between the rock and the cold, cold sea

Things I am going to do in (my three days in) London:

- Visit the British Museum. Look at all the ancient stuffs.
- Visit the London Mithraeum, Queen Victoria Street, and nearby -
- St Paul's Cathedral
- Visit the Imperial War Museum (maybe: I might just go back to the BM)
- Look at the outside of the Tower (because entry is Expensive)
- Visit the Globe
- Stare at the Parliament buildings and think nationalistic thoughts. (What? I'm Irish. The history of the British government brings out the worst in me.)

That might be enough, I think.

Books 2009: 50-51


51. Anthony Price, October Men.

The fourth 1970s spy novel I've read by Price. This one involves the adventures of David Audley in Italy, North Sea oil, Soviets (of course), and government bureaucracy. Quite good.

It's a little odd to read these, really. They're a window into a very different world. I've never lived when Russia was The Enemy (111!!) of freedom and democracy (such as they are), despite Ireland's pathological screwed-up neutrality. They're just another (sort of European sort of Asian sort of in-between) nation, albeit one a bit more bellicose, corrupt and repressive than one might wish (though much the same might be said for the US). So it's rather fascinating to watch Cold War era paranoia in fiction.


non-fiction:

52. Josef Wiesehofer, Ancient Persia, London and New York, 1996.

One of the standard introductory works to the topic. Arranged broadly chronological, with each different dynasty divided thematically into discussions of military, social conditions, evidence, etc. Rather dry, and perhaps a little pedestrian. But I know a bit more about Achaemenids, Parthians, and Sassanians than I did before.

---

The physiotherapist says the only thing wrong with my shoulder is the fact that the muscles were tight as twisted wire and knotted to boot. After a half-hour of torture, she gave me some stretches and instuctions to try to drop my shoulders, not hunch them. I'm cleared to exercise and climb again, though I'm leaving any restart of the training plan until tomorrow.

The cat should come home on Friday. By then we should know whether he'll last out the next few weeks.

I also need to start seriously thinking about packing my rucksack for my month-long Archaeological Adventure. See if everything fits.

College begins again in September. I have, therefore, approximately three months, including time spent at Silchester.

Books

Library, to do with thesis topic:

relevant sections only

1. Placing the gods: Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient Greece, Alcock etc.

2. Religions of Rome Vol. 1, Beard etc.

3. Religion in Roman Egypt: resistance and assimilation, D. Frankfurter.

4. Isis in the ancient world, R.E. Witt.

5. Isis in the Graeco-Roman world, R.E. Witt.


Mine own.

1. Women in Athenian Law and Life, Roger Just.

2. Forbidden Rites, Richard Kieckhiefer.

3. Xenophon's Retreat, Robin Waterfield.

4. Cultures of the Jews Vol. 2, D. Biale (ed).

5. Greek Science After Aristotle, G.E.R. Lloyd.

6. Hippocratic Writings, Penguin edition.

7. Genghis Khan, John Man.

8. A History of My Times, Xenophon.

9. Crusades Through Arab Eyes, A. Malouf.

10. Ancient Persia, J. Wiesehofer.


Library, for my own interest:

will put aside if boring

1. Byzantium and the early Islamic conquests, W.E. Kaegi

2. Empire and Elites after the Muslim Conquest: the transformation of northern Mesopotamia, C.F. Robinson.

3. Medieval India: researches in the history of India 1200-1750, I. Habib.

4. The Ottoman Empire 1300-1650: the structure of power, C. Imber.

5. The Ottoman Empire: 1326-1699, S. Turnbull.

6. The Silk Road, F. Wood.

7. The Silk Road: a history, Franck & Brownstone.

8. The Silk Road and beyond: trade, travel and transformation, K. Manchester (ed).

9. The Silk Road: trade, travel, war and faith, S. Whitfield (ed).

10. Medieval Russia 980-1584, J. Martin (and there's even a lending copy!).

---

Reading the Byzantium book has made me much more interested in the contact, conversation and conflict across the eastern world, beyond the borders of what became Latin Europe, than I was before. So this is a good selection of books, I hope, to sample, in between Real Work building up my picture of the Greek world and acquiring Broad Background in History.

I've been putting off a number of books on my personal list - I've had the Man book and the Malouf book for ages, and never, it seemed, the right time to read it. There's an appalling number of books on my shelf, actually, from back in the mists of time when I had a job and cash moneys. Victorian, early modern England, a lot of WWII France books, some Stalinist Russian history, a little bit of early modern Europe stuff, maybe three American history books, an intimidatingly large history of the Balkans, and Guido Majno's massive The Healing Hand, which I'm sure I'll just as soon as I have the courage to embark upon it. Not to mention the handful of Greek history books that escaped being read, and the stulifying original sources I haven't been able to bring myself to read.

I'll work my way through it all eventually.

---

Also on the to-do list this summer: more Latin, more Greek, a refresher dip through French - I'll start off with vocabulary, that should be simple enough, and work up to reading some Harry Potter or short stories or something - and an introduction to German.

The German should be... interesting. I have no background in it at all, and no idea how to start. However, start I must, since the languages of Classical scholarship are English, French, German, Italian, Latin and Greek, with some forays more recently in Polish.

I could use the college's resources to learn a language. But. I think I learn well enough on my own without signing up for a class that might interfere with my proper classes next year. So. Plan is, find a book, and start plugging away at grammar and vocabulary.

(I need to start Latin from scratch again, since I've forgotten all I learned last summer. Ah, learning. Ah, memory.)

Books 2009: 48

48. Judith Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire.

A thoroughly interesting overview of the history of Byzantium from 330 to 1453. I am obliged to quibble with some of the statements she makes with regards to Constantine in the early chapters - Constantinople did not become the "New Rome" until Constantine's sons were in power, at least, and other such petty details - but the thematic and chronological treatment of Byzantium's place in the Late Antique and early medieval world is quite fascinating, particularly the later years, and the interaction with the Arab caliphates and the Seljuk Turks. And the crusades. Byzantium was conquered by crusaders in 1402, leading to the creation of a short-lived Latin empire. I never knew that.

It's well-written, and reasonably short, for a book that covers eleven hundred years or so. I recommend it.

---

So. Let me ask you something, internets. Is it worth the bother to apply for a Fulbright Award and attempt to apply to a US university for a master's programme in ancient history? The whole process of applying seems to take upwards of a year, and looks entirely like too much work.

---

And let me ask you another thing. I was looking at my shelves, to figure out what I could read now - since there will be no more reading of Romans or Greeks for a while at least, while my brain unbends - and it strikes me I have entirely too much European history on my shelves. So are there any folks out there who could point me in the direction of

a)good histories of the Ummayids and/or Abbasids?
b)a decent overview or so of the eastern trade in Late Antiquity? I remember reading something about Hellenistic/Roman trade by the sea route from the Red Sea to India, and I want to track down more info on that.
c)a decent overview of the period and developments that led to the Seljuk Turks establishing themselves in Bithynia and Asia Minor? Since I was just reading about the Byzantine side of things, it seems a fascinating time in history.
d)any good history of India in the period about 100BC-700CE? Or, failing that, anywhere between about the start of the so-called common era and the European medieval period?

I don't want to get too narrow of focus, you see, and I thought I'd see if anyone had any recommendations. Summer is usually my time for reading as widely as possible, both within and outside my subject area - I have a little list, which I'll probably be writing up here in a while - but I want to get a bit wider-ranging than I did last year.

Exams are over. The last one was yesterday: I feel pretty okay about them overall, but it's going to be a wee bit tricksy containing my suspense until the evening of June 23, when the results are published at the entrance.

I have sixteen days before I leave for my month and a few days in England: first a couple of days in London to see the British Museum and the Imperial War Museum (hopefully: I might spend all my time in the DM and not go anywhere else). Then on to Reading, and Silchester, where I will erect my new tent (sold to me by a handsome climber in the Great Outdoors) and take part in a training excavation for four weeks.

I want to get started on writing and serious exercising first, and maybe look at some thesis books, if my lecturer gets back to me. I'll have busy times, but fun: I don't have to spend my time nose-down over a page of notes for another year, and by damn I mean to enjoy every minute until lectures start again at the end of September.

I haven't made arrangements to return from Silchester yet. I was thinking of train and ferry, with - if I can afford it, and I probably can't, because I'm broke now and I will be dead broke then - maybe a couple of days for sightseeing in Oxford or Cambridge. I have family in Oxford, so maybe I can work something out: the last time I was in England I was thirteen, and I saw not enough of Oxford and not even a day's worth of London.

File me under "sloth and gluttony," okay?

I've just had a week pretty much off. Well, from Tuesday with exercise, and with coursework from Thursday - well, barring that thing I had to hand in on Monday, which means, I guess, that I've only had the last two days completely off. And I filed today. And did laundry yesterday. Huh. You know, it feels like I did less?

I ate a shitload of chocolatey stuff over the weekend, though. That always makes me feel more sloth-like. Slothier? Is that a word, slothier? Anyway. Running and climbing and starting an essay tomorrow, oh yes. Endeavouring to start life anew and all that, what?

Sleeping would probably be good around now. Hard to start anew if you're dozing in til noon.

( College )


( Exercise )


( Miscellaneous )

This will do for going on with.

It has been a blessedly peaceful day. The which I needed, but did not know.

Sometimes it's passing hard to see the forest for the trees. I never thought, you see, to see life itself as a benediction. I have gained so much this year, in everything that matters. Grown some, I hope, too. And if I have a deeper understanding, and a more abiding fear, of loss, I suspect it should count as a small price.

It's something, to find kindness and friendship unlooked-for. And keep finding it, over and again. I can only hope to be worthy of it.

I have some resolutions for 2009. But I will put them behind a cut, to spare the innocent.

( Read more... )

Tomorrow, there will be essay, from morning til night. But not until tomorrow.

There are new routes at the climbing wall. On balance, the consensus seems to be that they're easier than the ones that were there before.

This is probably only half true, but the ratings aren't up, so I couldn't tell how difficult they're supposed to be. I sent two 4+ routes (one was definitely a 4+ at most, the other might have been a borderline 5) clean on sight. I had to do a bit of dogging with an orange route, probably also a 5, but I managed it.

Alas, that is the sum total of my sent routes for tonight. Although I made a good stab - within three moves of the top - of a borderline grey 5+/6a, and of a very reach-y blue 5+. (Got stuck on a move than required me to match hands well above my head on a flat slopey block and smear up through sheer strength, and I wasn't that strong. I could see the next two moves to the top! And how to do them! Didn't help that the wall was sauna-warm.) I also made it halfway up a blue that I think will probably end up graded 6a - the start is straightforward, but it gets rapidly more complicated from there.

There are some tempting probably-6a routes there, now - two with only one move on the roof, making it just possible I can do them, or will be able to within a month or two - a ladder route (it's now my avowed goal to lead that one at least partway by the next routesetting) that has a whole lot of roof, and one really interesting-looking black route in a corner that I think will work out to 6b, probably - the start is all reach and balance and pressing down with the heel of your palm on one wall while standing up and stretching tippy-fingers on another. It should be an interesting learning experience. I look forward to it.

As I look forward to learning to lead on the gloriously simple green 4.

---

Today I made use of a present. The parent gave me a new mobile phone at the end of October, so I could actually call home from away. I changed over mobiles permanently with great ceremony last night, and today uploaded the pictures I have from Calgary to my Flickr account.

I remain astounded by the size of North American cities. And I don't really travel well.

I don't have many, and none of WFC itself, or other people. But it's nice to have a reminder of my Grand Canadian Adventure. With any luck, one day I'll be able to repeat it at greater leisure.

---

I was considering, today, the sanity of my desire to be hawkwing_lb, PhD. It is a fine dream, but do I really want four or five additional years of student poverty and an uncertain career? Would it be more fruitful to consider a masters in International Relations and a move into the vast bureaucracy of a the civil service or a transnational organisation?

It's a good thing I don't have to make these decisions for at least another year.

The sun came back with a vengeance, as I emerged to the bright shining light (the one I hadn't seen for at least a week) this morning.

Weather was perfect, mild and bright and smelling clean, and I got a bucketload of photocopying done in the library. (The strange-smelling bush outside the Arts Block thinks it's spring, for the fourth time this year.) Optimism, I have it. Right now I'm sitting in a computer room snacking on a muffin in preparation for going climbing. Perhaps there will be someone there to belay: the excitement of new routes brought climbers by the dozen in August, so I'm hoping.

I should go do that now. Perhaps I can get in a short jog after.

(Sunshine makes me an optimist. I like it.)