I've been busy with a whirlwind project turnaround, but here's a quick overview of things I learned: Luxembourg doesn't have a whole lot but they do have some entertaining signs (see below); Belgian public transit can get a bit hairy; I need to learn Dutch because I was in ecstasies over the art; and I should probably see more of Germany than just one cathedral - but what a cathedral.
It wouldn't be a [family name redacted] road trip if we didn't fit four countries into three days! My dad came to Europe for business this past weekend, so I hopped the Channel to see him and we had fun gamboling about the Low Countries to visit a few top-notch art locations.
I've been busy with a whirlwind project turnaround, but here's a quick overview of things I learned: Luxembourg doesn't have a whole lot but they do have some entertaining signs (see below); Belgian public transit can get a bit hairy; I need to learn Dutch because I was in ecstasies over the art; and I should probably see more of Germany than just one cathedral - but what a cathedral.
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So, the essay I alluded to previously is in, and I had a nice weekend of some celebrating and a lot of relaxing. And catching up on laundry. Waay too much laundry. The problem with academic life is that your work always hangs over you; the guilt of shirking looms like a sword of Damocles, the historical similes creep into your everyday language. Because there aren't set "working hours" you can always be working, and because writing can always be made better, and research always delved into deeper, deadlines are necessary simply to stop the madness. Then it starts again.
This time I managed to improve on my procrastinating (a bit) and actually enjoy the research and writing again. Perhaps because I was working on an object that was very much my own, and not a rehashing of earlier scholarship. I also made a sudden discovery about the panel's attribution a few days before deadline, which was both wonderful and slightly stressful. In my spare time I've picked up a podcast habit, some of which have me laughing as I do laundry or stroll around the city. I highly recommend the Dead Authors podcast, which purports to bring dead authors into the future for a brief chat with HG Wells. I'm loving having literature back in my life, in the form of podcasts and audiobooks as well as actual books. I just re-listened to To Kill A Mockingbird, which was fortuitously timed with the news of Harper Lee's new book. As I'm trying to avoid both spending money and accumulating objects, this makes reading physical books a trifle difficult. Thank heavens for digital library collections! I grudgingly admit that it's really nice to access ebooks - but only because I don't have easy access to a library that contains fiction. I do feel that they don't absorb in the same way, and would love to see some studies done on that if they haven't already. Oh wait, I just looked it up - they have. Love, Annie Sometimes I wish I lived in the medieval era, if only so that I wouldn't have to bother so much with personal grooming concerns. I mean come on, there are more important things to worry about than whether my eyelashes are curled or various body parts are plucked and waxed. What am I, a chicken? Back then few people bathed or bothered, or even considered their own bodies as much as we do. Everyone was pretty much in the same boat priority-wise: trying to stay alive. No worries if your hair looks greasy or unkempt! You survived past childhood! Of course, I'd also have to contend with disease, plague, lack of clean food or water, misogyny, extremely curtailed liberty...so maybe this century does have its perks. I would still love to visit a medieval castle to see how everything operated, or wander around Elizabethan London for a day. But then I'd probably be burned at the stake for being an independent female.* If I opened my mouth: heresy! They tend to romanticize it in the movies, but it would be great to see a time-travel film or book that dealt with: culture shock, having to learn a different language or dialect, alienation, becoming a starving, outcast beggar and dying miserably of hypothermia (complicated by gangrenous frostbite and malnutrition)...you know, reality. None of this warmly-welcomed, false-backstory-easily-accepted, falling-in-love stuff. I just thought I would point this out because our problems may be different then and now, but travel (time or otherwise) doesn't erase them, it just changes them. We all live better than kings did in the medieval era - the array of foods and goods and health and cleanliness we can afford is astounding. Thankfully, we also live in a world where you won't be burned at the stake for expressing your opinion. (Most of the time.) But there are still problems that demand our attention. Most of us in the world today don't have to worry about where our next meal is coming from, whether the lord of the manor is going to take all our crops, or whether two-thirds of our seventeen children will die before the age of 12. So where should we channel that energy instead? Making sure our eyebrows are perfectly plucked? Or seeing that people are fed and sheltered and heard and validated? I lean towards the latter. Of course we need to have our basic needs and desires met before we can tend to others, or study, create, invent, and so on. And necessities may look different for different people. As long as we're living, breathing, and being ourselves, we can't go too far wrong. Right? Love, Annie *Not an actual/stated reason for burning a woman at the stake, but you know, approximately. Just what I needed this morning to see me through the last stretch of essaying. Pray for me if it ain't too much bother! (The song has no relation to what I'm doing right now, it's just great.) I'm enjoying this process again, especially the detective work - but more on that later, WHEN I'M DONE.
Love, Annie |
Author“Life is so uncertain: you never know what could happen. One way to deal with that is to keep your pajamas washed.” Categories
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