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Her: (looking at my Bod Card) Is your name always spelt like that - with a small G? (On my Bod Card, the first three letters of my name read 'Mcg' not 'McG')
Me: Er... No. In fact, I never spell it like that.
Her: It's just that I have an Irish name too, O'Connor, and the library is always getting it wrong - my details are always spelt differently. Sometimes large O, sometimes small one. And I think it's really rude, you know?
Me: Well, I suppose it shows that people don't take the care when copying out.
Her: Oh, not so much that. It's just when it's a Anglicizing of a Gaelic name, and then they Anglicize the Anglicization. It just shows a lack of respect for the language and culture.
Right well, to start with, I consider myself about as Irish as the Irish pub on Park End St. In fact, they sometimes have live Irish music , so maybe they beat me? I have Irish family, and am interested in the literature and culture and history - but I don't consider that I have a strong personal connection to it. I was not personally wronged by the Potato Famine. I might on some levels agree that Northern Ireland should be part of Eire, but that's an informed political position, not a claim for a reunion of the nine counties that make up my ancestral home.
In fact, I find it more culturally insensitive for me to kick up a fuss about the "English" not respecting the Gaelic heritage of my name. I don't have any right to claim something that isn't really mine - to put it crudely, Translations is not about me. This woman had an English accent, but maybe she did have some deeper connection to Ireland than I do, so I'm not going to judge her stance. But to be honest, the whole episode made me quite uncomfortable - co-opting me into a culture war that isn't mine, or not considering my family might be from Northern Ireland and so (even with a Catholic name) I might consider myself British not Gaelic. It's not that I don't agree that misspelling people's names is bad form, or even that it shows an amount of cultural insensitivity but that I was asked to play the role of the colonised in a struggle that isn't mine. I'm also not sure she'd have asked a Qureshi or a Chowdhury the same question.
A Catholic name can also come in handy, though. When my boyfriend's parents came up the other week, his mum told us that his grandmother - devout Catholic from near Gateshead, in her 80s and with Altzhiermer's who I am yet to meet - had asked her if I was a Catholic. His mum told her my family was Irish, and my surname and apparently the reply was "Oh, that's all right then" - no questions about actual faith asked.
I feel like such a fool because it was absolutely my fault (you kind of know that when your front wheel hits their back wheel at a right angle), but I really didn't see him coming until I cycled into him - I guess he was going fast, bent down over a racing bike, with slightly dim lights (no good from side on anyway) and wearing black.
No one was hurt - although he flew rather spectacularly over the handle bars, before landing in the really good "rolling on to your shoulder" way that suggested this maybe wasn't the first fall. But he went a few metres. He then hopped up to my repeated cries of "Oh my God! I'm so sorry! Are you all right? Is your jacket all right? Is your bike all right?" He claimed to be fine, and even had a rather sheepish smile - I would have been in tears from the shock and cursing the idiot that rode into me. After making sure he really was all right - and I suspect he's probably aching now, but otherwise he was really fine - he left, which meant I felt at a bit of a loss, because beyond apologising there's not really much one can do when someone is fine.
But perhaps I actually got the worst of it. The impact really jarred my shoulder which now aches - hot shower and Ibruprofen coming up. I know it's not hurt badly, but it is annoying. More annoying is the fact that the impact knocked my handlebars off centre, and I am too much of a wimp to try to fix them myself - I'm scared of not tightening it up properly - even though I have a toolkit, so a visit to the bike repair people. Which will cost money... grr...
But even then I lie, because really I'm just annoyed at how stupid I was to cycle into another bike!
http://beatonna.livejournal.com/83843.ht
Please - comments soon. Need to know. My presentation is about Percy Shelley... and New Historicism. But there are no New Historicism cartoons.
A Course: 1780-1900
Boy-who-could-be-a-Romantic-writer-in-lo
Overly-enthusiastic-American-girl: Waaaay too into Kant. And all "Why aren't we doing Blake?" last week. Erm... because we have enough reading. More than enough, thanks all the same.
Deadly-serious-American-boy: Intense Keatsian. Wears a lot of black Tried to talk to him about 'Bright Star' movie and whether he was excited. His response: "Er... yeah, well I guess if you like period pieces" - implying he doesn't and no serious person would. Also today, he told me he was going to Paris to see his girlfriend and because his "permanent residence is there". Of course it is, he's just the type.
Camp-American: Wearer of natty waistcoats and pastel shirts. Entertaining.
Clever-Oxford-boy: The quiet sort but obviously dead smart. Early Romanticist, so calmer than us later types. Thought he disliked me, but now think he likes and respects me, and we just have fundamentally different approaches.
Wonderfully-mad-Romantics-girl: Another Oxfordian who it still feels ok to admit that I think the Romantics were really cool as people to. We had a conversation about which Romantic we would most like to have married. She picked Blake, which I will NEVER understand.
Second-prettiest-boy-in-the-class: Has very soft looking blonde hair. Slightly too soft looking, which implies he would be worse shepherd/knight-at-arms/student of the unhallowed arts than boy with curls, as would be possibly be denied access to expensive shampoo.
Hippy-looking-American-girl: Told me and Mad Romantics Girl that she liked our energy. We like hers too. And she has lovely hair.
That's just a selection - there's about 20 of us in the A Course. And then I have the Americanists too - who so far seem a little less defined in my mind. It feels a bit like 'Art School Confidential' - anyone seen that film? But its fun. And getting to know new people has been such fun. I do, however, feel a little unprepared for serious scholarship. Oh well...
Am so, so, so, so scared about formulating this question. Made more scared by this being the first time in ages I've been writing at 1am. How did I get so disorganised now? I was relatively on top of things last term. If this is what American Literature does to me, maybe I should stop now. In spite of all this stress and weirdness, I'm really quite happy. Terrified but happy. After all, as we said last year, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen in Hilary, Term Of Doom. So, you know, how bad can it be?
Boyfriend posted this link on my facebook to this t-shirt he saw on a website he frequents - a love of good t-shirts is one of the things we share. Anyway, I liked it so much that I had to buy it - and it wasn't really that expensive - even though I should be spending money on classics of American Literature instead, and I just spent some on American Apparel that was not in the sale, but I convinced myself I needed (as in a practical not emotion sense) rather than just wanted. But yes, there are not many theory-geek t-shirts around, and the thought of wearing it to the English Faculty filled me with glee.
I have also developed an irrational desire for a needle-cord pinafore dress from Laura Ashley in a rusty kind of colour, identical to one I used to have when I was ten or eleven. It would go really well with this brown shirt I bought from Gap in the sales, and I want to create a kind of Little House on the Prarie look. I have been scouring Ebay with no success.
What I really should be thinking about - rather than my personal fashion concept - is writing my Masters statement for Oxford and finishing editting my thesis. I know the latter is not as complex or has as good an argument as my Paper 7 (this in no way sets my paper 7 as some kind of glorious benchmark for future essays only to aspire to, I might add), and I have a feeling that I am trying to make an argument using 6,000 words and two plays that really needs two entire years of English theatre, if not more, and a whole book on the topic in order for it to be convincing. But, in reality, it is a fall back in case something goes really wrong - and I think it's quite a solid piece. It has a coherent argument, some neat points of analysis, beaucoup de historical context due to the subject of the essay and is on some slightly obscure texts - a combination which should hit mid-2.1 and prevent utter disaster befalling me if the Medieval Paper goes as badly as I fear it might.
My other MA problem is the essays - it's either 2 x 2,000 words or 1 x 4,000 words. I don't write 2,000 word essays (i'm not a concise person), so the first one gets tossed out of the window. Secondly, the essay should be on a relevent topic, and as I am applying for English and American Studies, this should probably be American lit. So this means my first tutorial essay - I will only have time to write one before the deadline - needs to be really good. Obstacles to this are having done fuck all holiday reading and having a Shakespeare colllection which I haven't yet revised for. The only good thing is that I have J.Hillis Miller's Hawthorne and History, the intended topic of my first essay, in my bedroom. My trust in Hillis Miller is implicit, so somehow this will all come together.
( The Big Fat Livejournal Quiz of the Year )
I don't reallt know why I'm posting this but I feel the need to share my thought processes of the last twenty minutes. My copy of Moby Dick arrived today and upon opening it, I discovered that it had some of Melville's letters to Hawthorne printed in the back. A quick flick through them shocked me to my literary core. There are full of 'my dear Hawthorne's and basically read like 'Nathaniel, you're a genius and we are so, like, soul mates, let's back in our literary amazingness'. Now this shocked me because (and this is exactly what went through my head) I'd always thought Herman Melville would have had the same personality as Joseph Conrad.
As I though this, I realised how stupid this is. Firstly, I have no idea what Joseph Conrad was like. So what I really meant was, I thought they would both be quite introverted, gruff, manly men who didn't really talk much. Why do I think people who write about the sea are like that? What a random conclusion to come to.
A quick wikipedia trawl tells me that actually Melville was somewhat of a loner, and the whole thing with Hawthorne was juts a one off. Besides, it didn't last probably because Melville's career went down the pan and I'm sure Hawthorne was like "Sorry, Herman, it was good when you were doing that whole whale thing that people liked, but since Pierre... I'm a hot literary property, I gotta be careful who I associate with". Conrad, conversely, apparently had a 'true genius for companionship' (Wikipedia), so I was totally wrong about him. Sorry, Joe.
The rest of my day in London was far more fun. The office was in Bloomsbury so I went to the British Museum - I'd never been before - and had a pre-Athens preview of all the stuff the Victorians plundered. It's fabulous - I had such a great time amongst the tourists looking at all of the antiquities. And there was a great little temporary exhibition of American prints - some Hopper, who I really love, and this amazing book which had kind of weird parable like stories on one side and prints on the other - it was by a woman and her name and the title of the book escape me... Then I sat aorund in Russel Square reading my book and pretending to be Virginia Woolf, before meeting friends for dinner and drinks and catching the late train home.
It was also the parents' 25th wedding anniversary yesterday - us kids bought them a ceramic plate, with a silvery Raku glaze on it. They really liked it, which was good because on Tuesday night when I wrapped it I was having second thoughts. I like my taste in art, but I always have a slight awareness that, like my taste in books, films, food and music, it is not my mother's.
During one of my mum's evening monologues - well, conversation with me, only I shut up and she goes on and on... - she glanced upon the topic that when she and my dad first rented a bedsit - off a couple they knew well, I might add - the couple were somewhat apprehensive about renting it to them because they were unmarried. I used this as an opening and said that just proved how backward this area is because, hell, this was the 1980s and unmarried people lived together all the time (my parents married in 1983, and I believe they lived together for a couple of years at least before that). My parents said that this wasn't the case, my dad citing an example of some workmates of his who told him well done for getting my mum to live with him without him marrying her!
So, I kind of want to discover whether Warwickshire was behind trend in this. I would therefore appreciate information on whether your parents lived together before marriage - if they never married, or never lived together you can tell me this too. Approximate dates would also be useful; I am aware that my parents are quite young compared to some people's, because neither of them went to university and I am their first child. Also, any other information that may have influenced their domestic choices. Any help proving my parents wrong is greatly welcomed!
I actually considered applying for both of these positions.
A well established company is looking to recuite female chat line operators. You must have a uk landline and be over 18. The hours are flexible, this job would ideally suit single parents as it works round your life style.You are paid per minute at a very competative rate. It involves trolling. You are paid monthly. If interested please e mail me with any previous experiance you may have along with a telephone contact number i can reach you on. No time wasters please.
And...
I am an amateur writer who is trying to start writing Erotic short stories, potentially for future publication. I don't yet know whether my style and content will appeal to any publishers. I may ultimately just publish them to the web for others to read.
I find it easier to be creative when not restrained by my limited typing skills! Hence a self employed open minded person with the following attributes. Location and timings are flexible within reason and travelling distance of Coventry. Ideally weekday daytimes or evenings.
By the nature of the fact that the stories are erotic, someone who is open minded and wouldn't be easily offended. Ideally looking for someone with reasonable PC, Word Processing, spelling and typing skills. The ability to type 30 to 40 words per minute should be adequate. A PC isn't necessary as you can use my laptop.
I am really not sure how this will develop, so it would initially be for a paid trial session or two, with a view to continuing if successful.
Rate: £6.00/Hr
Please email me with a brief outline of why you think you would be suitable and a contact number in order that we can discuss further.
Many thanks
I still haven't entirely written off the second one. I'd like to know if it's a women, because then I'd feel a bit safer. Transcribing the erotic fiction of a man (and I picture him being an old man... with facial hair, and maybe an outlandish waistcoat) would make me feel a little too much like I was in someone's erotic novel. Also, my mother would go spare if she knew I was typing up someone's erotic short stories in a cafe in Coventry.
I'm not sure why I'm so obsessed with fliing up the weeks that I'm not working. I'm not totally ruined, so I don't know where my need to earn money has come from. Perhaps I just want a legitimate excuse to have the car and thus enable me to leave the house for the day.
I have spent the past few days putting a load of cds purchased in my teenage pop-punk/emo-kid years on my lap top. I think I neglected this task earlier due to coming to Oxford and the fact that I thought a lot of this stuff wasn't cool anymore. I mean, it wasn't cool then - it's about the only time I was ahead of a trend. I had band t-shirts, heavy eyeliner, short hair with a side fringe and thick glasses before anyone else! (I am so resentful that the whole emo thing caught on about two years after I stopped doing it. When I talked about emo, everyone looked at me like I was a fool and now it's in the Daily Mail). Anyway, yes, inspired by a slight boredom of electro/dance/uber-hip/new rave etc and a conversation extolling favourite moments(and I don't mean songs, I mean actually moments) of 'Tell All Your Friends' by Taking Back Sunday at the lingusits leaving party with Muso-English-Fresher, I've started adding stuff. Selectively, of course, so the stuff that was always bad but I listened to because it was "punk rock" gets filtered out. This has spawned a slight obsession with The Ataris song 'San Dimas High School Football Rules', interesting because of its reference to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures, but ultimately unhelpful for Uni Challenge stress. The music round will not be on late 90s/early 00's pop-punk.
Took my nana food shopping today (she doesn't drive) and did the shopping for our house at the same time - on parents card obviously, I'm not that generous. I actually don't mind trawling round Tesco's when I am buying enough food to fill a trolley and have a car to put it all in. It also means I get to buy food I like, which can be different to what my mum likes, causing me to lament the fact that being at home means eating mum's cooking (lots of stuff involving vegeatables in tinned tomatoes over mashed potatoes). My mum cooks well and her food is much more falvoursome than mine, but it just wouldn't be my choice of stuff. Then, when I try to cook for the family, she sort of takes over or doesn't eat what I make, or we don't have the right ingredients for my kind of cooking. So yes, doing the shopping means I can go a step to solving this problem. I think it's a thing mother's and children face once we get our own homes and start moving away - we start having our own ways of doing things.
Had my very last tute with my Bordering-on-Incompetant tutor today, which was frankly kind of bizarre. Firstly, we discussed my Fulbright Application, because, y'know, I'd asked him before term started to write a reference and he finally does it two days before the deadline. Good thing is he thought it was a strong application, and he told me he'd said nice things about me and that I had 'talent and committment, which is good'. (Also heard from Medieval!Housemate that he, I and Language-Whizz! English student, are "natural scholars", who would be doing ourselves a diservice if we didn't do post-grad. I guess encouragement to pursue an academic career is like waiting for a bus - nothing for two years and then it all comes at once). However, a lot of our discussion seemed to be 'what will you do if you don't get into so-and-so', 'what will you do if you don't get money' - all the horrible questions. I know I have to face these things, but... argh... they get me all worked up. And both Medieval!Housemate and I got the old 'AHRC funding is really arbitrary and loads of good people don't get it' chestnut, which I know is true, but is deeply depressing.
Then, we finally got on to my essay, which seemed rambling and wrong since it was a whole wee since I'd written it, and I didn't feel I could really talk about PB Shelley that well. This was, however compounded, by being asked to focus on literary language and literary style - which I hate, I just can't do it. This culminated in being asked horrible things like "Give me some other writers of the period and compare Shelley's style' and 'Do you think Shelley was more like Shakespeare or Milton?' and me mumbling things like "I haven't read enough Shakespeare" into my pad of file paper.
Then, I went to the Careers Office to speak to the American advising lady about my Fulbright application. She seemed really positive about my statements, possibly because they were the written equivilent of that photo of Britney Spears from when she was in the Mickey Mouse Club, which seems to be what American admissions/scholarship people love. Having made some minor alterations to my incredibly vague Research Proposal, I went back to college to send the whole thing off. So now it's done and I just have to wait.
All this meant no Paper 1 work was done today. Mea cupla; my bad.
Oh, and in other slightly more exciting news ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ozymandias08 and myself and going to be on University Challenge. This is possibly the first realisation of a long held ambition I have had since coming to Oxford, so it feels good. I am now, however, terrified of having to face Jeremy Paxman and be on tv... argh...
No. E-mail circa 5.30pm today putting me doing a tute on Shelley. I'm not having a tute on Shelley and I don't care if it means he has to teach the same thing 2 weeks running. I have spent two days reading about Hogg and De Quincey. I have to write the essay tomorrow, or I have no hope of getting my commentary for Monday done. His disorganisation really fucks me off sometimes. I mean, Camp!Renaissance tutor reduced everything to boy-love, but at least he knew what we were all doing and when. It really doesn't take much effort, especially as now he doesn't even have the third years to teach.
So - after the hellish torments of STC and his Biographia Literaria last week, which culminated in my tutorial essay trashing the seminal work of Romantic Criticism, this week is glorious Mary Shelley. I am heady with it all. Problem might be that I'm reading lots of stuff about her and PB setting up their little Romantic family, visiting Byron and travelling Italy than about any of the texts in question, but never mind. Oh, I also had to read her novel The Last Man which is the best-bad-book ever written. The main characters are just Byron and Shelley - there's not even an attempt to disguise it. Consequently, I spent most of the novel swooning. Plus, despite being set in 2073-2100, the setting bears a remarkable resemblence to the 1820s. No one has invented cars, or planes, or made any medical developments, people are still quoting Burke in everyday conversation... oh, and the Greek/Turkish war of is still going on. I lolled. A lot.
I feel much better, thank you.
Reading list update - Have read 'Pamela', 'Shamela' and 'Joseph Andrews'. 'Tom Jones' still sits menacingly in my box of books, whispering softly, "I'm eight hundred pages long... You'll never finish me before 0th week... What about your essay?" To which I reply, "No, 'Tom Jones'. I am going to read Coleridge, and pretend you don't exist." I have already got to that stage of reading list stress where I am thinking, "I can read x in term time; I've read y before so don't need to read it again etc." It's bad. I have, however, elevated Henry Fielding to the position of one of my favourite literary figures on the basis that he tried to put Colley Cibber on trial for the murder of the English Language. (Englsih students: anyone else feel a bit sorry for Colley Cibber? It must be sad only to be remembered through others ridiculing you.)
I've also started on my Fulbright Scholarship application. I have taken the tactic with my parents of mentioning that I want to be spending five years in American in a casual, matter of fact sort of way. I hope this is making them used to the idea, but fear that they are still unsure as to my whole life plan. I don't know how much one is obliged to tell parents about career plans. Obviously, I can't just pack bags and up sticks without them noticing, but I don't know whether I should be telling them when I'm going to sit the GRE, or when my applications have to be in. To be honest, they are more worried about my brother's lack on university applications than anything I'm doing at the moment. Which, thinking about it, is probably a very good thing. Conversations about my disappearance to graudate school usually seem to end in my mother crying, and my father looking worriedly at bank statements.
I received an e-mail from the English department today, informing me that the deadline for the Chancellor's Essay Prize and the Newdigate Medal is tomorrow. Do they seriously believe anyone is going to think, "Wow, I've got a whole six hours before the last post goes to write a 12,000 word essay/the best verse composition in Oxford! Definitely going to do that!"? Oh Joan Arthur and Sue Usher... I do love you, dearly.
My Newdigate entry went in the post today. No more shall be said on the matter, because my poem was tragically bad. By the end, it reminded me of the stuff I used to write at the back of my diary when I was 14. If ever any of you are really sad, like "I'll never laugh again", I will lend you the sacred and profane memoirs of me to cheer you up; they are absolutely hideous. So yes, poem was epic only in its failure.
In other areas of failing, I have not even finished 'Pamela' so holiday reading is offically going down the pan. I blame this upon returning to find we have wireless internet, so I can combine bed and laptop in a hitherto unprecedented fashion. I think I may stay in my little room for the whole of the holidays. I have also, thanks to a tip off from the coolest person I phoned on the Exeter College telethon, become addicted to the National American Society for the Study of Romanticism (aka NASSR) forum; said Old Member had no money, but had written a book on Coleridge's literary protegees, so I was ready to prostrate myself in front of him down the telephone line. Sadly, the NSSR forum is not going to help me pass finals and reading 'Pamela' would.
A few things need to be explained - it was actually part of some RAG week shenanigans that a friend from college was organising, so partly it was to raise money for charity. Also, it was a double date - I went with Dippy!Housemate to 'The Big Bang'. Furthermore, I was totally only doing it for fun, all right?
So, the date started less than well, with the two boys turning up 15 minutes late, leaving me and housemate thinking that we were going to be stood up. Needless to say, we started on the wine without them. Housemate was somewhat consoled by the fact that a hot Oragn Scholar she'd met the other day was on another blind date on the table next to us. However, our dates soon turned up and the evening got started. One of them, as my earlier facebook-stalking had lead to me to assume was the case, was a total wanker. He was an old Etonian, who lived up to every single stereotype going. I'd though he might be interesting because he said his favourite book was 'Under the Volcano', which almost no one else I know has ever read, but I actually don't know how he even understood it. He didn't ask us any questions at all, and basically just talked about himself, and how much he loved to go shooting in Scotland in Summer. Anyway, Dippy!Housemate, who is very small and very blonde, was obviously far more his type, so I didn't have that to worry about.
Anyway, the other guy was much nicer. Really down to earth, actually seemed to want to engage in conversation, rather than talk about himself. It also turned out that we had a mutual friend - a friend of one of my housemates and someone he met in Shanghi - which was just the most impossible connection. We seemed to get on quite well actually, and then when we went to a club afterwards - at which, dear f-list, we did share a few kisses. At the club, I was pleased to see that Dippy!Housemate abandoned the idiot Etonian, for an Out Of the Blue-ite, who was actually a bit of a minger, but apparently is "so cool". So, overall, a not unsuccessful evening, and I can now say that I've been on a blind date!
Today has been just lovely. Not amazing, just lovely. This will probably be long and gushy so I'm going to cut it so you don't feel obliged to read it. What you do all need to read is that Paula Abdul is on American Idol right now wearing a dress that I bought yesterday from Topshop for £7 in the sale. I feel mega validated about spending that money now.
