Happy Monday everyone!

Warm and happy Monday wishes to you all. Today has been a fantastic day. I finalized all of my travel arrangements and I'm thrilled about leaving tomorrow for Ipswich! It will be very exciting to see a new area of England. And since I will be taking the coach to London and then the train from London to Ipswich, I'll be able to see a good bit of new countryside on my journey. The joy of new adventures is coursing through me. I'll be sure to take many pictures so you can get a sense of what it is like.

Since I will be staying at an inexpensive bed and breakfast while I'm away, I most likely won't have access to the internet for the next few days. I'll be back on Thursday night with an update of my experiences, so stay tuned. Until then, have a wonderful week! :)

A message for my little sister

Work, research, and life seem to be taking up a chunk of my time right now, so posting may be a bit sparse, at least until I return from my short trip to the Ipswich archives early next week.

However, I know a certain little cutie recently had some dental work done, and must be feeling a bit under the weather. I hope you're feeling better, Lauren! I love you (and I made the sign in the picture to show you just how much...I hope you like the sun dude! ;) )

Why I love Oxford

Ok, so, of course the actual University is exciting and fun in many ways. Still, to be absolutely honest, I love Oxford because sometimes I can get completely overwhelmed by a feeling of intellectual inspiration. I'm sure intellectual inspiration could happen to me at most universities, but I doubt it could happen with the intensity it does here. As inspiring as the institution of Oxford can be, what leaves me feeling all tingly, excited, and like I could eat, sleep, and breathe early modern poverty every day for the next, well, forever, is not the institution, but the people who are here. In particular, I'm extremely fortunate that another DPhil student is currently studying early modern English poverty. Consequently, any time he and I have a chat, I walk away from it energized and nearly bursting with thoughts of enquiry and analysis on my topic. Brainstorming is always beneficial and happens in every university around the world, but I've never been in a position to talk about my topic with someone who is working in the same specifically-general (what a term! ;)) area. The results can be astounding sometimes, and it makes me realize why Oxford really is one of the best places I could be for the research I am doing.

On another interesting note, I went to the 18th century English history seminar tonight and the speaker never showed up. I hope the person is alright, but can you imagine not showing up for a presentation at Oxford? Yikes! After waiting for 15 minutes or so, one of the conveners decided to have each of us share what new or existing themes in history we thought should be the focus of future work. Sort of a "where should the future of history go?" round-robin discussion. It was quite interesting. Some of the varied answers included more research on aging, international studies, inter-disciplinary research, and broadening our concept of what "sources" can be used for historical research. Of course, I suggested more internal study and comparison within generalized social groups. The seminar only lasted for about 40 minutes, but it was very intriguing to hear what everyone had to say. Definitely a nice change of pace.

The return of normalcy

Not much exciting news to report today. It seems even in England boring and mundane days can happen. I finished a whole bunch of laundry, so that's always good. :)

I do have one interesting link to pass on for those who might be interested in some new historical discoveries. It seems a team of archaeologists have discoved a medieval/early modern graveyard at a planned site for a new shopping center...hmmm...I wonder if they are still going to build the shopping center...will they leave the bodies there?....eeek...I hope they've seen Poltergeist.

Thanks to the lovely Colleen for sending me the link!

Study buddies are the best

So, the wonderful news of the day is that my friend Heather and I have started a trend of being study buddies. This means that we have begun to meet for coffee and enjoy quiet tandem reading at around 2:00 pm on Mondays. This is lovely news for many reasons. But mainly it has to do with Mondays being notoriously hard days to get motivated, and 2:00 pm being a rather difficult time to sustain the feeling of being productive. What we've realized is having someone else around seems to keep us on task, and also allows us to have spontaneous moments of discussion about what we're separately working on. The fact that we're both historians, but study different areas is interesting too, since we often can offer suggestions, but still learn something new at the same time. What a nice new arrangement!

Today, Heather invited me to her house for coffee and studying there. We spent three hours pouring over our reading, and occasionally chatted about intriguing topics as they came up. I was trying to work through some scholarship on apprenticeship and service, while she was doing some preparatory reading for a presentation she has to give this Wednesday. In the course of my work, I was struck by the fact that the book I was reading, Men at Work: Labourers and building craftsmen in towns of northern England, 1450-1750, didn't list "poor" or "poverty" in the index. That would seem a critical oversight considering the book is about labourers in early modern towns.

Unrelated to history, Heather and I also had an interesting chat about living in college versus living out. I have to say, I loved her place. It's an adorable historic townhouse close-in on Cowley Road. Really close to the cool non-touristy shops, and about a 15 minute walk to the central University area. She shares it with 3 other people, and they have a great kitchen, cute backyard, living room, bedrooms, etc. They even had a table next to the landing on the stairs that displayed a huge jigsaw puzzle in process. The whole atmosphere was so laid-back, homey, and communal. I have to say, seeing it made me very interested in possibly "living out" next year. When I seemed interested in learning more about living out of college, Heather said that she was in the process of trying to figure out who of her current friends/roommates will still be in Oxford next year, and that depending on what they are doing (2 have applied for post-doctoral fellowships at Oxford and elsewhere) she might have an open room for me if I would like to live with her. It seems like living there would be really great in many ways (a house full of nice, studious, and fun DPhil students, and it costs less than living in college), so I'm definitely going to look into it more. Although, I think I would want to stay in college if the possibility of living in Heather's house falls through. Before she explained how great her situation is now, she told me the really bad experience she had living out in her 2nd year. It sounds like if you want to live out, it's critical to find the right landlord and the right housemates. All of which seem to be present in Heather's situation. It will be interesting to see what happens. I'll keep you updated!

Also, I finally had the nerve to ask if one of my friends would mind taking a picture with me for the benefit of those back home. Here is a pic of Heather and me doing our study buddy thing today. Enjoy!

I'm Gummy...how about you?

Ok, seriously, this was so cute I just had to post it:

Gummy Bears

You may be smooshie and taste unnatural, but you're so darn cute.

What Kind of Candy Are You?

And, it looks like I chose the right subject to study in school:

Your Scholastic Strength Is Deep Thinking

You aren't afraid to delve head first into a difficult subject, with mastery as your goal. You are talented at adapting, motivating others, managing resources, and analyzing risk. You should major in: Philosophy Music Theology Art History Foreign language

What Should You Major In?

The Emily Carr Party

At the end of first week every term, my college has a party, called "The Emily Carr Party." It's an event that the graduate student committee throws to try and help us start the term off on a low-stress high-fun note. I went to last term's party, but only stayed for a short while since I was still really tired from moving and didn't feel very social. Plus, last term's party had a kind of frat-party feel. And as many know frat parties aren't really my kind of scene.

Since last term's party was a bust, I had originally planned to skip this one. However, the president of our graduate committee also happens to be in my program and studying early modern urban British history. At our seminar last Thursday he asked me if I was planning to go to the party. He's been really sweet in his efforts to get me out and about and meeting people, so I told him I'd give the party another shot. I'm so glad I did.

Last night's party was much better organized and fun. Less "hormones on parade" and more "cool people talking about interesting things and having fun." I had a great time, met some really nice people, and even was able to have a Long Island Iced Tea (for the first time since leaving the States). Pretty cool. Other than the yummy (and free!) drinks, I spent most of my time talking with a woman doing an MsT in medieval English literature. Her master's topic sounds really intriguing because she is actually studying female authors from different periods (Elizabethan, Victorian, etc.) who wrote on medieval literature. She's in the process of applying to DPhil programs, but expressed her frustration on how her topic straddles so many periods that it is hard to find someone she could study under, and a program that would know where her topic fits. I feel for her frustration. It must be incredibly difficult to figure out where you want to study, if there are no obvious scholars doing the things you want to do. No easy answer really presents itself.

Other than the party, I've been having a fairly calm weekend. I'm trying to finalize my trip plans for my first visit to the Ipswich archives. I'm thinking I will try to be there for a few days in third week (so not this week, but the week after). I'm really excited about diving into the records and actually seeing the extent of what they have. Hopefully the next few weeks will be full of new and interesting discoveries. I'll definitely plan to keep you all updated on the progress!

What I am doing here

I was thinking today that it might be helpful for me to explain the larger picture of my DPhil thesis. As I mentioned earlier this week, I'm planning to look at apprenticeship of poor children as my topic for this term. However, the topic for my thesis is much larger than simply apprenticeship of the poor. In a broader sense, I am interested in trying to show the varied experiences of members of the "poor" in early modern English towns. Generally, historians have tended to lump the poor's experiences as a group in order to either explain them as a homogeneous mass or compare them to other generalized social groups (e.g. the elite, the middling sort). While this type of group generalization is very useful, I believe that it presents an oversimplified account of early modern society.

As most historians will admit (even though most scholarship would lead readers to think otherwise), members of the early modern poor did not experience life in an homogeneous way. The very nature of their lives was dynamic, piecemeal, and inconsistent, and changes to their situation could occur at any time due to a number of social, economic, and life-cycle factors. Usually, when I explain what I am doing to other historians they agree with my goal, but feel it will be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to realize. Perhaps the response I hear most often is "are there really sources rich enough for that kind of topic?" and/or "have you really been able to trace specific poor people?" The answer to both questions is, yes. At least, from what I can tell so far, it seems 99% sure to be a "yes." I was able to do a similar (albeit smaller) project when I was located in Portland and had no access to the vast record resources here in England. If my project was a success in Portland, it would seem highly improbable that a similar project would fail now, especially since I have access to records I could only dream about before.

While I admit that it is difficult to find sources that reveal specific pictures of the lives of people traditionally "hidden" from history (like those who were socially and economically disadvantaged), it is not impossible. What it is is time-consuming, tedious, sometimes frustrating, but also extremely rewarding. From my experience, what seems to hold historians back from this kind of enquiry is the pessimistic or defeated attitude that it can't be done. However, as I've found, the reality is much more optimistic than the myth.

Dreams

Well, today has started off to be one of my "weird days." As some know, occasionally I can have shaky mornings. It has to do with my body gobbling up too much glucose while I sleep. Consequently, sometimes when I wake up I feel disoriented and woozy until I can get everything evened out. This morning was one of those mornings. Luckily, I didn't have anywhere I desperately needed to be, so I was able to eat something and then go back to sleep for a few hours until things settled down. I know, everyone's jealous, it sounds great to be me. ;)

During the course of my early morning nap, I had some very interesting dreams. I know some people either can't remember their dreams or think dreams are just free entertainment our mind gives us each night, but I tend to probe a bit deeper than that. I love dreams. From my perspective they can reveal some interesting facets of ourselves that we either ignore or consciously supress in our waking lives. Of course, dreams can also just be crazy flights of fancy. However, like in real life, I can usually tell the difference between something fun and something real. Anyway, this morning's dreams were real, so I thought I would mention one.

The most memorable dream is one where I started out in my room here. I was tired and didn't know what I was supposed to be doing that day. So, I gathered up some books and decided to get on a bus. Of course, the bus I wound up boarding was a TriMet bus. So somewhere between me walking out the door and reaching High Street, I actually got on a plane and flew to Portland. Strange, but it seemed completely normal to me. I climbed on the bus and grabbed a seat. The bus was almost empty and it was bouncing along the road. Due to my existing tiredness and the rythmic bouncing, I soon feel asleep with my head propped against the window. As the bus was pulling away from a stop at OHSU , I woke up completely disoriented, glanced blearily at my watch, and realized I had been sleeping on the bus for over three hours. I immediately panicked, pulled the stop signal, and grabbed my books. The bus was approaching the last stop at OHSU, so I stood up to get off, thinking that I could go read the books at the university library (Jenn, if you're reading this, you did cross my mind in the dream, but you were already at residency in Iowa, so I couldn't come see you at the hospital.). As I stood up, I realized my eyesight was getting very dim, and my body was still very disoriented. I kind of stumbled my way to the front of the bus, half falling on people as I made my way. By the time I reached the front, I couldn't see anything. I was totally confused and the bus driver was worried, but he seemed more concerned with getting me off the bus safely than helping me. This probably had to do with him wanting to keep the bus on schedule. Anyway, he helped me down the stairs and left me confused, scared, and sightless on the outskirts of the OHSU campus.

Luckily, there was one person at the stop when I got off. I think he was a resident or a young doctor, because he went immediately into "medical help" mode when he saw me. I kept trying to tell him I was fine, and that I just needed to lie down for a bit and then everything would be ok. He seemed to have serious doubts about that. He helped me lie down on the grass and as he was starting to check all of my vital signs, I began to drift in and out of conciousness. At the same time my eyesight would return for a moment, but then go dark again. I remember feeling like his stress about my condition was sort of hovering above me, and I was really thankful for his help. Still, I decided the best thing I could do was just let go and trust that things would be alright. The last thing I remember is tilting my head off to the left and seeing his leg shaking as he worked to try and help me, a complete stranger. I felt so thankful for his help, since it meant I could release me own fear. (Again, Jenn, what you do is such a gift to other people!) I think it was a good dream about the process of learning to let go, have trust in other people, and faith that life really will work out the way it is supposed to. It was a complex, but nice way to re-begin my day.

Speaking of my day, and books, and libraries, I do need to get some work done. Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to the Bod I go...

Quote of the Day:
"He only gets like this when he wants money or love. Lame!" - Beanie ;)

The joy of economic historians

It's only 1:41 pm here (or 13:41 in Brit time), and I'm already thrilled with my day. The lecture series I signed up for this term is brilliant.

To give a tad of backstory, the DPhil program I am in is an Arts program - meaning, when I graduate I will recieve a doctorate of philosophy in History, which is considered one of the Arts, not a Social Science. There is a history program at Oxford where you can receive a DPhil in history with a basis in Social Science. However, for that program you have to focus on economic history, and take lots of econ classes, and be incredibly enthused about numbers/statistics. The difference between the two programs centers mainly on how the historians approach "doing history."

As with most subdivided fields there are overlaps, and some social historians (what I am) dabble in economic issues (which I do), and some economic historians dabble in social issues. Overall, this fluid boundary works well. However, it becomes problematic when someone initiates dabbling without the proper background in the dabbled area. I will be the first to admit, I have a poor grasp on economics (modern and historical). To rectify this problem, I decided to crash an economic history methodology lecture series this term (with the prior consent of the professor, of course).

My first class was this morning at 11 am...and it totally blew my mind.

Economics was not what made this class so interesting. In fact, the prof spoke very little on that subject. What rocked my world was the revelation of the program's view on "valid" ways to go about researching and explaining the past. What they (or at least, this professor) consider the key differences between "scholarship" and "art." From the lecture, it seems many economic historians would consider most post-modern social historians work as "art" not "scholarship." This is because post-modernist methodology is based on the idea that there is no way to discern "truth." On the other hand, social science necessitates the belief in "truth," since uncovering the "truth" (or "the answer") is what motivates their work. From the social science historians' standpoint, what motivates post-modernist work is (what the prof termed) "individual arousal." In other words, if a post-modern social historian enjoys a topic, they study it, and then come up with their own subjective representation of the topic. However, they will not say it's "true," they will say "this is possible." The gist of today's lecture was that the work of most post-modern historians is one step above Hollywood "historical" blockbusters. And, like these Hollywood blockbusters, post-modern history is not scholarship, it is informed entertainment.

Wow.

Now, I've heard criticisms of post-modern history before, but I've always heard them from social historians working for change from the "inside." What I experienced today was completely different, no-holds-barred, and must have been similar to when the doctor slapped my bottom after I was born. Only this time it was my brain screaming for clarity instead of my lungs. What he said made sense - a lot of sense - the kind of sense that has me questioning my own methods and beliefs when it comes to what I do, and what kind of historian I want to become. Do I believe in historical truth? Am I doing "good history" when I give "qualitative" instead of "quantitative" interpretations of sources? At this point I have no idea, but it's something that will be occupying much larger portions of my brain power from this day forward.

Quote of the day:

"Whatever their interpretation of history, they won't say
that Belgium invaded Germany." -Clemenceau

10 years is a long time

As my earlier post may have indicated, this week I've had thoughts of high school running through my brain. Usually, I'm not one to get very sentimental about high school. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. And towards the end, I just wanted to leave it. All in all, fairly standard emotional fare for the teenage human subset. However, it has come to my attention that 2006 is the year of my 10-year HS reunion. I'm almost 100% sure that I can't attend (living in the UK and all), just like I couldn't attend my 5-year reunion (Portland is like 3000 miles from where I grew up). I'm not really bummed about that, since there are only a handfull of people I would care to see. What I am bummed about is how this is just one more indication that my "carefree" cough 20s are quickly coming to a close. I don't remember signing up for the "lightspeed" lifetime. What the hell happened?

As for school, today I went to my first seminar for the term. It's a little later than the early modern period I study (1490-1680, give or take a decade); it focuses on what is called the "Long 18th century," which basically means 1680-1820, or so. Most historians still consider the "Long Eighteenth century" early modern because it predates the main thrust of the Industrial Revolution, which really got going around the middle of the 19th century. Anyway, I wanted to attend this seminar series so I could get a better understanding of how issues during my period may have continued or changed in the following centuries. The speaker at today's seminar gave an intriguing paper on Scots law concerning masters and servants. It was quite interesting and very germane to the topic I'm planning to research in Ipswich this term. I learned a great deal about the differences between Scots and English apprenticeship/labor law. Even though technically British law should have been united at the time, the Scots tended to do their own thing if the King's law contradicted the local legal custom. Like I said, very enlightening stuff! I'm glad I went.

Well, I think it's "winding down and getting ready to sleep" time...

Quote of the day:
"I like nonesense. It wakes up the brain cells." - Dr. Seuss

Give me your pillow...

One of the first things I learned after moving to the UK was that sleep is a precious gift. For my first three months here, I averaged about 5 hours of sleep each day, usually between about 5-10 am. Frequently, I couldn't sleep at all. After the third week of trying to explain my insomnia as "jetlag" I began to wonder if I would ever sleep normally again. Then, two months passed and I still had insomnia. At that point, my situation seemed incurable. As I'm sure you can imagine, lack of sleep coupled with trying to settle into the Oxford experience made for a very challenging term. I realize some may scoff and think "pthbtt...I've done plenty of things on 5 hours of sleep perfectly well." To those, I submit two truths:

• You haven't done those things well.

• I need more sleep than you.

Now that we have that cleared up...;) back to my insomniatic whining. So, after months of sleeplessness, I thought I had licked the problem over the holiday break. Five weeks of de-stressing, movie watching, and holiday cheer, also marked the celebrated return of my normal sleep cycle. Heck, just this morning, I woke up at 7 am - well before my alarm went off, and after a full 8 hours of sleep. Life was good.

If life's happiness is determined by sleep (and if I wasn't a blackjack-only kind of girl, I'd put a chunk of change on that), then life at 2:40 am ain't so hot. My archnemesis, insomnia, has returned. BUT, thanks to my loving parents, I do have a new secret weapon. When all else fails, Tylenol PM can kick some massive insomnia butt. Tylenol PM seems to be on the UK MIA list, along with the Bounce dryer sheets. Just took one of those little blue bad boys a few minutes ago, and I can already feel my eyelids starting to droop. A big thanks to my parents for sponsoring tonight's sleeping experience. You guys are the best.

'til next time.

And the adventure begins..well...ok, began...

In the hopes of keeping myself and my family and friends sane, I’ve decided it’s high time that I make good on my promise to start a TAG in England blog. How something that sounds suspiciously like a cross between “blah” and “frog” can spread joy to the masses, is hard for me to understand. Still, blogs have become a 21st century 20-something craze, and since I am both 20-something and somewhat craze-y, my not having one seemed, well, wrong. On top of the wrongness, I’ve also begun to worry that my constant stream of random email musings could be quietly driving some people mad, or worse, causing them to wonder how much it would cost to have me committed. If you have been having those thoughts, I assure you my life at Oxford can, at times, resemble a padded room – so, fear not, I’m already partially there. ;)

Well, after I wrote the previous paragraph, I had to run off to what I thought was my first class of this (Hilary) term. I thought the early modern Palaeography class offered this term was second in a series. Unfortunately, when I walked into the room the very kind British professor said that I’ve “already had my fill of early modern Palaeography at Oxford.” Wow. Who knew someone could master such a complex skill just by going to a one-term class…then again, I am at Oxford, and these are the best teachers in the world…

With Palaeography off of my schedule, it looks like I only have two seminar series and one lecture series to attend this term. Since I met with my supervisor last night and it became clear that I need to spend a great deal of time in Ipswich at the historical records office there, having a fairly light “class” schedule will be helpful. My supervisor also informed me that I will need to present a short paper at my core early modern history seminar in 7th or 8th week (read: early March). Eeek! This is exciting, but also nerve-wracking, news. The paper I present will need to be based on my research in the records office, so I definitely need to get over to Ipswich, pronto! I’ve decided to explore the experiences of early modern poor children (both girls and boys) in this first round of trips to Ipswich. By looking through court records, poor relief records, and apprenticeship bond lists, I will try to figure out which poor children were taken from their households (read: families) and put into service (read: bonded to a non-family member as an apprentice, usually for 7 years); what kinds of service they were made to do; how their experiences may have differed based on their gender; and whether or not they were taken with their parents’ consent. It looks like it’s possible many children were taken without their parents consent, so this research could be enlightening on the make-up and break-up of early modern poor families and households. I’m quite excited about the topic. Hopefully it will make a good seminar paper/presentation.

Since it would be rather lengthy and boring for many, I won’t try to recap everything that has happened over the last few months. But, if I were to sum it all up in one sentence it would (strangely) be the same as my senior quote from my high school yearbook: some of it’s magic, and some of it’s tragic, but I had a good time all the way. Yes, that is Jimmy Buffet…back off, he’s got some pretty good songs. ;) Ok, so when I re-read that it does sound pretty corny...fine, go ahead and laugh, but you know your senior quote was just as bad!

'til next time.

Quote of the day:

The torch near the dynamite thing, not making a whole lot of sense to me

- Hurley