a student whose project I mentored and who “needed” to make an off-campus presentation. The conference was a great venue for the work, and it was a great way to start my sabbatical semester. Amy came along, and the two of us spent a lot of quality time on the beach.

Geneva and Zurich, Switzerland: I was able to leverage presenting at a workshop to gain some valuable time at archives that I had wanted to go to but assumed I’d never be able to visit.

Montreal, Canada: Nice city, wish I could come up with work reasons to go back. Great conference.

Melbourne, Australia: Amy and I figured the odds of our ever going to Australia again were pretty minimal, and so we took advantage of a conference opportunity and dropped the kids off with Grandma. They wanted to go, but we told them they have full lives in front of them. We got to take a picture with a koala, which apparently you can’t hold (they get too anxious, which lowers their life expectancy).

Cambridge University, England: This took some creative fund-raising from chairs, deans, and a provost, but I made it happen. The conference itself was amazing, and I made a lot of useful connections. I need to get to Oxford to make a good comparison…

I have of course been to all manner of domestic destinations: Omaha, Chicago, Waukesha, Milwaukee, Boston, Scranton, New Orleans, Minneapolis, Washington, DC, San Diego, etc. It’s always fun to go places, and I think there is something to be said for the conference experience pulling you out of the comfort zone of “home”. It enlivens the brain’s ability to make connections and think about things from different perspectives. It also helps that I like hotels and airplanes and airports. Some people don’t. I’ve also so far managed to stave off any jadedness that comes from the realization that all of these places are actually quite similar. Globalization is real, particularly when one travels for brief periods to conference hotels, meetings rooms, and downtowns. Still, it’s one of the perks of the job.

In the end, I’m glad I got to take Tyler to Florida and that I got to remind myself how fun traveling can be. Left to my own devices, I’d hunker down for the workshop or conference and then slink back to the hotel room to try and become less behind on grading and email. An eight-year-old isn’t content to look at the program and circle the presentations he wants to go to. Far from it.

By Fred Johnson

It makes sense, and I absolutely understand. In today’s twelve easy payment, no money down, reality [non-reality] TV, Facebook “Like,” “Friend,” “Poke,” OMG, #Whatever world, it seems that knowing, understanding, valuing, and majoring in History is an odd choice, maybe even foolish. Of course, historians have long insisted that the skills learned from studying history are the real treasures of the discipline. Still, with college costs burdening family budgets and parents wanting their students to pursue majors that transfer quickly into jobs, touting History as a great choice for a commoditized employment market is a tough sell. Okay, fair enough.

So rather than dash into the strong headwinds of opinion which have long insisted that studying history has little practical value for the “real” world, it’s more productive to examine if, and how, the “real” world has any practical value for history. As a young Marine Corps 2^nd Lieutenant who was responsible for the lives of the Marines I commanded, there wasn’t a day when history didn’t come to my rescue. With more enthusiasm than experience and more cockiness than common sense, the skills of research, information assessment, precise question development, facilitation, public speaking, team-building, and leadership that I learned as a History major helped me succeed. Period! The decisions I made by employing the skills taught by history had to be right because if they weren’t, people died.

Senior officers understood that “wet behind the ears” 2^nd Lieutenants made mistakes, but they expected those mistakes to be few, widely spaced apart, and steadily decreasing in number. Frankly, the content of my favorite historical topics didn’t offer solutions to my immediate daily problems. After all, it was history. On the other hand, the process of studying and learning that content, developing the oral and written communication skills needed to articulate it, and refining the critical thinking essential for success in any field, anytime, anywhere were gifts that the historical content gave and has continued to give.

While working as a Training Coordinator at an an aircraft wheel and brake manufacturer, my co-workers had little interest in, or use, for history. After all, the product was aircraft wheels and brakes and history was, well, history. The information I taught at the company had to be conceptually precise whether it was related to chemistry and physics or federal and international standards for quality performance and safety.

I wasn’t particularly qualified to work in a manufacturing facility that used high-tech Computer Numerically Controlled [CNC] machines to produce aircraft wheels and brakes. I wasn’t particularly qualified to give instruction on how to operate those machines, teach the techniques for chemically treating aluminum and steel, or provide detailed guidance for the Carbon Vapor Deposition/Carbon Vapor Infiltration [CVD/CVI] processing of our most expensive brakes. My knowledge gap in all those areas was filled by employing the investigative research, source identification, information analysis, and writing skills learned from studying history. My ability to teach classes on those and many other high tech subjects resulted from oral skills that had been strengthened through class discussions, public presentations, panel participation, and orally defending history papers.

Winning the respect and confidence of our talented mechanical and electrical engineers resulted from possessing the skills to research, analyze, and blend into multilevel instruction the work they did as it related to the work of our brilliant machine operators on the shop floor. There was no room for failure because, for those who fly commercial airliners and those who manufacture the wheels and brakes those aircraft land on, there’s no tolerance for a bad landing. None!

It wasn’t until coming to the apparently “not real” world of Hope College to teach history that I finally used history purely for history. When telling students that the skills and expertise I learned from history supported me, empowered me, and, frankly, kept me employed in every non-history job I’ve ever had, their eyes fill with understandable doubt. For even in an institution dedicated to exploring and nurturing the spirit and the intellect to develop whole human beings [rather than merely graduating more highly skilled employees] there’s tremendous pressure for scholars to chase majors that will get them a job. That’s shortsighted, but it is what it is.

The reality of the commoditized workplace offers assurances that there’ll always be a need for those aspiring to be mere employees. On the other hand, for those who seek to both get a job and have a vocation; for those who’d like to develop skills that’ll help them succeed in just about any occupation, anywhere, anytime; for those who dare to risk learning a discipline that will enrich their lives and vicariously impart the traits of leadership; for anyone who desires to learn writing skills that will get noticed and earn promotions; for the few who want to become dynamic public speakers of great influence; for those wise enough to know that the key to future prosperity lies in mastering knowledge of the past; for those who seek to refine their understanding about the dynamics of teamwork and collaboration; for citizens who prefer knowledge and facts to the toxic bamboozling of pundits. For those looking to get the biggest bang for every tuition dollar spent in their quest for a college degree, majoring in History will yield a powerful dividend in that area the commoditized workplace knows so well: ROI – Return on the Investment.

By Margaret Dickinson ’17

Summer research is one of the main reasons I decided to come to Hope way back when I was a senior in high school. The opportunity to work within my field of interest seemed like the perfect way for me to determine if I could see myself doing that work for the rest of my life. So, I came to Hope, declared a physics major the second semester of my freshman year, and proceeded to do two years of summer research within the physics department.

Now, you are probably wondering why I’m writing for the History Department’s blog if I worked in the physics department. Well, through those two summers of work, I discovered that life as a physics researcher became less and less appealing to me. So there I was, a first semester junior studying abroad in London who had no clue what she wanted to do with her life. And that’s when I discovered my love of all things history. Through the courses I took in London, I found that I loved the type of reading and writing that are done in history courses and I wanted to do more of that kind of work when I got back home.

My first day back on campus at Hope last spring, I changed majors, advisors, and my entire class schedule. I went from having classes mostly in physics and other sciences to a schedule composed of only history classes. Throughout the semester, I found myself enjoying the work even more than before, and I began to actively pursue my interest in attending graduate school for history. So, when I was given the opportunity to do summer research within the history department, I was delighted.

This summer I worked with a group on a project for Dr. Janes. She is currently on sabbatical writing a book about the modern history of global food. For our work, we helped her build up a library of sources and began some initial research on specific foods she is planning on highlighting within her book. I got to study the history of curry and its relations to modern imperialism particularly relating to Britain and India (side note: I am interested in studying modern British political history so this was right up my alley). As a group, we also got to spend time working in the culinary archives at the University of Michigan.

This round of summer research was a very positive experience for me. Getting to spend time in the U of M archives really allowed me to better understand how in-depth history research is performed. By this point in time, I’ve realized that the more time I spend reading and writing history, the more I love it.

If anyone reading this is considering doing summer research, I would like to highly recommend that you do it. It’s clearly played a very important role in my story so far, and I have gained a lot of clarity by actually engaging in work within my fields of study. Even if you don’t plan on attending graduate school, the analytical thinking abilities and research skills that you develop through this kind of work are easily marketable in almost any field. Most importantly, the relationships that you build by working closely with faculty members is very rewarding and has certainly impacted my intellectual growth through my time at Hope.

Welcome, New History Professor, Wayne Tan!

By Professor Wayne Tan

Here I am sitting in the comfort of my office, the newest faculty member in the awesome History Department! As I’m writing this blog post, I can’t help but reflect on the one thing that I sometimes take for granted: my journey to work. I mean it in the physical sense of getting to the workplace. My office, as you might well know, is located on the 3^rd floor of Lubbers Hall. On the many days when I am brimming with energy, I race up the 4 big flights of stairs to the 3^rd floor without much effort. But, I can remember just as many days when I wouldn’t lift up my leaden feet and would consciously choose the convenience of a ride in the elevator.

I realize, however, that this flexibility of choice is a privilege. And, indeed, it is an immense one. How would I, if in a wheelchair-bound state, have reacted to the predicament when the elevator broke down (on the several occasions when it actually did)? What if my vision failed me someday, and I couldn’t find my way upstairs, past the heavy nondescript doors and down the hallways? Or, what if I was so seized by a paralyzing fear of heights or falling that I couldn’t venture beyond the first step? These questions seem to have a hypothetical ring to them—the imponderable what-ifs in life. Yet they are real issues to those among us who labor under the value-laden label of disability—physical, sensory, mental, and intellectual disabilities. In fact, these individuals, whom we are quick to call disabled, have populated the pages of history, at times fading out of the collective historical consciousness. As a corrective to the general linear narrative of progress, I have made them the subjects of my own research in disability studies, my field of interest and specialty.

You might ask, “Why should disability matter at all?” I’d like to invite you to join me in exploring this question in my new course “Disability and Medicine in Global History” in Spring 2017. My short answer: disability matters to us because it is about difference—being different, celebrating difference, and using difference as the starting point of our introspective frames of mind. Modern times have much to teach us. But so does our distant past. One guiding philosophy comes from 11^th-century Chinese Neo-Confucian thought. Virtue, it is said, comes from knowing how to examine the things that are close at hand. No project is too daunting or ambitious, if we set our sights on the stuff of everyday life—our routines, activities, and encounters, however ordinary they may seem.

HIST 295: Disability and Medicine in Global History
MWF   1PM-1:50PM       (Spring 2017)

This is what History is all about, as well: an attitude toward learning. I am heartened by what I know, but even more encouraged to seek gems in the lessons I had not known. How much more joy I would reap if I should begin learning, not through any express recourse, but instead, one step at a time! Step by step, flight by flight, and level by level. Patiently, mindfully, and purposefully. That journey, in my view, is also a privilege.

By Colin O’Connor

I came to Hope College to study history. As a freshman, I took a survey course in ancient history and learned how to write a paper as a history student in the history workshop. When I was signing up for my sophomore fall classes, I had the chance to take a course on the history of the modern Middle East with Professor Gibbs. I decided to take the course because I had not ever formally studied the Middle East and with the current news headlines of the day, I figured that knowing the history of the area would aid in my understanding of the conflict. After learning the history of the Middle East, I saw the course list for Spring 2016, and on it was a chance to put my knowledge to use in. I signed up for Hope’s Model Arab League class with Professor Awad knowing only that I would get to go to some sort of conference with the class, at some point in time. The class only met once a week on Tuesday nights and only took up a half semester, but it was a great time! In the class, we looked at the Middle East, and especially the country we would be representing in the conference, Lebanon. For most of the class time, we looked at the cultural, political, and general history of Lebanon and the greater Middle East. In class, we also took the time to practice the methods and procedures of the Model Arab League itself.  That meant going over the dialogues, line by line, that every country would have to go through to exercise motions and introduce resolutions to fellow delegations.

The day of the conference my fellow delegates and I headed out to Grand Rapids where the conference was to be held. When we arrived, we took our seat and were treated to one speaker attempt to defend Wahhabi Islam (the religion of Saudi Arabia), and another speaker discussed the details of the conference and the benefits Model Arab League provides to students. Over the course of three days, there were several planetary sessions, in which the different delegations discussed various matters pertaining to the different committees we were placed on. It was an awesome chance to put my historical knowledge to the test. I was able to defend Lebanon from other nefarious Gulf Coast countries that did not have our interests at heart. In doing so I received a distinguished delegate award from the conference from my efforts. The entire weekend was a blast at the Model Arab League, but it would not have been without the knowledge I gained from studying the Middle East.

 

By Jeff Harrison

I entered Hope College in 2008 and graduated in 2012. I enrolled in a Civil War course taught by Professor Fred Johnson my first semester, loved the discussions I had with my peers in that class, and  knew I wanted to major in history from there on out. As a side note, I recently traveled to Austin, Texas for work and got a beer with a friend I met in that class!

I work in sales at a cybersecurity company in Ann Arbor, MI called Duo Security. Although I did not pursue a career specific to my history degree, I am very glad I studied history at Hope. I made some great friends while involved with Phi Alpha Theta and the program opened doors for good internships at museums in Holland and Grand Rapids as a student. These internships were a great way to learn outside of the classroom and helped prepared me for my career after college.

I remember the grading rubrics in my history classes being very focused on writing, communication and critical thinking skills. There was a learning curve when I first started the program.  By the time I graduated and entered the “real world,” I was very confident in my writing and overall ability to communicate with others via email, LinkedIn, presentations, proposals etc.  Communication is “key” in the workplace: teams and individuals that can communicate well with others, no matter what field of business, are more successful than those that cannot. It seems like whenever I hear about an issue in the office it stems from poor communication between employees, clients or both. Potential customers aren’t impressed by someone whose writing sounds juvenile.

Hope’s history program fine-tuned the skills I need to work well with others in a professional setting. Drafting and reviewing papers taught me a lot about writing style and grammar. Team projects, “mock debates” and discussions we held in class were good practice for presenting ideas and articulating the thought processes behind them. This expertise is used on a daily basis in my sales role.

I encourage you to check out the Phi Alpha Theta organization and the department’s internship opportunities if you’re unsure about whether or not a history major is right for you. The professors are great and the smaller department’s personal touch prepares you for what follows your time at Hope!

• Jeff Harrison

By Dr. Gloria Tseng, History Department

“Are you on vacation now?” my friendly neighbors often ask during the summer months. True, the academic year ends when I send in the final grades for my classes in May. Then I enter my gardening phase, which is late spring and early summer, when I’m hopeful for the new growing season and before the Midwestern sun demonstrates its full force. Yet, the reading and writing that are integral to the academic life does not cease. In fact, once final grades are in I turn my attention to the writing of conference papers for presentation at two annual conferences usually held at the end of June or the beginning of July.

The Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity holds its yearly meetings at the University of Edinburgh and Yale University, with the two universities alternating as hosts every year. The Andrew F. Walls Centre for the Study of Asian and African Christianity also hosts an annual conference, which takes place at Liverpool Hope University in Liverpool. This has been my yearly ritual for the past eight years or so: almost two months of frantic reading and writing, followed by attendance and presentations at these conferences, and then more (albeit less frantic) reading and writing back in Holland as I continue working on a manuscript on Christianity in twentieth-century China, an ongoing project of mine for a good number of years now. This is the life of a history professor in a nutshell: one never graduates!

I like to write in the quiet of my study at home. My desk is in front of a window that looks out to a big maple tree and my vegetable garden in the backyard, and my computer is in front of another window, which looks out to the street. Sometimes I see neighbors walking their dogs; sometimes I see the mailman making his round. The writing isn’t all that glamorous, but it’s the substance of the profession. The traveling to conferences, especially those on the other side of the Atlantic, on the other hand, is always a highlight of my summers. Presenting one’s work to other scholars—some from both sides of the Atlantic, and others from as far afield as Asia, Africa, and Australia—and learning from them provide a necessary stimulus to my own work. “Iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17).

This year, however, was special. I did something I had never done before, almost extravagant. The Yale-Edinburgh meeting was to take place in Edinburgh this summer, and my cousin Jon, a newly minted MD, wanted to tag along. We decided to rent a cottage on the Isle of Skye, an island of some 600 square miles in northwest Scotland, for eight days. I persuaded a British friend to take us in a rented car. We experienced the full range of Scottish weather—rain, mist, wind, and two whole days of sunshine. The setting was fit for Wagner’s operas. We hiked up muddy and stony mountain trails where sheep wandered at will. We chatted with an old shepherd whose affection for his beasts was evident. The memory of this shepherd remained vivid in my mind for a long time, for he brought to my mind the One who called himself the Good Shepherd—

The Good Shepherd of Skye

Windswept, silver-grey hair,
Wrinkled, weather-beaten,
A ready smile, rough hands,
Accustomed to labor,
Tattered at the elbows–
“I am the Good Shepherd.”

A life of wanderings,
Tales waiting to be heard–
T’was to men such as he,
The angles first announced,
“Glory to God above,
And peace to man on earth.”

Lord, grant me eyes to see,
Thee in this humble man,
My Redeemer and Friend.

This summer I brought back with me the memory of my unexpected encounter with the Gospel message on the Isle of Skye. I was humbled and moved as never before by the mystery of the Incarnation.

By Josh Kam

Every college freshman has a Dreaded Question. The sort of thing your roommate’s mom asks almost before you’ve shaken hands, that the Michigan-friendly cashiers on 8^th Street will ask to start conversation.

“What’s your major?”

“But whatcha gonna do with a major like that?”

“Are you dating?”

“Like, I know you’re not white, but like, what’s your . . . heritage?”

For me, my Dreaded Question has been the same since the first grade: “Where are you from?”

A hard, simple question. And frankly, I’m never really sure how to answer. Does my new friend want a fact sheet of my life history? Do they just want to know we have something in common? Or do they want to really know me as a person? Lord knows. Which elevator speech do I make?

I’m a third-culture kid. Yes, like Cady Heron, but minus the seamless assimilation. I’m someone who has grown up in between countries, between languages, and between cultures. I’m not only American. I’m not only Malaysian. I’m somewhere in between: a third culture.  I was born in Montana, in the shadow of the Rockies, to Malaysian Chinese parents (which is, colloquially, kind of like being both Polish and Jewish. One’s a nationality, one’s an ethnicity).  I grew up both in Montana and in Malaysia, and have spent most of more life flapjacking between the languages, cuisines, and cultures that have now become my identity.

We spoke English at home, but when R-rated family gossip was involved my parents switched to Cantonese. My mother’s family spoke Hokkien and English, but when I went out to a supermarket in Kuala Lumpur, we spoke Malay or Mandarin. But even English is a weird stream to navigate for me. When I’m in Michigan I find myself sliding into a creamy, nasal dialect of standard American English, but when I’m in Malaysia my diction takes on a rather British-Commonwealth color. And so it goes.

But back to the Dreaded Question. I never know what to say. How much do they want to know? If I reveal that I am “the Other,” will I only ever be the Other in our relationship? If I only mention what we have in common, will they ever understand me when we don’t have values or childhood cultures in common? More often than not, I say, “Montana,” and smile breezily. It’s not a lie. I’m just not sure which truth you’d like to know.

Which also perhaps explains why I’m a history major.  It’s my answer to my Dreaded Question. It’s a way of plugging into the many, many voices of my Pasts. It’s a way of connecting the dots, and finding continuity in a story that’s been unfurling literally since records began. And TCK or not, we all have many pasts, and heritages that inform who we are. We “just” as Americans have political roots in the North European Protestant work ethic, in the Pagan Greco-Roman classics, and a cultural inheritance from all the peoples who have stumbled on our hunk of land between Spain and China.  That’s a lot to unpack all by itself!

The point is, we are the stories that have made us, and my major is about keeping those stories intact and relevant. Taking history at Hope has forced me to really evaluate the stories I tell myself, to weigh them in beside the many, many stories that built me. Under a history scholarship, I was even able to further my love of travel and my desire for origins, studying abroad in Athens, Greece, the heart of Western Civ as we know it.  This summer, I conducted research on a swashbuckling Malay epic at the University of Michigan. Again, it’s all about connecting the dots, of piecing together identities, times, places, loves, and memories. And no matter where you’re from, knowing your story grounds you. It’s a versatile, portable, marketable asset. It’s a life skill everyone needs. And Hope has been a huge part of that journey for me; the road is long but I am grateful.

Love,
Josh Kam

By Lauren Janes

This summer I had the joy of leading a team of students in collaborative research to help launch my next book project, The Modern History of Global Food.  The book will feature a series of case studies exploring how we can better understand important world historical themes by analyzing foods that moved around the globe. The students worked together for five weeks: gathering sources, building a digital bibliography, taking notes and beginning analysis.

Each student researched a different example of these historic global foods. Noah Switalski ’18 explored how the humble potato has changed diets and societies across the globe after its “discovery” by Spanish conquistadors in Peru. Natalie Cook ’18 examined the central role of sugar in the Atlantic slave trade, with a particular focus on the role of slave women on Caribbean sugar plantations. Margaret Dickinson ’17 researched the development of curry as a cultural exchange between British colonizers and many different groups across the Indian subcontinent. Leland Cook ’17 worked on the long history of rice, with a focus on how global food aid has sometimes been a form of neo-colonialism.  All together, these four case studies show a history of growing global connectivity from the crossing of the Atlantic into the twenty-first century.  Cullin Smith ’17 also worked with us for a few weeks. He helped to shape the overall project by analyzing the existing literature on global food history.

While we worked mostly with secondary sources, we also spent a few days at the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The archive is a rich treasure trove of cookbooks and other food-related documents including promotional materials dating back to the early nineteenth century.

This project gave the student an opportunity to work together to explore global history from new angles, and it helped me get going on my next book.  This was true student-faculty collaborative research.  We are grateful to the Pagenkopf History Research Fund for funding this project.

The students will present their work to the Hope and Holland communities this spring, and you’ll be able to read more about this culinary approach to world history when The Modern History of Global Food is published.

Today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for! Our 2016-2017 first-year students move in.

We’re so excited for a brand new school year and lots of fun changes!

This year we’re pleased to welcome a new Office Manager, Raquel Niles. She’ll be hitting the ground running, so please excuse an interruption or two to our regularly scheduled blog posts.

But never fear! We’ll continue to post regularly through the transitions and we’ll be doing an introduction to Raquel soon!