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.
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Friday, February 18, 2011
So many books. SO MANY.
Whoops, it's been a while. And many things have happened!
The past few weeks have felt incredibly hectic for a number of reasons. I went to a few seminars on effective writing and making academic posters, which was fun and interesting (though a bit paranoia inducing regarding the writing--there may have been some talk of thesis defense, which I am not allowing myself to think about at the moment). I'm also taking German classes specifically tailored for academic use and reading, which definitely plays to my strengths rather than my weaknesses with language learning, so it's going fairly well. I'm actually determined to see the course through this time, which is a good sign.
I also got a haircut for the first time in nearly eight months because my hair had gotten completely out of control. It's still really long, longer than it's been in ages, but I had short layers put in so that the bottom half of it doesn't go all triangular and pouf-y when it dries now. Far more manageable. Next, I must re-dye.
I've also been doing some further exploring of Durham with my flatmates and found some nice places to eat, as well as places to go dancing. The club scene is heavily undergraduate, as to be expected, but still fun. It's at least doing a good job of giving me some balance between work and not-work, which I am frankly in need of at the moment. I can feel myself recalibrating my research strategies in reaction to how my last chapter turned out, and the transition isn't precisely smooth. I'm feeling better about it now, but there's been a lot of flailing around and feeling stymied and asking myself why the hell I thought I was suited to being an academic. Still not sure on that last front, but at least I've regained some sense of direction.
Thus, my research is now slowly taking shape and going in a rather different direction than I originally intended, but I think it may work. Trying to tie all of my literature to the Gothic, while possible, ended up being both limiting and difficult to argue for in terms of how useful it was to do, so I started poking around into some related but alternate approaches. This led to working with Romanticism at large which in turn led to mythology and historiography, and those are turning up some far more useful sources and ideas. So now I'm looking at the formation of modern myths about the Industrial Revolution, by way of 19th century, Romance-influenced literature. I even have a working title! The Rise of the Steam Demons sounds like some ridiculous sci-fi novel, but it is totally just a reworked quote from Carlyle, so its dramatic turn is entirely justified.
So I think this will be far more successful and interesting as a general topic, because it's so clear by the way we think about the Industrial Revolution now that in some ways we've enshrined it as a sort of semi-magical time of sudden development and technical genius, contrasted with the sort of romantic notion of dark, factory-stricken English cities. In other words, we've made it a mythical entity, in part because of how it was immortalized by its contemporary authors. I'm liking being sure that I'm doing something that actually pertains to modern culture.
All of the myth and historiographical stuff is completely new to me, however, which means that I'm doing tons of background reading in addition to my more primary documents. So now my room is smothered in books. The case for getting a Kindle is growing.
And finally, in non-academic and really out-of-character news, I went way outside of my comfort zone recently and went to a training weekend for a sort of anonymous student support phoneline, wherein I learned how to listen to people talk about their anxieties and emotional difficulties and offer support without actually giving advice. It was...definitely not my style of emotional support, and I didn't altogether agree with the organization's tenets, which is probably why I didn't ultimately get selected to do the work (and am thus able to talk about it, because as stated, it's anonymous), but it was eye-opening to get some education on psychological issues I've never experienced or had to deal with. It also alerted me to the fact that I've gotten way more direct and aggressive in my old age, and that other people are way less scientific about how they deal with emotion than I am. So you know, educational all around. Altogether, an interesting psychological experiment.
And there we are. I really hope the next few weeks are a bit calmer so I can hunker down, do some job applications, and actually shape my mountains of notes into some articulate material.
The past few weeks have felt incredibly hectic for a number of reasons. I went to a few seminars on effective writing and making academic posters, which was fun and interesting (though a bit paranoia inducing regarding the writing--there may have been some talk of thesis defense, which I am not allowing myself to think about at the moment). I'm also taking German classes specifically tailored for academic use and reading, which definitely plays to my strengths rather than my weaknesses with language learning, so it's going fairly well. I'm actually determined to see the course through this time, which is a good sign.
I also got a haircut for the first time in nearly eight months because my hair had gotten completely out of control. It's still really long, longer than it's been in ages, but I had short layers put in so that the bottom half of it doesn't go all triangular and pouf-y when it dries now. Far more manageable. Next, I must re-dye.
I've also been doing some further exploring of Durham with my flatmates and found some nice places to eat, as well as places to go dancing. The club scene is heavily undergraduate, as to be expected, but still fun. It's at least doing a good job of giving me some balance between work and not-work, which I am frankly in need of at the moment. I can feel myself recalibrating my research strategies in reaction to how my last chapter turned out, and the transition isn't precisely smooth. I'm feeling better about it now, but there's been a lot of flailing around and feeling stymied and asking myself why the hell I thought I was suited to being an academic. Still not sure on that last front, but at least I've regained some sense of direction.
Thus, my research is now slowly taking shape and going in a rather different direction than I originally intended, but I think it may work. Trying to tie all of my literature to the Gothic, while possible, ended up being both limiting and difficult to argue for in terms of how useful it was to do, so I started poking around into some related but alternate approaches. This led to working with Romanticism at large which in turn led to mythology and historiography, and those are turning up some far more useful sources and ideas. So now I'm looking at the formation of modern myths about the Industrial Revolution, by way of 19th century, Romance-influenced literature. I even have a working title! The Rise of the Steam Demons sounds like some ridiculous sci-fi novel, but it is totally just a reworked quote from Carlyle, so its dramatic turn is entirely justified.
So I think this will be far more successful and interesting as a general topic, because it's so clear by the way we think about the Industrial Revolution now that in some ways we've enshrined it as a sort of semi-magical time of sudden development and technical genius, contrasted with the sort of romantic notion of dark, factory-stricken English cities. In other words, we've made it a mythical entity, in part because of how it was immortalized by its contemporary authors. I'm liking being sure that I'm doing something that actually pertains to modern culture.
All of the myth and historiographical stuff is completely new to me, however, which means that I'm doing tons of background reading in addition to my more primary documents. So now my room is smothered in books. The case for getting a Kindle is growing.
And finally, in non-academic and really out-of-character news, I went way outside of my comfort zone recently and went to a training weekend for a sort of anonymous student support phoneline, wherein I learned how to listen to people talk about their anxieties and emotional difficulties and offer support without actually giving advice. It was...definitely not my style of emotional support, and I didn't altogether agree with the organization's tenets, which is probably why I didn't ultimately get selected to do the work (and am thus able to talk about it, because as stated, it's anonymous), but it was eye-opening to get some education on psychological issues I've never experienced or had to deal with. It also alerted me to the fact that I've gotten way more direct and aggressive in my old age, and that other people are way less scientific about how they deal with emotion than I am. So you know, educational all around. Altogether, an interesting psychological experiment.
And there we are. I really hope the next few weeks are a bit calmer so I can hunker down, do some job applications, and actually shape my mountains of notes into some articulate material.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Rain and Disraeli
Ack, I had a coughing attack TWICE in the middle of seminar. At least this time I wasn't stuck in a lecture hall, and could excuse myself to go be disruptive outside. I think my professor thought I was dying, though. It only happens when I'm sitting down too, which is not conducive to class participation. Okay, enough whining. It means my cold is going away, so hooray, I guess.
Anyway! Sybil was...interesting. Disraeli, being the political animal that he was, couldn't help but vacillate between trying to tell a romance and giving a treatise on historical and political theory, with some race and class analysis thrown in for good measure. Not precisely entertaining stuff, but it was a fairly good survey of the political climate and the state of unrest among the working class in the 1830s and 40s. It was published the same year as Engels' Conditions of the Working Class in England, and one can see Disraeli warring a bit with those socialist views in the Sybil, which was quite interesting, particularly since Disraeli was fairly conservative, and had some rather interesting opinions about how aristocrats should completely separate themselves from the working class so as to better care for them in a terribly paternalistic way. However, my basic knowledge of Marx, or even Carlyle, did not prepare me nearly enough to parse what precisely Disraeli wanted to say about his own political model, because he made it incredibly dense, convoluted, and often a shade hypocritical. That, woven in with the romance of Sybil-the-woman, and Sybil-the-ultimate-symbol-of-Albion-itself, made for some seriously uneven text. But hey, those are more fun to have discussion about, because then we have room to complain a bit.
Incidentally, getting to class was a bit of an adventure, as all us poor English students had to venture into the giant scary complex of science buildings in order to get to our assigned tutorial room. I was very glad to run into some classmates before actually getting into the building, because otherwise I would have been woefully lost. There is some seriously bizarre architecture around that whole block, which reminded me a bit of the H.R. Giger architecture from the Alien movies, except in concrete rather than black piping and slime. I'll post pictures when I finally track down a cable to attach my camera to my computer. I'm very glad I don't have to deal with that part of campus that often. It's even more confusing on the insides of the buildings.
In other news, today was my first genuinely rainy day in England. It's rained a bit during the night before, but I had to drag myself through a light to medium downfall to get to class this afternoon. It was a bit unappealing in terms of actually willing myself to go outside, but it wasn't bad once I was out there, so I suppose that bodes well for my general tolerance the weather here. I'm also mostly used to looking to my right first before crossing the street, sorting out the shapes of all the coins and knowing their corresponding value, and generally getting about. I'm even getting used to saying that 18 degrees is nice weather. So all in all, it's been a fairly easy acclimating period, no doubt aided by massive ingestion of the BBC.
However, I will say this: I cannot for the life of me understand Manchester accents. They are impossible. The guy who came to fix my faucets had a broad Manchester accent, and about four in every five words he said was completely unintelligible to me. Same with Erin's housemate, who's also from around the Manchester area. I'm going to have to develop my ear a hell of a lot to get used to that.
Anyway! Sybil was...interesting. Disraeli, being the political animal that he was, couldn't help but vacillate between trying to tell a romance and giving a treatise on historical and political theory, with some race and class analysis thrown in for good measure. Not precisely entertaining stuff, but it was a fairly good survey of the political climate and the state of unrest among the working class in the 1830s and 40s. It was published the same year as Engels' Conditions of the Working Class in England, and one can see Disraeli warring a bit with those socialist views in the Sybil, which was quite interesting, particularly since Disraeli was fairly conservative, and had some rather interesting opinions about how aristocrats should completely separate themselves from the working class so as to better care for them in a terribly paternalistic way. However, my basic knowledge of Marx, or even Carlyle, did not prepare me nearly enough to parse what precisely Disraeli wanted to say about his own political model, because he made it incredibly dense, convoluted, and often a shade hypocritical. That, woven in with the romance of Sybil-the-woman, and Sybil-the-ultimate-symbol-of-Albion-itself, made for some seriously uneven text. But hey, those are more fun to have discussion about, because then we have room to complain a bit.
Incidentally, getting to class was a bit of an adventure, as all us poor English students had to venture into the giant scary complex of science buildings in order to get to our assigned tutorial room. I was very glad to run into some classmates before actually getting into the building, because otherwise I would have been woefully lost. There is some seriously bizarre architecture around that whole block, which reminded me a bit of the H.R. Giger architecture from the Alien movies, except in concrete rather than black piping and slime. I'll post pictures when I finally track down a cable to attach my camera to my computer. I'm very glad I don't have to deal with that part of campus that often. It's even more confusing on the insides of the buildings.
In other news, today was my first genuinely rainy day in England. It's rained a bit during the night before, but I had to drag myself through a light to medium downfall to get to class this afternoon. It was a bit unappealing in terms of actually willing myself to go outside, but it wasn't bad once I was out there, so I suppose that bodes well for my general tolerance the weather here. I'm also mostly used to looking to my right first before crossing the street, sorting out the shapes of all the coins and knowing their corresponding value, and generally getting about. I'm even getting used to saying that 18 degrees is nice weather. So all in all, it's been a fairly easy acclimating period, no doubt aided by massive ingestion of the BBC.
However, I will say this: I cannot for the life of me understand Manchester accents. They are impossible. The guy who came to fix my faucets had a broad Manchester accent, and about four in every five words he said was completely unintelligible to me. Same with Erin's housemate, who's also from around the Manchester area. I'm going to have to develop my ear a hell of a lot to get used to that.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Argh I do not like colds they are gross.
Well, I had an embarrassing coughing fit in the middle of lecture as postlude to my weekend of being miserable in bed (apparently something is going around), but I managed to get some further information on how dissertations are done around here, as that was the focus of today's Research Methods class. So far, news is still all positive. The dissertation will run between 13-15,000 words, which is not so much longer than my undergrad thesis, and it seems like I have a lot of leeway in terms of branching out beyond the School of English, so my fixation on history can definitely be addressed. More intimidating is the emphasis on being a legitimate contributor to the academic community, an originator of research...ack! I'm going to have to start reading lots of journals.
On a side note, apparently MAs write dissertations, and PhDs write theses here. I had no idea.
Other things:
-I saw a guy in a UMass sweatshirt standing outside the bus stop on my way home today. It was very surprising, but I'm getting the sense that Leeds is far more well-known than I previously thought, especially in Europe and beyond.
-Apparently I have a very clear (or maybe just familiar) American accent, so that my English is easy to understand for a lot of the European students, which means I've been officially assigned by some of my international acquaintances the post of answering grammar questions and correcting English mistakes. It's sort of fun, and again, I like being helpful. Although I feel silly when I can't actually answer questions about my own language. Knowing rules entirely by ear can be problematic.
-Tonight, I'm dragging myself over to FOCAM's first social over at the Union just to say hi to some fellow musicians and composers, and then it's back to reading. Fun!
On a side note, apparently MAs write dissertations, and PhDs write theses here. I had no idea.
Other things:
-I saw a guy in a UMass sweatshirt standing outside the bus stop on my way home today. It was very surprising, but I'm getting the sense that Leeds is far more well-known than I previously thought, especially in Europe and beyond.
-Apparently I have a very clear (or maybe just familiar) American accent, so that my English is easy to understand for a lot of the European students, which means I've been officially assigned by some of my international acquaintances the post of answering grammar questions and correcting English mistakes. It's sort of fun, and again, I like being helpful. Although I feel silly when I can't actually answer questions about my own language. Knowing rules entirely by ear can be problematic.
-Tonight, I'm dragging myself over to FOCAM's first social over at the Union just to say hi to some fellow musicians and composers, and then it's back to reading. Fun!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Clubs, Language, and Holidays
Having still not started classes, because it seems a universal fact that all English Departments see fit to delay everything for as long as possible and have as little to do in the mornings as possible, today shaped up to be mainly social, which was quite pleasant. I headed over to the Union first to sign up for some clubs, and ended up on the mailing lists of FOCAM (Forum of Composers and Musicians) and the Opera Club. I was not meaning to sign up for the Opera Club, but the two tables were side by side, and somehow I ended up giving them my email address. As I understand it, I may end up in the chorus of Cosi fan tutte. I'm not averse to the idea!
Unfortunately, however, such participation still does not grant me access to the practice rooms in the department, and no one has heard of the one piano in the Union, so my last chance may be to talk my way into lessons. The instrumental instructors are hired out by the university, so I have to wait for all the majors to get placed before I can ask, and I'm crossing my fingers that there will be some extra slots. Until then, I at least have the assurance that with FOCAM, I might be able to get my own works performed, as well as collaborate with others to do theirs. It should be interesting at least.
As I was leaving the Union by elbowing my way out of some massive crowds (the rest of campus has arrived at last, accompanied by considerable chaos), I ran into Erin and her flatmate, Marta, who I had ended up hanging out with Sunday night. Marta is Polish, and curious about Erin and I employing our various English colloquialisms, and so we ended up talking a lot over lunch about how ridiculous the English language actually is. It's particularly enlightening for us to hear her questions, because so often we can't explain why we favor one phrase over another, or why, for example, we use the word "random" to describe something "weird". As Marta said, at least German has proper structure that everyone employs. With us, not so much. We're constantly making stuff up, abbreviating and recycling words in completely different capacities, infinitely variable by what company we keep, where we come from, etc. Even comparing notes between my New England turns-of-phrase and Erin's New Brunswick-isms shows the miles between our respective language styles. The sheer volume of slang employed daily by English speakers is astounding, and I find myself really feeling for and admiring the students who have learned English as their second language and are doing such a great job of communicating with us. We don't make it easy for them at all.
In any case, we ended up continuing our conversation all the way to Erin and Marta's flat, which is conveniently located on campus. The living situation is quite different from mine--while the setup of narrow hallway lined with doors for bedrooms and kitchen is the same, there are ten people living there altogether, and they all tend to gravitate towards socializing in the kitchen, where there's a cute sitting area for all of them. It's a far more mixed bunch too--four guys and six girls I believe, and several of them are undergrads. Those that I met seemed very friendly and fun, and one of the British undergrads shares my love of the movie "Face/Off", so there will definitely be some movie nights over there in the future. Also in the works between Erin and I is a proper Thanksgiving, which will be celebrated mid-November, as compromise between Canadian and American Thanksgivings. And finally, I've been assured that Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night, as it's referred to around here, is definitely taken seriously. So my birthday should be quite a bit more exciting than usual this year, complete with fires and effigies and fireworks. All in all, good times for everyone!
And now, I'm off. Thursday will be my first department meeting, and until then I'll be kept busy doing some preliminary reading for my Brontes seminar.
Unfortunately, however, such participation still does not grant me access to the practice rooms in the department, and no one has heard of the one piano in the Union, so my last chance may be to talk my way into lessons. The instrumental instructors are hired out by the university, so I have to wait for all the majors to get placed before I can ask, and I'm crossing my fingers that there will be some extra slots. Until then, I at least have the assurance that with FOCAM, I might be able to get my own works performed, as well as collaborate with others to do theirs. It should be interesting at least.
As I was leaving the Union by elbowing my way out of some massive crowds (the rest of campus has arrived at last, accompanied by considerable chaos), I ran into Erin and her flatmate, Marta, who I had ended up hanging out with Sunday night. Marta is Polish, and curious about Erin and I employing our various English colloquialisms, and so we ended up talking a lot over lunch about how ridiculous the English language actually is. It's particularly enlightening for us to hear her questions, because so often we can't explain why we favor one phrase over another, or why, for example, we use the word "random" to describe something "weird". As Marta said, at least German has proper structure that everyone employs. With us, not so much. We're constantly making stuff up, abbreviating and recycling words in completely different capacities, infinitely variable by what company we keep, where we come from, etc. Even comparing notes between my New England turns-of-phrase and Erin's New Brunswick-isms shows the miles between our respective language styles. The sheer volume of slang employed daily by English speakers is astounding, and I find myself really feeling for and admiring the students who have learned English as their second language and are doing such a great job of communicating with us. We don't make it easy for them at all.
In any case, we ended up continuing our conversation all the way to Erin and Marta's flat, which is conveniently located on campus. The living situation is quite different from mine--while the setup of narrow hallway lined with doors for bedrooms and kitchen is the same, there are ten people living there altogether, and they all tend to gravitate towards socializing in the kitchen, where there's a cute sitting area for all of them. It's a far more mixed bunch too--four guys and six girls I believe, and several of them are undergrads. Those that I met seemed very friendly and fun, and one of the British undergrads shares my love of the movie "Face/Off", so there will definitely be some movie nights over there in the future. Also in the works between Erin and I is a proper Thanksgiving, which will be celebrated mid-November, as compromise between Canadian and American Thanksgivings. And finally, I've been assured that Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night, as it's referred to around here, is definitely taken seriously. So my birthday should be quite a bit more exciting than usual this year, complete with fires and effigies and fireworks. All in all, good times for everyone!
And now, I'm off. Thursday will be my first department meeting, and until then I'll be kept busy doing some preliminary reading for my Brontes seminar.
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