Grad school, pt. II

Yesterday, I received my acceptance offer for an MA in Greek and Roman Archaeology at Newcastle University.

Newcastle University is in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. Yeah, I didn't know where that was either. Apparently, northeast. Now that I have two acceptances, and I know I'm going somewhere next year... I have to actually start thinking about it and the decisions I'll have to make.

Not only is there money, choosing a program and finding a place to figure out. But this means that I am actually, honestly, definitely moving to the UK next year. There's a lot to think about. I'm going to miss being at least in the same time zone as Fae. I'm going to miss living here, miss Wednesday nights with Kristen, Taylor and Chris. I'm going to miss my high school girlies, most who I've known longer than time. I'm going to miss my parents. I'm going to miss my grandparents. My sister. My cat. Plus, starting in a new country where you know no one is always really hard, plus I'll be doing a completely new program at the same time, and living in a whole new city. And there's the added factor that I'm essentially a very anti social person who has to force myself to interact with people.

But on the other hand, I won't have to suffer through another horrible Canadian winter. Even rain has to be better than this. Plus, a new program! A new city! I'll be in Europe, I can travel. I'll finally be able to devote myself fully to what I love. I'll get a new start.

I'm also so tired of Ottawa. There wouldn't be much here for me next year if I stayed anyway. Everyone, every thing is slowly moving on. So I might as well get a running start, right?

I'm excited, and terrified.

Grad school, pt. I

Today I got my first acceptance into grad school. It's for an MLitt in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Glasgow.


It's such a relief to know that, no matter what, I have something to do next year. I was beginning to get anxious. I like to have plans. Which isn't to say my plans can't change, but I like to have my life tentatively sorted out in my head.

Now I just need to find the money to go!

Chaos Theory

As everyone knows, I have absolutely no taste in movies. This isn't to say that I can't recognize a good movie when I see it, this just means that I am perfectly able to enjoy a movie when I recognize that it isn't good.

I'm back at my parents house this week for Reading Week, which means I have TMN and TMNonDemand. I was browsing through the movies and I found Chaos Theory. I decided to give it a try, because I really do love Ryan Reynolds, especially since Definitely, Maybe.
Chaos Theory was such a good movie. It had the right amount of thought balanced with plot, and the characters were completely compelling. Emily Mortimer was in it, too, and I really like her. Ryan Reynolds, for the first and last bit of the movie, was supposed to be about 45, and I honestly believed it! Although, I thought he was Hugh Laurie at first, which is very entertaining. The rest of the time, he reminded me a little of Jim Carrey in the Number 23. But less neurotic. Sort of.

The movie is about a man who obsessively controls his life using lists and precise organization. He even wrote a book and does a lecture series about time management. And then, after one weird night, his whole structured life falls apart and he decides to never make any decisions ever again. And so while technically the movie is about life and choices - it's mostly about love. And it made me cry. I really enjoyed it.

I also really enjoy Ryan Reynolds with a beard. See above.

sometimes you just need to keep driving

It's snowing on the west side
Let me take you for a ride
I'll be Bonnie and you'll be Clyde
See if we can get ourselves killed
Before we die

And we will drive like bandits
On the Queensway
We'll hold hands like in the movies
I'll say 'oh Clyde you drive me crazy
And you'll just capture me like it was
Armed robbery.

Sing the Four Quarters

So, at heart I'm a huge fantasy geek. I used to read all fantasy, all the time, when I was teenager. I haven't read a pure fantasy novel in a really long time, so I really enjoyed getting back into the very predictable genre again.

The Tanya Huff books, though I have never read them before, are actually what drew me to fantasy. When I was about 11, I was wandering around the bookstore and I saw the Tanya Huff books and really loved the covers. I took one to my mom and said "I want to read this!" and she told me it was too old for me, so we went into the Kids section, and found another fantasy book. Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce. Which led not only to my obsession with fantasy, but also to my friendship with Fae, Lea, Ali and Kitty.

Given all this, I figured it was time for me to actually read a Tanya Huff book. As far as fantasy books go, it was pretty typical. It included the perfect characters, the fair government, magic, and more than the occasional typo. But how can I complain about a book with magic, a sexually open and promiscuous society and ridiculous attractive characters whose names I can't pronounce?

Thoroughly enjoyed.

Tea at the Estate

My life, recently, has been a whirl of baking and sandwhiching in preparation for our Valentine's Tea today at work. During the summer they do tea on the lawn at the Billings Estate National Historic Site four days a week. In the rest of the year, we only have tea on special occasions. We did one at Christmas, and one today. This is what my life looks like:

Picture this times 125. Sugar cookies and pink icing.
Cut up 10 cucumbers. Made GIANT vat of egg salad (ew).

And the best part...

Heart shaped strawberry scones, which were actually described by a visitor today as "the best scones they'd ever tasted."

Yup. I am a scone master. But above all, today reminded me that I really do love my job.

Six Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak

I bought myself a Valentine's Day present yesterday. Six Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak is the new release from the people of Smith Magazine, who did Not Quite What I Was Panning and have an awesome website you can post your own six word memoirs.l

I love these. I love the idea of telling a story in a limited number of words, the same way I lov the idea of trying to tell it in one sentence. Because if journalism has taught me anything, which I'm sure it has despite our mutual hatred, it's that people use too many words. It comes to be that we waste words, that they don't mean anything anymore because we're always saying things. Things we don't mean. Things we don't need. Words are cheap. And when you only have six of them, well, you agonize over the meaning and validity for every single letter in the sentence. And the result means more than 600 words you wrote for the sake of it.

Some of the best:

"A kiss can write a secret."
"It never hurt as good again."
"Maybe some pots have no lids."
"Don't worry, I'll make myself come."
"I loved the idea of you."
"Will always follow you. On Twitter."
"Romance remembered often better than experienced."
"Leap of faith. Shit, no parachute."
"You were my Little Red-Haired Girl.""
"Shh. You won't feel a thing."
"May I have the last dance?"

And mine?

Never loved, doesn't mean I can't.

A Long Way Down

I've heard a lot about Nick Hornby, but this is the first book of his that I've read. At first, I really liked the style, and the plot was what drew me to it originally. It's about our people who meet on the top of a high rise in London on New Years Eve, all planning to jump. The concept is very interesting. I loved the first few chapters. The characters are interesting - you sort of love to hate them. In a lot of ways you understand why they'd want to jump (because they're either pathetic or annoying). But the whole middle of the book really dragged. I just didn't understand why it kept saying the same things over and over. It picked up again in the end, though, and I'd say it was generally worth reading, if only for the style.

Quotes, as per usual:

"Surely the coroner's report should read, 'He took his own life after sober and careful contemplation of the fucking shambles it had become.'"

"The truth was that I didn't feel like a dying man; I felt like a man who every now and again wanted to die, and there's a difference."

"We started with Virginia Woolf, and I only read like two pages of this book about a lighthouse, but I read enough to know why she killed herself: She killed herself because she couldn't make herself understood. You only have to read one sentence to see that."

"You know that things aren't going well for you when you can't even tell people the simplest fact about your life, just because they'll presume you're asking them to feel sorry for you. I suppose it's why you feel so far away from everyone, in the end; anything you can think of to tell them just ends up making them feel terrible."

"I wanted to kill myself, not because I hated living, but because I loved it. And the truth of the matter is, I think, that a lot of people who think about killing themselves feel the same way... They love life, but it's all fucked up for them."

The Grocery Line

I want to share with you all one the millions of reasons I love my Faebala. She wrote this for me last night:

Mango No. 5
By Fae

To break this artichoke's heart
has sent me into a fit of sage.
As you kicked me to the carb,
you set this clockwork orange off
like a ticking thyme bomb-o.
So you can keep your Vitamin C:
I'll take the bread and mustache combo.

Doesn't make sense to you? That's okay. No one really gets it but us, and we're ridiculously amused by ourselves. This is from a series of poems, lovingly called The Grocery Line, written by both of us, usually to make the other laugh on a bad day.

He's Just Not That Into You

My review of He's Just Not That Into You, which I saw with Kaitlyn today, for the Charlatan. It should appear in the Features section on Thursday, though most likely in a better form as the Features editor will fix it up nicely!

Can six simple words change your life, and your friend’s lives, forever? According to He’s Just Not That Into You, yes, they can. Based on the book by the same title, this movie puts the theories behind the bestselling self help book to work on a bunch of unsuspecting fictional characters. The rules?

1)No man wants to get married. And the ones who cave are all just thinking about all the women they won’t get to sleep with now. Except the guy who really wants to get married, and the guy who doesn’t believe in marriage. Oh, and the other guy who thinks he doesn’t want to get married. Right, so it’s just the guy who’s unhappily married, then?
2)Women over analyze relationships. Not a new concept. The movie assumes that women sit around talking about their relationships when they should be working, that we script phone messages before we leave them and that we see life altering meaning in small signs. This is all baffling to men, because men simply just make a relationship happen if they’re into a girl. For Gigi, the main character, this epiphany leads her to stop obsessing about break ups. For me, this just seemed stereotypical.
3)You need to ask for what you want from a relationship. Finally, a worthwhile idea. Yes, you can demand to be treated the way you want to and stand up for what’s important to you! I can feel the self helping effects already!
4)Ultimately, all of the rules and exceptions are wrong and it’s about love. Yup. Whether you’re a hopeless romantic, unhappily married, eternally single or just plain tired of being strung around by someone whose just not that into you, as long as you keep believing in love, it’s all worth it in the end.

This movie has all the typical pieces of a romantic comedy, from the hilarious dating mishaps to the final “aww” moments. A movie about guys not being into Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly and Drew Barrymore (of course everyone’s into Scarlett Johansson) is obviously purely fictional. So, watch it as it is, another romantic comedy fairy tale, and try not to take it as self help. It’s good date movie, but maybe awkward for a first date, especially if he’s looking for a way to tell you he’s just not that into you.

Phaëton

In class today we were reading parts of Seneca's Medea, and the prof started talking about decedents of the sun. And none of us could remember Phaëton's name. I was severely disappointed in myself, and decided I needed to brush up on my knowledge of obscure names from mythology. Which led me to thinking that you all need to brush up on your knowledge of Greek mythology! Which undoubtedly led me to a promise to myself to post something mythology related once a week.

Phaëton is the son of Helios¹, the god of the sun, and Clymene. In Ovid, Phaëton likes to brag about this, and is taunted by Epaphus, son of Zeus and Io. Phaëton begs his mother to give him "some token that that parentage was true."² Eventually, Clymene tells him how to get to the place where Helios begins his journey each day.³ When he arrives, Helios confirms that he's Phaëton's father, and swears on the river Styx⁴ that he will give him anything he wants to prove this is the truth. Phaëton decides that he wishes to ride his father's chariot. Helios protests that only he, not even Zeus himself, can control the horses, and Phaëton is a mere mortal. But his is bound by his oath and cannot disuade his son. Needless to say, as he mounts the chariot and attempts to drive off, he is in over his head. "Phaëton, dazed with fear, could neither use the reins nor find the road, nor were it found could make the team obey."⁵ He ends up losing control and flying so close to the earth that he sets it on fire. Zeus, then, is forced to knock him out of the chariot, and to his death, with a lightning bolt.

"Here Phaëton lies, his father's charioteer; Great was his fall, yet he did greatly dare."

There is a tradition with the sun causing great catastrophe in Greek mythology. Phaëton. Icarus. Clytie. The sun, it seems, is this great untainable power. And those who are foolish and arrogant enough to try to reach that high, inevitably fall as far.


¹ Also known as Phoebus, often associated with Apollo. Apollo Phoebus is Apollo of the sun, thus making Helios sort of obsolete. The Greek gods often fail to have definitive roles.
² Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I.
³ India. It's the eastern most part of the known world during that time.
⁴ The only oath that can bind a God.
⁵ Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book II

Analytics

I have a site tracker on my blog, from Google Analytics. It's hidden in the code, so you can't see it but I can find out how many people see my blog each day¹, how people find my blog, my most popular posts, what they look at while they're on there², what part of the world people come from³, even ISPs. It's quite awesome, I waste an infinite amount of time on it.

So, a sign that people facebook stalk? I posted my blog address in my facebook status on Sunday night, after I changed my layout. And my visitation went up by 83% in two days. That's awesome! Who knew so many people stalked me on Facebook?

I also find it very interesting to see what people google to find me. Recently, I've had a couple of hits for "a complicated kindness." Other book reviews like "Not Quite What I was Planning" and various Jeanette Winterson books have gotten some hits too. I've had a lot of traffic from people searching "adam bly." Another big one is song lyrics, such as "leave me your stardust to remember you by" and "lets see how fast this thing can go." The creepiest ones are people searching "heather montgomery blog" and randomly someone searching "I got this from someone on Facebook... and I thought I wasn't going to do it, but I've decided to give it a try. I'm going to read 50 books in a year! Do it with me!" Which is odd. My favourite searches though are "flood myth" and "phaedra/roman" because I really like my random historical posts. Oh, and "Stephen Harper Spongebob" because it still amuses me to no end, though I can't take credit for the theory.

For your entertainment, if you're looking for something to procrastinate with like me, instead of writing essays or studying for midterms, here are my top five most read posts.
1. Google goggles
When you post about something in one of Google's blogs, it automatically links to you. With this post, I surprisingly got over 100 unique hits in one day. It's my record. 190 views total.
2. Not Quite What I Was Planning
My "review" of the book. Apparently it can be found by googling the title! 106 views total.
3. Just Leave Me Your Stardust to Remember You By
A sad post with lyrics by Gregory and the Hawk. I assume it was the lyrics that got the hits, but I do like this post. It sums up what I feel quite nicely. 58 views total.
4. Flood Myth
As I started to write my book (still stalled in progress) I wrote about the nature of flood myths. I love mythology in all forms, and I'm so happy people have actually read this! 47 views total.
5. Journalism as Activism
When my Science Reporting j-school class saw Adam Bly speak, I talked about the nature of journalism and my disenchantment with the profession after going through four years of training for it. Also, comes up (waaaay down in the list) when you google Adam Bly, and I bet his PR people google him constantly. 38 views total.

In two weeks, it will be the one year anniversary of my blog, which Fae and I both decided to start the last time I visited her, and I have to say that I'm really enjoying it. It's definitely an outlet for me, it gives me a chance to write more often, even if it's about trivial things. For me, it's never mattered whether someone reads it or not. It's therapy.

¹Average about 10 each day, 15 or more on days that I post something.
² That's right, if you search your name on my blog, I know about it!
³Everywhere! India, Australia, Iran... it's quite amazing!

Hit me baby one more time

We had the best night on Friday. We went to the Dance Mix 95 party at the Cabin. The Cabin is NOT a place I would normally go¹ but this was a ticketed special event. The theme was obviously the 90s, and we put a lot of thought into our costumes. We bought white tshirts and tie-dyed them on Wednesday night. I bought magenta leg warmers, scrunchies and had my parents bring over my converses.

The night went really well. Needless to say we all got really drunk, as we have a tendency to do.² They played the best music. Britney.³ Spice Girls. Backstreet Boys. Cotton-eyed Joe. It was awesome. We danced all night. And I wasn't even too hungover for work the next day. Anyway. These pics are the result. I have such a good time going out with my girls!


¹ The only other time I've been was years ago. I was not impressed, the floors were sticky.
² Especially this month. Every single weekend.
³ From back when she was entertaining, if not good.

Ummm Chili...

A few weeks ago I made a wonderful chili recipe from the cookbook my mommy bought me for my birthday. We ate it for two weeks, and it was awesome. Usually, when it's just Kristen and I, we have soup and grilled cheese. But last week we got to have chili instead! Then, on Friday I ate the last of it for lunch at work. So I decided I had to make more this weekend. Today, I made more.

This really is the best chili recipe. It doesn't have any meat, and it has chickpeas. It tastes even better after it's frozen. I love having something good to eat throughout the week. It's well worth the work on Sunday. This picture doesn't really do it justice (Kristen thinks it looks gross here) but it really is good!

Gnome you didn't!

So, this is my new blog design. It took me three hours¹ of photoshop (that was the easy part) and coding (my god that sucked) to get it this way but I think it is beautiful and I love it muchly.

I do want to say, however, that blogger is not at all user friendly when it comes to redesigning your blog. I know enough about computers and coding that it should NOT have taken me that long.

The pictures are mine, from my various travels. The textures are taken from some free clipart sites.

¹I'm supposed to be working from home today, for the museum. Clearly, that isn't happening so much.