Greetings, one and all, and welcome back to witness my incipient mental decay.
Having turned in multiple papers thus far, I am feeling much better about my abilities to...write passable papers in about 12 hours total. (BIG grin.) Alas, despite my best intentions, I have not quite been able to shake my procrastination habit, though recent developments have proven promising: the past two days I've spent four and five hours respectively in libraries, studying away. I feel quite research-y; it's lovely.
Thus, a few reflections on the effects of prolonged study and some thoughts on the Oxford System (Patent Pending).
1) I am doing research. Like a big girl, a grownup, a proper scholar. Granted it's not particularly groundbreaking -- I don't have the vast background that would be necessary to write the sort of articles and analyses I read, and I have little interest, at this stage, in things like textual history -- but the difference is quantitative, not qualitative. I've chosen my subjects and I explore sources on them; I evaluate and compare and analyze and synthesize and refute. It's strange -- but more and more I'm figuring out that I can learn things on my own, with minimal guidance from teachers.
2) Writing 1.5 ten-page papers every week for eight weeks, and doing nothing else, is interesting. It's intense, especially at first, when, having finished the paper, my US-higher-ed-primed brain expects there to be a lull and not an immediate new assignment. And in some ways the experience is a little impoverishing -- I only see my tutors once a week and once every two weeks, and while our converse is stimulating (and surprisingly equitable; one does not feel so much like a lowly student as like a scholar being mentored) it's also limited. Nor do I have classmates working on similar projects with whom to commiserate and exchange ideas. I'm obliged to be very independent, which has its advantages and drawbacks. And it's very immersive -- if nothing else, I am sure going to understand the different layers of textuality in the Ars Amatoria, and the various configurations of sublimity, rebellion, and causality in Romantic interpretations of Milton when I get back. I feel like I'm actually getting to know my topics, on my own time and in my own way, and not having any kind of interpretation fed to me.
3) Oh, my good golly gosh, the libraries. They are so full of books. There are so many of them. Their opening hours and laptop policies are all different. And...they are marvelous. I love that every other building, it seems, is a library. I love that there are so many books. Even though I don't request the rare editions and original printings, I love the fact that if I needed to, I could. And I love that it doesn't matter how obscure the thing I'm looking for is: they will have a copy. Today, for instance, I found -- on one shelf -- Charles Williams' All Hallow's Eve, everything ever written by Virginia Woolf, and the same for WB Yeats. A few aisles down -- all of Byron and Shelley's personal correspondences, in book form. A floor below that -- Middle English dictionaries. Linguistics and syntax textbooks. MASSES of Shakespeare. And this is all just one building -- the English Faculty Library. If I went to the Sackler, or the Lower Reading Room of the Old Bod, I could find every issue of every philological journal ever, either bound or on various web databases.
-- Everything's there, in other words, and it feels so...I don't know...comforting. For once in my life, there are enough books.
4) Because my study is so independent (see what I did there?), I'm finding myself not only honestly interested in the background to what I'm studying but in random other tangents as well. And, cooler yet, I'm actually finding some time to pursue them. Part of this is due to not having any other homework or classes apart from my tutorials (WIN), but part is due to the independence fostered by the aforesaid conditions. It's like the entire university has said to me, "You want to learn about something? -- Hell, we're not gonna hold your hand; we've all got dissertations to write. Go read some books about it." And I have been, and I discover that reading books is a legitimate way to learn about things -- especially reading "broad and shallow;" speed-reading through a wide variety of texts on a subject and lingering only on those things which attract your attention or seem to make sense. I read and read, and come back to speak to my tutors, and they say things like, "So how did you find Stanley Fish's take on Milton?" and I come back with, "Oh, I thought he made some good points, except for XY and Z; Waldock totally disagrees with him, of course, but then what are you going to do? -- it's Waldock."
And then I have to pause, and realize that those words actually came out of my mouth, and that I am speaking with some authority on a subject that, a week ago, I'd only have been able to sort of hem and haw over. Research works, and more importantly, I can do it.
*Bonus) So far all of these experiences have served to further confirm my inclination to skip grad school, since so far it seems like most schools are tightening the reins on research. You don't just get to read what you want; you're increasingly subject to a) produce papers, b) do events like conferences and lectures and collaborations and things, and c) "engage in dialogue on relevant matters," which is code for "wrench your favorite topic around until it has some tenuous link with our Buzzword of the Day and pretend like you care about that". So I'm thinking -- I know you've heard me say this before, but it's still true and not a platitude -- the only way I can continue my education is to stop going to school. And indeed, this in itself is not foreign to the Oxford ethos; a lot of the professors here don't have doctorates, and don't care. Some of them, I suspect, are just given honorary doctorates because they're so clearly more brilliant than what the postgrad mills are churning out.
Nevertheless, if I were ever offered a reasonable shot at doing grad work at Oxford, I'd take it, and here's why: you really are living in community with other scholars. Because there are so many individual colleges, they're all tiny, and everyone seems to know each other. Moreover, there's a legitimate sense of investment in the community. I know what all the colleges back in the states say about having that homey campus-family feel, and I'd even say that my own college does a good job of fostering a fairly good sense of community. But in Oxford, there's not really such a thing as a college campus: there's one building, with a dining hall and classrooms and common rooms and library and dorms and quad and cathedral, all within one walled-in complex. Then there's the town. You want to eat something other than hall food? Go into town. You want a capuccino? Town, baby; there's no cutesie college cafe (though there is a bar -- apparently a rather cheap one -- in my college basement). Books? Sweatshirts? Town. -- But you want to study, meet your friends, go to class, there's one place you do it, and it really feels more like a home, and less like a company.
Of course, I think the walls have something to do with it. I swear, if Normans attacked tomorrow, you'd find hoards of students turned out in motley battle gear, barring the gates and shrieking defiance as they fling hot oil down upon the foe. --You don't get that, so much, on your typical sprawling sleek mid-nineties architecture modern campuses. ...no, what you get is the sense that half the student body would sort of shrug and shuffle back to their dorms in their jammies, and of the remaining half, most would be torn by indecision and some would attempt to understand the Normans' cultural context and meaning-making paradigm and where they were on the Rainbow Spiral of Self-Actualization, so they could justify their meekness in handing over whatever paltry cultural treasures their libraries had been holding on to.
Not bitter. Not at all. ; )
And now for something completely different: the Oxford Pub and Coffee Tour of...Oxford:
Pubs: The White Horse is OMG THE WHITE HORSE. I LOVES IT. Conveniently located, serving very tasty foodstuffs for only slightly painful prices, comfortable, frequented by locals, warm, low-ceilinged, brimming with culture, and offering the tasty (if somewhat less than ebon-dark) Wayland Smithy, and a very good blonde Cornish beverage. Also one of the barkeeps is Glaswegian. He sounds so lovely. And they are nice to me and don't pester me, but also will chat with me if I'm lonely.
The King's Arms is a bit of all right, but big and very crowded, and gets a bit rambunctious as the evenings wear on. Expensive food but their pork pies are cheap and decent. Not bad in a pinch.
The Mitre: ehhh. Overpriced, standardized -- too obviously owned by a chain -- the darkest thing they had on tap was Guinness... skip it.
The Turf -- supposedly the oldest pub in Oxford -- is a nice enough place, tricky to find, good food (again, spendy), a wide selection of alcoholz. Very similar to the White Horse, in fact, but...for some reason... I like the former a little more. It's cozier, less labyrinthine...and they know me there. Sure, they know me as "that odd American chick who comes in on Tuesdays, collapses into a chair, drinks like a drowning fish, and scribbles in her notebook," but I think they do know me!...a bit!
On to coffee:
The Buttery -- brilliant. Cheap -- you can get a 12-oz mocha to take away for under 2 pounds -- and delicious, using a lovely velvet-soft foam instead of the drier fare you get elsewhere. They're quite friendly, and their flapjacks (which in England are not pancakes but sort of oatmeal bars) are superb.
The Missing Bean -- billed as the best espresso bar in Oxford, because it seems to be the only real espresso bar in Oxford, it's always very...busy, and a bit spendy, and they don't make their coffee particularly fast, but I may give them another shot, since I think their roast is pretty good.
Starbucks: don't. Not in England. It's just...sad. I don't like Starbucks excessively much in the States, but I must admit they do a better job than over here...again, I blame a cultural lack of coffee understanding....
Coffee Republic: Does an all right job, especially at Chai Lattes, but service...sucks, honestly. I feel like I'm being sort of hurried about, and no amount of soft folksy soundtrack and cunning wall art is going to make up for that.
Morton's/Cafe Creme: both of these do an all right job -- and more importantly, are nice to me -- but they're a bit too expensive, and their coffee not quite bliss-inducing enough for me to justify it.
A Reflection: England has a stellar pub culture. One goes out, enjoys beers and gin-and-tonics, has some nommage, enjoys the atmosphere, the company; one does not get kaplashmammestered and make an idiot of oneself. Service is friendly, food is good, everything is relaxed, laid-back. Cafe culture is...catching on, but it doesn't quite seem as native. Additionally, as I have noted, English breakfast is protein with a little fried starch on the side -- not big on flavor, variety, or French toast. So I'm thinking there's a definite niche to open a nice place where we do specialty lattes and American breakfast options (like, say, Denver omlettes and pancakes with syrup) and, what's more, do it right. ...Retirement plan?... I've already got an idea for a signature drink; I call it the Nutella mocha, and it is a hazelnut-vanilla mocha with a blob of actual Nutella stirred in. Also I am considering a shot-in-the-dark with a kiss of heavy cream and optional chili-chocolate syrup called "The Trucker." And who could forget "The Jaffa," an orange mocha, named for the famous orange and chocolate cookie/cake things they sell over here?... I could even introduce a glorified Raspberry Galaxy and call it "The Jammy Dodger." And, of course, we could introduce the British Isles to the breakfast burrito.
...I'm seeing real potential here. First, though, I should get my food worker's permit...
...and before that, I should go read Prometheus Unbound. Again. Perhaps this time it will make sense?
Love and kisses, all. Keep trucking. Six papers down; fiveish to go!
