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