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More weekend fragments
Nov. 15th, 2020 03:15 pmI found out today that one of my cousins was actually in the US for work, covering the election (he works in TV news). He was mainly based during this time in Pennsylvania, so very much right at the heart of things. Bizarrely, he claimed he felt safer (in terms of the pandemic) in the US than he does in his home of Melbourne, which I just boggle at, given the comparable difference in cases, even when Melbourne was at its worst. I wonder if the strict Melbourne lockdown made him feel more uneasy, compared to the (sadly) relaxed situation in the US, even though the former of course makes things way safer than the latter.
*
I've finished the first draft of my Yuletide assignment. I'm going to let it sit a while before coming back to it for edits, and spend some time working on a couple of treats. Last year I managed five works in the main collection (my assignment and four treats), but I suspect I'm not quite going to manage a comparable number this year. We'll see.
*
Every so often, I'm reminded sharply how glad I am to have left academia in general, and Celtic Studies specifically. The most recent thing to have brought this home to me: two senior scholars in the field, who reviewed the work of a recently-deceased academic. This posthumous publication was mainly written while the latter was dying of cancer — in other words, in extremely trying circumstances. And yet these two senior academics spent their entire review — a whole 34 pages!!! — picking this person's work apart in the most vicious of tones (right down to nitpicking about comma placement). The whole thing is extremely cruel. And yes, that's par for the course in the field, unfortunately.
*
Like everyone else in my social circles, I've been completely consumed by the US election, and the stressful fallout, and it's rather affected my reading. That being said, I've tried to get things back on track, and have begun a reread of the entire Dark Is Rising sequence. These books to me are so deeply evocative of very specific physical locations, and very specific times in the year that to have begun the reread in November seems incongruous: Over Sea, Under Stone is such a story of summer, of sun-drenched seaside holidays that to read it in the dying days of autumn feels almost inapprorpriate. And of course if I go straight on to The Dark Is Rising it will be too early! I suppose nothing is stopping me from revisiting each book again at a more appropriate time of year.
*
Tomorrow is Matthias's birthday, and both of us have taken the day off work, meaning we'll get a long weekend. Obviously we're in lockdown, so it's not as if we'll be going anywhere (other than perhaps a nice walk), but it will be good to have a bit of a rest, given that I fell asleep for two hours yesterday afternoon, then slept for ten hours last night, and still feel somewhat exhausted.
*
I'll leave you with this highly seasonally appropriate short story by Iona Datt Sharma, 'Heard, Half-Heard, in the Stillness'.
*
I've finished the first draft of my Yuletide assignment. I'm going to let it sit a while before coming back to it for edits, and spend some time working on a couple of treats. Last year I managed five works in the main collection (my assignment and four treats), but I suspect I'm not quite going to manage a comparable number this year. We'll see.
*
Every so often, I'm reminded sharply how glad I am to have left academia in general, and Celtic Studies specifically. The most recent thing to have brought this home to me: two senior scholars in the field, who reviewed the work of a recently-deceased academic. This posthumous publication was mainly written while the latter was dying of cancer — in other words, in extremely trying circumstances. And yet these two senior academics spent their entire review — a whole 34 pages!!! — picking this person's work apart in the most vicious of tones (right down to nitpicking about comma placement). The whole thing is extremely cruel. And yes, that's par for the course in the field, unfortunately.
*
Like everyone else in my social circles, I've been completely consumed by the US election, and the stressful fallout, and it's rather affected my reading. That being said, I've tried to get things back on track, and have begun a reread of the entire Dark Is Rising sequence. These books to me are so deeply evocative of very specific physical locations, and very specific times in the year that to have begun the reread in November seems incongruous: Over Sea, Under Stone is such a story of summer, of sun-drenched seaside holidays that to read it in the dying days of autumn feels almost inapprorpriate. And of course if I go straight on to The Dark Is Rising it will be too early! I suppose nothing is stopping me from revisiting each book again at a more appropriate time of year.
*
Tomorrow is Matthias's birthday, and both of us have taken the day off work, meaning we'll get a long weekend. Obviously we're in lockdown, so it's not as if we'll be going anywhere (other than perhaps a nice walk), but it will be good to have a bit of a rest, given that I fell asleep for two hours yesterday afternoon, then slept for ten hours last night, and still feel somewhat exhausted.
*
I'll leave you with this highly seasonally appropriate short story by Iona Datt Sharma, 'Heard, Half-Heard, in the Stillness'.