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!

Search Term Inversion

Given the two search-terms most commonly used to find this blog (why, God? Why?) I’d like to return the favor to teh internets by posting the two search terms I’d rather see:

1. suck my ponies
2. My Little Penis

I think Mattel should hop on that right away. There’s still time to market those for the Christmas rush!

Back to procrastinating on my 1,000 word essay that doesn’t count towards our grades…

“Make a sentence out of the following words: Face. Sodding. Your. Shut.”

Socially awkward though I may be I have (thus far, mostly, at least while sober) controlled my overwhelming desire to blurt out the first thought that springs to mind, no matter how offensive it is. So far I have caught myself in time to prevent the utterance of these gems:

1. “Wow, I used to be really obsessed with the ethnic conflict in your country!” (Points to anyone who can guess the country.)
2. (While discussing an article about repatriation of artefacts to indigenous groups.) “But that’s like Indian giving!”
3. More to follow as they come and I marvel over my glorious self-control.

Most of my social awkwardness has actually arisen out of not finding anything to say to people. I can’t make small-talk for long without disengaging. This is entirely my own fault, as I frankly just don’t care about what your dogs names are or which breakfast cereal you prefer. Then, once I’ve disengaged, it’s hard for me to pick up the part of the conversation where I’m supposed to be speaking because I have no idea what you’ve just said.I think the point of this entry is that I’m kind of an asshole. Sorry about that.

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.

Face all aglow to leave from here, to pack up and go.

So you guys? I leave for England on Thursday morning. I get there 20:00GMT, (that time thing is going to take some getting used to. I don’t do mental math!) so lugging my two 70lb. suitcases through the streets of London in the dark is going to be interesting. I can barely move one of them at a time, so two? And on the Tube? On stairs? Oh man.

And before you mock me for over-packing, being able to condense my belongings into a mere two suitcases, albeit ones as heavy as small boulders, is something of a glorious victory. I used to fill an entire SUV to go to college. I own over 70 pairs of shoes. Also, remember, I have a mother who would prefer I pack for every weather eventuality known to man. Glorious. Victory.

There’s already some stuff that’s not going according to plan, mostly financial stuff, but a friend gave me some good advice yesterday. Paraphrased as near as I can recall she said “You’re not going over there to be comfortable. You’re going over there for the experience of it. And it’s the times when you missed your train and are wandering lost in a strange city with everything you own on your back that you know you’re growing as a person.”

I hope I can approach this entire experience the Desiree Suo way, because I know I have a tendency to gripe. Mostly I gripe because it’s funnier and it doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying myself, but I don’t want the record (the record being my assorted blogs) to reflect only discontent. Joy! Rapture! Edwardian plumbing! (Couldn’t resist.)

I can’t decide whether I should make posts about these same subjects on Flying and/or wmk06. I know readership isn’t identical but I feel redundant cross-posting things to my own blogs. Oh, the trials of digital over-extension…

The next time you hear from me I’ll be in England. Or just on another blog. I leave you with some lyrics from my favorite song:

He said “I left my home where the dead never rose
for the streets of gold I’ve yet to find.
And at the end of the day all you can do is pray.
Without hope, well you might as well be blind.
Yea be blind. Tomorrow comes a day too soon.”

Wherein I Commit Internet Blasphemy

Now I know that this is a positively dreadful thing to do, but I am updating this blog… to point you in the direction of my other blog.

It’s newer! It’s shinier! It’s…well, newer about covers it really.

I made it so I could expound, at great length, on every 12th century stone I will trod on, every storied Victorian-era pub I will imbibe in, and every bureaucratic roadblock I will run into while I earn my MA in England. That is to say, it might veer tragically towards the narrative. It’s also so my mom can keep track of me, and to save me from the social faux-pas that would surely accompany any mass-emailing attempts. I would probably accidentally leave off far too many people, and would (again accidentally) include people whose dearest wish was to never hear from me again. Besides, emailing is far too much like keeping in touch and we all know that’s something I hardy do.

So now it’s up to them/you. I shirk emotional maturity and social responsibility; I blog, fool!

Oh right, the link: Flying (By the Seat of My Pants)

Things That Are Happening in the World

Despite my giant hiatus, I promised that this blog wasn’t dead. It’s not, it just seems I have very little to say.

So I will link you to other people saying things. I bring you the first edition of Things That Are Happening in the World:

1. Somewhere in the world, I am vomiting a little in my mouth. This is why. One the giant scale of awful, Kiddie Prom is only about 5 slots below Kiddie Porn.
2. Somewhere in the world, someone is finding this journal by Google-ing the last two words in the item above.
3. A quick perusal of BBC news indicates at least 3 floods (and one “more probable than it once was” flood), massive fires in Greece, an impending plague of locusts and one cosmic nothingness. I’m not even going to attempt to count the bombings.
4. Somewhere in the world people are waiting for the Second Coming. Somewhere in the world, still others are scratching their heads at this.
5. Somewhere in the world, my 86 year old Nana just got a mobile phone!
6. Right here and right now, I am going to bed. Actually, first I’m going to read a fashion magazine and then I’m going to bed.

Sorry this was such a boring entry kids. Maybe its  best if I don’t update when I don’t have anything to say…

Atchung!

This blog is not abandoned. I repeat, this blog is not abandoned. It is just severely neglected. And not for any interesting reasons, either.

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Review:

I posted this on my Livejournal last night, and now I am posting it here. I’m using the “more” tag so that no one is inadvertently spoiled for the last installment of Harry Potter. W00t.