Who Am I? Where Do I Want to Be?

Two hard questions to answer, but ones which I need to face up to and then answer.

Who Am I?

So, who am I? 

On the surface, this is an easy question to answer - I'm me, I'm >>name<<, and so on. 

Or do I define myself by others - I'm the spouse of, the child of, the parent of, the sibling of someone...?

Or perhaps by what I do professionally. I'm a librarian, I'm a researcher, I'm a medievalist

Or by personal traits? I am a nerd, I am intense, I am focused, I am frustrating, I'm INTP

Or by ability/disability? I am autistic, I am arthritic, I am neurodivergent, I am disabled, I am dyslexic, I am a person with executive dysfunction, I'm someone with allergies/intolerances

Or by leisure activities? I am a reader, I am a music lover, I am a violist, I am a crafter, I am a sewer, I am a re-enactor, I'm a baker, I'm a cook, I'm a musician

Or by labels others have given, foisted on, or granted to me? Annoyance, Nuissance, Scarily organised (hah!), Weirdo, Wench, 

Or? You see, who am I is a lot more of a question than people think it is. And some of those things may also be hard to accept - for example, I am quite happy to say I have disabilities, but I feel very uncomfortable saying "I am disabled". Why are these two things different? What about things I love, used to do, and which I would like to do again, but yet currently don't do now. Am I still able to use those to define me?

So, given the above, why have I been spending so much time considering this whole anal naval gazing process? Put simply, because I'm a mimic, and with that I've realised I'm losing myself.

Mimicry

So what does mimicry mean in this context? Mimicry is an aspect, for me, of ASD. It means that I reflect other people's interests and ambitions, and can end up confusing their interests and desires with my own. It isn't intentional, but the more I've become aware of it, the more frustrating it's become for me. I've been using the COVID shutdown, and my own shut-in, to try to "bring myself together". One aspect of that is to force myself to figure out what I'm interested in because I love it, and what I'm into solely because someone else is (or was!). The posts I am planning on writing and releasing over the next few weeks, months, and possibly longer, are designed to focus on each of these things and to help me analyse what is ME in my likes and loves, and what should possibly be viewed more as an appreciation of another's love. 

Hopefully this will help my mental health a lot by enabling me to focus on suceeding on the ME things, and to gently put the "that's cool and interesting" things into a box in my head which is just enjoyment. I am now in my 40s, and we don't get to re-run this simulation - this life is what we get. I want to ensure that I make the most of what time I have by narrowing the focus for my skitterish brain.

Where Do I Want to Be?

As part of figuring all this out, I need to work out what are my personal ambitions. Destination is also an important part of self-definition. We can't be at a destination before we know how to get there, or even if it is possible to get there. Or do we even have a destination worked out? I want to go on holiday "abroad" compared to "I want to go to Europe" (better), "I want to go to France" (better again), or "I want to go to Toulouse"... 

We need two main things: A clear destination, and an idea of what route we would need to get there. 

To return to my holiday example: I can walk to Toulouse, or drive, go by train, or fly. Walking is impractical because of time - I wouldn't be there before I'd need to come home! Driving is a good idea, but I can't drive. I could fly, but I dislike the carbon emissions from flying, so I'd rather not, which leaves the train. OK. 

New Considerations: 

How much is a train ticket; 

Can I afford it or do I need save up; 

How long will it take to get there; 

Do I need to plan food; 

Can I carry what I need on public transport; 

What about changing / connecting trains; 

Crossing Paris or London with luggage

And all that is before one considers accommodation, booking train tickets, and what dates you are going to go! Let alone what to do when there, spending money, and so on...

So a more practical life example:

If I want to be able to consider myself a musician, then I need to... play my instrument. I need to practice, regularly. I need to consider whether I want to join a group, a symphonia, or an orchestra. Sometimes those goals need financial input, or time input to be achievable. So, using the above: 

My destination is to play in an amateur orchestra.

1. I need an instrument - this might involve researching costs, value for money, and saving up. What practice can I do before I get an instrument? Are there hire-purchase schemes through local shops, could I get a cheap-and-nasty while I save up? Perhaps I can work on bow posture, or sight reading, while I save.
2. I need to practice. Regularly. This will have to become a habit. I can't just play pretty tunes, I need to do theory, and scales, and other boring stuff too.
3. I need to put myself out there. Perhaps find a teacher
4. I then need to start looking for groups I can join. They won't come to me, I need to go find them, and ask to join. And then go!

Life is full of sequences like this. I can also look at those steps and say, actually, I just like playing tunes at home, and I have an instrument already. So I need to just play occasionally for fun or relaxation, and that's fine. Perhaps while I'd love to join an orchestra, I can't commit the time, or I can't physically undertake that amount of playing every week. That's OK. I can do as much as I want, how I want instead. And yes, I can still call myself a musician if I want!

Sometimes this process will be painful. Painful? Yes, because sometimes our self image isn't realistic and we discover we're not who we thought we were. Our self-definitions were inaccurate. And sometimes they're painful because we realise we can't do what we want, how we want, because of life limitations. I might want to up sticks and move to another country, but I won't get a visa, I don't have a desired occupation, or I have a partner who doesn't have the same dream. Sometimes compromise is necessary, but part of this process for me is going to be analysing where I'm open to compromise, and where I'm not. 

Returning once again to my holiday example:

I want to go to France, my partner wants to go to Germany. I want to see the Lascaux caves in Padirac, so I'm not willing to compromise on France. Or maybe I want nice dinners and a river, so I'm happy to look at Germany too. What about travel? I'm ambivalent over how we go, but carbon consumption is important to them, or they suffer from claustrophobia, so we choose to go by train. Life is about compromises, and learning what we can and can't compromise on. I'm intentionally not saying "willing to compromise", because I might be not be able to compromise on an aspect no matter how willing I am. I also want to emphasise to myself that this exercise is about trying to find where I can give, and where it's important to me that I don't, so while I might not want to compromise, I might need to in order to prioritise something else. 

Essential

Need

Desire

Would like

Nice to have

Prefer to have

Prefer not to have

Rather not

No

Definitely not

Absolutely not

Never

Start of the rest of my life

Long time no write. I've drafted a few posts, but not actually released them. As part of a general life overhaul thing, I'm going to stop that. Yes, one long-arse post will remain in draft for a fair while as fixing the code is an arse, but in general I need to get into the habit of just writing something each month at least. Will it always be "on brand"? Nope, but new habits only form if we do the thing!

So, what's up? With the pandemic, I've had the time to stop and think. I've been thinking a lot on two particular questions: "Who Am I?" and then "Where do I want to be?"

To this end, my plan for today is to start drafting a number of posts on various subjects investigating these questions, and then to schedule them for posting. I may need to go back and tidy some later, but the schedules will be set up well in advance. I will also need to decide how frequently to release them - too close and it's all a bit much, too far apart and it'll take a year to cover just my thoughts from this week! I'm thinking a theme a month, and then splitting them up into smaller posts maybe up to one a week. We shall see!

I'm also planning on having a weekly or monthly check-in post where I keep myself accountable (to me) on what I've achieved this week/month. Might be work stuff, crafty projects, some research, a new skill, house fixing, health progress, or more formal academics. Doesn't matter. The point is to get in the habit of saying "I did a thing!".

Splitting themes

I'm currently trying to think of a way to split themes within this blog. I have no desire to update multiple locations to discuss different things which interest me. This is a short post where I am listing the themes which I can see myself covering, and then subdivisions within that. It's not necessarily stuff I do already, but also things I have intended to write, or to think about.

• Self
• Things about my life, health, and that sort of stuff
• Anything I want to abstractly grumble about
• Medieval miscellany
• Research and thoughts
• Class / Seminar notes (general)
• Paternosters
• Death
• Testaments
• Material culture and trade in gems / beads
• Books, literacy, and reading
• Non-research interests
• PrePetrine Russia
• A.P. Chekhov
• Cleanliness and dirtiness in the high to late middle ages
• Medieval food - mostly eating thereof!
• Medievalisms and recreation
• Aristocratic households
• Marches and borders
• Languages & idiolects
• Conference reports
• Attendee reports
• Papers given by me
• Plans
• ASD / Aspie stuff
• Slightly different from "self" in that it is about the state of being Aspie rather than about my life
• Research comments
• "Doing X while Aspie" - comments on how it is to do mundane or common things while having an ASD/Asperger's diagnosis.
• Perseverations (mine)
• Trains
• Games
• Trees
• Costume & Sewing
• Hawks and Corvids
• Librarian / Books
• Information access
• How people get hold of (accurate) information
• How people find and use information
• What I am reading currently (sourced via Goodreads probably)
• LMS / LSP thoughts (me as Systems Librarian)
• Data, Metadata, and Indexing
• Tech
• New technology I'm using (hardware)
• Technology I'm using (software)
• Technology wishlists

2017 - Life shenanigans

I haven't yet posted this year because I'm mostly thinking and not really DOING and I got attacked by that mean thing called Life... :)

Bad:
Politics
Operation scheduled for mid-December got cancelled shortly beforehand which messed with my Aspie

Middle:
I asked to see the local ASD specialists because I had some questions and because I had lost my diagnosis letter in the moved down here (I needed it for course reasons). I've ended up with a reassessment in February and I'm terrified they're going to take away my diagnosis. Illogical? Maybe. Real to me though.

Good:
Ended up with a last minute re-scheduling of my op just over a week ago. As in, Phone call at 15:50 to be in the following lunch time, and then altered at 07:30am to "how soon can you get in?"... More on that later.
Starting medication to hopefully kick my personal Plan A into action at last. 10 years in the planning on that one. No indications because I don't want to jinx anything!


Random:
I'm trying to work out what I want to do here, as in on this blog. I like the writing process because it's quite cathartic and no one else reads it! I'm half thinking of making it into streams and using two (or more) profiles to separate the different types if writing.

• Medieval research notes
• Life stuff - me, aspie,
• Librarian / book things

Hmm, not sure.

November

I'm really not feeling in a good place mentally at present, so I'm going to leave the commentary for this month. On the up side, I just had a week and a half off work, and realised how much I'd pushed myself this year. I need to consciously work in breaks I think or I am going to break...

New Term, New Year

This is a bit of a "new things" year for me... Since August I have

• Got a new job, with better hours for studying
• Moved to be nearer to New Job
• Given my first paper
• Organised a panel for the IMC
• Started reconnecting with old friends who I'd lost contact with for "Reasons"

In all it's a bit of a mixed bag:

New Job is awesome, fun and is no longer breaking my autistic brain. I'm once again working "back office", and although some of it is a stiff learning curve, I'm happy here.

Moving is a good-bad thing. On the positive side, I'm near work and I can walk home in under an hour; I'm close to family again so I can see small people grow up. On the other side, TGO is still Up North; our house is unsellable at present so he'll remain there for quite a while and I miss him LOADS, with the added effect of not earning enough to travel to see him more than once a month...

First paper went OK, I think. People were nice and asked questions too, which was a big "Yay!" moment.

Organising a panel has taught me lots of things, especially that getting a moderator is not as easy as it seems!

Reconnecting with friends has been frightening ("what if they don't like me now, what if I/we have changed?"), but ultimately very worth it.

This year I can see forwards too:

• Upgrade panel in March
• Planning on giving a paper at Borderlines in Belfast
• If accepted, giving a paper at the IMC in July

I got very isolated last year, so this year I'm making an effort to go up during Freshers Week and meeting people in the Medieval-Early Modern forum and the Postgrad / Mature Students association too. 

Onwards!

Book banning and the Anarchist's Cookbook

This popped up on the Library Link of the Day today.

After latest shooting, murder manual author calls for book to be taken 'immediately' out of print, NBC

I have to say that my basic stance is a big fat NO to banning any book. Most knowledge can (and will) be misused, whether that be The Anarchist's Cookbook, Fifty Shades of Grey or Winnie the flipping Pooh¹. I also feel that it is easier to blame the book than seek solutions (whether that be regarding gun control, alienation, mental health issues, bullying or whatever).

The list of banned books grows each year and I'd hazard to say that all are bloody stupid. I may disapprove of material published by

A few articles

A few articles to talk about sometime:

Education and Pornography
Should teachers discuss pornography as part of a child’s sex education? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20042508.)

Do we need more ways to measure HE?

Why is everyone so annoyed with me?
A recent opinion piece by a Nottingham academic in the New York Times on whether literature can help us to become better human beings has sparked fierce debate across the internet. Professor Gregory Currie, of the Department of Philosophy, looks at the arguments for and against and why his editorial has caused passions to run high.
~~ fiction has taught me emotive responses

The Political Power of the Idea
Because they can contain ideas, the tyrant will always fear the power of words and images. It may be force that ultimately topples them, but it is always an idea that motivates people to threaten such force. Ideas may be vague or mean many different things – freedom, equality, fairness, change – but if enough of the people can unite around them, the unjust ruler knows there is everything to fear.

Self-Doubt

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." 

~ Douglas Adams (Simpson, 2003)

---

Or perhaps I ought to quote Britney with “Oops, I did it again!” but that’s a shuddersome thought, so I shall NOT go there *fingers in ears, whistling*

I am good at talking myself out of doing things because I doubt myself to the point where I convince myself it’s pointless trying. It is something about myself I am trying my hardest to stop now that I’ve caught myself doing it, and I’m realising it’s a fault I’ve been guilty of over most of my life so it’s going to be a hard habit to break, but ultimately one I NEED to fix.

So far this year I have not done many things I wanted to do. This is pathetic and I must fix it.
To self shame, here is my list of things I've not done because I've talked myself out of it. Some are retrievable and I WILL do so.

• Applied to Manchester (MA / MRes) 
• Applied to Leeds (MRes) 
• Applied to Trinity St. David’s (MA) 
• Contacted Birmingham (MRes) 
• Applied for an awesome Institutional Repository job 
• Applied for another half dozen jobs

It’s June, that means 6 months of this year gone. I need to be realistic and pragmatic, but I also need to take some risks. Not bad risks, just to try things that might fail. I’ve made a small start – I have applied to some jobs which are probably beyond my reach (Hi there Oxbridge), which would be dream opportunities for me. Not all of this has been self-doubt and procrastination though – I’ve lost the last two weekends to in-law deaths and big figure family birthdays, which I things I have to acknowledge as being beyond my control.

I will say though, that more and more jobs are fibbing about what is Essential vs. Desirable. It used to be (or at least it seemed that way), that if you met all the essentials, you would get a call to interview, but now it seems that unless you also meet ALL the desirables, you’re not really in with a chance. Either that or every single job I’ve applied for over the last year or so has had someone already in mind, which I doubt!

My plan to stop dithering:

1. Complete MRes draft by Next weekend – all the background is done, the reading that isn’t complete can be done after I’ve passed it to Potential Supervisor #1 for commentary
   Problems to solve – “I’m not good enough!” “My research idea is poor!” “They’ll laugh at me” and “But it’s not perfect!” 
2. Apply for a job per week – if I don’t get interviews, I don’t get interviews, but it’s practice at selling myself
   Problems to solve – “I’m not good enough!” “My experience is insufficient!” “I don’t know how to describe how I know it” 
3. Fill in applications for Manchester(s) and TSD
   Problems – Pretty much as for #1 
4. Contact Potential Supervisor #2 – while doing background reading I noticed that two people who are/have been researching related aspects had both had the same PhD supervisor in the last couple of years. I will send Draft to her and ask whether they feels this is an area they could supervise.
   Problems to solve – All of #1 PLUS “They won’t want to talk to someone like me!” and “They won’t even bother to reply”

Initial responses to my internal wibblings:

“I’m not good enough!”
I have a good (2:1) undergraduate degree from a perfectly good university and an MA from prestigious one. I am passionate and interested.

“My research idea is poor!”
That is what the submission of the first draft to supervisor will challenge (either me or the idea!)

“They’ll laugh at me” / “They won’t want to talk to someone like me!”
If they do, I won’t go there, but most academics I have spoken to have been positive and encouraging. The only knockbacks have actually been from administrators at a general level, or from other faculties (i.e. ones I wasn’t interested in anyway!)

“They won’t even bother to reply”
That has only happened once, and I probably didn’t approach the situation in the correct way. This time I have spoken to Academic #1 in person (who asked me to send a draft), and I will contact #2 with draft so that there is something to discuss rather than a vague “I’d like to study with you”.

“But it’s not perfect!”
It won’t be – I have to just deal with that fact!

“I’m not good enough!”
Try, learn, try again, learn more

“My experience is insufficient!”
13 years post graduation is NOT insufficient (in general)! Work with The Ginger One to practice elaborating on what I have done so that I bring out the skills I’ve learnt.

“I don’t know how to describe how I know it”
Practice. Work with TGO to sell myself more positively. Keep a running list of “things wot I ‘ave done”, especially for vague concepts like Project Management, Working through Change, etc.

Added bonus one:

“It’s too late in the year”
Then the application will be for NEXT September or a January start. Get it in, get sorted out, get the place secured as early as possible instead of rushing.

---

Simpson, M.J. (2003) Hitchhiker : a biography of Douglas Adams

Role models and Women

An article in the BBC Sports section this morning set me off thinking about role models past and present... Who did girls look up to? Why? Who do we remember and why?

Two things stuck out to me:

1. The women the general public remember from the wider medieval period are the sensational, not the politically active (or at least not primarily FOR being politically active), not the religious nor the wholesome...
2. Plus ça change - looks remain important...

Who are key medieval women?

How does the fact that they were female affect how they are viewed in their own time and historically?

Giovanna di Napoli / Giovanna d'Angiò - was a Queen in her own right, yet her reign seems frequently to be analysed in the light of her femininity (or lack), her alleged sexual indescretions and whether she was complicit in the murder of her first husband.

And it's not just medieval women either. Ask many lay persons about Catherine the Great of Russia, and they will talk of her as the woman who allegedly died having intercourse with a horse (she didn't), or who had innumerable lovers.

To Be Continued

(Publishing as part of a push to stop leaving stuff eternally in draft)

Old but funny...

This happened a fair few years ago, but I just remembered it.

Location: Well established, multi-group cross period re-enactment event in the South East of England.

Man walks up to friend in medieval encampment and asks various sensible questions.
Friend explains answers.
Man asks if he can take a photo.
Friend agrees.
Man asks "So how did they take photos in your time?".
Friend just was too thrown to do more than stare.
Man shocked that Medievals didn't have cameras

;)

It was people like this gentleman though that set me off studying history formally. How? Well both re-enactors and audiences have this sort of perception of the Middle Ages, and would ask questions which I could only answer with research. Biggest example of this was "But wasn't everyone dirty in the medieval period?"... cue 8 year (and counting) project on personal hygiene and the perception and interpretation of cleanliness in the past.

Sci Fi & Fantasy essay thoughts...

Now that the Sci Fi and Fantasy literature course has finished, I'm planning to write up and expand my original essays, where possible and where inclination remains... For the sake of balance and honesty, I'm including all my essays as submitted, despite some being frankly abysmal! This course has been exceptionally useful for me in re-teaching me how to balance my work and study lives - something you don't realise you've forgotten until you start again!

One odd thing that really irritated me after a while - having to specifically state that I was using British English so that I wasn't marked down by other peer reviewers for not using American spellings. Trivial but exasperating since both versions are pretty much universally accepted in universities both sides of the Atlantic.

1. The Brothers Grimm — Children's and Household Tales (Lucy Crane translation with Walter Crane illustrations)
Essay

2. Lewis Carroll — Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
Essay

3. Stoker — Dracula
Essay

4. Shelley — Frankenstein
Essay

5. Edgar Allen Poe & Nathaniel Hawthorne
Essay

6. Wells — The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, "The Country of the Blind," "The Star"
Essay

7. Burroughs & Gilman — A Princess of Mars & Herland
Essay

8. Bradbury — The Martian Chronicles
Missed essay

9. LeGuin — The Left Hand of Darkness
Essay

10. Doctorow — Little Brother
Essay

Motivation

Motivational assistance from elsewhere...:

1st Century Skills / Will Richardson
Get Your Goals and Projects out of Your Head and onto Paper / Tanya Golash-Boza
Almost anything from Stupid Motivational Tricks.

This is probably going to be one of those posts I add things to as I find them, and is mostly for my own reference, but ideas are gratefully received...

"... in a world without magic spells or dragons, would we understand ..."

Musings...

I love the intersection between folklore, fairy tales and history. Where does one fade into another? I was reading an older article from the National Geographic about the Staffordshire Hoard¹ (which I still have yet to go and see), and was very struck by the last sentence in the article: "Odds are we will never know the story behind the Staffordshire Hoard, but in a world without magic spells or dragons, would we understand it if we did?". This is a rather wonderful sentence in itself, but conveys some particular thoughts to me.

Perhaps because I have just finished that essay on Grimm, but my first thought was how that sentence links with the opening line from the Brothers Grimm's The Frog Prince: "In den alten Zeiten, wo das Wünschen noch geholfen hat" ("In olden times when wishing still helped"). This phrase serves to distance us from the time when the tale is supposed to have happened, and according to Prof Rabkin, our tutor, allows us to set aside reality and to accept that the fantastical will follow, and is an element demonstrated in fairy and folk tales across many nations³, and continues in modern fantasy and science fiction (hence why it came into our course videos).

Thus the article seems to suggest that the past is not only L.P. Harley's foreign country², but a place which should be perceived to be intrinsically different from the world which we inhabit now. By using such phrases in a news article is the author trying, consciously or subconsciously, to persuade us that this hoard was buried in a fantastic, alien time which we cannot understand? By placing the medieval as something that is fantastical, we create an atmosphere that says we can't understand the medieval period, so why try as it's a futile exercise. To suggest that the medieval was a fantastical period, seems to me to be creating the same declining to engage with the past that phrases such as the Dark Ages can create.

I find this rather disturbing as that is the antithesis of who I am: if I don't understand something, I feel a need to try to comprehend it, whether we are speaking about a foreign country, the opposite gender, or of another time period. While we will never be able to be 100% certain what someone was thinking in the 7th Century⁴, do we truly know what someone is thinking now?

However, what effect has the placing of the sentence at the end, as opposed to the beginning? Does it help, but consciously separating the 'distancing effect' from the factual information and analysis of the article, challenging existing preconceptions with an ironic ending. Or, does it serve the purpose of continuing thesse pre-existing medievalisms by leaving this as the last thought with the reader. Honestly, I suspect neither - it's a pretty phrase that sounded good on the end of the article. The writer was not interested in challenging the reader to think differently. The focus was on presenting information in an interesting style that was deemed suitable for the general public.

The challenge then is for us not the reader - to show to other inhabitants of our "world without magic spells or dragons",  how and why we can understand the past, and why we should want to continue to try to do so.

Aside: while checking some sources I found that I am missing a lecture I'd have loved to go to in Birmingham by Prof Brooks on "The Hoard as a Window onto England in the Age of the Conversion to Christianity". It's going to be at 2pm on Sunday 19th August in the Waterhall at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and tickets are £6 it says, so if anyone else is going, a write-up would be greatly appreciated!!

Notes:

1. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/11/gold-hoard/alexander-text
2. "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there" (see Wikipedia for a quick summary about the book if you haven't read it...)
3. I found a great summary here, but unfortunately it doesn't give the source nationalities for many, not which tales or collectors they were recorded by.
4. For the sake of argument I am using the dating of the Biblical inscription given by scholars such as Nicholas Brooks and Michelle Brown:  http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/staritems/the-biblical-inscription; Also an expired link: http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/commentary/intepretative-comments-from-nicholas-brooks

Something I want to write

Over the past few days I've been gradually reading this post and it's comments at Tor.com*. One folk medievalism that keeps coming up is 'but there were no Black people in medieval Europe'. This is wrong, I know it is wrong, even if we ignore such probable fallacies as the Mullato Queen. So, I'd love to write a simple article outlining why this is wrong, and providing evidence with some indisputable primary sources, so that when I see this ARGH being stated next I can say "Here, read this, you are wrong mistaken and here is the evidence". It's not my area of expertise, so it'd be more like an article giving primary sources that are online and citing the real experts for those who care enough to want to read further.

In reality this will only happen if I get ahead of myself this summer. I am already in the middle of writing up a lot of my old research and cross-checking old quotes and evidence to see if it still says what I read it as saying last time... In between all that I have my Coursera coursework to do each week (Note, I need to finish Through the Looking Glass tomorrow). Still not sure what on earth to write as I HATE writing essays without a theme or title... Oh and I have 3 jobs I want to apply for as Awesome Job 1. I didn't get shortlisted for, and Awesome Job 2 still hasn't replied, so I shall assume a negative there too**. Lastly there is Project Get Fit to work on. Being overweight makes some physical disabilities I have a LOT more painful so I am using the time I am away this summer to kick start me getting fitter so that I don't make myself get worse. So yeah, lots of stuff to get on with... Good job I don't like being bored! :)

Link for evidence:
TNA: Black Presence exhibition - Elizabeth I
TNA: Black Presence exhibition - John Blanke (Henry VII & VIII)
TNA: Black Presence exhibition - Moors in Scotland
*Long comment thread is LONG, k!
** As as aside, I really wish that when you send in applications electronically, the receiving institution would reply. It would take a simple MailMerge, cost nothing and take very little time once set up, and yet would create goodwill and let those who are applying for 3+ jobs a day know when they have wasted their time. Leaving you to assume is horrid and rather rude, plus it assumes that your contact for the successful candidates has arrived. I always worry that our post has gone walkabout AGAIN if I don't hear from someone or something in a reasonable time.

Huh?

I was listening to the news on the radion on my way into work this morning, particularly the article about the new Roman period coin stash in Jersey, and a phrase caught my attention…

“a former Celtic coin expert at Oxford University”

I thought that was a bit odd – how do you become a former expert? Is it like a position you apply for and then move onto another post? At first I thought it might be a mistake, with the BBC meaning that the expert was formerly at Oxford University, but has now moved on, or retired, or something. But no – I looked up the print article online a few minutes ago and it specifically says “Dr Philip de Jersey, a former Celtic coin expert at Oxford University”. Now, not being in any way, shape or form a coin expert, or any kind of numismatist, I turned to the venerable Google to find out more about this gentleman.

Shire Publications: “Philip de Jersey was born and brought up in Guernsey, where he spent as much time as possible working on archaeological excavations. He graduated in Geography at Hertford College, Oxford, and remained there to complete his DPhil thesis on the late iron age period in north-west France. Since 1992 he has been employed at the Institute of Archaeology in Oxford to maintain and computerise the Celtic Coin Index, a detailed record of more than thirty thousand British Celtic coins.”

Hmm neither formerly interested in coins, nor formerly of Oxford. Unfortunately my Google fu is not strong today – too close to the end of term maybe? – but I can’t pick anything more up about him. Can’t see him on the Institute of Archaeology website, but that’s never definitive in my experience, and the CCI doesn’t seem to list those who work with it – just the history which doesn’t seem to go past 1992… Regardless of this, I still view the phrasing of the article as exceedingly odd, and not one that I would personally use, or indeed like being used about me. I can’t quite articulate why, just a feeling of almost dismissiveness about it. Then again, I am neither an expert nor an academic, no matter how much I wish I was! J