Amazing news with regards to this bootless moan's (hereafter tbm) agressive international expansion - we have had more international visitors! In fact, we have doubled our international visitors. Admittedly that doubling is from two (California and Moscow, if you remember from previous posts) to four, but I'm still chuffed. And where in the world were these visitors from? A double visit from the best city in Brazil, home to three football clubs, three universities, and famous for it's role in the nineteenth century as Brazil's leading producer of dried meat...Pelotas! Yeah I have absolutely no clue either, but that's beside the point. Someone in the nineteenth century stronghold of dried meat production loves it. So this is a shout out for them.

Otherwise, the news of the day was that results came out today. This was a mixed blessing. With the exception of two modules, everything else was a first, which is obviously pleasing. But what is a bit sad is that my two 2.1's were in Shakespeare and a piece of Renaissance coursework. That they happen to be the modules I'm going to be involved with next year is a bit...lame. I did do better in the straight Renaissance paper, so that softens it a bit, but I just wish I could have done better in Shakespeare. If nothing else it categorically proves that you just can't tell what's any good - I thought that Shakespeare was my best module, and it was far far from it, while the module I thought went badly was my highest. Who knows eh?

Was hoping to feel a bit better on my foot today after wrenching it last time I went for a run, but unfortunately no joy. Taking anti-inflammatory stuff at the moment, so hopefull that and a bit of extra rest will be ok. I really want to get back on the road though - I'm really feeling a massive long run at low pace - especially after finding out my Dad ran half-marathons in 9.30. I'm running half half-marathons in under 7.30's now, so I can easily manage that, and I'd like to kind of trounce him. Maybe a nice long one after work tomorrow. See how the foot feels. Apart from that, I haven't really got a huge amount to say, well, not that's worth listening to anyway. So I'll draw a line under it here. Turrah.

Labels: blog, exams

Seriously, how good is this picture? I think I might actually have it turned into a postcard and sent out to loved ones and friends. Well, my exams are finally over. They were over this time yesterday, but this day yesterday I had already embarked on a 13 hour powernap, so I wasn't in much of a position to blog. I kind of wish that I had gone crazy and gone drinking, but I have quite a few big nights coming up, and to be honest, bed was far more appealing. Does that make me uncool? Maybe. But did it feel good to be in bed and go to sleep, knowing an alarm was not going to go off the next morning. Oh yes. Very sweet indeed. I suppose I haven't really spoken too much about exams yet, so I will briefly say that, on the whole, as a collective, I didn't do as well as I would have liked. Or to be more precise, I fancied that, based on the work I put in, they could have gone slightly better. But they certainly weren't train wrecks (with the exception of the last one, which, more worryingly was on the very subject of my Masters next year) and as much as I had some disappointing suprises, I did have some lucky breaks too. I'm still expecting to do well, but I do think my average may well have taken a nice little hit from Romantics and Renaissance. Just to let you know (and I do wonder wh this hypothetical second-person pronoun I continually address could be, because I certainly feel like no one reads this, and Google analytics more or less confirms that sad truth) I wrote on revenge tragedies (Duchess of Malfi, The White Devil, The Spanish Tragedy), class in The New Arcadia, and promethean spaces in Donne's Works.

STILL - you live and you learn, and I'm certainly proud no matter what happens of the work I put in. I think that's important, because I really do feel like I don't have any regrets - I wouldn't have changed my revision at all, and that's actually very comforting. Now it's just the loooong wait until June 11th when I will find out my degree class. Fingers crossed for a fortnight then. Today on my first day of freedom I went and returned some books, went and bought some new ones (Archipelagic English, Henry V, Spenser's Poetical Works, and a collection of plays from Euripides) and read, well, will have read before the night is done, Medea. It was very very pleasant, and I got to spend a whole heap of time with Anna which was great too as revision has made us seeing each other something of a freak occurence rather than a soothing irregularity. Hopefully more of that to come once her exams finish on Friday (good luck if you read this!)

I include in this post a painting, Medea, by Frederick Sandys, just because I'm reading the source, and because I find myself half in love with and half hating the work of the Pre-Raphelites, so perhaps this will be some kind of catalyst for a reconsideration.

I also changed my bed sheets for the first time in what must be 4 or 5 months, so I'm simultaneously proud of that achievement, and disgusted with my former conduct. I sometimes find it shocking that anyway would want to be my housemate, let alone my girlfriend. I must have really good chat to make up for it or something.

Right, enough rubbish. Back to reading.

Labels: english, exams, reading, revision, UCL

And....I'm back. Back from a deep furrow of Shakespeare, which I was revising for my exam today. At 6 hours long, it's rather on the end of the 'nightmare' spectrum, but I made it out in one piece. Some of the questions I was hoping for, but in slightly, or drastically altered forms. This was a shame as it meant having to avoid writing about a couple of things I knew a lot about, but wasn't quite confident enough to write on for two hours. Perhaps in hindsight this will be a mistake, but you live and learn. In terms of the paper, all agreed it was more on the difficult side, with the first section particularly unenviable. So, as a paper I will score it 5 out of 10. As for my performance, I will offer a solid 7.5 out of ten. If only that mean I was going to get a 75...

These are the three questions I answered, or rather, to be in keeping with the rhetoric of exams, and to be honest to my own performance, attempted.

3.Anna Barton describes 1 Henry IV as a play 'in which comedy continually tests itself against historical truth.' Explore this perception.

18. ''He is not to be taken as a playwright who opens up a complexity of Elizabethan attitudes...but is stuck with the responsibility thrust upon him by Jonson in a commendatory poem prefacing the 1623 folio of the plays: 'He was not of an age, but for all time!'' (Gordon Williams)

How would relieving Shakespeare of this responsibility affect your reading of any one or more of his works?

22. Consider the role of pregnancy in at least two of Shakespeare's works.

Labels: exams, Shakespeare

"The circle of human knowledge, illuminated by the pale, cold light of reason, is so infinitesimally small, the dark regions of human ignorance which lie beyond that luminous ring so immeasurably vast, that imagination is feign to step up to the borderline and send the warm, richly colored beams of her fairy lantern streaming out into the darkness ; and so, peering into the gloom, she is apt to mistake the shadowy reflections of her own figure for real beings moving in the abyss.

Sir James George FrazerThe Golden Bough

April 2010 / May 2010 / June 2010 / July 2010 / August 2010 / September 2010 / February 2011 / April 2011 / August 2011 / September 2011 /

Messing with Illustrator / /homeless / The irony of househunting. / Househunting / Some old material / Favourite capture on Google Maps Street View / Idiot librarian / THIS IS NOT THAT DAY! / Confirmation (not religious) / love data? love data. /

The title of this blog comes from a poem by Coleridge, A Wish: Wriiten in Jesus Wood, Feb. 10th, 1792, Plus most blogs are moans anyway. Including this one. lol manuscripts

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I'm a 23 year-old student in London Cambridge London, studying English Literature Law. It's hard to really think of anything truly personal I can put here that might give you some idea of who I am, so I will just tell you that my favourite Shakespeare play is Richard II, my favourite chocolate bar is Snickers, and I have a bit of a thing for instant coffee, especially if someone else makes it for me.

I'm interested in Renaissance Literature, Higher Education policy, and libraries.
I'm completely in love with a Scottish girl.