Tag: school

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Doc’s life – Update for December 2, 2015

So I move into my apartment in Grand Rapids in three days.  Mercifully, I’ve known I had a place to move into since October (which was awesome).  Right now I’m looking for a part to full time gig to pay the bills while I’m going back to school (fingers crossed very, very hard for a work from home gig that pays well)–resumes are out there in the void and I’m waiting on bites for the moment.  After talking to my aunt (my dad’s oldest sister, Lois), I’m 99.9% sure that I’m going to end up adding the group social studies major so I can be more marketable once I get my full-blown teaching certification.  I don’t mind the idea of extra stuff to do if it’s going to make it easier on me in the long run.

I’ve been trying to be a responsible adult in the course of outfitting myself for this move.  My father’s actually going to make me some new furniture (I love my dad–and he does beautiful work, so I’m super excited), which will save me some cash and will make sure that I actually have matched pieces in a lot of cases.  By the time he’s done, I should have an armchair (the cushions for which are my job to finish), a headboard and footboard for my bed, a TV stand/cabinet, a new dresser, new bookshelves, and a new coffee table, all of which matching my beautiful cherry desk that I adore.

Daybed – though those aren’t the linens I got. Linens on the daybed will be gray with pillows in blues and saturated colors.

We hit Ikea the Sunday after my birthday and I scored an iron daybed (which will be my couch), mattresses for said daybed, a kitchen/dining area/craft table and a pair of chairs to go with it.

My table!  It extends out on either side and the top drops down into the gap left when the sides are extended.  It’s the Bjursta style.  Only complaint was that they didn’t have non-fabric seat chairs to go with the color I really wanted.

My mother was a bit worried that it all wouldn’t fit in the car, but we made it work (thank you Dodge for making that vehicle just big enough to fit three people and the stuff we bought at Ikea into it!) and got everything home safely.  Mom also picked up some odds and ends for the house while I picked up some random stuff for the apartment in addition to the furniture (cutting boards, dishtowels, garbage can–that sort of stuff).

As usual, we headed to Illinois for Thanksgiving with the family out there (20-some odd people in my grandparents’ condo in East Dundee – always a big adventure!) and we got to see a lot of the family as a result.  Friday and Saturday we were in downtown Chicago and saw zero sign of the protests that had been going on since earlier that week (though we didn’t head down to Michigan Avenue on Friday at all) other than it being a little less crowded downtown than it had been in some past years.  Note to anyone who’s visiting the city at any point in the future: go to Room and Board.  It’s such a cool store.  I don’t love all the furniture there, but my mother and I were both completely blown away by a bedroom set we saw there (it’s the Bennett set – in fact, my dad’s taking the footboard and headboard on the bed as the design for the ones he’s going to do for me — and possibly the dresser design, too).  It’s definitely got a point of view when it comes to design, but it’s absolutely worth checking out.

In my wanderings in the city, I ended up finding the dishware and glasses I wanted for my new place (mother and younger brother approved, no less).  Awakenings fans will appreciate the name of the collection.  Ordered them online; now I just need to go pick them up at the Crate and Barrel at Somerset (except for the mugs, which are unfortunately on backorder – I’ll probably end up snagging them when I’m home for Christmas).

My back is trying to quit on me since I’ve been packing since I got back in sprints.  Getting an e-reader was the best decision I ever made, considering the number of books I have digital copies of–and the number of physical books I still have (which is a lot, let me tell you – between books, binders, notebooks, and magazines, I’ve already filled ten 12x12x16 boxes and then a few others of varying sizes–and I’m still not done packing that stuff–but nothing’s too heavy for me to lift, so that’s a good thing at least).  I’ve been trying to move stuff into the garage for easier loading come Friday night (since we’ll load Friday night, finish off Saturday morning, then head across the state on Saturday).  I’ve still got a list of stuff to finish packing that’s probably twenty categories (and locations) long, but I know I’ll get through it–I really don’t have a choice.

So in the midst of all of the super responsible adult stuff I’ve been doing when it comes to setting up everything for this apartment, I did do something…maybe less responsible than all of the rest of it.

I went to Target yesterday with my mom (I needed to get ultra responsible stuff like GARBAGE BAGS and TOILET PAPER and PAPER TOWELS and stuff like that for when I move in so I don’t have to run all over creation for those kinds of things immediately).  The whole world knows that walking into Target is dangerous–it just is.  I’m not saying it’s good, I’m not saying it’s bad (I love Target, let’s be honest), but it is dangerous.  Let’s be honest.

So my mother needed ornaments to make another garland to decorate for Christmas (tutorial found on Pinterest! It’s great) and I met her back in the Christmas decorating area.  I found myself eyeing a tree back there that I really, really liked.  Long story about this tree very, very short: the sign on it was wrong and the tree we thought Target had run out of was actually there in abundance.  The guy who helped me missed that and so did I–at first–and we both thought that they didn’t have any more of the tree that I liked. Then, when we were getting ready to leave and I said to my mom “I’m going to go look at that tree one more time and see if there’s something similar that I like that’s not too expensive.”  I have a tiny little two-foot tree that I’ve used at craft shows but I wanted something a little more substantial for my apartment–it’s my first Christmas in my new place, after all (even if I’m going to be spending the actual day and some time around it at my parents’ house with the family) and I wanted something of my own.  I love Christmas–it’s a favorite holiday of mine (note to self: I owe the world some good UNSETIC Christmas fiction).  After a little bit of poking around, I realized that the tree I wanted actually was there and the display was mismarked.  I let the associate who’d been helping me know and he was going to follow up with his manager (who was responsible for the oops in the first place).  I picked up a couple extra strings of lights and some ornaments and I’ll have Christmas in my apartment (probably set up to the sounds of White Christmas unless I miss my guess).

T-minus three days and counting.  Time to get back to packing.

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Reconnecting with my research

It’s no secret to a lot of people who know me–in the wake of not getting one last little bit of feedback from my late advisor at the end of the Winter 2009 semester, I took a long break from my thesis work.  It was something I probably shouldn’t have done, but I kept expecting to get somethingfrom him after I sent one last update to him this past April.  But nothing.  We corresponded via e-mail about some housekeeping things regarding my thesis and he said he would get to the submission, but he never got back to me.  In some morbid way, I wonder if it’s sitting there on his hard drive with a mess of fantastic comments just waiting to never be sent.  But I suppose I’ll never know.

For the past week since I heard about his death, I’ve been avoiding really trying to work on my thesis, instead focusing on a paper I need to submit for the Great Lakes History Conference, deadlined in mid-October.  But the research overlaps a bit when I start reading about Edward I, and that’s tripped synapses in my brain that have pointed me back toward my thesis.  This is dangerous, considering that I don’t even know that I’ll even have this be my thesis come next week, or come the end of the OUAAUP strike, whichever happens first (personally, I’m hoping it’s settled after negotiations today so I won’t actually miss any of my classes this semester).  It’s in part hinging on a conversation I need to have with Karen Miller, the head of the history department here at Oakland University.  But in the end, I don’t know what’s going to happen other than I have a pile of research and information floating around in my brain that may turn into a book someday, regardless of whether or not it becomes my master’s thesis.  I’m sure if I have to change gears and start another project, I can find something.  I’m just not sure at this point what.

When I went to Dr. Finucane a couple years ago to talk about potential thesis ideas, I brought with me a short list of potential topics.  I’d originally wanted to do something with the Crusades, but I don’t speak French or Arabic (to be honest, even my Latin is shaky at best, though I’m working on that) so it would be very difficult for me to do that sort of research.  So changing gears, I brought the following list: 

–          Impact of the War of the Roses on English society

o       Potentially limited to women, church, or the aristocracy?

–          Hundred Years War

o       Religion and politics

–          Folk beliefs and spirituality in late medieval England

o       Mysticism in England?

o       English Saints?  Shifting views of what was seen as evidence of the divine working through a person or related to a person? (ties into witchcraft, ect)

–          Kingship and royalty in England, late medieval

o       Touches on the political and diplomatic; alliances through marriage, blood claims to “foreign” territory – importance of women in this context?

o       Political legitimacy and the tools used to convince people of such

–          The Black Death

o       Impact on cultural norms and religion

–          Mystics and miracles in late medieval England

–          Pilgrims and saints

–          Left field: Arthurian mythos and its impact on English culture orthe historical evolution of the Arthurian mythos

o       Use of the Arthurian mythos by English royalty

o       Folklore and stories of medieval England

 

 

I had hesitated to even bring to him that last topic–about the Arthurian mythos.  But I’ve been fascinated with it for easily ten years, so I put it on there, never dreaming that he would look at that and say “Hm.  That’s interesting.  Why didn’t you think you could do that, again?”  Necessary cutting brought the project down to a manageable size and focus, bringing me to where I am now, looking at the uses of the Arthurian legend under (and mainly by) Edward I and Edward III (and consequently the failure to use it by Edward II).  Looking back, I think I’d write on any of those subjects, except for perhaps the Black Death–which is fine, since the Plague has been done to death (no pun intended).  But if I have to change my thesis topic, would I be able to do any of those?  The Hundred Years War, perhaps, since my second reader is a specialist in French history.  But this having been said, I don’t read or speak French (though I have to learn).  It would be a difficult project to gather primary source material for.

The medieval period is something I’m fascinated by and would rather write about than the Renaissance, which I have a feeling would be the period I would end up having to write about, simply based on the makeup of the department.  But we’ll have to see.  I was blessed to work under one of the most preeminent medieval historians of the past thirty years, but cursed to lose that mentorship before my thesis was complete.  Only time will tell what’s going to become of the work I began under his tutelage.

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Never say never

Never let it be said that when you write your thesis or your dissertation that no one will read it in the future, since that’s simply not the case.  I have yet to e-mail the advisor on this particular thesis, but I’ll let the cat out of the bag right now:  I’m fascinated by a Ph.D thesis out of the University of Minnesota from 2004.  The thesis in question is on St. George of England and English national identity–a subject I’ll at the very least touch on in my own thesis on the uses of the Arthurian legend during the reigns of Edward I (r. 1272-1307), Edward II (r. 1307-1327), and Edward III (r. 1327-1377), since the sense of identity and “Englishness” plays a role in why the image of King Arthur was used during these reigns.

Amusingly (as almost a side note) the thesis cites my advisor’s work on pilgrimages and miracles in the first chapter.  Go figure (then again, totally not surprised, since it is a saint’s cult and the image of the patron saint of England that’s being discussed in the thesis, after all).

In any case, it’s bloody hard to borrow anyone’s thesis–really, really hard, since most universities don’t lend them.  I have to shoot an e-mail to the history department at the University of Minnesota to thank them so much for letting me borrow this text.  I’ve already found quite a few references that I’ve ordered or will be pulling from Kresge Library at OU so I can take a peek at them based on what he’s gleaned out of them for his work–things that it seems to me may well be important for my work.

So, wherever you are, Dr. Jonathan Good — thank you.  You wrote a monster of a dissertation, and I’m very pleased to have had the chance to read it.

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Basic update – 2.18.09

So the rough page count on the thesis stands at fifteen, including a page of figures (which is actually just a map from Caroline Shenton’s fantastic article from EHR 114).  About…hm.  Half of that is actual things written that I’ve thought through and mulled over in my brain.  All single spaced.  Still a ton of work to do, though — a huge, major ton of work to do, which may either commence tonight or tomorrow morning, I’ll decide after I’m done writing this (the sister brought me coffee from Starbucks, so I’m going to be up for a wihle longer, that’s for certain).  As for Epsilon, the count stands at six and a half pages (a shade over 4,000 words) on draft 3.5 (waiting on feedback from a couple folks on the beginning; I’ve been scribbling notes in a notebook like crazy for a couple weeks, though).  Not a bad start, considering I hadn’t really touched it in more than a year.  Things are looking to become far darker and strangely more interesting the more I stew over concepts and ideas for the story.

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