DONE

My work for this term is over! At least teaching-wise. I will be bringing the makings of my next chapter, as well as some marking, home. But for now, the deadlines that had to be met, have indeed been met. I am trés pleased.

Choir went exceedingly well all of this past week, with an advent procession in the cathedral, a big Sunday service, and then a concert and carol service on Wednesday and Thursday respectively. Our director is changing jobs next term, so it was his last week with us, and it ended up being rather emotional, but very lovely.

Also, I'm happy to report also that my students seem to be doing very well--no truly terrible essays, and a few very impressive ones that I definitely could not have produced my freshman year of college, so kudos to them. I met with almost all of them individually to go over their work, and hopefully that was helpful to them as well.

It is bloody cold here, and damp, and I am currently wearing three layers and a scarf indoors. Last night I spent the evening with my back against the radiator in my room. It's pretty gross, is what I'm saying. But I got a second duvet the other week to stuff in with my first one, so I'm sleeping very cosily at least.

Above all, I'm looking forward to being home for the holidays, but seeing as that's coming up very soon, I really have no reason to complain!

We have been granted!

I'm very pleased to announce that a bid for an AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) grant that my friends/colleagues Nicole and Bea and I wrote up has been approved! As such, we'll be organising and running a training programme focussed on archival research into Sir William Armstrong and his role as a scientist and philanthropist in the Victorian northeast this coming spring. It's going to be a big project, and we've got a fair chunk of change to do it, and I'm quite excited about the prospect of making it happen. If it comes off well, it will be a big feather in all our caps.

Durham was totally flooded the other week when we had torrential rain for a few days, and as such two of the central academic buildings in town, both of which are usually occupied by the departments I work for, have been shut down, because someone had the bright idea of keeping all of the electrical workings in the basement, so as soon as the river climbed a few feet higher than usual, all of it got ruined. As such, I taught one of my classes all the way across town, and I had to retrieve a whole bunch of my books from the postgrad study room before everyone was shut out of the building entirely. Also, my advisor is now in exile from his office. It's all rather inconvenient. We can only be thankful, I suppose, that it occurred so close to the end of term, so that they have time to fix everything over the holiday.

In any case, the term is winding down or up, depending on how you look at it--I just finished with my last teaching session, and soon it will be time to mark essays madly and have a marathon session of handing them back and meeting with all my students, and as previously stated, do a lot of choir. Also I should probably get more mundane things done, like cleaning and laundry and errands, but those are secondary at the moment. Oh right, and I should fit some research in there as well, that would be good. There is a vague feeling of hectic-ness in the air, and it is very distracting. On the whole, I am tired.

But! I have a direction for my last thesis chapter, and a lot of books to read for it, and an idea of how to go about doing a big chronological overhaul of all of my chapters so that they begin to cohere to each other, as well as internally. So that's good. I was in a coffee shop today between class and choir and managed to write a good page of introductory material that better articulates what it is exactly that I'm trying to do and why I should bother to do so, which is encouraging. As always, I fear that I am better at pontificating than analysing, but sometimes some free pontification is very helpful for clarifying my thoughts, which can then be used more analytically. Or something.

All in all though, I am looking forward to Christmas! I require reading by the fire, pianos that are not keyboards, and kitties. Not necessarily in that order.

Life update, and a castle!

I have been terribly remiss with updates, so for the sake of expediency this one shall be in bullet form, at least for part of the way.

• Trip home was lovely, wonderful to see those who I was able to see, sad to miss those I didn't, but Christmas will come soon enough! My tickets are booked, I'll be in the States for three weeks over the holidays, hurrah!
• I was struck down by food poisoning last weekend, and thus managed to miss both a singing lesson and a class, which was most unfortunate. Basically, when the price of a sandwich is too good to be true, it probably is. Lesson learned.
• I had a long and very intensive meeting with my advisor last week which was both productive and terrifying--in sum, I have a great deal more work to do before my thesis is truly up to snuff, but I have a clearer sense of what precisely that work entails, so all hope is not lost. 
• I'm now looking around for a topic for my last chapter, and I'm leaning towards looking at the Great Exhibition of 1851 as a sort of framework for looking at the development of public reception of technology, both the good and the bad, and seeing if some of those pesky mythological narratives are coming through beyond the bounds of Marx and company. I have to do more reading before I can decide that it's a productive route, but I have high hopes. 
• The next couple of weeks will be very busy because I am teaching my usual classes plus filling in for one more, and there is a fair amount of choir happening because we're ramping up towards the advent procession that we do every year in the cathedral, which was really lovely last time, so I'm looking forward to it. Also, right after that I'm grading essays madly and having even more choir things to do, so basically it's all going to be one big run-up until the end of term, at which point I will be very glad indeed to take a breather, I imagine. 
• So that's that!

On a more picturesque and relaxed note, however, my flatmate had some friends from uni up to visit this weekend, and I got to tag along today on a day trip they were making. We headed up north to Craster, which is a seaside village about forty miles up from Newcastle that is home to the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle, a very melancholy and lovely heap of rocks indeed. This was a perfect opportunity for me to give this whole taking-pictures-with-a-fancy-camera thing a go, and hopefully I had some success? The lighting was not ideal, as it was overcast and we're far enough into winter that the sun is very low and it starts getting dark around 3:30. Nevertheless, with some photoshop adjustments a couple of these might be passable. Though now that I've messed around with them, the coloration is very inconsistent. Bear with me:

The town of Craster. Dear parents: You may want to add this to your list of ideal retirement spots. Whoops, totally under-did the contrast.

The castle, which is many fields farther from town than this indicates. In between is prime sheep-grazing and dog-walking territory.

A better indicator of distance.

The shore along the North Sea. It was very Byronic.

It was about 2:30 when this picture was taken. WELCOME TO THE NORTH. IT IS VERY DARK HERE.

Inside the castle. I really like ruined architecture.

From one of the upper floors, or what's left of it. Check out the awesome lichen!

Oh wait, with this camera I can actually photograph the lichen! LICHEN. This is actually an accurate depiction of the colour--a right proper saffron.

One more washed-out look.

How gorgeous is that? Ah, to have friends of friends with cars. Otherwise, I'd never get to the heritage sites that are around here. 

The new year, it is afoot

Back from the countryside for good this time, and it is back to the grindstone. I am finalising all of my schedules and things and filling up my calendar with them, and the result is a very cluttered calendar indeed. Manageable, but a far cry from the summer, at least.

It is officially Freshers Week, which means that classes haven't started or anything, but there are lots of activities and things that new students can mill around and sign up for. The only way this effects me is that today a lot of Taylor Swift was being blared from a laptop in the hallway outside the study room while the rugby team tried to recruit new members, and as a result I now have 'We're never ever getting back together' stuck in my head on loop, which is not appreciated. Also, the centre of town is about 4x more crowded than before, which is kind of nice, with the exception of lots of people trying to hand me flyers about things.

In other news, I have finally made a dent into my chapter progress to the point where the end is maybe in sight, though I doubt I'll be happy with the finished product until I have yet another go at it some time in the next year. As long as I can get all the necessary arguments and information down for now, elegance aside, I'll be happy. Maybe even by the end of this week! Fingers crossed. I am going to a party on Saturday, so if it can be done by then, that would be ace.

For some reason, my room looks a lot neater than usual. I suspect it's due to my finally getting around to returning about ten books to the library that I've had for months on end, cluttering up my desk and shelves. Also, I put all of my summer dresses away, because it is definitely autumn now, it is cold, it is time to bring out the jackets and boots. Brr.

Lastly, I have found scarlet lipstick that a) looks good and b) stays on all day and it is making me extremely happy. I am one step closer to being retro-cool! Maybe.

I am returned to the countryside

After much jaunting about, I am back in Bishop Auckland, and it is a very well-timed transition indeed, seeing as internet has still not been restored in my flat, and we may be forced to switch providers because man, the customer service has really not been great.

But I have internet here, so huzzah! For me, at least. My poor housemates remain deprived. Hopefully it'll be back online soon.

The inaugural NENC symposium was a great success! We had a good crowd, lots of good papers and questions to go with, and a lovely dinner afterwards. My advisor unexpectedly showed up for the afternoon, which completely frazzled me for a short while, but he seemed to have a good time as well, so I'm glad he was able to stop in. Now all that's left to do is mopping up loose ends and doing lots of reimbursement forms for people.

Other than that, I've now just been settling back into dog-walking and getting up early and trying to get my stupid chapter edits done. The progress at this point is moving at a glacial pace, but I'm determined to be done with everything at least before I start teaching. It may be a struggle. A struggle full of me wailing about how much I have yet to learn because I haven't gotten around to reading ALL THE THINGS, never mind that reading all the things when on a deadline is impossible.

I'm finding that academic writing is, for me, like the Kubler-Ross stages of dying, and right now I'm doing a cross between bargaining and depression--bargaining consists of saying 'If I manage to write 500 words today, I am allowed to relax for the evening' or something of the sort, and depression consists of the aforementioned 'I'M NEVER GOING TO BE ABLE TO KNOW ALL THE THINGS THAT I NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE THIS PERFECT, WHY GOD WHY'. At some point soon, I'm hoping to reach acceptance and then just plunge face first into finishing everything. So there you go, a glimpse into the ridiculousness.

I think that's about it, for now. I have teacher training on the 26th to go over my English department gig--hopefully they've kept the syllabus for Intro to the Novel similar enough that I won't have to buy many more books--and then it's back to the academic year. This summer has gone by monstrously fast!

My dependency upon the internet is truly astonishing.

Over the past few days the internet in the house has gone from spotty to altogether gone, such that I have been forced out to Elvet Riverside on a weekend in order to check in with the outside world. This has, of course, further reminded me of just how ludicrously dependent I am on being able to access internet things for everything from banking to email to tech support, the latter of which is especially difficult, seeing as I am in need of tech support about our router, so yeah.

But! On the other hand, getting a chance to check my email meant that I was informed that I have also gotten the teaching job for Combined Honours! So that was excellent to hear, and I'm looking forward to getting my head around some new material.

Other things: I went and attended the workshop in intellectual history, and it was very interesting! And also very, very oriented towards the assumption that I knew lots of things about philosophy, particularly early modern iterations of it, which...I don't? So it was a little intimidating, and I haven't decided whether it was actually helpful or not. But the people were very nice, and the seminar I was assigned to was more approachable than the larger discussions, so it wasn't a bust, by any means.

Incidentally, getting this second teaching job means that I will now be getting that crash course in early modern intellectual history which I clearly needed this past week. So hey! Swings and roundabouts.

And now, I continue to be very busy indeed, since the symposium is on Wednesday, so I have to sort out all of the printing and stuff which hopefully is happening on time, and I still have to sort out my chapters and get them to not be crap so that I can start October fresh. I have decided that I greatly dislike editing. Or at least, editing things that I wrote over a year ago, and are therefore not at all up to the standard I'd like them to be. Anyway.

First in my priorities, though, is fixing our stupid internet. I need it for things, and having it on my phone is not enough.

London, Take One: the fun trip

I am returned from a lovely jaunt to London to meet up with Hannah, who was swinging back west after a family trip to Amsterdam and had time to stop over and see some theatre and have a wander with me. We had an awesome time being non-obnoxious tourists, walking to and fro around central London, drinking coffee, and generally catching up.

London behaved itself in terms of weather, and as we walked we saw the telltale signs of everyone gearing up for the Paralympics, which is pretty cool.

New logo for Tower Bridge!

We went to the Tate Modern and and the Victoria and Albert Museum, the latter of which is officially my favourite museum ever because they have everything from historical costume to Islamic art to ironwork and other decorative arts, and basically it's everything I want in a museum all at once. Also, this time around they had a bunch of chairs in the entrance and out in the courtyard, which bore a very specific design element--they had conical bases!

(Not shown: much giddy laughter and trying to balance upside down while making silly noises.)

We ended up just hanging out in the V&A's garden for a couple of hours, just because the chairs were, in addition to being extremely fun to faff about in, extremely comfortable. It was a good time.

In addition, we went and saw a spectacular production of Sweeney Todd, and a fun production of Singin' in the Rain, which prompted me to watch the movie as soon as I got home. But more than anything, we just walked around, seeing stuff. We hit Baker Street, Fleet Street, Downing Street, saw Buckingham Palace and a very unhappy changing of the guard that started in sunshine and finished in the rain, and wandered around Hyde Park for quite a while. We also walked a good deal of the south bank of the Thames, which neither of us had seen, which was quite lovely.

Most importantly, however, we hit my personal favourite road, which is of course:

Land of the spectacular tailoring. We drooled at many suits in the windows, and were thoroughly intimidated by the people inside the shops who looked so at home amidst so much mahogany and chalked fabric. Ah, the magic of bespoke. 

Anyway, it was a lovely time! I think I finally have a better sense of the overall geography of London, which is definitely something that has eluded me for a long while. So hopefully when I go back on Monday for my intellectual history program I won't get lost. 

In which I embrace country living

Or perhaps more accurately, poke it inquiringly with a stick.

I'm house and dog-sitting for one of the college tutors at St. Chad's, which means that I'm staying in her cottage in Bishop Auckland, a mile outside of town, surrounded by farmland and Roman archaeological sites. I am accompanied only by a very old German shepherd and a giant bumbling mastiff.

It's pretty great, not gonna lie. Highlights have included:

• Getting up close and personal with a squirrel that was stealing dog food out of the shed
• Talking to fellow dogwalkers who I can only half-understand because man, are the accents thick out here
• Finding a giant spider in the sink first thing in the morning and shrieking like a damsel in distress
• Actually learning how the bus system works 
• Listening intensely to Radio 3 since there's a radio in the kitchen, which means everything from my favourite Brahms piano quintet to a John Cage celebration at the Edinburgh festival to excerpts from Dr. Faustus and Richard III and various others accompanied by Black Sabbath and Liszt. Seriously awesome programming that I was not previously aware of. 
• Fresh baked bread, because there is a bread maker so I don't have to actually do any work to make it.
• And the very best, chatting with people camped out on the Roman fort area outside the house who are dressed as Romans for some sort of yearly get-together and re-enactment. Yes, I am totes serious. They had shields! And capes! And some of them drove up from Manchester just to hang out and entertain children! Awesome.

Also, have a spam of pictures taken while walking the dogs:

Dweeg no. 1

Dweeg no. 2

Archaeology! aka Binchester Roman Fort, approximately 30 seconds away from the house. There's a more cleared up bit over to the right, but you have to go through the mini-museum to get to it proper.

Sheep! Also 30 seconds away, and Suzie (the shepherd) likes to fantasize about chasing them.

Auckland castle! I haven't figured out how to get there yet, but it's very close, and technically owns all the grounds from it to the fort, so we're technically neighbours.

Pretty fields. Usually there are pinto ponies grazing there, it's very picturesque.

Speaking of picturesque...

Following the same wall...

...up to a badass Victorian bridge! Man, I love these things.

FAVOURITE KIND OF LANDSCAPE.

I will take pictures with an actual camera next time I'm there, seeing as I'm doing more housesitting at the end of September after I get back from London. These are all ipod photos, so apologies for the crappy quality. 

So yes, now I'm off to London to meet up with Hannah and tool around being touristy, then back to Durham, then back to London again to do intellectual history summer school, then back to Durham again, and then it's time for the NENC Symposium! And then back to housesitting, and then teacher training for the coming academic year.

Phew. This summer has been way busier than expected. But I can't say that I mind. I am much better at being productive if I have more things to do.

Huzzah work and money!

I'm teaching this coming year! Just two sessions of Introduction to the Novel, and nothing at the secondary level, but it's more than this past year, so I'm happy enough. Now, fingers remained crossed about the combined honours position, and I'll be set.

I also got some money from my department to do the UCL-Sussex class in London, so that's good too. I had to buy a book that's going to be round-tabled or something during one of the sessions, and it's all about stoicism through history, which hopefully will be interesting--I'm not used to having to buy books at full price because they're so new, grrr.

Also on the reading front, I've extracted several non-academic books from my bookshelf that I simply haven't gotten around to reading yet, with the hope that having them on my nightstand will make me read them. First on the pile is Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin, which is amazing so far, but not exactly light reading. I may have to intersperse it with something silly, but I fear I've read most of my really silly books, and am now only left with substantial things. Maybe I'll take a weekend and power through a bunch of them. I will edify myself by force! And then maybe traumatise myself immediately afterwards by finishing House of Leaves. Good times.

That's all the news for now! I am reading about Marx getting into drunken fights with Prussian aristocrats and writing bad poetry. It is a good time!

Tanned and now ready to do work

I had a wonderful, wonderful time in Rome again with my dear grandma talking books and academia and family and friends while jaunting around trying (and sometimes failing) to find basilicas and museums and soaking up the sun. As it turns out, really good maps of Rome are in short supply, because we had a truly farcical time finding some of these things! Still, it was nice to wander about, despite the fierce summer weather.

Also, architecture:

Behold, my future home.

It was extremely busy, being the height of tourist season, so we didn't get into all of the things we wanted to, but it was still a very fun time, and we got to check out some beautiful buildings, excellent art, and even some Vatican archival documents that were on display at the Capitoline Museum. All in all, a very lovely trip.

And now, it is back to work for me--I have to apply for funding for my intellectual history workshop in London, and also prepare my paper for the NENC speaker series, which I'll be presenting at in August. Also, I have to peer review some papers for a Durham workshop, and of course overhaul my Marx chapter. So I am busy!

But on the other hand, I just got informed that I've been shortlisted for teaching in Combined Honours, so fingers crossed that they take me. Also, on the suggestion of my friend Bea, I have learned how to make chai tea from scratch, and now I can't stop, I'm going to start living off of iced chai lattes, oh man are they delicious.

That's all the news for now, toodles!

Haircut!

I think she lopped off about four or five inches. My head feels lighter!

It rained hard enough to set off a car alarm. And, you know, flood Newcastle.

It has rained torrentially and dramatically this past week, which was only made acceptable by the fact that I was basically married to my laptop the entire time, hashing out a draft of my Frankenstein chapter. The good news is, though, that both the chapter, and the rainstorms, appear to be done now! I say 'appear' only because the sky continues to look somewhat ominous, but it's been doing that all day, and it's been most pleasant anyway. Crossed fingers that it clears completely, at least for a few days. The chapter on the other hand is definitely done, at least until I need to edit it. But that won't be for a while.

In other good news, Durham's confirmed that they're giving NENC the whole £500 for our 'Moving Towards Science' Symposium, so we are now firmly in the green for funding that, and can offer free registration and travel bursaries besides. Very exciting! We've released a call for papers, so hopefully we'll hear from a good number of people with interesting paper proposals.

Now my only priorities before I head back to Rome are a job application for the combined honours course, and a short article on Marx which I'm going to workshop through one of Durham's training courses, which will serve as the beginning of a paper I'm going to present at NENC's speaker series in August. It'll be a good way of getting back into the rhythm of Marx, because I think that's the chapter that I'm going to begin really overhauling this summer so that it fits properly with my Faust and Frankenstein chapters.

Also, I'm getting a haircut tomorrow. I think I'm going to go fairly short, because I seem to only get haircuts about twice a year nowadays, and at the moment it's overly heavy and needing to be braided and stuff, and that's annoying. I'll post pictures after the fact! Unless it's hideous, but hopefully it won't be.

Post of procrastination!

These are becoming tellingly common. Anyway. Random things have happened this past week and a half! Let me round them up.

First, I have to share a weird thing: so given that I was ill for most of the choir tour, I had an oddly limited range that was mostly ridiculously low or high and breathy--no normal, middle range at all. Well, now I'm feeling better, and miraculously I seem to have...discovered my head voice? I don't even know, but I feel like I've unlocked a level on a video game, and now all of a sudden I can reach high Fs and stuff. It's crazy! Not the prettiest sound yet, but in tune and not entirely offensive, and it doesn't feel like I'm forcing it or anything. I can't explain it. Hopefully it won't suddenly disappear again. I don't trust it yet.

I'm working on my Shelley chapter as diligently as I can, which is going okay, though I'm not sure whether it will be done on time. No doubt it will hinge upon my ability to just hunker down and ignore all other things until it's finished, which may or may not happen, we will see. There are lots more interesting connections cropping up between Promethean myth and Faustian myth, between Goethe and Shelley, so I'm fairly confident that at the very least I'm not making up connections and arguments where none actually exist. The problem, as usual, is articulating all of these things in a meaningful way, which can only be accomplished, so far as I can tell, by pecking at a sentence or two, staring off into space for an hour, rinse, repeat.

Occasionally there is tea somewhere in there too. And sandwiches.

Beyond that, I went to a workshop last week on how the publishing world is faring (here's a hint: not well) and how best to deal with it as an academic, and received the comforting news that while the market is terrible and the competition fierce, my style of research--aka, big and sprawling--is far more appealing to publishers than the narrower case studies which tend to be in vogue within thesis writing. So when I emerge, pale and blinking, from the bowels of my degree, I may actually stand a chance of getting an editor interested in my work. But of course, that is in the far distant future.

In the less distant future, I've been accepted at a four day summer school program on intellectual history run by UCL and Sussex, so I'll be taking a trip down to London for that in September, which is exciting. Hopefully I'll be able to get money from my department to pay for it, or if not, somewhere else. I'm also applying for a second teaching position out of the School for Combined Honours, which is basically a liberal arts degree some Durham students can apply for, rather than the usual UK specialisation scheme. Their one required course is the one I'd be teaching on, and basically is designed to foster critical thinking and self-reflection in first year students. If by some great good fortune I manage to get a position doing that as well as teaching within my department, I could actually pay for my rent through teaching alone! That would be nice.

In less businesslike news, I went to a friend's birthday party the other day and had excellent drinks and burgers with lots of fun and lovely people, and then had a very entertaining time getting back the next day because all of the trains south were delayed due to...wayward cows. Apparently the farmer had to be informed that exactly nineteen cows had gotten free and were loitering around the track, like you do. The droll announcement of this over the tannoy more than made up for the delay, in my opinion. Also, there was a very small child on the train who, unlike the rest of his family, who were dressed like normal weekenders, was done up in tweed and was earnestly asking various passengers, "Excuse me sir/madame, does this train go to Derby?" which was basically the most adorable, ridiculous and English thing I have ever seen in my life. So yes, train travel--it's a fun time. Far more fun than planes.

The rest of the week will no doubt be far less interesting than all this, because it is just writing, writing, writing, 'til this chapter is done. Fingers crossed that the words come easy.

Roma! Choir Tour 2012

A somewhat late round up of my week in Rome with the choir, because the week back has been a little hectic!

Firstly, Rome was lovely, and the group was surprisingly congenial, given its size. I think there were about thirty of us in all, but as far as I know we managed to escape most forms of drama, which was excellent. We all had to trundle over to Leeds Bradford at five in the morning, which was just lovely, and then queue for forever due to the airport being under construction, but other than that, our travel was mostly smooth.

(As it would turn out, Leeds Bradford apparently hates me, but more on that later.)

Rome was ridiculously warm, and getting warmer, which was initially entirely welcome because Durham when we left it was cold and miserable. On the other hand, however, it was really, really warm. I got a bit sunburnt initially, then tanned, and then just oppressed by the heat, which was up in the very high 90s by the time we left, such that the Durham weather now seems, while not precisely nice, at least a bit more comfortable.

I am really happy with the tan, though. I forgot my skin could turn this colour.

Our first rehearsal was in a Jesuit meetinghouse that had been restored to its former glory after being forgotten for some time, and it was resplendent with the usual Italian aesthetic of coloured marble and gold festooned in every direction. It was a pleasure to sing in, and pleasantly cool in contrast to the outdoors. We ended up doing an evensong service in there at the end of the week, which was attended apparently by some bigwigs from the Anglican church, among others--all in all, it was a surprisingly good crowd.

In fact, we got quite good audiences for nearly all performances, probably in part due to some impromptu performances in St. Peter's Square, the Spanish steps, and various street corners.

Incidentally, I should mention that we were practically staying on the Vatican's doorstep. We were hosted by four very kind nuns with very limited English and were able to mostly come and go as we pleased, with the exception of a curfew. This was the view from my window:

Pretty crazy. We saw the pope drive up in a motorcade the first evening, complete with tinted windowed town cars and circling helicopter.

Anyway, other than the Jesuit venue, we also did a concert in a small medieval church near the Forum, San Giorgio, and couple of services in the only Anglican church in Rome, All Saints, which was also lovely, but which I resent due to the fact that I blame its warm central hall and chilly basement for my cold, which developed half-way through the week. It wasn't long after that I lost my voice completely and therefore failed to contribute all that much to performances, which was more than somewhat irritating.

Nevertheless, I did manage to continue to have fun and socialise, albeit while apologising profusely for having to blow my nose every fifteen seconds. I went with one group of people to the Coliseum, and another to the Spanish steps and the Pantheon, and got some shopping in as well. Roman fashion seemed all about the nicely cut pencil dresses and suiting, which was good for me and bad for my wallet, and I only barely managed to restrain myself from acquiring many nautical dresses and comfy shoes. Overall, it was a very fun trip with very good company.

The only hiccup luckily/unluckily occurred at the very end of the trip when we arrived back at Leeds Bradford, at which point I was questioned yet again about my visa, only this time they didn't simply ask me about my past failtasticness at paperwork; instead, they decided to not tell me what was going on, pull me aside for questioning while handing me a sheet of paper that says they're "withholding my right to remain in the UK" (thereby inducing panic in me while several more plane-loads of people went past me in line), search my bags, question me again, and then finally ask me about my visa trouble, which I suspect would have prevented all of that hullabaloo in the first place. So it seems that despite the fact that I've now had three customs officers tell me they're going to clear this nonsense from my record, it still hasn't been cleared, so I'm going to have to call/make an appointment with the US Embassy to basically ask, "WTF, mate?" and have them deal with it. Oy.

Oh, and of course this was all taking place while everyone else in the choir had already gone through and was waiting in the bus on the other end of things, causing me to tell them to leave without me, which they would have...had the bus not gotten stuck behind some ridiculous barrier, therefore delaying them long enough for me to emerge, searched but unscathed.

It was a bit of a mess. There was a lot of trash talking about Yorkshire on the way back.

But anyway, that was the only hiccup, and it was my hiccup alone! So all in all, a good trip indeed.

I will accept the use of 'aluminium' and 'courgette', but not this.

I will never get used to the British definition of 'republican' as opposed to the American one. I was deeply confused today when, after singing in the Trinity Day service, which of course was also used to mark the Queen's Jubilee, the chaplain jokingly apologised to any republicans that might be around.

Also, I never realised that "My country 'tis of thee" is actually the Brit national anthem with all of the lyrics about saving the Queen changed to talking about freedom. Hilarious! It fills me with an amused sort of patriotism, which is the best kind of patriotism.

Transforming Objects

So I am home from my adventure in conferencing, this one being far less stressful than the last, probably for a number of reasons that include the lack of travel stress, good friends being in and around the conference, and a very congenial bunch of delegates.

My paper was on one of the first panels, so I got it out of the way early on, and then I chaired a panel the next day, which was entirely new to me but very fun. My own paper went well, I think, though I tripped over the words a bit because I hadn't read the whole thing aloud end-to-end before, just in bits and pieces, but on the whole people seemed to like it. I had a great discussion with one of the other panelists who is working on a different aspect of the same general subject, so in that regard it was very fruitful. Chairing was good also, all on the life of paper and the physical engagement with it from a processing point of view, and in the market place. I was very pleased to come across someone else who liked the magical way in which Marx wrote about the economy as much as I do!

On the whole, while I wasn't very familiar with a lot of object research that's happening at present, the perspective on it which was presented at the conference on the whole was really fascinating, and a good alternative look at the era I'm researching. Also, I'm now convinced that I need to learn how to give papers without a full script, because one of the keynote speakers did his full hour with nothing but a powerpoint (which didn't include any prompts or bullet points) to help him along, and it was very impressive and engaging. So that'll be my next project. I'm probably going to try it with NENC, since we're doing a speaker series this summer and I'm presenting something in the August session. It'll be an adventure in not being frazzled!

To look at the schedule of the other papers, and the general gist of the conference at large, go here.

Now, I must get back to Shelley and write up my chapter this month, eek!

On Teaching Q&A

Nicole and I have written a Q&A on our first experiences teaching over at the NENC blog. Read it here if you're interested!

Productivity! In one form or another.

We've finally got clear, if not warm, weather after about two weeks straight of truly demoralising rain. It has been absolutely miserable, and I want spring/summer to come back posthaste. I have had quite enough of wearing flat boots! I wish to wear dresses and pumps now please, thank you.

I am slowly getting better at paperwork, which is quite an achievement, considering my dislike of it. My gripe is not so much the actual doing of it as the utter paranoia I'm struck with just before sending it out, which means that I have to reopen and check the file at least five times before either printing or emailing for fear that something has happened to it while I wasn't looking directly at it. My neuroses, they grow by the day.

Anyway, in addition to finishing my marking for last term, I assembled my first grant application, albeit with most of the work already done for me by the rest of the NENC. We've gotten money from the British Society for Literature and Science to hold a symposium in the fall, but needed just a bit more to make it feasible, so we've gotten some from Newcastle and I was in charge of applying to Durham. Hopefully Durham will come through as well, because then we will be flush to make it happen! I have never been on an organising committee before, 'tis very exciting.

I've also applied for teaching next year, and am very sad that they aren't running the Victorian module for second years. Thus, I'm hoping for a few groups of Intro to the Novel, and maybe a second-level module on the Romantics if I'm lucky. Department money is tight, as per usual, so fingers crossed.

In other news, I think I have finally solidified a system of research that works for me, which has taken more than long enough, thanks very much. Apparently, I really need to handwrite my notes, then type them up, then have a cut-and-paste extravaganza in order to form an outline, and then write a chapter. I'm sure this is just thrilling to hear about, but I'm kind of relieved to be able to say that I have a method now, so I figure I'd announce it. I was almost ready to resort to index cards for a while, it was getting so chaotic. This is far more compact. And I'm utilising Scrivener's split-screen mode so that I can reference my outline and my chapter all at the same time, all from the same document, woohoo! Technology, I like it.

And on the other end of the spectrum this method also means that I get to use my fountain pens a lot, which I appreciate.

So yes, I have to type like mad tomorrow and then Monday I'm assembling my outline to hand in, and then I'm taking a break from Shelley to write my paper for the 'Transforming Objects' conference, which should be fun. Far more general than the stuff I'm doing now, and a nice break from long-form work.

I think that's all! I must try and get to bed early tonight so I'm not shattered for choir tomorrow. I've been accidentally nocturnal the past week, so here's hoping for a hard reset.


P.S.: The Avengers movie is AMAZING! AHAHA the UK gets to see it a week before the US does and I saw it on opening night and I have so many feelings about it, oh my god. Oh superhero movies, you will always be my favourites, but this one especially is fantastic and just legitimately good as well as fun. I'm probably going to see it again...soon.

Easter vacation is not actually vacation

It is, in fact, an opportunity for me to spend lots of time in the postgrad study rooms when they are really empty. I have a stack of books to get through, and they must be gotten through by the end of the month! I've had a couple of skype meetings with Simon, so it looks like I can leave Goethe behind for a while, so now it's all Shelley all the time. Primarily, I'll be looking at Frankenstein, but Percy's Prometheus Unbound will probably play a significant role as well, once I actually read it and its surrounding material. Reading about the Shelleys is super entertaining, as well--so much scandalous living! The only drawback is that their letters and things aren't archived online, as far as I know, so it's a bit more work to have to read through massive compilations rather than search by key words. Clearly I was meant in this round of research to kick it old school, so that I can gain further appreciation for how much easier my life is with the help of the internet.

Speaking of more books, just before the end of Epiphany Term there was a massive book sale held at one of the college libraries, so I have managed to add to my personal library in unexpected and awesome ways. They were trying to get rid of a whole bunch of stuff, so every book was 50p, so my housemate and I spent a lot of time combing through the chaos to find interesting things. I now have some old editions of the first volume of Carlyle's The French Revolution, and H.G. Wells' The Dream, which I have never read, as well as critical books on industrial culture and structuralism and various other things. My best find was definitely Landes' The Unbound Prometheus, which is an well-respected commentary on technological change, and a must-read for me.

I am already dreading having to move house to wherever I'm going after finishing my degree.

In other news, I have been generously invited to be part of the central organising group of NENC, so I will be blogging there a bit more as well as helping out with organisation of events and things. I'll post here with links about my contributions when they appear. Nicole and I will be talking about our first tentative steps into teaching, and I'm going to do a short essay at some point on an aspect of my research that I haven't decided on yet.

So, many things afoot, though I have to get over my disappointment at the weather going back to rainy and cold after a glorious couple of weeks of nice weather. Grar, hazards of the northeast.

New layout!

Got bored on my enforced vacation. Solution? Photoshop and messing about with templates!

Goethe chapter is conquered!

That is, it is finished insofar as I can't look at it anymore without my brain hurting, and it has both an introduction and a conclusion in addition to all of the major things that I wanted to say smooshed in between. So I am well pleased, all told, and celebrating mostly by doing all of my laundry, sleeping a lot, and staring at my suddenly very empty calendar.

Choir has ended for the term, and I have picked up all but two of my students' essays (I will check my mailbox again for the last two, and if they are not there then I'm going to have to start haranguing by email), and thus my only responsibility for the next few weeks is some grading. I'm thinking I should maybe take a day trip somewhere interesting so that I can claim to have had a proper vacation over Easter. I haven't done any research into the possibility, but I'm willing to take a train somewhere and wander about at some point. In the interim, I have a new Temeraire book, The Hunger Games, and about the fifth copy of one of my favorite Dick Francis novels all downloaded onto my kindle, so I'm going to do some fun reading for once, and hopefully I won't backslide into analyzing thematic content and political implications as I do so. If all else fails, I have one more issue of Transmetropolitan and the graphic novel version of The Vesuvius Club to completely divorce me from my research brain, at least for a short time.

I'll have a couple of things to work on once I'm done playing at vacation time. My proposal for the 'Transforming Objects' conference got accepted, so I'll be working on that this spring as well as starting reading on Frankenstein, and it sounds like there's going to be a really good line-up of speakers for the whole event. I am full of admiration for Nicole who seems to be doing a fantastic job coordinating everything and dealing with the headache that is answering the barrage of emails from all of the participants. I have certainly not reached a point at which I feel responsible enough to undertake something like that, so more power to her.

In the meantime, we are just on the cusp of spring, which means that I am torn between stalwartly wearing dresses and leaving my window open, and accepting the fact that it is just a little too chilly still for anything but hot tea and sweaters. It is also slightly frustrating that it is genuinely warm and fantastic for about three hours each day, but if you go out dressed for that and then stay out past that sweet spot you will find yourself with chattering teeth and goosebumps as the sun disappears from view. I have still not mastered the art of layering that will remedy this, but I'm working on it. I now have an impressive collection of scarves, so I need to learn how to tie them in lots of fun and debonair ways.

Lastly, I am slowly transforming my life with an ipod app, which is just about the most ridiculous statement I've ever made, but whatever. I've started using 'Clear', which is a friendly and intuitive list-making app that organizes and categorizes everything from my research tasks to my grocery list to my daily list of things to do, and considering how much I adore lists, it's basically everything I could ever want in life. The mere fact that I now walk into Tesco's and actually leave with everything I need (and nothing more!) is the best. Project: Not Failing At Life progresses!

I have run out of clever post titles.

Clearly since I have a truly ridiculous amount of notes to sift through and carve a chapter from, the best thing to do is write a blog post instead. Logic!

The past month has been quite busy with a lot of choir performances and travel and such. The trips to Ripon and Great Ayton both went well, Great Ayton particularly, where we were also provided with a fantastic dinner and managed to make some money from tickets and CD sales that will go towards the tour in Rome. More recently we've been doing all of the Lent services and such, and then St. Chad's Day happened on Saturday. Obviously, its original purpose was to celebrate the life of the saint, which did in fact happen, and there was a festival service at the cathedral for it. On the other hand, however, it's also basically St. Chad's College's excuse to have a day of clowning around and boozing while wearing a lot of green. When I went to sing in the festival service, a lot of the choir had been awake since around 5 AM having champagne and running around the bailey. Good times!

On the academic front, I had some very good news from my last teaching session--I was observed for the final tutorial by one of the professors in the department, and his feedback was very positive. There were definitely a few moments where discussion faltered a bit, which I identified, and so he gave me some suggestions for how to remedy that, but overall it seems that I'm doing a good job, and he's assured me that he'll be recommending me for further teaching next year. So with any luck, I'll have a few more classes next year, possibly even an advanced course, which would be fun.

Additionally, I did a workshop on lecturing that will put me in the running to give a lecture next year during the students' study period, which could be fun/nerve-wracking, and definitely a nice addition to my CV. It will no doubt be infinitely more stressful than leading tutorials, but I might as well get used to it now. Ah, public speaking, I am bad at you.

In other news, I just sent off an abstract for a conference that Northumbria University is hosting, which I'll definitely be attending whether my paper gets in or not since it's so close by, and my friend from Leeds who helps run the NENC is organizing it. Its theme is 'Transforming Objects', so I thought I'd compile some of my earlier work on impressions of industry by various authors and industrialists into some observations about machines and how they're perceived. It'll be a nice change from the close biographical work I've been doing lately. There's also a giant Carlyle conference that's happening in Edinburgh this summer, but I'm not sure whether I want to go--it's a bit pricey, and I'm not sure whether I want to deal with finding accommodation and everything for a conference I'm not presenting at. I might just go for a day or something. We'll see.

And now I really must get back to finishing the Goethe chapter!

Life Update: Epiphany Term Edition

I have been terribly remiss, once again, about updating, so I shall try and piece together latest news in the order of what I remember first!

Holidays at home went splendidly, and were desperately needed after a hectic end of term. It was wonderful to see everyone, and meet the kitties! It's probably a good thing I don't live with them all the time though, because I would never get anything done; I'd be far too busy dangling ribbons in front of their faces.

This term has been going well so far--I was able to meet with all of my students about their essays, which seemed to go well, and then their tutorial on Bleak House was quite successful, it seemed to me. The novel itself was enjoyable, once again beating out Great Expectations, which I'm pretty sure I will never like, although Bleak House didn't grab me until about halfway through, which is a lot of pages to invest in. Nevertheless, I was hooked for the last four hundred pages, even when I couldn't keep all of the character names straight. Seriously, it's a cast of at least twenty secondary characters, let alone the central ones, and that is a lot to remember. I nearly brought a chart to class.

Choir is going well; I think I've finally hit a groove where I can learn music fast and keep track of the order of services so that I'm not always scrambling for different pieces of sheet music. We're going on a short field trip on Sunday to sing a service in Ripon, which is somewhere south of Durham. And then in a couple weeks were going to Great Ayton to sing a proper concert, so that should be fun as well.

I had another singing lesson, and hilariously have been informed that my American accent is getting in the way! It was the first time I'd sang something in English for my teacher, and my diphthongs are apparently not to be borne. I must learn to say "Lord" and "for" more poshly. I'd probably be told the same thing in the States, actually--I remember someone else telling me that I swallowed my vowels, so it's probably the same sort of problem. In any case, I was amused, and shall adjust my accent accordingly.

In other news, I have decided to put myself on a more consistent study schedule that will keep me motivated while not causing me to burn out. I'm aiming to spend full days in the library or the postgrad room ever Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, with a steady rotation of books getting covered each day. It will hopefully make me significantly more productive, and also save me from library late fees. So far it's been working well, but I'm only a week in, so we shall see. I have managed to cover a fair amount of reading, though, so I have high hopes.

I'm reading up on the life of Goethe as well as various critical readings of Faust in order to flesh out the writing I've already done on him, and it's been quite engaging. It's been particularly interesting to explore the background of the original myth and its variations during the medieval period, pre-Marlowe. The original guy who Faust was named for seems not to have been considered by anyone to be even close to a redeemable character, or even tragic. Epithets leveled at him by his contemporaries include devil-worshipper, braggart, rogue, and pederast. Fun times! Definitely needed those centuries in between of distortion and political turmoil to transform him into a tragic hero.

In any case, I'll get to talk about Goethe as well as begin to incorporate him into my work from previous chapters next week, when I'm leading discussion at NENC's monthly reading group. I'm definitely looking forward to it--I was sad to have missed the last couple of meetings due to being away and then jetlagged, so it will be good to see everyone in the group again and get some new perspectives on the stuff I've been buried in.

I think that basically covers everything. We finally got snow and it stuck around for about eight hours before melting, but it's remained cold and damp, as per usual. I shall remain shrouded in cardigans and tweed, feeling more and more like a woolly academic, until spring arrives.