Thursday, August 09, 2007

Quarter Century: Update

This past Monday, I turned 25. At the time I was still in North Carolina. At 25 and 1 day, I returned to New York. I settled in.

And I began reading Chaucer.

I continue to read Chaucer, finding interesting little tidbits of Troilus and Criseyde which I hope will blossom into a full fledged post one day.

But with 28 days to exams (in 5 minutes, 27) I'm no longer promising.

But while you're reading my pointless post, I'll be useful: go read the first and second posts in the first ITMBC4DSoMA (In the Middle Book Club For the Discerning Scholar of Medieval Arcana*). I curse the gods of interlibrary loan that have yet to allow me a copy of the book, as well as my deep fear of the upcoming exams -- for both of these have rather limited my participation. Ah well. Thank goodness for academic blogs -- it reminds me that even in the thick of Chaucerian romance and questions of authority in translation, there's still time (albeit stolen time), for monsters and cannibalism.

footnotes
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*I'd like to point out how sad it is that I can somehow recall what this fabulous acronym stands for and yet if you asked me to name more than about ten of Aelfric's Lives of the Saints and distinguish them by method of death, I'd probably struggle more than a little...

3 comments:

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Happy birthday! It is amazing to me that you can be so smart and barely out of diapers.

Remember, from 25 onwards it is all downhill. Enjoy!

Dr. Virago said...

Happy birthday!

And wow, at 25 I was only starting grad school and I was pretty much an idiot. (Still am, frankly.) In intellectual years, you're a wise old sage!

And are you really expected to be able to rattle off Aelfric's saints and their means of death off the top of your head? Isn't that what notes are for?

And speaking of which, if you've never seen Danny Boyle's Millions, you'd probably get a kick out of it. If you have, you know why I'm bringing it up.

MKH said...

Thanks for the birthday wishes :)

JJC: Remember, from 25 onwards it is all downhill. I knew I still had something to look forward to -- the long, slow decline!

Dr. V: I hope to god I'm not required to know Aelfric's saints and their deaths by heart -- I'm pretty sure I don't, but you can bet I'll be asking my adviser about that on Monday when we meet! Granted, so long as I recall my Louvre experience and the iconography of that long hall you have to walk down to get to the Mona Lisa, I should be ok. Ah, the joys of the lives of the saints (by which we clearly mean: their deaths).

As for Millions -- I'll definitely look it up. :)