It's 2:30am (GMT +1) and I'm thoroughly awake, probably annoying the heck out of Kristy who actually can sleep - I can't, we just had a fabulous conference dinner and dance and I'm in a sort of My Fair Lady 'I Could've Danced All Night'-mood without the Professor Henry Higgins-crush (sub)text (because that would just be a bit creepy, actually).
PALA conferences are awesomely cool (not temperature-wise, unfortunately), as the big names at PALA are actually also some of the easiest to talk to because they seem to transform every bit of casual conversation into something of a joke - mind that these are quite serious people though, they're the big names for a reason of course.
There's a lot that can be said about conferences and most of it is probably not that interesting to you anyway, so I suppose I'll skip that. After all, I could go into the physics of changing sessions, but as that's pretty much a get-up-and-move affair, it'd be quite superfluous and thus I suppose would be me flouting one of the Gricean maxims (as it is, despite me not being a Linguist/Stylistician, I know the basics).
There seem to be some misconceptions about conferences - or, in any case, my parents do not completely understand them - my Dad seems to go for the purely academic, with him asking whether I'd be graded on my paper - thankfully, no, I will not, because conferences are not that type of academic activity. My Mum, on the other hand, sometimes seems to think it's all about the social side, that it's something of a holiday, which is not true either.
Of course, the social side is important. This is how you meet new people and forge deals, right?
That's where the social events come in. See, I just don't have the guts to just go up and talk to people I don't actually know. Heck, as we're dealing with academics here, there must be a significant portion that's the same sort of shy as I am.
So, for our sort of people, they invented social events. Like conference dinners that have dances at the end (the one thing I'm not actually too shy for - I love dancing).
By that way, I must also mention something of a PALA tradition when it comes to dinners - we didn't get to experience it in Malta last year, but apparently sketches and singing and all sorts of bits of entertainment are normal to PALAns*. And it's quite something to see the big names act all silly. It's also quite something to see professors/lecturers from past studies (or, just, any professor/lecturer) on a dance floor.
So, social events - good things.
But, PALAns, beware. I'm making a confession here, in the sense that I'll tell you now that I'm actually trying to write a novel. I haven't gotten very far yet - about half way through the third chapter, but they're long chapters, I'm at about 10,000 words now. And, considering the adage that I should write what [I] know, it's shaping up to be something like a campus novel, but, being a fantasy and Egyptian mythology fan, elements from that too. So if you've done/are doing something memorable, I may actually include you. Without any identifying features, of course, because I don't want to be sued for slander/libel (not that I'd write about bad stuff, of course, but still). But I'm an ambitious person (sometimes), so I'd like to make it properly multimodal (Polymodal was also coined in a plenary - that would be a fair description of what I'm aiming at). With lots and lots of stylistic and rhetorical elements. And PALAns would then have something of an advantage there, in that they'd then be able to ask me directly why I wrote this up in an awesome alliteration, or why I wrote that in a first person-perspective with second person-pronouns.
A bit quid pro quo.
So, tomorrow is the wine tasting, for which we'll have to get up at 8. It's now 3am, so I suppose I should show mercy to Kristy and stop typing.
Let us therefore end on the following words;
PALA and PALAns, I love your conferences. University of Heidelberg, Professor Busse, conference helpers - I loved this conference.
And whatever we do, whether we're going wine tasting tomorrow or not, we'll see each other in Maribor next year.
And thanks for all the fish.
*The floor is now open for a discussion on whether PALA-normal overlaps in anyway with real-life-normal.
The Heiligenberg (Or: In Praise Of My Walking Shoes) (06 August 2013)
I got up early this morning to climb the Heiligenberg - that is, I dragged myself out of bed at 7:45, put on my walking shoes and went up and down to the baker around the corner to pick up two croissants.
I dropped one off at the hotel and ate the other whilst crossing the Market to get to the Alte Brücke. You see, many people wrongly assume I don't like sports - but I do, I like walking, swimming, horseback riding, dancing... but those are, unfortunately, all sports for which equipment and/or other participants and/or environment are expensive or hard to find. But I really enjoy walking, have always done so, and I couldn't bear to leave Heidelberg without a shield for my old hiking stick (I've grown out of it in the meanwhile as I last used it when - 12, I think, but it's a nice thing anyway), which meant walking. I've done my research, and the Heiligenberg was supposed to be the one with the abandoned monasteries on top. I like monasteries too, so that's a nice two-birds-one-stone situation.
So I set off to the Alte Brücke at 8:05 and briskly tried pacing up the Schlangenweg. I ran out of breath halfway through. But then finding your ideal speed is always tricky, so I slowed down and admired the lovely views over Heidelberg from the Philosophenweg. Halfway through the Philosophenweg, just beyond (from Schlangenweg) Liselotteplatz, there's a small path that leads to stairs which lead to another path up the mountain. And so I followed that, always with the sun above me so I kept to the Heidelberger side of the mountain. I zigzagged up the hill, making the 400-or so metre ascent into a walk of a few kilometres.
Halfway up there's a tower, the Bismarckturm, from which there's a quite nice view over the city. That's also the point where my calves started aching slightly, though my feet felt surprisingly well. Of course, the trick is to keep going - over my whole walk, I suppose I took only a handful of minute-breaks and two 10-minute breaks. I didn't particularly like the Bismarckturm, as it seemed to have been used by people for barbeques and drinking. It was a bit of a mess, so I walked on.
Finally on top of the hill (09:22), I had the loveliest view of the Heidelberger Altstadt - I arrived at the remains of the Sankt Stephans Kloster, or the Saint Stephen's Monastery. It wasn't very big, but it had a nice little tower. Quite sweet, actually.
This lady and her daughter started blabbing at me in German, but as I don't get much further than - "Durfen wir bitte bezahlen?" I couldn't make much sense of them, nor could they of me as neither spoke English or Dutch. Pity really.
I then passed a parking space to get to the Nazi amphitheatre. I'd been told it was up there, but I wasn't prepared for how big it actually was. I felt slightly - angry, actually, that those stupid people defiled this pretty mountain by building this stupidly big thing. It was suppose to hold about 8000 people, and it had this very 1930s design to it. Fascinating but quite unsettling.
What I did like, however, was the Sankt Michaels Kloster, or the Saint Michael's Monastery. It's an old location, as it's built on the site of an old Roman temple - of which the outline is still visible in the middle of the monastery chapel - and this castle, of which the outlines are no longer visible but which did contribute to the rather odd shape of the monastery. It had two towers and it was really big - and I was there all on my own.
Imagine this - it's 10 in the morning, around you there's only tall trees, bees and spiders and ants and grasshoppers and birds, the sun's already beating down and you're all by yourself in the vast ruins of this late Dark Ages monastery.
When I entered the Western Crypt, for a moment there I was convinced it was haunted, even if I don't believe in such things.
But I got to investigate that whole monastery all by myself for about half an hour, always narrowly avoiding spider webs and going deaf from the buzzing and chirping of the bees and the crickets, before other people showed up. I then sat down for another rest before beginning my descent and picked up some bits of orange rock that I first took for pottery - but then I figured, they're orange, they're curved, they're consistent, and I was sitting next to the ruined walls of a Dark Ages monastery. They were probably roof tile shards. But that was cool anyway.
I then began my descent, and as I wanted to go a different way from the way I came up, and as I didn't have a map nor a compass, I figured I'd try to walk following the sun.
Now, I was in the Scouts for a few years as a child and I know enough of the sun's trajectory to make an educated guess as to what time it is, but I never properly walked following the sun before, and in any case not during Summer Time.
But I managed to more or less safely get down. Descending is quite frustrating, especially when you've got winding paths and you're anxious to get down and take off your shoes and you see the next bit of path about ten metres below. I did once make the mistake of thinking that the bit of hill in between was level enough for me to get down safely - I then promptly slid for about four metres, me meanwhile making up my obituary and hoping people would say nice things about me - before I came to a standstill and then managed to safely get the remaining bit down to the next path. So, advice - paths are there for a reason and Little Red Riding Hood was advised not to leave the path for a good reason too.
But I got safely back down by 11:24 (I checked) and only a small bit off - I'd wanted to emerge by the Alte Brücke again, but instead emerged by the dam a few dozen of metres upstream. For the last bit I'd followed a small stream down, figuring that all water needs to go down anyway and as I was on the Neckarside, it'd probably flow to the Neckar (it did). So, that was fun.
And here's where the praise of my walking shoes comes in - I'd been walking for about 3.5 hours. Uphill and downhill. I'd been wandering about monasteries. And then I got a text from Kristy to meet her for lunch. I thought of my feet. They didn't hurt. Unheard of. But, they didn't. So we met for lunch and though I didn't feel like moving much, my feet were fine. We actually managed to still visit the Karzer (student prison) and the Uni Museum and a bookshop before going back to our hotel.
It wasn't until I took off those shoes that I felt my feet ache. And they're fine again now. So, those shoes - best money I've ever spent.
And the Heiligenberg - I climbed it. And I bought myself a shield for my walking stick as a reward. Surely it must've done a lot of good in doing away with the PALA social calories?
Room-Hunting In Leeds (28 August 2013)
Today was a bit of a scary day. I went up to Leeds to "survey" the city and find a place to live for next year.
I was plagued by all the possible what-ifs: What if I can't find a nice place? What if I don't like the city? What if I don't like the uni? What if - what if - what if.
Nevertheless, I insisted on beginning positively, to let confirmation bias do its work so I would like everything.
And I did.
So I got on the train at Leicester and found someone had taken my reserved seat - one of my pet peeves. Great start. But the Derby to Leeds train was good, so that helped. The train arrived at Leeds station and I disembarked.
It may sound silly, but I find the impressions stations make on me very important. If I don't like the city's station, I will view the city in a somewhat negative light. It's the reason I like Rotterdam so much - I mean, Rotterdam's a nice city to begin with, but I'm in awe of its new central station. But the station was good - big, multi-track (not Leicester's rather sad 4 tracks), plenty of shops. It's got a pub. So, good one there.
I had given myself 2 hours to wander about a bit, discover the centre, before my Unipol appointment, so I decided to explore Starbucks. Pretty building, good iced caramel macchiato.
The centre has plenty of chain shops, the big ones, and also a few small shops, nice arcades and parades. And relatively few closed sites, so I take it the local economy is - well, in a fairly healthy shape. More plus points. Negative point was that I only discovered a WH Smith's, I do prefer Waterstones.
With half an hour left to kill, I looked at my map to see whether there were other places I could walk to that may be worth exploring. So I popped into the Art Gallery. And this more or less sealed the deal on the city for me.
I'm not a fan of modern art, not at all, so the first few rooms, with fairly non-sensical modern art sculptures were a bit disappointing. But there's one room there with proper art. And it happens to hold two paintings I've always liked.
Tissot's The Bridesmaid
and Leighton's The Return of Persephone, which was either in my Latin or Ancient Cultures text book in secondary school and is always in my mind whenever someone mentions Persephone or pomegranate seeds.
.jpg/435px-FredericLeighton-TheReturnofPerspephone(1891).jpg)
So, I signed the contract (after a thorough read, of course!) and paid my deposit, and now I can pick up the key next week and move in. Pretty scary but also very very exciting.
I spent the remaining 2 hours before my trains would leave wandering about the uni campus, just to see whether I could like it. And by God, did I like it!
*The floor is now open for a discussion on whether PALA-normal overlaps in anyway with real-life-normal.
The Heiligenberg (Or: In Praise Of My Walking Shoes) (06 August 2013)
I got up early this morning to climb the Heiligenberg - that is, I dragged myself out of bed at 7:45, put on my walking shoes and went up and down to the baker around the corner to pick up two croissants.
I dropped one off at the hotel and ate the other whilst crossing the Market to get to the Alte Brücke. You see, many people wrongly assume I don't like sports - but I do, I like walking, swimming, horseback riding, dancing... but those are, unfortunately, all sports for which equipment and/or other participants and/or environment are expensive or hard to find. But I really enjoy walking, have always done so, and I couldn't bear to leave Heidelberg without a shield for my old hiking stick (I've grown out of it in the meanwhile as I last used it when - 12, I think, but it's a nice thing anyway), which meant walking. I've done my research, and the Heiligenberg was supposed to be the one with the abandoned monasteries on top. I like monasteries too, so that's a nice two-birds-one-stone situation.
Alte Brücke
So I set off to the Alte Brücke at 8:05 and briskly tried pacing up the Schlangenweg. I ran out of breath halfway through. But then finding your ideal speed is always tricky, so I slowed down and admired the lovely views over Heidelberg from the Philosophenweg. Halfway through the Philosophenweg, just beyond (from Schlangenweg) Liselotteplatz, there's a small path that leads to stairs which lead to another path up the mountain. And so I followed that, always with the sun above me so I kept to the Heidelberger side of the mountain. I zigzagged up the hill, making the 400-or so metre ascent into a walk of a few kilometres.
View over Heidelberg from Bismarckturm
Halfway up there's a tower, the Bismarckturm, from which there's a quite nice view over the city. That's also the point where my calves started aching slightly, though my feet felt surprisingly well. Of course, the trick is to keep going - over my whole walk, I suppose I took only a handful of minute-breaks and two 10-minute breaks. I didn't particularly like the Bismarckturm, as it seemed to have been used by people for barbeques and drinking. It was a bit of a mess, so I walked on.
Finally on top of the hill (09:22), I had the loveliest view of the Heidelberger Altstadt - I arrived at the remains of the Sankt Stephans Kloster, or the Saint Stephen's Monastery. It wasn't very big, but it had a nice little tower. Quite sweet, actually.
St Stephen's Monastery Chapel
This lady and her daughter started blabbing at me in German, but as I don't get much further than - "Durfen wir bitte bezahlen?" I couldn't make much sense of them, nor could they of me as neither spoke English or Dutch. Pity really.
Amphitheatre
I then passed a parking space to get to the Nazi amphitheatre. I'd been told it was up there, but I wasn't prepared for how big it actually was. I felt slightly - angry, actually, that those stupid people defiled this pretty mountain by building this stupidly big thing. It was suppose to hold about 8000 people, and it had this very 1930s design to it. Fascinating but quite unsettling.
St Michael's Monastery - Roman temple outline
What I did like, however, was the Sankt Michaels Kloster, or the Saint Michael's Monastery. It's an old location, as it's built on the site of an old Roman temple - of which the outline is still visible in the middle of the monastery chapel - and this castle, of which the outlines are no longer visible but which did contribute to the rather odd shape of the monastery. It had two towers and it was really big - and I was there all on my own.
Imagine this - it's 10 in the morning, around you there's only tall trees, bees and spiders and ants and grasshoppers and birds, the sun's already beating down and you're all by yourself in the vast ruins of this late Dark Ages monastery.
Western Crypt - illuminated by the flash
When I entered the Western Crypt, for a moment there I was convinced it was haunted, even if I don't believe in such things.
St Michael's Monastery
But I got to investigate that whole monastery all by myself for about half an hour, always narrowly avoiding spider webs and going deaf from the buzzing and chirping of the bees and the crickets, before other people showed up. I then sat down for another rest before beginning my descent and picked up some bits of orange rock that I first took for pottery - but then I figured, they're orange, they're curved, they're consistent, and I was sitting next to the ruined walls of a Dark Ages monastery. They were probably roof tile shards. But that was cool anyway.
I then began my descent, and as I wanted to go a different way from the way I came up, and as I didn't have a map nor a compass, I figured I'd try to walk following the sun.
Now, I was in the Scouts for a few years as a child and I know enough of the sun's trajectory to make an educated guess as to what time it is, but I never properly walked following the sun before, and in any case not during Summer Time.
But I managed to more or less safely get down. Descending is quite frustrating, especially when you've got winding paths and you're anxious to get down and take off your shoes and you see the next bit of path about ten metres below. I did once make the mistake of thinking that the bit of hill in between was level enough for me to get down safely - I then promptly slid for about four metres, me meanwhile making up my obituary and hoping people would say nice things about me - before I came to a standstill and then managed to safely get the remaining bit down to the next path. So, advice - paths are there for a reason and Little Red Riding Hood was advised not to leave the path for a good reason too.
Little stream
But I got safely back down by 11:24 (I checked) and only a small bit off - I'd wanted to emerge by the Alte Brücke again, but instead emerged by the dam a few dozen of metres upstream. For the last bit I'd followed a small stream down, figuring that all water needs to go down anyway and as I was on the Neckarside, it'd probably flow to the Neckar (it did). So, that was fun.
And here's where the praise of my walking shoes comes in - I'd been walking for about 3.5 hours. Uphill and downhill. I'd been wandering about monasteries. And then I got a text from Kristy to meet her for lunch. I thought of my feet. They didn't hurt. Unheard of. But, they didn't. So we met for lunch and though I didn't feel like moving much, my feet were fine. We actually managed to still visit the Karzer (student prison) and the Uni Museum and a bookshop before going back to our hotel.
Karzer
It wasn't until I took off those shoes that I felt my feet ache. And they're fine again now. So, those shoes - best money I've ever spent.
And the Heiligenberg - I climbed it. And I bought myself a shield for my walking stick as a reward. Surely it must've done a lot of good in doing away with the PALA social calories?
Room-Hunting In Leeds (28 August 2013)
Today was a bit of a scary day. I went up to Leeds to "survey" the city and find a place to live for next year.
I was plagued by all the possible what-ifs: What if I can't find a nice place? What if I don't like the city? What if I don't like the uni? What if - what if - what if.
Nevertheless, I insisted on beginning positively, to let confirmation bias do its work so I would like everything.
And I did.
So I got on the train at Leicester and found someone had taken my reserved seat - one of my pet peeves. Great start. But the Derby to Leeds train was good, so that helped. The train arrived at Leeds station and I disembarked.
It may sound silly, but I find the impressions stations make on me very important. If I don't like the city's station, I will view the city in a somewhat negative light. It's the reason I like Rotterdam so much - I mean, Rotterdam's a nice city to begin with, but I'm in awe of its new central station. But the station was good - big, multi-track (not Leicester's rather sad 4 tracks), plenty of shops. It's got a pub. So, good one there.
I had given myself 2 hours to wander about a bit, discover the centre, before my Unipol appointment, so I decided to explore Starbucks. Pretty building, good iced caramel macchiato.
The centre has plenty of chain shops, the big ones, and also a few small shops, nice arcades and parades. And relatively few closed sites, so I take it the local economy is - well, in a fairly healthy shape. More plus points. Negative point was that I only discovered a WH Smith's, I do prefer Waterstones.
With half an hour left to kill, I looked at my map to see whether there were other places I could walk to that may be worth exploring. So I popped into the Art Gallery. And this more or less sealed the deal on the city for me.
I'm not a fan of modern art, not at all, so the first few rooms, with fairly non-sensical modern art sculptures were a bit disappointing. But there's one room there with proper art. And it happens to hold two paintings I've always liked.
Tissot's The Bridesmaid
and Leighton's The Return of Persephone, which was either in my Latin or Ancient Cultures text book in secondary school and is always in my mind whenever someone mentions Persephone or pomegranate seeds.
So I was already sold on the city before having seen any houses. I attended my 3pm meeting, and Charlotte from Unipol took me to see four properties. The first one was one I'd already seen on the website and was very eager to see - indeed, this was my first choice. It was really good too, nice location, nice greenery, loads of space, good rent - but slightly old kitchen and bathrooms. The second had only one room left, and was in another nice location, less greenery but closer to shops and the uni (marginally), good rent, and really new kitchen and bathroom (2012!), but slightly less well-placed bedroom. Lots of storage space, though. And loads of sockets.
Third and fourth were both really close to the uni and shops, good rent still, but the space and fittings weren't as great as on the other two. Also, they didn't offer as great a space to store my bicycle - it may be old and rickety, but she's too good still to just leave in the street.
So I was taken back to the Unipol office and left to myself to make a decision. And it was a tough one. Eventually, however, I settled on the second one. It's got a lounge anyway, so if I get fed up with my room I can come out and be social; but kitchen and bathrooms are really important to me; I'm always moaning about the state of either. I'm also always moaning about distance to shops (and am very gleeful when I'm close), so although the bedroom didn't fulfil all my desires, the rest of the house makes up for this in a major way. Plus, it's got a BBQ spot.
So, I signed the contract (after a thorough read, of course!) and paid my deposit, and now I can pick up the key next week and move in. Pretty scary but also very very exciting.
I spent the remaining 2 hours before my trains would leave wandering about the uni campus, just to see whether I could like it. And by God, did I like it!
This is the building you see most often when Google Image-searching 'University of Leeds'. It's very impressive. Like the bell tower. Also, there's a Blackwell's nearby. I'm pleased.
Just a general impression. Properly redbrick ;) So that's cool. And I like the style of it, it's pretty. And greenery! I love greenery.
So, in general I quite liked the campus. There are also some modern buildings that don't really do it for me, but I'll just try and stick to the pretty side ;) I'm very much looking forward to starting.
On my way back to the station I passed City Hall:
Also very impressive, and quite indicative of the sort of fancy architecture that marks Leeds city centre. And guess what! I found a Waterstones.
So all in all, I'm happy. I like the city, I like the uni, and I've come back home clutching a contract for a proper room in Leeds. Can't wait to move! :D
Living In Leeds And Starting The Research (02 October 2013)
When I came home from Uni yesterday, I was feeling particularly giddy; things are going quite well, and I am absolutely enjoying it.
You see, this week is the week that I officially started, and it's my fourth week of living in Leeds, so I'm more or less settling into a routine - and it's a routine that feels just right.
I really, really like Leeds. Leeds is technically a city and so I shouldn't like it - I don't like cities - but it doesn't feel big to me at all. It feels right. I can take a train from Headingley station (which, incidentally, I noticed was used in the pilot episode of DCI Banks, which I watched on ITV Player yesterday evening) and be in the city centre in 10 minutes. And there I find all the shops I could want or need - vintage and retro shops, fabric shops, shoe shops, bookshops, everything. I love the architecture - very redbrick Industrial Revolution urbanisation thing, there. I can cycle to the centre too and be there in 30 minutes.
Cycling to the Uni takes 12 minutes (15 when it's raining, as it is today), on a reasonably flat road (only one significant incline and even that one is not very steep) with fairly wide bicycle lanes. The Uni itself - or, well, the bits where I have to go, really - is wonderful. The School of English, on Cavendish Road - I'm typing this from its second floor computer cluster - has beautiful period features. There's a coffee shop nearby that does decent black coffee. It's only a bit further to the Parkinson Building (the one with the white tower that you see when you type 'University of Leeds' in Google Images), where the Brotherton Library is which has so.many.books and a wonderfully art deco interior. There's a bicycle repair shop on campus (yes, really) and there's lectures in a fascinatingly ugly but complex building (the Roger Stevens) which has M.C. Escher-esque staircases.
And I like Headingley. I like the shops that are only half a mile from my house and I like my house and my housemates (except when they wake me up at 5am). I like how the bus from Headingley to the Uni only costs a pound.
So now that I have drawn the background - the landscape, if you will - I shall tell you what a first week of a PhD at the School of English of the University of Leeds is like.
I met my fellow PhD students last Thursday during the Induction. The Induction more or less precisely serves this purpose; meet your - coursemates? colleagues? - and the Department/School. Naturally, there was a bunch of practical information too - Leeds PhDs are provisional for their first year and have to be 'upgraded' (well, technically it's 'transferred', but 'upgraded' sounds so wonderfully scifi) to PhD, to MPhil if the work is not up to PhD standard, or be asked to try again in three months or simply withdraw. So, technically, we are all Provisional PhD candidates until we are upgraded.
This morning ended with some drinks, and then an informal campus tour which was cut short by everyone deciding to have pints at the SU.
On Monday, the real work started. I audited a seminar and two lectures - yes, that is also possible at Leeds, if you can work it out schedule-wise and with your supervisor and the module coordinator - and attended another School reception. The seminar was my supervisor's undergraduate Stylistics seminar, which I basically audit because though I already took Stylistics in my undergraduate at UCR, new angles are always useful. I will not attend all, though. One of the lectures was for the Power of Language module, which is fascinatingly fascinating. I suppose I will draw most of my inspiration from this module.
Tuesday was a day for the Uni's 'Starting your Research Degree'-workshop, which, like most one-day workshops I have attended so far, involved post-its. I did, however, get some useful information out of it - mainly practical, though it did inspire me to go home and do a mindmap for my research. The mindmap ended up quite elaborate. I also audited a Forensic Linguistics seminar, which again I found fascinating.
Today, then, is finally a day for starting the work. And it's difficult. I don't know where to start. I'm supposed to have a formal meeting with my supervisor next week, but I want to have an idea of what I'm doing before I go there. I decided, eventually, to go philosophical; drag my more philosophically-inclined books to Uni, and work from there. My main aim is to find a politico-philosophical justification of my research interest, as my research is highly dependent on political context and I feel I need a solid grounding there.
As I often do, I reached for Lon Fuller's assertion that communication is the basic necessity for human survival and worked from there. I am currently working on justifying my position that establishing morality and (de)criminalising types of behaviour is dependent not just on legislation but also on public discourse (such as the media), which explains why it is important to understand the mechanisms of public discourse - and looking at media representation of corporate fraud as linked to the global economic crisis is one way of doing so. Of course, this position is far from controversial - of course people's opinions are changed based on what they hear and read and with and to whom they talk. But precisely because this 'of course' feels so much like common sense, I need to find out how and why this is so.
This may not end up in the final thesis. Heck, it is week 1, it will most likely not end up in my thesis. Will I end up including Cesare Beccaria's idea that judges get to judge because of a direct or indirect agreement of those subject to the law? Probably not. But it's good to look into it regardless.
I know I'm not studying anything that will tangibly help humanity. I am not curing HIV or Cancer, I am not building jetpacks or lightsabers or hoverboards, I am not figuring out how to travel to whatever planet is most like Gallifrey and I am not developing a truth serum. I am an idealist, and as such I want to understand the language of justice, and justice through language.
100th: Why Am I So Lucky? (02 November 2013)
This is my 100th post. And I have, again, changed the title of this blog - it has gone from Leicester Adventures to Committing Criminology to now, Committing Criminology & Loving Language because I am, indeed, loving Language but still committing Criminology every so often.
The tag line has changed too, and is now "A Criminologist doing an English Language PhD in Leeds" - which is basically what I'm doing, of course.
And I feel so lucky. How did I end up doing this? I can't wrap my head around it. I doubt it's a manifestation of the dreaded 'Impostor Syndrome' - because I don't feel like I'm not up to the job - but it's a good question nonetheless.
Yesterday, I attended a series of presentations the School of English uses to determine who should get a job with them/us (I feel uncomfortable still saying "us" at this point). This was fascinating - being able to see what everyone has done that qualifies them to get invited for such an interview. In the first place, one needs a good number of good publications. This makes sense, because a good researcher does, naturally, good research. Skills are essential too. But the main qualification that I felt was most important was coming across as a friendly person, capable of explaining stuff to others. And they were all really good at that. One of the presenters had a massive CV, with a brilliant and straightforward educational background and lots and lots of languages. Another had an intense list of publications and did a brilliant presentation too. Yet another had a fabulous list of industry-related jobs and qualifications. A fourth had precisely that pedagogical philosophy that I have come to appreciate as a student. The panel must've had a tough time deciding to whom to give the job.
Oh, and they were all women, which pleased me too. I'm not sure if this was reverse gender discrimination - if they had been all men, I do think I would have felt that way - but given their incredible qualifications, I do very well believe that gender had little to do with it.
We all had a Uni-provided lunch in the Douglas Jefferson room (which is gorgeous with dark wood panelling) and I had some chats with some of them - a chat about MOOCs, which was entirely enlightening and made me realise that I should look into some of them, and that MOOCs are far from the end of academia but instead enhance the experience. Distance Learning didn't kill the Universities, so why should MOOCs? I also had a chat with the author of a book I read, and it turns out she's a lovely person in real life - they were all lovely people, really - and I suddenly felt better about having made that slip when telling a prison guard at HMP Grendon that I'd found my visit brilliant, because her research is also related to human suffering and she used the word 'fun' to describe the process.
But it is fun. Human suffering is evil and wrong and everything, but the research process is so much fun. I can't believe I get to do it.
Everything's going so well, I feel like I'm waiting for something to go massively wrong because somehow I do believe there's only a finite amount of luck a person can have in a given time and surely I've used all of mine up by now?
I just keep on reading, and I love doing it. I've got a job test lined up with the City Council. And - as I keep on bragging about - I get to go to the Doctor Who thing in three weeks, and they published the Saturday guest list yesterday and IT. IS. AMAZING.
Seriously, things had better start going wrong or I'm going to start feeling paranoid.
THE DOCTOR WHO 50TH ANNIVERSARY EVENT (26 November 2013)
NOTE: HERE BE SPOILERS FOR THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY EPISODE. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN IT, DO NOT SCROLL DOWN BEYOND THE PHOTOS OF THE FOUR CLASSIC DOCTORS.
If you have talked to me at all in the last few weeks/months, it will not have escaped your attention that I had the incredible fortune to be allowed to attend the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Celebration at the ExCeL in London last weekend.
I've written before about how I am fairly susceptible to fandoms, but this was my first ever full fandom event. And I got to experience it with my Whovian friend Lisa. So that was all really cool.
Being a big fan of dressing up - if you manage to pull up late 1990s files for the Oostvoorne local library, you'll see that my most-borrowed book was one that had instructions on Halloween outfits, my favourite of those being a vampire cape; also, on the days where I don't feel like "ah, sod it, I'll wear something comfortable" I dress up like the persona I want to be for that day - I of course went all out on creating a costume.
My initial plans - back in June - were wildly ambitious. I would sew a full skirt that consisted of layers of leather (or fake leather, more likely), candy striped cotton, burgundy velvet and some black-and-grey chequered fabric. I would wear a white blouse and a red-and-white chequered corset or waistcoat. This would be combined with my tweed jacket, a burgundy tie, brown-and-white brogues, and a recorder.
Oh, and I would devote time to learning how to knit and then I would simply knit a 20-foot orange/purple/burgundy scarf (because I like Four's second scarf so much better).
Ironically, time got in the way of me creating this - in my mind still rather wonderful - Renegade Time Lord (The Oncoming Storm, the Valeyard, and all that) costume. All Doctors At Once.
Also I didn't like how it made me ignore so much of my favourite Doctor, the Second Doctor, who was, of course, played by Patrick Troughton whom I've since watched in The Six Wives of Henry VIII and The Omen and a bunch of interview on YouTube and have come to appreciate as an actor beyond Doctor Who as well.
This is how my costume eventually turned out:
When I came home from Uni yesterday, I was feeling particularly giddy; things are going quite well, and I am absolutely enjoying it.
You see, this week is the week that I officially started, and it's my fourth week of living in Leeds, so I'm more or less settling into a routine - and it's a routine that feels just right.
I really, really like Leeds. Leeds is technically a city and so I shouldn't like it - I don't like cities - but it doesn't feel big to me at all. It feels right. I can take a train from Headingley station (which, incidentally, I noticed was used in the pilot episode of DCI Banks, which I watched on ITV Player yesterday evening) and be in the city centre in 10 minutes. And there I find all the shops I could want or need - vintage and retro shops, fabric shops, shoe shops, bookshops, everything. I love the architecture - very redbrick Industrial Revolution urbanisation thing, there. I can cycle to the centre too and be there in 30 minutes.
Cycling to the Uni takes 12 minutes (15 when it's raining, as it is today), on a reasonably flat road (only one significant incline and even that one is not very steep) with fairly wide bicycle lanes. The Uni itself - or, well, the bits where I have to go, really - is wonderful. The School of English, on Cavendish Road - I'm typing this from its second floor computer cluster - has beautiful period features. There's a coffee shop nearby that does decent black coffee. It's only a bit further to the Parkinson Building (the one with the white tower that you see when you type 'University of Leeds' in Google Images), where the Brotherton Library is which has so.many.books and a wonderfully art deco interior. There's a bicycle repair shop on campus (yes, really) and there's lectures in a fascinatingly ugly but complex building (the Roger Stevens) which has M.C. Escher-esque staircases.
And I like Headingley. I like the shops that are only half a mile from my house and I like my house and my housemates (except when they wake me up at 5am). I like how the bus from Headingley to the Uni only costs a pound.
So now that I have drawn the background - the landscape, if you will - I shall tell you what a first week of a PhD at the School of English of the University of Leeds is like.
I met my fellow PhD students last Thursday during the Induction. The Induction more or less precisely serves this purpose; meet your - coursemates? colleagues? - and the Department/School. Naturally, there was a bunch of practical information too - Leeds PhDs are provisional for their first year and have to be 'upgraded' (well, technically it's 'transferred', but 'upgraded' sounds so wonderfully scifi) to PhD, to MPhil if the work is not up to PhD standard, or be asked to try again in three months or simply withdraw. So, technically, we are all Provisional PhD candidates until we are upgraded.
This morning ended with some drinks, and then an informal campus tour which was cut short by everyone deciding to have pints at the SU.
On Monday, the real work started. I audited a seminar and two lectures - yes, that is also possible at Leeds, if you can work it out schedule-wise and with your supervisor and the module coordinator - and attended another School reception. The seminar was my supervisor's undergraduate Stylistics seminar, which I basically audit because though I already took Stylistics in my undergraduate at UCR, new angles are always useful. I will not attend all, though. One of the lectures was for the Power of Language module, which is fascinatingly fascinating. I suppose I will draw most of my inspiration from this module.
Tuesday was a day for the Uni's 'Starting your Research Degree'-workshop, which, like most one-day workshops I have attended so far, involved post-its. I did, however, get some useful information out of it - mainly practical, though it did inspire me to go home and do a mindmap for my research. The mindmap ended up quite elaborate. I also audited a Forensic Linguistics seminar, which again I found fascinating.
Today, then, is finally a day for starting the work. And it's difficult. I don't know where to start. I'm supposed to have a formal meeting with my supervisor next week, but I want to have an idea of what I'm doing before I go there. I decided, eventually, to go philosophical; drag my more philosophically-inclined books to Uni, and work from there. My main aim is to find a politico-philosophical justification of my research interest, as my research is highly dependent on political context and I feel I need a solid grounding there.
As I often do, I reached for Lon Fuller's assertion that communication is the basic necessity for human survival and worked from there. I am currently working on justifying my position that establishing morality and (de)criminalising types of behaviour is dependent not just on legislation but also on public discourse (such as the media), which explains why it is important to understand the mechanisms of public discourse - and looking at media representation of corporate fraud as linked to the global economic crisis is one way of doing so. Of course, this position is far from controversial - of course people's opinions are changed based on what they hear and read and with and to whom they talk. But precisely because this 'of course' feels so much like common sense, I need to find out how and why this is so.
This may not end up in the final thesis. Heck, it is week 1, it will most likely not end up in my thesis. Will I end up including Cesare Beccaria's idea that judges get to judge because of a direct or indirect agreement of those subject to the law? Probably not. But it's good to look into it regardless.
I know I'm not studying anything that will tangibly help humanity. I am not curing HIV or Cancer, I am not building jetpacks or lightsabers or hoverboards, I am not figuring out how to travel to whatever planet is most like Gallifrey and I am not developing a truth serum. I am an idealist, and as such I want to understand the language of justice, and justice through language.
100th: Why Am I So Lucky? (02 November 2013)
This is my 100th post. And I have, again, changed the title of this blog - it has gone from Leicester Adventures to Committing Criminology to now, Committing Criminology & Loving Language because I am, indeed, loving Language but still committing Criminology every so often.
The tag line has changed too, and is now "A Criminologist doing an English Language PhD in Leeds" - which is basically what I'm doing, of course.
And I feel so lucky. How did I end up doing this? I can't wrap my head around it. I doubt it's a manifestation of the dreaded 'Impostor Syndrome' - because I don't feel like I'm not up to the job - but it's a good question nonetheless.
Yesterday, I attended a series of presentations the School of English uses to determine who should get a job with them/us (I feel uncomfortable still saying "us" at this point). This was fascinating - being able to see what everyone has done that qualifies them to get invited for such an interview. In the first place, one needs a good number of good publications. This makes sense, because a good researcher does, naturally, good research. Skills are essential too. But the main qualification that I felt was most important was coming across as a friendly person, capable of explaining stuff to others. And they were all really good at that. One of the presenters had a massive CV, with a brilliant and straightforward educational background and lots and lots of languages. Another had an intense list of publications and did a brilliant presentation too. Yet another had a fabulous list of industry-related jobs and qualifications. A fourth had precisely that pedagogical philosophy that I have come to appreciate as a student. The panel must've had a tough time deciding to whom to give the job.
Oh, and they were all women, which pleased me too. I'm not sure if this was reverse gender discrimination - if they had been all men, I do think I would have felt that way - but given their incredible qualifications, I do very well believe that gender had little to do with it.
We all had a Uni-provided lunch in the Douglas Jefferson room (which is gorgeous with dark wood panelling) and I had some chats with some of them - a chat about MOOCs, which was entirely enlightening and made me realise that I should look into some of them, and that MOOCs are far from the end of academia but instead enhance the experience. Distance Learning didn't kill the Universities, so why should MOOCs? I also had a chat with the author of a book I read, and it turns out she's a lovely person in real life - they were all lovely people, really - and I suddenly felt better about having made that slip when telling a prison guard at HMP Grendon that I'd found my visit brilliant, because her research is also related to human suffering and she used the word 'fun' to describe the process.
But it is fun. Human suffering is evil and wrong and everything, but the research process is so much fun. I can't believe I get to do it.
Everything's going so well, I feel like I'm waiting for something to go massively wrong because somehow I do believe there's only a finite amount of luck a person can have in a given time and surely I've used all of mine up by now?
I just keep on reading, and I love doing it. I've got a job test lined up with the City Council. And - as I keep on bragging about - I get to go to the Doctor Who thing in three weeks, and they published the Saturday guest list yesterday and IT. IS. AMAZING.
Seriously, things had better start going wrong or I'm going to start feeling paranoid.
THE DOCTOR WHO 50TH ANNIVERSARY EVENT (26 November 2013)
NOTE: HERE BE SPOILERS FOR THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY EPISODE. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN IT, DO NOT SCROLL DOWN BEYOND THE PHOTOS OF THE FOUR CLASSIC DOCTORS.
If you have talked to me at all in the last few weeks/months, it will not have escaped your attention that I had the incredible fortune to be allowed to attend the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Celebration at the ExCeL in London last weekend.
I've written before about how I am fairly susceptible to fandoms, but this was my first ever full fandom event. And I got to experience it with my Whovian friend Lisa. So that was all really cool.
Being a big fan of dressing up - if you manage to pull up late 1990s files for the Oostvoorne local library, you'll see that my most-borrowed book was one that had instructions on Halloween outfits, my favourite of those being a vampire cape; also, on the days where I don't feel like "ah, sod it, I'll wear something comfortable" I dress up like the persona I want to be for that day - I of course went all out on creating a costume.
My initial plans - back in June - were wildly ambitious. I would sew a full skirt that consisted of layers of leather (or fake leather, more likely), candy striped cotton, burgundy velvet and some black-and-grey chequered fabric. I would wear a white blouse and a red-and-white chequered corset or waistcoat. This would be combined with my tweed jacket, a burgundy tie, brown-and-white brogues, and a recorder.
Oh, and I would devote time to learning how to knit and then I would simply knit a 20-foot orange/purple/burgundy scarf (because I like Four's second scarf so much better).
Ironically, time got in the way of me creating this - in my mind still rather wonderful - Renegade Time Lord (The Oncoming Storm, the Valeyard, and all that) costume. All Doctors At Once.
Also I didn't like how it made me ignore so much of my favourite Doctor, the Second Doctor, who was, of course, played by Patrick Troughton whom I've since watched in The Six Wives of Henry VIII and The Omen and a bunch of interview on YouTube and have come to appreciate as an actor beyond Doctor Who as well.
This is how my costume eventually turned out:
I would really like to say that there is something political about me making it into a female version with the skirt (and the fact that - really, my body shape will always reveal my biological sex), but the truth is that I simply found this skirt in a charity shop, squealed in delight and appropriated it. I prefer wearing skirts instead of trousers anyway.
Of course, this is still political in the sense that I apparently feel that in any case the gender identity of a fictional character is more than capable of being fluid. A female Second Doctor is still the Second Doctor, in the end.
But let's leave the gender politics for what they are, for this moment at least. They are really very important, but not central to this blog.
I loved dressing up like this. We saw loads of fezzes and full Eleventh Doctors (including that fabulous plum coat), loads of Fours and Tens, but I saw only really a handful of Second Doctors, which left me in the curious position of getting to scope out the "competition" and admiring their efforts at the same time. My coat wasn't right, which left me to admire this one guy who had managed to somehow find a proper morning coat that was slightly too big (I know where to get them - eBay - but that doesn't reduce the awesomeness of him having the right coat).
The Fourth Doctor scarves - so, so, so many - were all brilliant. I complimented a guy on his scarf and immediately afterwards I wondered whether "nice scarf!" is Whovian flirting. There was this woman in a fantastic TARDIS dress. Children in Silurian and Weeping Angel costumes - and so well-behaved!
And everyone was nice. Like, so nice. Lisa and I took a photo with this random couple we met whilst queuing for the TARDIS console photo - no idea who they are, but we had a really nice conversation to pass the time. Whilst I waited for a Classic Lounge panel, this American woman talked to me about her convention experiences overseas, and I just felt in awe at her brilliant stories.
We started our morning at the Stratford tube station, noticing children on the platform waving sonic screwdrivers around and grown men in 20-foot scarves and women in Dalek dresses. Good start.
We got off the tube at the ExCeL, spotting Canary Wharf in the distance and me accidentally dropping my bag and exclaiming "oh bugger!" (if I'd been in character, it should've been "oh my word" or "oh crumbs" instead), which I really hope didn't offend the parents of the child standing near me.
We had to queue for our first panel, the SFX Panel, and no one complained about the queue other than "I wish they'd open the gate" and "ah, they've opened the gate" when they let us in. The SFX show was fantastic, with a 'break-away' Dalek being blown up (apparently, this Dalek has been used multiple times. It breaks away into nicely big chunks of Dalek armour and can easily be put together again. So it's basically a humpty-Dalekty) and a Cyberman being shot (with squibs! An adorable little boy dressed like Eleven, hardly taller than the great massive gun Rose used in The Stolen Earth, got to use exactly that gun to shoot at the Cyberman, while a woman in a TARDIS dress got to play the companion and fire the squib trigger). There was fire and lasers and fake snow and PHWOAR SO MUCH AWESOME.
Then Lisa and I both went on our separate adventure, she to take a picture with Jenna Coleman, I to attend the Classic Panel with William Russell and Carole Ann Ford.
We met up again afterwards to take the TARDIS Console picture and also snuck a photo of the TARDIS console itself.
Time passes so quickly, and at 1pm it was time to queue for the next show, the Regeneration Panel, which I had been most looking forward to, as it did not only contain the multicoloured Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker;
The rhotic Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy (sans spoons, unfortunately);
The beige Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison;
But also, the legendary Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker.
These four absolute LEGENDS got to talk at the audience for a good while about having been the Doctor, and the fandom now, and the 50th, and everything.
This was over far too quickly, but was followed by another big Panel, the Eleventh Hour, which had Matt Smith, Jenna Coleman, Steven Moffat (whom we disliked but came to like through this Panel) and the producer, Marcus Wilson.
This Panel made me really sad to see Matt leaving by Christmas, but then on the other hand we'll get Peter Capaldi, who I'm sure will blow us all away, judging by his *SPOILERS FROM HERE ON* appearance in the 50th.
Again, time for independent adventures: I sent Lisa off to another Classic Lounge panel and then I scurried off to queue to get William Russell to sign my copy of this month's Doctor Who Magazine.
All the while I stood in that queue, I had cool things to say in my head. Like, "William, you're so cool! Ian is my favourite companion!" and all that. But then I actually stood in front of him and my mind blanked and, in a move of self-protection, my mouth didn't want to speak either - which kept me from making a drawn-out 'EEEPP' sound.
So he signed my magazine
And then I took a picture with him
And he seems to be such a sweet man, he did seem so nice. I felt awful for not being able to say anything beyond "could you please sign my magazine and do you mind if this person here takes a picture?" but at least I didn't say anything embarrassing, which is perhaps something I should be sort of grateful for.
I then hurried off to follow Lisa in her adventure, which was to secure seats in the Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling Classic Lounge panel. This was brilliantly hilarious, with them cracking so many jokes and just generally seeming to have lots of fun.
We ended our ExCeL experience by attending a screening of Caves of Androzani pt 4 and then having a look about the display area where they had loads of stuff from the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff.
Like the Second Doctor costume.
But, as Time will do, we had to catch the tube to Greenwich to go to the O2 to watch the Day of the Doctor, which blew us away.
No, but seriously.
In 3D.
Especially the appearance of Tom Baker at the end (we hoped for jelly babies but were sadly deprived of this) made an impact, having seen him just hours before.
I personally am extremely happy that they're bringing back Gallifrey and the Time Lords. The Classic Series episodes where the Doctor visits Gallifrey are among my favourites (including the last episode of The War Games), especially the one where the Fourth Doctor basically waltzes in all arrogantly, demanding to take up his post as Lord President and it all turns out to have been a defence strategy (The Invasion of Time). There is something magical about this highly intellectual society living in what basically amounts to fear of the outside universe (I see parallels with academia).
Of course, the whole episode in itself feels a bit Deus Ex Machina, in the sense that suddenly, in one episode, the whole New Series is reset and the Doctor didn't kill all his people, he just thinks he did. But it was cleverly done, I think, and there were enough nods to the past to shut up my inner critic and just enjoy the ride.
And perhaps I should just watch it again.
On the way home we stopped by Burger King, which isn't in itself significant other than the fact that it led me to remark later that it had been "a brilliant day of Doctor Who and Burger King!" which had Lisa in a fit.
There were comments on facebook about a Sherlock teaser so once we were back at the hotel we fired up my computer to watch the teaser (and the teaser for the Christmas episode), then watch The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, which Lisa termed (I'm paraphrasing here), the real 50th Anniversary Celebratory show.
It was hilarious indeed, especially as our internet connection was, for lack of a better word, crap, and froze every minute or so, leaving us time to fully appreciate and laugh at each joke before we saw / missed the next one.
It also led to some minor facebook fangirling over Peter Davison (there are too many funny Tristan Farnon gifs on Tumblr) and Sylvester McCoy.
In short, I had a fantastic birthday weekend.
And let me now close by quoting and paraphrasing the First Doctor:
"Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.
Goodbye, readers.
Goodbye, readers.
Goodbye, my dears."
Christmas On My Own (23 December 2013)
Just now my landlord popped by to check the house for the winter - to set the boiler to heat up the water if none of us would be here, so the pipes don't freeze, and all that - and seemed surprised to see me home.
"Are you staying here over Christmas?"
Yes.
The incredulous reactions I get from people - aren't you going home* for Christmas? No. Why not? I don't want to. But - will there be people coming over? No. So you'll be all alone for Christmas? Yes. But - oh. Well. Happy Christmas then.
People seem unable to understand I'm actually looking forward to celebrating Christmas on my own.
All except my family, who are perfectly good with it. And there would be no use in me going home for Christmas anyway.
My Mum, despite not having to, being management and all, volunteered to help out on the wards she manages in the care home she works at. Her wards, being part of the care industry, are normally wildly understaffed as it is, let alone over the holidays. Even if she had intended on celebrating a family Christmas, she would have at least popped in for a few hours to help out - as she did two years ago, when I did go home for Christmas (if she were Catholic surely she'd have been sainted by now). Similarly, my stepfather will be working.
My Dad's been scheduled to work Christmas day, and his plans for Boxing day are similar to mine, as he told me yesterday. Being a lover of seafood, he'll make himself a lovely seafood platter and snack on that all day as he'll enjoy Boxing day on his own.
"Ilse," he said, "enjoy having time to yourself over the holidays as long as you can - this will be the first holiday in forty years I'll have to myself. Soon enough you'll have to spend Christmas day here, Boxing day there, then New Year's elsewhere."
My brother's come home from Alicante to celebrate Christmas, but he'll be spending it mostly with his girlfriend and her parents, so he'll be busy too.
In short, I don't have any strong reason to visit either of my parents over Christmas.
Last year, when I still lived in Leicester, during the seven-months winter, I fell ill just before Christmas, and then I'd also decided not to visit my parents for the holidays. Instead, I spent Christmas in bed with a bottle of wine and some delicious snacks, and went out into the snow for a long walk. I enjoyed that, and I intend to do the same this year - sans snow as they're not predicting any for the holidays, and perhaps also sans bed as I haven't got the flu this year, just a cold. I spent last year's New Year's sleeping off the flu; this year I might go into Leeds for a bit of a party.
It's wholly selfish, but there is no better way to celebrate the holidays than doing so completely on your own terms. Where you get to decide what wine to drink (none of that "oh yes but I've just opened a bottle of Merlot, I know you normally drink white but certainly you'll have a glass of red instead?"), what food to eat (no people around to pull faces at the Brussels sprouts because I actually like them, and will have them for Christmas. Along with delicious dishes of mushrooms in puff pastry and roasted cherry tomatoes with balsamic vinegar), what to watch on television (no "do you have to watch Doctor Who? You're the only one who likes it anyway, can't we watch something everyone enjoys?" - and also no talking during the show!) and what to do when.
It's hardly something to feel bad or sad over - I love my family and they love me, and if we'd wanted each other's company we could've done so. It's just that things like this don't have to be celebrated precisely over Christmas - last year instead I visited them in late January and we exchanged some gifts and had a nice get-together then. Christmas is in that regard merely a calendar date - doing stuff with your family should be possible any day of the year.
Plus, I've got the rest of my life to get stressed over celebrating the holidays with other people ;)
*Home to me is Leeds, but as long as I study people will probably assume that home is Hellevoetsluis / Oostvoorne. I'm not sure why.
"Are you staying here over Christmas?"
Yes.
The incredulous reactions I get from people - aren't you going home* for Christmas? No. Why not? I don't want to. But - will there be people coming over? No. So you'll be all alone for Christmas? Yes. But - oh. Well. Happy Christmas then.
People seem unable to understand I'm actually looking forward to celebrating Christmas on my own.
All except my family, who are perfectly good with it. And there would be no use in me going home for Christmas anyway.
My Mum, despite not having to, being management and all, volunteered to help out on the wards she manages in the care home she works at. Her wards, being part of the care industry, are normally wildly understaffed as it is, let alone over the holidays. Even if she had intended on celebrating a family Christmas, she would have at least popped in for a few hours to help out - as she did two years ago, when I did go home for Christmas (if she were Catholic surely she'd have been sainted by now). Similarly, my stepfather will be working.
My Dad's been scheduled to work Christmas day, and his plans for Boxing day are similar to mine, as he told me yesterday. Being a lover of seafood, he'll make himself a lovely seafood platter and snack on that all day as he'll enjoy Boxing day on his own.
"Ilse," he said, "enjoy having time to yourself over the holidays as long as you can - this will be the first holiday in forty years I'll have to myself. Soon enough you'll have to spend Christmas day here, Boxing day there, then New Year's elsewhere."
My brother's come home from Alicante to celebrate Christmas, but he'll be spending it mostly with his girlfriend and her parents, so he'll be busy too.
In short, I don't have any strong reason to visit either of my parents over Christmas.
Last year, when I still lived in Leicester, during the seven-months winter, I fell ill just before Christmas, and then I'd also decided not to visit my parents for the holidays. Instead, I spent Christmas in bed with a bottle of wine and some delicious snacks, and went out into the snow for a long walk. I enjoyed that, and I intend to do the same this year - sans snow as they're not predicting any for the holidays, and perhaps also sans bed as I haven't got the flu this year, just a cold. I spent last year's New Year's sleeping off the flu; this year I might go into Leeds for a bit of a party.
It's wholly selfish, but there is no better way to celebrate the holidays than doing so completely on your own terms. Where you get to decide what wine to drink (none of that "oh yes but I've just opened a bottle of Merlot, I know you normally drink white but certainly you'll have a glass of red instead?"), what food to eat (no people around to pull faces at the Brussels sprouts because I actually like them, and will have them for Christmas. Along with delicious dishes of mushrooms in puff pastry and roasted cherry tomatoes with balsamic vinegar), what to watch on television (no "do you have to watch Doctor Who? You're the only one who likes it anyway, can't we watch something everyone enjoys?" - and also no talking during the show!) and what to do when.
It's hardly something to feel bad or sad over - I love my family and they love me, and if we'd wanted each other's company we could've done so. It's just that things like this don't have to be celebrated precisely over Christmas - last year instead I visited them in late January and we exchanged some gifts and had a nice get-together then. Christmas is in that regard merely a calendar date - doing stuff with your family should be possible any day of the year.
Plus, I've got the rest of my life to get stressed over celebrating the holidays with other people ;)
*Home to me is Leeds, but as long as I study people will probably assume that home is Hellevoetsluis / Oostvoorne. I'm not sure why.
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