Sharing poetry

I heard this poem for the first time in a lecture yesterday, and found it so interesting that I thought I would share it with you. Enjoy!

La Figlia Che Piange
O quam te memorem virgo...

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair -
Lean on a garden urn -
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair -
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained suprise -
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,
So he would have left
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
As the mind deserts the body it has used.
I should find
Some way incomparably light and deft,
Some way we both should understand,
Simple and faithless as a smile and a shake of the hand.

She turned away, but with the autumn weather
Compelled my imagination many days,
Many days and many hours:
Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.
And I wonder how they should have been together!
I should have lost a gesture and a pose.
Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
The troubled midnight, and the noon's repose.

-- T. S. Eliot

Where I've been.

Well, it's been a long time since I posted, so I thought I should say something. It isn't that nothing as been happening - it is just that I haven't had much to say about it.

I've finished reading Regeneration for job number 4, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm very excited to be lecturing on it next year. I've set the reading list for a course on Contemporary Women's Writing I'm teaching after Christmas. I've just about found my way around the Philosophy Dept. for job number 3, and seem to be getting a handle on the job I'm expected to do there. I've been teaching first years, marking essays on sonnets and trying to get around to writing references for a former student. I've been walking the Little Dog, and going to my ballroom / latin class.

Oh, and playing scrabble on facebook.

Across a crowded room...

The other day I was sitting at the back of a coffee shop in the City where the Castle is also a Prison, checking some transcription work I've been doing (I'm not good at working at home at the moment, and the Department is mid-move so I have no office). I'd just finished a section and I looked up from my papers, catching the eye of a very attractive man who had just come in.

I smiled at him and he walked to the back of the room, and put his bag down at the table next to mine. He then seemed to change his mind, and moved to the front by the window on the main street. He looked over to me again; I smiled, again. He smiled, left his bag where it was and walked towards me.

He stopped at my table, and I'm starting to think that the amount of time I've spent sitting in coffee shops might be about to pay off in a big way, and then he asked, "Are you Alexa?"

Well, no. I'm not.

And now I'm also kicking myself for giving in to the thought that eyes meeting across a crowded room might actually happen to me.

Reading suggestions?

I spend a fair amount of time on buses. And bus travelling time is the time I now use to read non research related literature.

My bus books include some my favourite series of novels set in the Napoleonic Wars and some books that I bought a long time ago to read 'just for fun' and didn't get around to. But I want to start interspering these 'for fun' reads with 'proper' literary reads. Books that any self-respecting literature academic ought to have read. I've just finished reading Orwell's 1984 as part of this drive to be a better rounded lit. person. The novel actually made me feel physically ill in parts, but, it is something that most people would think I would or should have read by now.

So now I'm looking for suggestions. Novels or collections of short stories that Autumn Song with a PhD in Literature who is hoping for a career in academia ought to have read / ought to read. Failing that, any book that you think is absolutely worth the read, whether it's an academic must or not. Any period, any author. Please leave suggestions in the comments...

Who are my friends?

Well, I finally gave in and joined up to Facebook. Joining didn't seem to be difficult, but there is so much stuff on the screen that I'm finding actually using it very complicated. No one who told me to join told me it would be confusing. I think they should have.

But I have to say the strangest thing about it, is being told who my friends are. "Autumn and ThePhDLitChick are now friends", it tells me confidently at 11am; "Autumn and the Italian Speaker are now friends" it tells me slightly later. And I find myself thinking surely this was true before? Does it take linking to them through an internet networking site for this to be true? Does linking on Facebook suddenly make this indisputable fact? And then I think, can friendships be facts? And then I think, perhaps I should be thinking about something else...

Breakfast talk

As I said in my last post, I've recently come back from my annual trip to Haworth for the Bronte Society AGM. In fact, it's exactly a year since I wrote my very first two blog posts, one of which talked about last year's AGM events. I'm afraid there weren't many more young people there this year - perhaps one or two - so I'll just keep hoping!

As always, I met up with old friends, and I made some new ones. One morning I got up for breakfast and met a man I hadn't seen before in the B&B breakfast room. He said "Are you a Bronte person?" (This is not a strange question to a society member in Haworth in the first full weekend in June). "Yes, I am.", I replied, "Are you a Bronte person?". He said he wasn't, but was doing some work on the gravestones at the Church - photographing, making notes, cross referencing in a database. It seemed like a good idea to me. I asked where he was sitting, so that I didn't steal his table, and he invited me to join him. I said I couldn't, because I was expecting a friend (she was staying in the same B&B) and I sat elsewhere. We continued to talk, but it was awkward with the table arrangements, so I went to sit with him until my friend arrived. When she did, she joined the conversation, and we talked about the merits of the Society (friends all over the world, coming to Haworth, shared interests, among other things), and he commented that everyone had been kind and helpful to him. I agreed, "Yes, most people in Haworth are very friendly". "I know", he said, "just today, a lady came to sit with me at breakfast".

Friends and Colleagues

I've just been to see the Sex and the City Movie. I wasn't sure what to expect - I had mixed feelings about the ending of the TV series because of my doubts about overly tidy happy endings and I wondered where they could possibly go with the relationships in the film that wouldn't have me tearing my realistic hair out. It turns out that I really enjoyed the film. I wasn't annoyed and I laughed and cried in all the appropriate places. I'm not going to say any more so I don't need to give a spoiler warning. All I will say is that I'd recommend it to those of you who enjoyed the TV series. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I went to see it with two of my colleagues from work. They've worked together for at least 18months, have offices next door to each other and seem to be good friends. After the film they talked to each other about it. I threw the odd comment in to the discussion, but I didn't play any significant part in the conversation. We'd got out of the cinema screen, out of the cinema and half way across the street before either of them asked me what I thought. I'm sure they didn't deliberately exclude me. It's just hard to 'break in' to established friendship groups, and I'm sure I haven't been here long enough to be one of 'the girls'. And having come out of a film about a close network of 'girl-friends' and just returned from a trip to the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss where I met and spent time at the cinema, having coffee, dancing and giggling til the early hours with old friends, it's tough to adjust to a place where you aren't one of the insiders. And I think I'll probably have to move elsewhere before I've had time to 'fit in' here.

It's not that Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda have something I don't (apart from boyfriends!) - I do have a group of very close friends. And actually several of them are men, so I have something that the Sex and the City girls don't seem to have. And I feel very lucky to have that. But I'd like to be close enough to those friends to go out for a drink in the evening, or a coffee in the afternoon, or a trip to the cinema where the immediate conversation after the film would include me.

It was lovely to be back in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss last weekend, with the friends that I miss even more. And seeing a film essentially, although not explicitly, about friendship with a group of people that I'm not yet quite a part of makes it harder to be away, but I know my friends are there for me, if not here, and I hope they know that I'm here, if not there, for them.

Anyone fancy a coffee...?

Lessons in Dog Walking

Since teaching finished, the Little Dog has been spending more time with me. I can now get home at a reasonable hour to walk her, and I don't have to be in the office five days a week. As the weather has got better, I thought we might go exploring to see if we could find some different or longer walks to go on (I like a circular walk, so we don't have to stop and go back on ourselves). So, on Friday we crossed the bridge.

I've seen other dog walkers cross it, and thought it looked semi-promising as a dog walking route. I had decided to work at home, so I wasn't in a hurry to get into the office, it was a sunny day, and Little Dog and I like to be outside, so I thought Friday morning was as good a time as any to go exploring. So we explored.

I have a pretty good sense of direction, so I wasn't too worried about setting off on an adventure, and if we did get a little lost we could always turn around and go back. I was a pleasant walk alongside fields full of sheep - one of them eyed the Little Dog with great suspicion, although she was oblivious to this - then through some trees, along the railway line and then we arrived at a main road. I shortened the lead and we followed it in the right general direction. I was just starting to worry that we might soon end up in a different town when I saw a building I recognised, and thought I was on track for home. Then as we walked further it all seemed a little less familiar. We'd been walking for 40 minutes, and I was just about to stop and turn round when I saw a sign for a cycle path to the City Centre via the Canal and thought that was promising, so we turned off the main road and I slackened the lead so that Little Dog could scamper around if she wanted to, which she often does. We followed the lovely canal-side walk, looking at the moored canal barges and the ponies in the fields, meeting several other people out cycling, or walking (with or without dogs) and I let Little Dog off her lead to play with another dog we bumped into, and I chatted with her owner as they ran up and down between us. We then said goodbye, and carried on walking in opposite directions until Little Dog and I ended up back beneath the bridge we had crossed. A full, if large, circle.

All in all the walk takes around 1hour and 15minutes - although it depends on how much sniffing and playing the Little Dog wants to do - and we have done it every morning since Friday. I figure we might as well make the most of the lovely weather and the available walk.

I'm so glad we found the path, and didn't just turn back when I first started to doubt my direction. The last section of the walk down the canal path is so beautiful and peaceful, particularly early in the morning; it would have been a real shame to have missed out on it because I didn't go just that little bit further.

Maybe there's a lesson in that....

Multiple choice TV

I got a new TV this week. It has Freeview, so I can watch digital TV. So, here is your multiple choice question:

I decided to get digital TV because:

a) the digital switchover is coming, and I want to be prepared...

b) I have only had 4 channels for 10 years

c) it will allow me to watch the later night repeats of programmes I would usually watch during the day so I can get more work done before I turn on the TV

d) a particular programme that I really like which used to be on two channels, one terrestrial and one digital, is now only showing on the digital channel (meanies) so I had to get digital to watch it.

I'm afraid there is no prize for the right answer, but have fun guessing!

Right. Have to go. New TV to watch!

Healthy cynicism?

A fortnight ago, a friend who is Naturally Beautiful but Doesn't Really Know It came to stay with me. I was watching an episode of Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman when she arrived (I have several of the seasons on DVD - it's one of the programmes that I really enjoy watching, however corny we may all agree that it is). I left it running in the background and turned down the volume while we caught up with each other's news. At one point Naturally Beautiful, who had just looked up at the TV screen, said "Oooh, he's a bit tasty!". I was fairly sure who she was talking about, but I turned to look and agreed - yes, he is. This is one of the reasons I like watching Dr Quinn.

We started to talk about the other reasons I like it, and she asked me a question which I have previously asked myself. In fact, SuperMum asked me something similar last week when we watched Bulletproof Monk (which I also like). Why is it that I like this, with its many 'happy endings' but that romantic comedy films make me cross. I watch these romantic comedy. They make me smile - often they make me giggle - but in the end they usually make me cross. Why? Because the world is not like that. Not all relationship problems are surmountable with a hurried drive to the airport to stop her getting on the plane, or a New Year party where if you kiss someone you'll be with them all year. Lots of relationship problems are not fixable. Sometimes life kicks you - hard - in the stomach and you just have to stand up and move on. This is not the stuff of romantic comedy.

Why doesn't Bulletproof Monk make me cross? Because it doesn't ask me to buy into 'love conquers all'. It asks me to suspend my disbelief, pretty much from beginning to end, and doesn't really make a secret of this, and doesn't present itself as 'real'. Romantic Comedy asks me to buy into 'real' happy endings. And these happy endings often just 'forget' about the previous problems. They haven't been addressed, dealt with and overcome; they've just been set to one side - outside the genre of the romantic comedy ending - and the writers, producers and directors expect the audience to forget these problems too. It sells the fairy-tale romance, and we [are supposed to] buy into it. I'm not sure I do, anymore.

Yes, this might be cynical. It might be, as Naturally Beautiful suggested, entirely different were I dating someone. But for now I'm not, and I don't want to be fooled into buying into 'Hollywood love'.

So, what is it about Dr Quinn that I am prepared to buy into? Well, I think it's an advocation of an old fashioned, pulling together, community spirit - it's not just about romantic relationships. Things don't always work out and it doesn't often ask me to conveniently forget problems for the purposes of a happy ending. But it does have happy endings.

I'm not really against them. I am, in fact, looking for my happy ending. But if / when it comes, I don't want it to be romantic comedy contrived - partly because at some point those problems we conveniently forget will find us, and by that point everyone's in too deep not to get hurt. There's nothing wrong with a bit of realism. Even if it at times it seems cynical...

At last

This is a very quick post. More soon on my trip down south and those with whom I shared train carriages. For now though, just a quick post to say I've finally got an internet connection at home! Hurrah!

This might mean more posts. This might mean more time wasted on the internet. It certainly will not mean that I am now available to my students 24/7 (I have come to enjoy not being able to deal with their emails over the weekend and, although I will respond to urgent ones, I don't intend to go back to letting students decide when my teaching-work hours are). I will, however, feel less nervous about working at home because I'll have library and internet search facilities at my finger tips. We take these things for granted when we have them, and when we don't, it's a bit scary!

It has been a long day so I'm going to call that it for now. Now I've got it, I might just switch off my connection again for tonight...

Blank space?

I received a booklet of information from the UCU the other day. In the middle of the back page it read:

"This page has been deliberately left blank."

This puzzles me.

Perhaps a better phrase would be:

"This page has been deliberately written on so you know nothing is missing."

But then, I suppose, I wouldn't know it was meant to be blank, would I?

Sonnets

I love sonnets. Intricately constructed, carefully argued, neatly written. There's something very pleasing in the form of a sonnet.

I like teaching sonnets too. In my first-year classes at the university at the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss, I asked students to find a sonnet and bring it with them to the tutorial. I told them Shakespeare wasn't allowed though - that's too easy to find. We could then talk about the sonnet form in relation to poems that they chose ("See, it doesn't just work with sonnets I pick; we can talk about the use of the sonnet structure in all sonnets..."). It's surprising how few times two students brought the same one, and I now know of some beautiful sonnets that I wouldn't otherwise have read.

This week I'm teaching Shakespeare's sonnets. I'd forgotten how much I like them. Here is one of my favourites. Enjoy!


Sonnet 138

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not t'have years told:
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

Also...

I've visited this site a few times since I saw it at Lawmummy a while ago. If you have 5 minutes to spare, this is a great place to go. You get to expand your vocabulary and help fight against world hunger. Not a bad way to spend your time.

Unless you're supposed to be working.

But still, it's a good cause...