Grad School Defined

From the lovely Mel:

"The change from undergraduate course work to graduate course work is somewhat of a shock to the system, like someone's doused me with a bucket of cold water. Cold water filled with BOOKS and FISTS."

Philosophia siue sapientia?

Today I'm sitting down to write my abstract for my Margery Kempe paper. All I have to do is bang out 200 words of what I plan to write, and then I can forget her for a month or two. Longer, if I decide to go with the long-established custom of writing a paper the week before it's due to be presented.

I'm also starting to assemble my thoughts on St Katherine of Alexandria, of whom a half-dozen vitae were written in late Medieval England. She was pretty popular, and remarkable for passages where she asserts her right to rule in her own right. Relevant to me, she gets into an argument with Emperor Maxentius, who waxes "wroth and wod" several times. The language used to describe Katherine's wisdom and the emperor's great anger is very interesting.

In the Legenda Aurea version, there is a fascinating digression on the types of wisdom and how they all apply to Katherine. It's almost Scholastic in tone and the way is neatly divides and categorises the species. All of a sudden, I feel the need to consult with David, and I'm blessing the times in the past we've talked about Scholastic philosophy, and also the Book of Twenty-Four Philosophers, which this passage also reminds me of.

It's strange. As much as I despise doing philosophy, I'm absolutely drawn to it in contexts like this. I'm far more interested in what this passage is doing here than I am by the rest of the story. Given the context of 13th century English hagiography, what the heck is "Philosophia enim siue sapientia diuiduntur in theoricam, praticam et logicam" doing in a life of an early-Church martyr? Why? Now I'm actually excited to have read these stupid vitae.

And finally, I'm a couple days late on this one, but check out this strip from the awesome comic Get Medieval. It's totally about my research! Woo!

Well, it's finally happening

Tonight we had an extended discussion regarding "puddings." I have know what a "pudding" is for some time now, but it's still very weird to hear in context. J. was looking for cream so he could pour it on a pudding. Cream is a popular condiment, it seems. People pour it on angel food and sponge (omitting the designator "cake"), on pie, on sticky toffee pudding, on ice cream (ice cream "isn't moist enough"). Unsweetened cream. Meanwhile, they have no concept of what North Americans mean by "pudding," and I ended up explaining it as "sort of a runny custard, but with chocolate or other flavours." And they were quite weirded out when I mentioned putting sharp cheddar on apple pie.

We also discussed biscuits today. Hearing cookies referred to as biscuits hasn't been a problem so far, partly because of my poor Nana's experience all those years ago. But then I tried to explain North American biscuits and came up short again. "Like scones, but not sweet, and not as good" is what I came up with.

Anyone have any better ideas?

And finally, as regards the title of this post, I am, at last, starting to pick up an accent. It's a weird little accent, since most of the people I live with speak with an RP accent, or with a North American one. There's at least one German, and there's a Dutch accent in one of my classes. (It's actually kind of comforting to hear those accents, since they remind me of l'Arche!) And there's a dizzying variety of accents on the telly. And many people in town speak with a Northern accent. And somewhere in the back of my head live Aunt Florence and Uncle Kevin and the cousins, but especially Flo's Cape Breton accent. So I'm coming out with this rather garbled strange accent, and it'll be interesting to see where it settles in the end.

And completely random, but there's another person in the house who's a Slings & Arrows fan! She has only seen Season One, so we are going to take over the telly some night, bwaha!!

A shared kitchen: reflections

Those of you who know me might be surprised, but I have become very, very tidy in the kitchen. There are 20 or so people who use the same kitchen, so courtesy is what makes it work.

I always, always do my dishes right away, unless they're up in my room. The only way I can avoid guilt over dirty dishes is to make sure I never, ever leave any. The sink is quite often full of dirty dishes, and I know I'd eventually start feeling guilty about them and clean the whole mess. But if I always clean up, I know for certain that nothing in the pile is mine. Saves me work in the long run.

That said, I also really like having surfaces clean, and it really bothers me when people leave crumbs or smears of sauce. So I end up doing a certain amount of cleaning up after others anyway, but only when it directly affects me, because we have a cleaner who does the counters and tables.

In other news, my house is going out to the pub on Monday. There's a local place that hosts live folk music every Monday and Thursday, so we're going as a group. I have also emailed Heather Dale about it, because she is always looking for new venues and I know she's touring the UK this year. Woot!

I just want to gloat a bit...

Remember how I said it was -20 when I left?

It's +11 here.

Yes, England Is Wet

People have asked me, "Is England really as wet and rainy as the stereotype?"

The answer is yes.

I present to you:
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
Exhibit D
Exhibit E
Exhibit F
Exhibit G

I've been told there's a bar here that's particularly susceptible to flooding. Apparently it's something of a gimmick, and people think it's hilarious to go drink beer with their wellies on.

Dear You,

You're not online, so I'm leaving you a note. The ticket is yours! July 29th: you, me, the Doctor, Hamlet. It's a date.

Woo!