Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone! Sorry I wasn't around family this year. I had seminar instead.
This semester has apparently gone by obscenely fast--I had my last Research Methods lecture last Monday, and it managed to send everyone into a complete panic. The focus of the lecture was basically a PhD information session, which I apparently have to think about now. There are deadlines for scholarships in January, along with some for PhD programs, so I have to start consulting people about my thesis proposal. Consider that my agenda for the coming week, since my reading load is a bit light for now. I'd like to apply to Leeds again, since I like it here, but I'll be looking at some other places as well. More generally though, I think I'd like to stay in the UK. It's been a rather wonderful few months so far, and I'm getting the sense that a single year is just not enough time for me to live here. So in addition to planning where I'm going to be in a year or so, I'll be looking at jobs accordingly, and accommodation. To be honest, accommodation is a bit more pressing, because while I don't necessarily have to start my PhD in the fall, I definitely do need a place to live. Argh. These things are not sorting themselves well in my brain yet. I am trying, though. A real estate catalog got pushed through everyone's mailboxes the other day, so if I end up staying in Leeds that's at least one place to start.
What's up with this being a real person deal? I so do not feel old enough to be dealing with apartment hunting and year-ahead planning.
Other news: I met with my Brontës professor about my essay, which basically confirmed the written feedback I'd gotten from her earlier. It was gratifying to hear that my writing style is up to the task of addressing all the complex ideas I want to convey, and we were in agreement over what needed to be changed and fleshed out. With twice as much space to work with this time around (the unassessed essay was limited to 2,000 words, the assessed version can be 4,000), I feel fairly confident that I can do the work required. Also, I apparently was channeling Edward Said through the whole thing, though on a less colonialist scale. So he'll be making an appearance in the next draft.
Additionally, I managed to do a presentation for this same seminar last Thursday, which went quite well considering I had to present about the Brontë's poetry, and I am terrible at poetry. Thank God for helpful critical articles. It's quite funny--I feel like the Brontës are often generally lumped together as one singular writing force, but when one reads not only their novels, but particularly their poetry, it's clear that this isn't the case at all. Branwell's the obvious outsider, seeing as he was male, a dissipated alcoholic, and never actually wrote a published novel. But more than that, he's adamantly Byronic, whereas his sisters took Byronic forms and then twisted and reformed them, often to a less Romantic aesthetic. Wordsworth made an appearance in their pieces, too. Emily is by far the most skilled poet, not afraid to embrace simplicity while Charlotte tended to overwork her verse. Meanwhile Anne was surprisingly compelling, but remained the most straightforwardly religious of the siblings. It seems to me that the only similarities that show are ones born of a shared upbringing; the rest is all quite different. That's not what I actually wrote about in my presentation--instead, I talked about functions of recollection versus remembrance and had a bizarre nervous attack while reading it to the class which was clearly stage fright not over my presenting to the class but presenting my writing to the class, and which turned out to be a completely unfounded anxiety as everyone really liked my writing style. Again. So nice to hear that even when I am not sure whether I'm making sense, I can at least get my intended points across fairly clearly and elegantly!
Finally, and on a much lighter note, der ist ein Weihnachtsmarkt at the Millennium Centre in Leeds! In other words, a German Christmas Market. Apparently they're very common in England as well as Germany, stemming from German immigrants bringing their traditions over a couple of centuries ago, or something like that. In any case, there's a large complex of stall shops set up in the plaza, selling crafts and gifts and German food and mulled wine, and it's all quite charming. Well, apart from the giant beer tent in the middle of it, topped with giant statues of ponies and men hauling barrels of ale. That's less charming, and more hilarious, but I suppose this is to be expected given, you know, it's a German market. In conclusion, I got all of my Christmas shopping done. Win!
This entry is overblown and overlong. I suppose that's what I get for not updating for over a week.
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