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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.