Work, work, work

Well, it's been over a week since my last post, but I'm happy to report the main cause of this has been the crazy hours I've been spending on my research. Case in point, it's 4:15 AM here, and about an hour ago, I finally finished working for the day. In an effort to unclench my mental hooks from the social structure of Elizabethan Ipswich, I decided to watch an episode of Garfield before trying to sleep. Now, I'm writing a blog entry. Hopefully after this I'll actually feel tired.

That thought leads me to my next point: as I get further into my research I seem to be getting completely sucked in to my work. Hours will pass without my noticing. I think this might be one of the only drawbacks of getting to throw yourself into work that inspires you. Still, at some point I'm going to have to figure out a way to get my mind to stop its continuous analysis of my research. Even as I type this, I'm still thinking about the sources I read earlier tonight and what they could mean, different arguments I could make, and how this will all coalesce into a paper. Me obsessed? Nope, not at all. ;-)

Anyhoo, outside of my obsession with work, life has been going pretty well over here. The dinner I went to last week was nice. Stuart worked his magic with the kitchen, so I was able to eat a wonderful three-course vegetarian meal. On another dinner note, I've been invited to be a guest at a formal dinner at Exeter college tomorrow night. This will be my first time eating at a different college, so it should be interesting and fun. I'll let you know how it goes.

Also, it looks like plans are moving forward with the seminar series a some other students and I are putting together for next year. We are meeting this Wednesday to come up with our final list of potential guest speakers. We just decided to try and run the seminar for two terms next year, instead of just one. I'm very excited with how the seminar seems to be coming together. I'll be sure to keep you updated as we finalize the details.

Okeedokee, time for an attempt at sleep!

Happiness, and last minute dinners

I am so so so incredibly happy, my wonderful parents (most especially, my wonderful Bradad) have already acquired my plane tickets home for this coming winter holiday season. Knowing I'll be home for almost 3 weeks next winter makes me all giddy!! Wheeee!! :)

Thank you Bradad, I love you!!

In Oxford-related news, it looks like I've been signed up for a "guest dinner" in Lincoln's Hall tomorrow night. I hadn't planned on doing anything for V Day (I actually prefer "Sweetest Day," but that's another story), but the MCR (like the Lincoln graduate student body council) president asked me if I was going to go to the dinner, said I should, and said he would sign me up, so I gave in and agreed. This all happened during a conversation at a pub on Friday night. Consequently, amidst pints and chatter, I forgot to mention to him that I am a vegetarian. A quick note about being veggie at Oxford - they're totally veggie-friendly, but they like their veggies "declared." Thus, if you're planning to eat in-college at a meal or an event, they ask that you let them know your dietary requirements before you come. So, by not mentioning my veggieness on Friday, I forgot to "declare." Sigh. I tried to fix this in an email to Stuart today, but he had turned in the list late Friday night. Kindly, he offered to go in to talk to the kitchen tomorrow morning to see if they can be flexible for me. What a nice guy. Keep your fingers crossed, hopefully the kitchen will be benevolent.

The sneer vs. the smirk

Something that has bugged me for awhile now is that I seem to lack the requisite facial muscle to sneer. Most of my friends can sneer like they are Billy Idol's long lost twin. However, when I try, I resemble someone who just drank a liter of lemon juice. In short: Billy Idol, I am not.

Still, my coolness factor hasn't been completely debased. I've recently discovered that while I may be sneering-challenged, I am a pro at smirking. So much so that I even have dimples when I smirk. These are both interesting revelations (at least to me). It was in the midst of admiring my newly uncovered rockin' facial expression in the mirror (replete with said dimples) where I decided there must be two kinds of people in this world - the sneerers and the smirkers. While these groups may overlap in the occasional talented individual, I have a feeling the groups are fairly distinct. I think it has something to do with dominant personality traits...the smirkers obviously having a more coy approach to life in general. Vive les smirkers!! ;)

A picture to break you in

Since it looks like my wonderful parents may be coming to visit in only 4 weeks, I thought it might be a good idea to post an up-close picture of me, just to break them in to some changes. Nothing too drastic (no pink hair mom, I promise), but my hair is much longer, and I've lost a good bit of weight.



Alrighty, I need to finish up some reading and then get ready for my core seminar tonight at 5. I'm looking forward to seeing my supervisor there and giving him an update on my research progress!

Me, me, me, me, meme (redone)

Since my last me meme is now lost in cyberspace somewhere, I thought I would give it another go. In order to make it interesting for the people who had a chance to see the first one, I'm going to go with 5 new things you probably don't know about me...no promises on whether or not you'll find them as interesting as the first list. ;)

1) I was born in the wonderful (and now tragically damaged) city of New Orleans and lived there with my mom, natural father, and adorable puppy Shasta until I was two. From what I've been told, my natural father was descended from a "founding" family of French privateers (read: state-sanctioned pirates) who settled in Louisiana well before Lousiana was "purchased." According to "oral family tradition," at one point these ancestors owned almost half of the land in New Orleans, but their love of gambling and other vices promptly forced them to sell off most of their holdings (I guess a good pirate never is moderate in anything. ;))Over the years, I have developed romantic notions that this part of my geneology is filled with shady and devilishly handsome ancestors who swung about on sail rigging whilst singing "it's a pirates life for me," but in French, of course. To complete the picture, their female counterparts are all bewitching dark-haired cajun beauties full of mystery, intriguing secrets, and a variety of bejewled daggers deftly hidden in their bodices. I'm fairly sure most of the wild, dark, and intense parts to my personality stem from the pirate's blood coursing through my veins...or at least, that's what seeing Pirates of the Caribbean told me...

2) My blood type is A+...that's right, I'm bloody brilliant...:P

3) My most valuable posession is a Brown University teddy bear my grandfather gave me. He (the teddy) not only travelled to the UK with me, he travelled as my personal companion on every flight from Portland to London. The number of tears this teddy has caught and the huggles (just slam "hug" and "snuggle" together and you'll get it) he has received cannot be counted. My Brown University bear is truly irreplaceable, as is my grandfather.

4) If I could travel anywhere in the world (not to see anyone, but just to go see the place), I would fly immediately to Mumbai, India. My best friend in high school was East Indian-American and I was absolutely intrigued by her family's culture. Ok, so while I know Mumbai is the largest city in India and isn't really "real" India (just like "New York" ain't really "real" America), I think Mumbai is a good pick for a first time traveller to India.

5) Unlike most of my friends, I don't associate colors with numbers. However, I do associate my friends with colors. Here are some examples: Colleen is a swirling combination of orange and yellow, Jenn is white, and Robin is pink. :)

How to be a Superstar...Jem style

Oh my. I just spent the last hour winding down and trying to get sleepy by reconnecting with a long lost love...and when I say "lost," I mean "axed by Hasbro" and when I say "love," I mean "made me forget about My Little Ponies" - while this may not sound like love, believe me, for a little girl in 1985, it was.

Mom, remember when I told you I wanted to be a rock video girl when I grew up, and you promptly considered locking me in my room until I was 50? Well, it was the "truly, truly, truly, outrageous...ohhohh, ohhohh" Jem and the Holograms who you can blame for creating that desire. While Indiana Jones proved to have the more lasting effect on my occupational aspirations, Jem definitely gave poor Indy a run for his money. Seriously, this show may have only aired for three years, but to make an impression on me, one show would have been enough. Three whole seasons was like a lifetime back then. By the end of the run, I couldn't remember a time when Jem hadn't existed.

While the Transformers were whining about energon cubes, and GI Joes were freaking out about snake people, Jem and the Holograms were teaching us kids the important stuff...like how to be a superstar and use your powers for good! *Showtime Synergy*

Records, records, everywhere!

Hello from Ipswich!

I just wrapped up my first full day at the records office here, and I'm already feeling like I've found some intriguing research avenues to follow. I spent most of the day reading apprenticeship bonds from the 1590s, which were recorded by the town clerk in a 16th century account book. The book I was looking at began in the 1570s and continues through the 1640s. I made great use of the record office allowing readers to take digital photos of documents, so I've attached a picture of one of the bonds so you can see what it looks like. Yes, it really is written in English. ;)

As pretty (or, perhaps to others, wretchedly archaic) as the handwriting can be, the photos are not just aesthetically pleasing. Taking the photos allows me to skim through most of the documents (400 or so written pages) for critical but fairly mundane info (like names, dates, gender, trade) without having to worry about making a full transcription of the whole entry. Transcription I can do at Oxford, but figuring out which documents/entries are critical to my research, I cannot. All in all, I took about 115 photos today - mostly of apprenticeship bonds, but also about 20 pictures are of payments of poor relief in the 1570s and 1580s. Pretty much any document I came across that had a list of named members of the poor in the 16th century, I photoed. I was happy to see there were quite a few!

So, yay! It has been a wonderfully exciting and rewarding day. And even better, I still have tomorrow morning to find more stuff! After this trip, I can tell I will have a good start on finding sources to analyze for my topic. Wonderful!