Academia, Trips, and Hypnotism!

First department meeting! It was fairly standard; lots of welcomes were said, I finally met the excellent Clare Lewis, who is the administrative head of the English department, and basically sold me on Leeds by being scarily efficient. The professors I've seen so far seem a very friendly bunch, and to my pleasure the atmosphere from the students was far less pretentious than it was at Vassar. This bodes well for my willingness to talk in class.

I had some brief conversations with a couple of fellow Victorian lit. students as well, and again, good vibes. I had been a bit concerned with how much knowledge I should have of the period and the literature going into the program, but it seems that I'm in the right place according to what I heard from my peers. One of them had studied Art History at Trinity, and was just now switching to English, so I'm not the only one who didn't study Victorian all through undergrad. Very comforting indeed.

I was also alerted to a number of societies open to me, one of which is an optional research seminar wherein students can present papers and ideas to a casual audience of peers every fortnight. I have little to share as yet, obviously, but it's nice to have that open, and if I have something to contribute I can email the person running the group and can come in to bounce my ideas off of everyone else. It will definitely be good practice for defending my PhD thesis, when the time comes. Which is far from now and I'm definitely not already thinking about that. Anyway.

On the non-academic side of things, Marta and I picked up some packets about group trips the Union runs out to places like Manchester and Edinburgh, which we'll be taking advantage of, hopefully. There are also little random activities too, like painting picture frames and mugs, and participating in any of the "have a go" meetings of the various clubs. They're designated for people who have no experience in the subject of the club, and just want to see if it suits them. So, since Marta is really into rifles, I said I'd join her for the Rifles Club and "have a go" at learning how to shoot. Could be fun? I may be overcome with the desire to wear tweeds, ruffle my mustache and shout "By Jove!" a lot. It will be obnoxious.

Finally, tonight Marta's flat and I went to a hypnotist's show at the Union, and it was hilarious. The guy had about ten students under his control, and beyond just the sort of "get up and dance when I say" orders, he managed to get one girl to speak in Martian, another to translate, and a guy to spontaneously understand Martian and laugh with the first girl when she told a joke. Best part, though--he willed the three most impressionable people to believe him entirely invisible, and then chased them with a "floating" handkerchief, cigarette, plastic shark, chair, and person he piggybacked around. The resulting quote from one of the hypnotized, when he asked her what happened: "Oh god. THE CHAIR."

I nearly died.

In any case, it was very impressive. I will never be trusting myself to a hypnotist, unless there is absolutely no audience.