I have assignments now, and exams soon. I will talk more about college when some time arises. In the meantime, here is a modern interpretation of Thoreau: The thing that really, fundamentally bugs me about Thoreau is that this is accurate. Walden Pond was a short stroll from Boston; he nipped back into town every second day or so for… (more…)
There’s an interesting effect at the beginning of this term; the modules take up from a point where, more or less, the foundation modules left off. Which is the point where you’re reading two or three chapters from textbooks per unit, and reckoning on getting through one unit per module each week. Now, for the literature modules, this is generally… (more…)
In a fit of enthusiasm, I bought one of the history textbooks early in the summer, and have been dipping into it at intervals since. That was Robert Gildea’s Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914. I acquired John Merriman’s A History of Modern Europe, Volume Two: From the French Revolution to the Present today. There is another book that I’m not… (more…)
The new term begins today, and I took the day off from work in order to plan out the lines of attack, as it were. I’m taking History 2 (Europe and the Wider World, 1840-1980s), Literature 2 (20th Century) and Literature 3 (17th-18th Century). All three are fairly dense modules, and the reading list for the two LIT modules is… (more…)
After some fighting with the mysteries of the online registration system, I have successfully registered for: HIS2: Europe and a Wider World LIT2: Literature of the Twentieth Century LIT3: Literature of the 17th and 18th Centuries Book lists don’t seem to be available yet, but I’ll jump on them as soon as they are. It’s good to be getting started… (more…)
The results from my first year of the BA in Humanities are in: a first in Literature, second in History and Sociology. This is pretty much exactly as expected, no surprises included. The marks aren’t too important for this year – indeed, the marks aren’t even graded fully in the results display, they’re simply “P” for pass. This is because… (more…)
And of course, having said I expect the blog to be quiet, I post again. I read a very interesting post a couple of days ago on Tales From The Reading Room in which Litlove talks about Laura Moriarty’s The Chaperone, and I’ve been thinking about it since. The particular point which caught my interest was this: “in genre novels,… (more…)
The term is over, exams included. The last month was a veritable maze of studying – finishing out the coursework after the last assignments, and then studying and distilling down the contents of the course, and making the nerve-wracking choices of what topics to study in depth. The whole thing came out fairly well in the end. The Sociology exam… (more…)
I’m sitting down to write this post at five minutes to three on Sunday night. Tomorrow is a bank holiday, and the only appointment I have is to go and look at a potential new allotment in the afternoon, so I’m not worried about sleeping. Not that I’m ordinarily worried about sleeping – I only get insomnia when I’m well… (more…)
Understanding Monarchical Ambition
I’ve had a tough time getting my head around one important question in history – namely, why kings want to expand their holdings. It seemed to me that in most cases, kings who tried to expand their territories were letting themselves in for a world of trouble, and that they’d have been far better off to consolidate and improve existing… (more…)