Speaking of ‘Precious’

I have said before that my life, which people who aren’t me seem to think should be some sort of action-packed romp around the Continent, doesn’t exactly resemble the sort of thing that Hemingway and Fitzgerald wrote about. Normally this is a point of some consternation for me. The other day, as I wept into my mid-afternoon martini about the sheer unglamorousness of being me, I recalled this quotation from Hemingway that is just So My Life. (That’s a slight exaggeration. It was a Pims and Lemonade.)

Several days later I have mustered enough get-up-and-go to locate the quotation. Which is written in a notebook. A notebook that is sitting on my desk. The desk where I spend copious amounts of time every day.

Not that I’m doing anything productive during the time I’m sitting at my desk. You see, I am a young procrastinator. I am full of ideas and inspiration and good intentions, I just happen to be terminally lazy. That notebook I mentioned with the quotation written in it? It’s basically full of sketches and outlines of a year’s worth of harebrained schemes. Of all these things I want to write about.

Do you know what I should be writing about right now? I should be writing inquiry letters and cover letters to potential employers about how awesome and motivated I am. I should be writing my dissertation on museum education for students with Autistic Spectrum Disorders. What am I actually writing? This blog. A review of Oreo cookies for no useful reason whatsoever. Instant messages. Because I will leave the things that I should be writing and should be doing until the last possible moment, until right before it’s too late to share them.

Which reminds me…the quotation:

You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see. You hang around cafes.

-The Sun Also Rises

I really didn’t intend for this entry to sound so nihilistic and, well, precious. The stuff that needs to get done will get done. Eventually. In the meantime I have some drinking in cafes to attend to.

Eew, the WordPress dashboard has an ugly new look.

Here is a glimpse into my exciting and glamorous life in Europe: I visit cool places, become even more extremely poor than I am now, and then return ‘home’ to my dorm room in Leicester. I never update about my travels because life aside from those travels is so mundanely boring. No one wants to hear about your Continental frolics unless you also have something exciting coming up in your schedule, as in “Last night Zelda and I dined at the Ritz, and tomorrow we will head off for a week in St Kitts.” Notice how my example contained zero references to the Continent, although I guess the Ritz is probably everywhere by now.

Let’s give it a try, shall we?

Last week I went inside a 5,000 year old tomb, and today I am sitting at my desk, listening to the hail outside, and updating my blog. Next I will either go read a book or watch the BBC. Yawn.

So that’s why I haven’t filled anyone in on my travels, which were to Prague and Ireland by the way. I loved Prague but frankly didn’t care for Dublin, though I don’t have anything especially pithy and disparaging to say about it. It was just ugly and expensive.

And the future? Until mid-June I will be completely unscheduled, lazing about and then banging out a dissertation at what is likely to be the 11th hour. I am going to take up Exercise, Drink, and Writing Things That Aren’t Blogs (But Are Unlikely to be My Dissertation Either). I’m mostly kidding about the drink. Then I’m home in NY for a week and a half before moving to London for my summer placement.

Past the end of August my life is basically a Mystery. I will be moving to wherever the jobs are, kind of like those tramps from the Great Depression. Yay recession! Hopefully I will be able to afford to travel on the inside of trains. And hopefully the work that awaits me will not be agricultural.

An update on what I am eating.

Today I added cinnamon and chili powder to my hot chocolate, thinking I should fake some Mexican Hot Chocolate since I certainly can’t afford to buy it ready-made. I’m pretty sure there were choirs of angels singing in my kitchen. It could use a bit more chili powder, but that might be because I have A Problem. (Just as some people think that all shortcomings can be resolved with the addition of More Cowbell, I feel most cooking dilemmas can be solved by adding More Chili Powder. Or cheese. The hot chocolate certainly didn’t call for cheese.)

Cheese. That’s the other thing I’m eating a lot of. What can I say, I like to pack on the pounds before the holidays. I’ve also been eating the potato in all of its forms, and gallons of soup. English cuisine is about as varied and healthy as  any good consumer of popular culture might assume, though I’m certainly no health-nut and am coping admirably. Maybe the food is the reason why English girls seem to think clothing is a bad idea when going out at night; shivering burns more calories.

Excuse this nonsensical entry. I’m practically asleep.

Wahunsonacock wore WHAT?!?

The title of this entry is the title I wish I could give my first essay of grad school. Unfortunately in England, or perhaps just in the University of Leicester Department of Museum Studies, we have to title our essays with the question that was set. Thus my title will be: ‘Choose one object now in a museum. Describe, analyse and critically discuss the object’s biography and social life since its production.’

Somehow it just lacks snazz in comparison.

The object I’m doing is this little beauty, aka ‘Powhatan’s Mantle’, an object that is so exquisitely documented that it is referred to with quotation marks in half of the official literature. I saw it in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and became kind of obsessed with it, mostly because I’d never heard of it before and the way it’s presented in the museum is as if it’s 100% real, no doubt about it, Powhatan sooo totally wore this like OMG. I was originally doing an essay where I was grappling with the big questions like ‘What is material culture?’, but then I saw that I could do this and immediately reverted back to academic type. I get to write an essay about cabinets of curiosity and cultural imperialism and Jamestown. If only I could have worked Catch-22 in there somewhere (I admit, that would have been a long-shot) we might have hit all the essay g-spots.

I think it’s time for a new Nerdgasms banner. I’m sure I only think this because I need something else to do to procrastinate now that I’ve written this entry. Still, stay tuned. Or just come back in a month, which seems like a more efficient use of your time.

Edit: Or you could just look now, as apparently I felt compelled to change it immediately. It’s a bit dreary, but yay cabinets of curiosity!

Real Englishman or Merely a Delightful Name I Made Up?: The Answers

I almost forgot all about this, which I suppose is par for the course with my blogging habits. Nevertheless, here are your answers.

All the men mentioned are real.

How crazy is that?

However not all of them are Englishmen.

1. Alfred James Hipkins - British artist 1826-1903
2. Edwin Horatio Fedarb - Real. Incidentally also unremarkable enough that my previous entry is the second result when you search his name. I’m very sorry Edwin; that is the epitome of tragic.
3. Wenceslaus Hollar - Czech! Hollar at me, Wenceslaus.
4. Sir Dingle Mackintosh Foot - Real! Doesn’t it make you feel good to live in a world where that’s a real name? I think this may actually be the greatest name I’ve ever heard. (Politician who worked with Churchill, by the by.)

All of these men were either buried or commemorated at Westminster Abbey/St Margaret’s Church, which is how I came by their names. And what names they are! Sir Dingle Mackintosh Foot’s parents had to have been wonderfully absurd individuals to saddle their son with a name like that.

Two Exciting New Games For You All!

I write to you this Saturday morning from my dorm (hall/flat/whatever). It’s extremely nice, which surprised me very much. I’ve spent this past week participating in what may be the lamest student orientation in existence, though fortunately I got free lunch out of it. I come with two exciting new games for you, so be thrilled!

The first is called Predict When the Two 40 Year Old Indian Gentlemen With Whom You Share a Bathroom Are Going to be Showering. It’s not a very fun game, though it is suspenseful. I’m afraid you can’t play along at home but you’re most welcome to visit me and give it a go.

The second is called Real Englishman or Merely a Delightful Name I Made Up? Today’s contestants are:

1. Alfred James Hipkins
2. Edwin Horatio Fedarb
3. Wenceslaus Hollar
4. Sir Dingle Mackintosh Foot

No cheating! The answers will be posted soon. And I mean soon in the real sense, not soon as in “relative to the rest of this blog’s chronology.”

By the by, England is very much living up to the cliche of being cold and wet. All the time. If you love me, send tweed.