How time flies….
Posted on | May 1, 2009 |
Oh dear. This post was going to be a general one about how quickly my first academic year at Berkeley has gone by, and then I saw with surprise that it’s been two months since I last wrote one - a sign in itself of the weird time warp I’m currently in! Apologies for the silence! As is usual at the end of a semester, there is a lot to do. I’ve also been caught up in my work in a particularly satisfying and absorbing way recently, with the result that it seldom occurs to me to write anything beyond emails and a paper on choral dancing in Greek tragedy….
As I prepare to finish up here and head back to the UK for most of the Summer, many friends have been asking me both “So what do you think of Berkeley after a year here?” and “Are you looking forward to going home?”. The latter is usually phrased as a rhetorical question, so that there’s often some surprise when I don’t look immediately enthusiastic about my journey back eastwards. Don’t get me wrong: I can’t wait to spend lots of much-needed time with my family, close friends and of course Sam. But I’m also beginning to feel very settled and happy here, both in the town and area in general and in my house (it’s good to live in the same place for more than 8 months! It’s the first time I’ve done that for years), and am reluctant to go and live out of a suitcase for 3 months. And with a move to Harvard for 6 months ahead of me for 2010, I want to take advantage of being in the same spot for a while. So you see what the answer is to the first question so frequently put to me in recent weeks: I’m liking Berkeley!
I’m also enjoying my subject in a way I haven’t done before. It’s a much longer slog here than in the UK to go through the PhD process, but for the first time I feel a real and tangible end goal there ahead of me: to become a university professor of the subject I love. That privilege is worth so much work! And the process of getting there is a pretty amazing one too: I’m getting paid (just!) to learn! This really hit home when my academic adviser agreed to let me go to Harvard for the spring semester next year: this would all be included in my Berkeley fellowship, on the basis that it would be an important part of my education. This is a lucky privilege indeed! The main danger of the system here is that such a long period of coursework (at least 3 years) before embarking on one’s dissertation could have a fizzling out effect i.e. the ideas I had upon coming here have to be put on a back burner for so long that I sometimes worry they won’t be there at the end of it all. At the same time, I’m learning so much more and developing previously unthought-of interests! At the moment the greatest of these is the representation of Fifth Century BC Greek dance in literature: its significance within the plays we have and the extent to which it can be reconstructed; in particular, the phenomenon of “choral self-referentiality”, which is when the chorus draws attention in its language to its own singing and/or movement. I realize that my subject is a difficult one for people to have any sense of what I actually do - hopefully that will give a sense of the kind of research interests that can exist within the field of Classics!
Talking of which, I’d better get back to it…. Hopefully one result of being away for the Summer and not having seminars to work for or attend will be that I can update this blog a little more regularly….
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Birthday Picnic!
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May 8th, 2009 @ 7:36 am
I’m so pleased to hear you are enjoying your life in the U.S. and am impressed by how easily you have adjusted to our wacky American culture. We are lucky to have you, kiddo!
May 16th, 2009 @ 8:33 am
We are so glad you have enjoyed your stay here in the Bay Area. We have certainly enjoyed our times with you, and look forward to seeing you and Sam when you return in the Fall. Have a happy, restful summer.