Essay Madness and Picture Time!

Woo my essays are done!

I think they were fairly good as well. I hope. I always get a little delirious at the end of editing so that I can't always tell anymore, but I'm pretty sure they're good. Weirdly enough, the one on DeQuincey actually went more smoothly than the Sherlock Holmes one did, possibly because I knew that I had a lot more work to do on it. The Holmes one proved difficult just because it had been so nicely self-contained, that adding another book into the analysis was at times problematic. I may have stretched the reasoning in that one by the end a bit. Hopefully it was okay though. Anyway, handed them in yesterday, and then proceeded to sleep for forever. It was nice.

So now...massive dissertation work time. I've decided to do different sections for each conference, so basically I'm hoping to get 2/3 of the thing done in about three weeks, which is, you know, terrifying, but I think it's possible. They don't have to be absolutely polished by then, just there, so...yeah.

On the flip side, I just took about eight books back to the library, so the Book Stack of Doom is now just a pile again. Phew.

Also, my trip to Conwy and Chester was absolutely lovely! Erin and I weren't expecting to know anyone else on the trip, but as it happened an acquaintance of ours (who incidentally went to UMass Amherst for a year before transferring to McGill) was also there, so we hung out with her for a bit as well. I definitely want to go back to Wales--Conwy had a fabulous castle to wander about in, not too large, but ruinous in a picturesque way, and Chester had a gorgeous cathedral that I wandered about in for quite a while. The castle at Conwy was particularly cool because they managed to incorporate it rather seamlessly into a modern landscape--check it out:

Suspension bridge and castle all at once! It appeals to the anachronist in me.

We had a proper English afternoon tea in Conwy as well, complete with tiered presentation of sandwiches, scones, and Welsh sweetbread type things, which was delicious.

Chester was a bit more metropolitan, but still quite lovely, with lots of medieval-looking buildings and Roman ruins scattered about, including an amphitheater and garden, both of which we wandered into. I should add at this point that the weather was also glorious, which was definitely appreciated.

The cathedral was gorgeous, and quite atmospheric seeing as there was a choir rehearsal going on while we walked around. A lot of the stained glass had apparently been blown out, possibly during the war, which meant that there are a lot of unusual modern replacements, like this one:

And the cathedral proper is below.

Lovely, yes? Incidentally, I have to share one more picture that I just found totally awesome, because you'll never ever find it something like it in the US. There are various plaques for the dead of course all over the walls, but this one caught my eye.

It may be a bit too small to read, but the gist of it is that this guy was an American, but during the Revolution he supported Britain, and when the British withdrew from New York he dropped everything and went with them, and then probably became a known figure in the church, or something like that. Anyway, it entertained me, because we completely forget how one nation's turncoat is another's hero. Cool to see little random pieces of history around like that.

So anyway, great trip, I'll have to make another to maybe Cornwall or someplace else after conference madness is over. Ciao for now!