Old English in New York

The "countdown" began awhile ago, but now I can officially say: oral exam date is set. September 6th from 2 to 4 pm. I could count it down in hours now if I wanted. But I won't.

I'll admit to a little nervous twinge when I saw that. I've been waiting to schedule this thing for so long I'm not quite sure what to think that I know not only a day but a time. The positive: I'm teaching beforehand. And as it's only the second day, I'll be in the segment of the course I've invariably been most fond of over the past year -- the part about monsters. But yes. Now it's just a day at a time, and remembering that (as a particularly wise colleague of mine said to me a few weeks ago) this isn't "a destination, a deadline or a monument" (I quote, which said friend I hope won't mind, because it was just too good to paraphrase). It's just the day where I have to sit down with my advisers, tell them where I've been, what I've found there, and where I'm going next.

And as Julian of Norwich so wisely said: And all manner of thing shall be well.

This post jumps ahead of another one I've started writing, on my experience translating the prologue to the Anglo-Norman Seint Aedward le Reis, and I'd imagine that once it's done it will also have more to do with the process of trying to translate a language that is not only a bit bizarrely categorized (French of England demonstrates that fact quite nicely), but which also has the distinction of being a language I haven't technically learned. I also just started in on Bob Stein's Reality Fictions, a book I've been meaning to read for an age and am only just now getting to. I think this might be an academic book so good I read most of it in one sitting. That's a rare feat. But yes: more on that as well, next time. For now, I go to read.