In which I am a corporate entity. But not really.

So I got bored and took a break from dissertation work to make an official website for myself. Very simple, but it's a nice central hub for everything. Apparently my gearhead graphic is now my personal logo. I think it suits me.

In other news, I'm going up to Durham next week to see an apartment that I have high hopes for! The landlady has been very nice in correspondence, and so far there's one other female postgrad living in the flat, so I'll be in good company, hopefully. Anyway, this is all of course hinging on whether I actually like the place when I get there, but it seems ideal from what I can see so far. I've also nailed down a letter of reference from one of my professors, so that's all set. It would be nice to know where I'm living in a month!

Holy god, I'm moving in a month. Well, five weeks.

Still. Yikes.

Also: Everyone go see Inception right now. I mean it. It is operatic and beautiful and my new favorite thing. It has its flaws, but it's also totally not as confusing as everyone makes out. The score is absolutely amazing. And there are multiple Escher references. I'm going to need to see it a second time. Possibly a third. But not before I finish my Marx section. Yes.

Brontës, ahoy!

This weekend, we indeed managed to make it out to Haworth, which was extremely fun. We took the train into Keighley (pronounced keefley, which...we have no idea why, but that's a fact), and then the bus into Haworth, at which point we went up some hilly passages to the Brontë parsonage.

Firstly, the moors are gorgeous. The roads are cobbled and precariously hilly, and I'm amazed buses get up there in general. The houses are all very old stone things that look perpetually rain-soaked, so I can see it becoming very atmospheric in the dark. Gaskell, in her way, wasn't wrong when she painted the village as a sort of melancholy place. But it's also very picturesque and pretty as well.

The parsonage itself was lovely and kept in pristine condition as a museum for the Brontës, and Lorna and Erin and I had a very nice time wandering around and reading about the sisters, as well as Branwell's scandalous life of debauchery and alcoholism. Being Byronic is really only a good idea in concept rather than application, Branwell! Silly man.

I also nearly made a very financially unwise decision to purchase a painting by one Victoria Brookland, who did a number of ink paintings inspired by Charlotte Brontë's clothing. They were beautiful works filled with Victoriana and Gothic sensibility that reminded me a bit of Harry Clarke, but a bit out of my price range. If she ever starts making prints, though, I'm going to be all over it. Instead, we all bought wax seals with our initials on them and postcards so that when Erin's in Canada and I'm in Durham we shall all very formally write to each other the old fashioned way. It's going to be epic, I'm telling you!

After that, we wandered into the Apothecary (and yes, there is a proper apothecary, right across from the church) which was like going back in time by a good sixty years. Erin and Lorna bought fancy candy, and I nearly bought very ridiculous perfume, but didn't. Then we had afternoon tea/lunch in a tea room run by extremely lovely and friendly people, and headed back to Keighley...by steam train! I feel fully immersed in the Industrial Revolution, now. It was awesome.

And thus, a lovely weekend trip! Perhaps next weekend we'll go to Scarborough.

Black Holes and Revelations

The internet is down at my flat, so I'm chilling in the library today! Which is a good thing anyway, because I need to get work done.

I saw Spamalot at the Leeds Grand Theatre yesterday, which was quite fun. I rather wish I'd seen it on Broadway, just because part of the hilarity stems from just how big the production was, and how that makes a joke of Broadway culture in general. They had to change the lines of 'You can't succeed on Broadway if you don't have any Jews' too, which just defeats the whole purpose of the song. It was a little disappointing. But everything else was quite good. The theatre itself was gorgeous, so I'll have to go again for a concert or something. Afterward Erin and I had drinks and dinner with her friend Lorna, who's also a classics student and really lovely. We all may try to go to Haworth this weekend, weather and travel arrangements permitting. At last, I shall commune with the Brontës!

My last adviser meeting went well--we talked about my latest section, and it seems that I used my critical sources better this time around, but need to inject some more direction into my argument earlier on. But that is easily solved! I also asked him about whether Ruskin would be useful as a direct discussion of the Gothic, despite him discussing it in architecture rather than literature, and it seems that I can. So now there are many more avenues of analysis I can open up from there, so long as I justify it. All in all, it was very productive, and my professor assured me that he was now confident that I'll be able to finish the work well and in good time. I'm glad at least one of us feels that way. So now I'm onto Marx, and then shall face the task of editing and stringing all these thing together. Argh! But I'm excited anyway.

Also exciting? The idea that the universe is actually the singularity of a black hole from another universe. Isn't that awesome? Something similar is discussed in Brian Greene's book, but I have to go back and read it to make sure. But oh man, that means that all the black holes in our universe could actually be other universes. SO COOL. And that it explains the forward motion of time itself? You can't see me over here, but I'm freaking out and flailing my hands around, and I'm glad I'm not in a very visible place in the library.

...Also apparently I've given myself permission to use caps in this blog now. The World Cup brought my outdoor voice into the blogosphere. You're welcome, internet. And by the way, congrats, Spain--Holland was mean and kicked your dude in the chest, so I'm glad you won. I'm sort of sad I have to wait another four years for the madness to return.

Oh yes, and finally: My hair is bright red now! I finally found dye that works! It's very exciting. I shouldn't say bright, it's more of a vibrant maroon or something. Anyway, it's awesome. I haven't done something this different to my hair in ages.

Okay, Marx now.

OMG WORLD CUP

The World Cup should happen all the time, because then I stay at the cross trainer way longer and run way faster than usual. I did 8km during the first half. COME ON SPAIN!

I mean, what? I know this is totally unlike me, but the obsession is terribly infectious, and watching is really exciting and communal. Yelling in pubs is great fun. And it's one of those transparent games where even if you're a layman, you can tell when a team is working well together and such. So, yeah, I'm enjoying getting into the spirit.

Anyway, my goal is to write 2000 words tonight, and it's going to happen no matter what. But not until football is over.

...Okay, it's over. SO EXCITED FOR SATURDAY AND SUNDAY NOW. YAY SPAIN. And yay for completely new champions in World Cup history! I actually don't care who wins at this point because I like Holland too. It's nice to be invested, but not completely invested.

In other news, Erin has moved in to the apartment above me! I helped her pack and move her suitcases up and down the stairs yesterday. It made me realize that I'm in desperate need of some spring cleaning, as soon as this next dissertation section is done, because I have accumulated random things that I really don't need. But in any case, now we can having cooking parties and other things, which will be lovely.

I also have a new housemate named Betty, who apparently just finished up her program but is waiting to move somewhere else. She's also Chinese, so now we have an all-Chinese household except for me. What precisely is residential administration trying to tell me? But anyway, she seems perfectly nice, so hopefully the flat will continue to be harmonious.

And to just keep with the completely fragmentary nature of this post, I just made some extremely delicious risotto. Okay, off to dinner and writing for me!

Conferences, Dinners and Dissertations

The week of madness is over! And it was quite a success.

Tuesday's conference was definitely the more formal of the two, and a lot of fun because of the interdisciplinary angle it was going for. Everyone was a bit limited in terms of material since we had to impart more basic information than usual to get everyone on the same page, but nonetheless I learned a lot of random and interesting things about topics ranging from WWII salvage to Roman coin propaganda. My own paper went over quite well, I think, and I didn't make a complete fool of myself trying to answer questions, so altogether everything went smoothly. It was a really fun group of people as well, so conversation was excellent and we all went out to dinner afterward. Good times!

As it happens, I noticed (and have been talking to Erin about) how interdisciplinarity seems like a relatively new thing over here, at least from a teaching angle, which I find really interesting. It's making me glad that I did my undergrad in the States, because I get the sense that had I done it over here I would have a much narrower range of knowledge to draw from. So perhaps I did my academic Pond-hopping in the right order after all. It's nice to be able to whip out my random postmodernism and religious studies knowledge when I need it.

Thursday's conference was less formal, but definitely a bit more technical at times given that we were all coming from a literature background. There was definitely some stuff that was totally out of my comfort zone, but nonetheless really fascinating. I was glad to be able to talk to everyone about their work afterward to get some further insight. And again--really awesome group of people, and the day went very smoothly which means really good things for the future of the conference. This is the first time the MA students have put together an event like this, so I think we really impressed the faculty with our organization and enthusiasm.

The next day of course I had my meeting with my advisor, where I got some really helpful feedback on my first section. Basically the main issues I'm having is with style rather than content--I tend to go a bit artsy rather than accurate with my organizational and linguistic choices, so I need to break that habit and really just focus on being straightforward and exact. On the plus side, though, my professor said that my ideas and content are sound, which I suppose is the more important thing in the end. I'm going to try to get my next section done before our last meeting, which can't happen past 12 July, so after taking this weekend off and being a slug I'm going to try to put myself on a fairly rigorous research schedule. We'll see how that (read: my self-discipline), works out.

So all in all, the craziness of the past month or so have paid off quite spectacularly, and I look forward to just concentrating on my one topic now. Oh right, and looking for apartments and jobs in Durham. Yes.

I have been productive, and I don't like PowerPoint.

It's official! My Dickens and Carlyle section is done! I'm pretty pleased with it. I'm sure it will change once my advisor gets a hold of it, but I think it's a solid start, and I definitely worked hard on it. As it turns out, my thesis seems to be transforming into a study of rhetoric, and how machines were used not only for their relevance to society, but because the language and metaphor that they engendered enabled authors to express themselves and their political views. They can symbolize coldness, inhumanity, consumption, industry, and all the Marxist horrors we first think of, but since they also can be, or at least seem alive, they can symbolize animation and galvanism. They are, in a word, malleable, which is what makes them such an appealing rhetorical tool.

Anyway, that's at least what this 4000 words was about. Who knows where the Frankenstein/Bleak House section will take me, but hopefully it will be somewhere useful. My goal is to read the entirety of Bleak House this weekend, and then I can reread Frankenstein before starting in on the nitty-gritty analytical stuff. I'm cutting it a little bit close, but the MA conference that I'm using this latter section for is more geared towards works in progress, so I'm less concerned about all my ideas being totally polished there than I am for the Arts conference.

Speaking of which, I am reacquainting myself with PowerPoint in an effort to make some headway into said Arts presentation. It's been...interesting. I've read in BoingBoing.net and a number of other places different attitudes towards PowerPoint, and I tend to come down on the Edward Tufte end of the spectrum--namely, I dislike it. However, Tufte's stance is that PowerPoint is Evil for reasons deriving from cognitive science and how PowerPoint basically turns your learning process into a shallow, depraved shadow of its former self. I've somewhat circumvented his concerns because I don't want my presentation to be entirely derived from the slide show--mostly it will hold the occasional photograph or direct quote from Dickens or Carlyle, and the real meat of the presentation will be what I have to say. But I tend to agree with Tufte nonetheless not from the cognitive science point of view, but simply because PowerPoint is cramping my style big time.

Trying to format and stylize in PowerPoint has so far been an exercise in frustration. Text doesn't format the way I want it to, because the program believes that the only text I would ever want would be in bullet form. It appears to struggle with the idea that I don't want my text in Arial font, ever, or use its suggested color scheme for a given background image. Or that I'd like to start with a blank slide, and add elements as I see fit, rather than having to decide off the bat that I want a photo on the left, text on the right, and a title. And what if I don't want a title? Well, that's just too bad, you'll have to delete that manually and then push everything else up so you don't have a glaring blank space at the top of the slide.

I get this same problem with all of the free website building things out there. This is partially due to my lack of know-how--I strongly suspect that there are functions on Wordpress and other places that would let me build what I want, or at least get closer to what I want. But ever since learning Dreamweaver, I really just want to upload my handcrafted html files rather than deal with all of the construction through templates within my browser. If I can find a way to do that without buying a domain name and storage space, then I could have a personal website up and running in two days, because it's not like I have a ton of stuff to put up there. I just want it to look and function the way I originally conceived it, and the services that are free tend to be the ones directed at people who want everything done for them with little regard for how and in what style.

This has actually caused me to rethink my position on my top-down, bottom-up discussion with my Dad. We've basically agreed that I'm a Mac user because I'm a top-down type of person--I don't really care what's going on under the hood, so long as the car runs to my specifications and doesn't misbehave. Dad is far more of a bottom-up type; he wants to know everything about what he's using and be able to configure from the nuts and bolts onwards. I still think I'm very much a top-down person for a lot of things, computers in particular. I have no interest in programming, and very little interest in configuration beyond what I can do by poking around in my Preferences window. However, when it comes to stylistic and artistic work, I am clearly a control freak.

Anyway, the point of this whole long rant is that PowerPoint is stifling my creativity, and I am frustrated with it. But I also want to have shiny things to keep people's attention while I talk at them for 20 minutes. I may just end up making lots of picture files and then running a manual slide show instead of using PowerPoint to show them. At least then things will look exactly how I want them to all the time. Bah!

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge...

I'm rewatching the new Sherlock Holmes movie and enjoying it possibly more thoroughly than I did the first time around. Mainly because I hadn't realized just how many references and direct quotations they took from Conan Doyle. The whole pocket watch analysis delivered by Watson was originally attributed to Holmes in The Sign of Four. A very nice reference while also establishing Watson as a seasoned collaborator. The boxing scene was also established in the same novel. The whole asskicking remix idea has far more basis in original canon than one would initially imagine. Ooh, ooh, and the whole knowing every street in London and being able to find exactly where he is despite being blindfolded in a carriage due to landmarks like potholes and bakery smells was also in the same novel! Maybe they just read the one. Well, either way, lovely!

It really is a shame so much scholarship has already been dedicated to Holmes. I would totally be on that. I may still be, if only in passing, for the Gothic tropes Doyle throws in there once in a while. The movie is rife with them, to be sure. Actually, the movie basically is a mashup of all of my favorite things about Victoriana. Industrialism! Science and the supernatural! 'Victoria Regina' engraved in a brocaded wall...with bullets! Top hats and monocles!

So you see, the title of this blog is not nearly so random as would otherwise be assumed.

And no, I'm not entirely procrastinating. Along with practicing for three hours (which felt a bit like slamming my head into a wall--Stravinsky refuses to stick) I did some cobbling together of notes and editing today that will ensure that tomorrow, I will be finishing the Hard Times/Past and Present portion of my dissertation, come hell or high water. Get excited! I kind of am myself. Mainly because things may actually be making sense to me now. There may be original contributions afoot!

Righto. Off to finish the movie. Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

...I am such an Anglophile.