To begin with...

April is not the cruellest month, no matter what TS Eliot might have said.

That award definitely goes to May. April you still feel like you should be working. May...begins with the end of classes, and (if you're really really lucky) a trip to Kalamazoo, and then you spend the rest of the month trying to finish up those papers left over from the school year. Some would say that if you were smart you wouldn't have any incompletes. My only opinion on the matter is that it was all part of the plan. Really. At any rate, it's finally gorgeous out for more than a day at a time, the winter clothing is safely stored in the closet, and summer is honestly here. Working outside has become possible. As have naps in the sun.

Amazing how often the two seem to happen back-to-back.

So why begin a blog at the very end of the second cruellest month? The answer is simple: I'm taking my exams next May (in just a little over a year) and I need some way to keep sane in the interim. I turn, then, to the internet.

My field is Old English. I've been working on it for well over four years now and I have never lost my interest for more than a day -- though between my undergrad and MA theses, I could use some time off from from the "elegies." Graduate school brought the opportunity to move to NY and continue the work, and I jumped at the chance. And for anyone who pays attention to the Tri-State Anglo-Saxon scene, you know that it's starting to be a pretty happening place for Anglo-Saxon studies. I'm juxtaposing my Old English reading with some work on medieval literary theory, and more specifically, with translation and Chaucer.

At any rate, I decided to begin a blog where I'd write about what I'm working on in terms of my reading and writing this summer. Not to mention what I'm doing to procrastinate while working on said reading and writing. A combined form of motivation and procrastination, if you will, as well as forum to connect with other people out there studying English, and particularly medieval English. Academia can be a pretty solitary experience, but that's changing more and more -- and I think it will continue to do so as the internet becomes more and more a part of the work we do.

Plus, when Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog, how can I not?