... And let's reinvigorate!

Aaaand, we're back! I know, it's been so long. Truth be told, part of the absence of new text resulted from me losing my login details and thus being foxed out of the dashboard. Oops.

So, what's new? New year, new abode, new shoes, new classes, new hobby, same old me.

The New Year: 2011 is set to be the year in which I complete my doctoral dissertation in contemporary philosophy and visual culture (read: general humanities bullshit) whether I'm ready or not. Honestly, I'm not ready-- so many things I've only skimmed when I should have read, listened when I should have noted, gotten up and made dinner when I should have written. But now it's down to the wire and I must put up or shut up, and shutting up won't get me a job. And a job is unquestionably what I want out of this whole melange of marginalia and tea stains that I'm calling my dissertation. More on that at some point, it's unavoidable.

The new year also saw me falling in love. What? you say with great distress, You, in love? Yes, it's true, but not with a man. Not even a woman. A little girl actually, named Coco. She's the daughter of a dear friend and the close of this past year heralded in her existence outside the womb and into my arms. I was lucky enough to be hanging about for her first month of soft cooing, bottles, nappies and evenings in the rocking chair, and the word 'privilege' doesn't even begin to cover it. She's beautiful: big blue eyes, tiny mouth, exquisitely long fingers and, best of all, she giggles in her sleep. Leaving Boston at the end of January and knowingly walking away from her was one of the most counter-intuitive things I've ever forced myself to do. I'm lucky enough to have a near daily dose of Coco-cam through skype, which is essentially what's keeping me sane. Holy hell, broody, Batman.

New Abode: I've relocated to the Eyrie! It's a top floor flat in the older section of town, which is both for better and for worse. I miss the period details of the old Nest (the high ceilings, the plaster internal walls, the paint, the ceiling embossing and roses) but the Eyrie is the whole top floor of an old granite building with a view of the North Sea and the mouth of Aberdeen Harbour from the kitchen window. Pretty spectacular. So is how cold it can get. Being in such an old, though disgustingly central, quarter of the city means there's no gas-- everything is electric as they can't just put in a main. Electric heat, electric cooker, electric shower, the works. It's not been as pricey as I had feared and we've got a meter that we top up as we go (so no surprise bills, which is BRILLIANT) but the storage heaters are something to be reckoned with and the storage hot water tank makes showering an adventure. Will you have enough hot water to finish shaving your legs AND rinse the conditioner out of your hair? WHO KNOWS! Yes, living life on the edge, that's me...

The New Abode has also brought a new flatmate, and she couldn't be lovelier. She's soft-spoken, not an axe-murderer AND she cleans! It's amazing. I didn't know her before moving in, but I couldn't have pulled a luckier draw. Her girlfriend has recently relocated from Denmark and now there's pleasant, chirpy Icelandic spoken in our kitchen on a regular basis and it makes me really happy. Somehow the sound of people speaking kindly to each other, regardless of my lack of comprehension, is enough to brighten my mood.

New Shoes: Trivial, but there's nothing that makes me walk taller (quite literally) than a new pair of shoes, and I've recently acquired two pairs. Office clearance sales are dangerous places, especially when chronically skint, but I'd recently had the misfortune of discovering at the most inconvenient of times that my pair of Primark lace-up flats had come apart at the seams and I couldn't fault myself too heavily for dropping a tenner on a pair of blue velvet and leather wingtips. Additionally, a girl can never have too many black stilettos, and the satin was just divine, so they came home with me as well. They are undeniably reminiscent of my very favourite pair of shoes EVER, which I bought a few years ago from Jones Bootmaker (also on sale) and have worn very selectively to things like my masters' graduation ceremony, but alas, the cobbles round these parts destroy pretty heels with single-minded ferocity. Thus, the new pair has been acquired. The dress heels are dead, long live the dress heels.

New Classes: This is a bit misleading. They are technically new in the same sense that the polluted river is always new everytime your wellie slips into it. The students are new, but the overwhelming majority of the syllabus and films contained in the screening list are not. This is just fine by me as it means that I have less to scramble to prepare as virgin material. I've got four sections of Intro to Film this half term and couldn't be happier about it. These, with the two screenings I'm running weekly and the hour of prep time for which I'm being paid should mean that I'll be financially solvent, if only for a little while.

Then, there's new close reading group and seminars for the coming months, new discussions of old books and all the other joys of academia. I sat in on a one-off lecture by Martin Crowley this evening and was simultaneously daunted and exhilarated. There, sitting plainly before me with his heavy-framed glasses and sky-blue socks was the soft-spoken man whose reading of Antelme has so influenced my doctoral work. And then, at the pub afterwards, he thanked me for attending and encouraged me to email him and strike up a correspondence. At what point is it appropriate to ask an academic to sign some part of ones' skin? Just askin'. If the rest of the seminars are half so interesting, it'll be the best time here yet.

New Hobby: So, with the patient instruction of the old flatmate, I've taken up Ikebana. It's the Japanese art of flower arranging, and I adore it. We meet on Sunday afternoons, and it's simply the most calming thing possible. I'm decided to go back to attending Mass regularly (which is a post for another time) and once I've had my cup of tea in the vestibule, I wander casually across the Castlegate, stop at the Markies' flower stand (they have a flower loyalty card, isn't that great?!) and then into the steamy warmth of the Coffee House on Gaelic Lane. The attention to the faces of the flowers, the angles of trajectory and the gentle bending of stalks is as restful as meditation and doesn't take nearly as long to achieve. Here's a sample of my latest work:

Poppies and Brush Roses, January 2011

I'll try and keep this up to date with a little Sunday flower treat. It's nice to go and tread gently with the transience of cut flowers without having to drag Heidegger back out into the light. Well, at least, not until Monday morning.

Same Old Me: Well, that about sums it up, doesn't it? I'm still living in essential intellectual quarantine until I self-actualise into a Doctor of Philosophy. I'm still drinking too many cups of not-quite-hot-enough tea. I'm still a little lonely in the evenings as I wash up my single plate, fork and knife. I'm still falling asleep to the dulcent tones of David Attenborough as he narrates the natural world for me via BBC iPlayer, and I'm still occasionally lucky enough to have him provide the voiceover for my dreams. Long may it remain so.