'Tis been a while...

... but life got somewhat busy.

I'm doing my Ph. D. Yes, a second attempt. I'm clumsy in some ways. I took that bit of effort and got a magic paper with a big university stamp that says that I'm a student with special needs and that everyone is requested, by order, as certified by said magic paper with a stamp, to be nice to me. I have reasons to believe that the Department of Archival Studies is inhabited by nicer people than my native art history turf but maybe that institutional magic works.
For those who may be interested, I'm working on a very very obscure theme of late Roman/early Mediæval palæography (gotta like me those diphthongs) which I refuse to explain until I feel like explaining it, and it is not right now, because people get lost after second sentence. However, it includes a lot of nerdy statistics - a thing unseen at the Arts Faculty but I apparently have an urge to be odd - and I absolutely need to find a nice Uncial font. Uncial is pretty, that's it, such as in the Vienna Livius. Do browse it, just for the æsthetic pleasure.
I got a teaching assignment, feel free to imagine the usual complaints about how the students are dumb. To be specific, I doubt that certain specimens know the alphabet and when I introduced them to the glory and magic of indices, quite a few were quite a bit lost. Or they looked so.

Cat is doing fine. Dad started training, saying that at least Come here and Sit down and Sit and beg shoud be manageable but at the end, he concluded that he's been trained to Give treat. So, technically, I own two cats, I'm listed in the microchip database and I buy cat food. Practically, nope. Meezer lives with grandma and the old ladies are happy that way, Cat adopted my dad who keeps spoiling her rotten and that's it. Did I already say that blue-eyed cats are ungrateful bastards?

A few months ago I would say that I lived in three places again, as  I did in the glorious academic year of 2003/2004, 2004/2005 and, I think, 2008/2009. Meantime, I had a major argument with my mother which involved core life values, started moving my shit away and sorta crossed out the family house from my present and future calculations. I still live something akin to a logistic nightmare but it's settling down, I already know the train schedules, I spread the everyday stuff like deodorants and underwear evenly - I still lack in a few departments but I guess I'll manage with carrying pointe shoes around, they run on the expensive side and I don't use them up the way I use up toothpaste.

And, at the end, a pretty song for all my past loves and for whomever it may concern:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuwpWnjg7xc

Dissertation

Warning, the following post might contain peanuts runes.
Also, you might find it extremely boring, in that case, skip it and wait a few days until a rant on something else. I plan one on underwear.


I'm working of it. Sort of. I decided that if the whole thing is going to suck, I should at least have stunning appendices.
Shortly after I started bringing this idea, which, as an idea, is rather okay, I realized the depths of my blunder.
One of the documents I'm working with is the testament of King Magnus and Queen Blanche of Sweden, given the 1st of May of 1346 in Lodöse.

Excursus
Modern Swedish somewhat reminds a casual observer of modern German. In fact, the who knows one language can read the other and get the point. It was at the times of Hanseatic League that carried nearly all the trade around the Baltic Sea (and elsewhere), when the Swedes improved their vocabulary by adopting many German words (Low German, in fact, but don't ask me pretty please on the historical development of German, thankyouverymuch). Specific vocabulary related to trade but lots of others. Anything with the prefix för- is of German origin, for example. My knowledge of German is very superficial, acquired mainly while changing trains at the now torn down South Station in Vienna and those eight years of German at schools I refuse to count because my brain refused to have anything to do with the cunning forms of torture German language teachers are so fond of. But still, knowing at least some German helps indeed.
And, in 1346, German-derived words were not in fashion yet.


Obviously, it's written in language over 650 years old and considerably changed. I had a course on historical development of Swedish which I sometimes attended and didn't sleep through it and I've read about things which shows to be an advantage. So 'iorþrike' can be easily understood as jordiska riket, earthly kingdom (after all, it's a testament of a king), but what the freaking hell is 'harþlicæ plictugher'? Swedish dropped declination and conjugation so the latter would be most likely related to today's plikt, duty, but still. I'd rather be playing with jigsaw puzzles or knitting Estonian lace.

Or I could have remained stupid.

The Egg Dance

I don't think the metaphor 'dancing between the eggs' is used often. Neither I use it, one of the reason being its evocative power. Ever since, I imagined an Odette, tulle skirt and white pointe shoes (you have to pay extra $10 for white at Gaynor Minden, peach is the default colour), finding her difficult way between white eggs, and somehow managing not to break any.

The research grants have to be spent. Entirely, to the last cent and fragment of a drilled cowrie shell. I asked what would happen if some money was left and the reply was The research grant has to be spent in its entirety or else there would be troubles. What troubles, I insisted, and was explained that unimaginably difficult troubles and that the research grant has to be spent all, no exceptions.
If I weren't an arsehole, I'd ask several questions about the rules earlier and I'd find more expensive lodging because now, in order to avoid Apocalypse, I have to spend around 10 000 SEK (around a thousand euros) on things like photocopying and office supplies and travelling. I'm leaving on Friday.

I gave it a massive bit of thinking and, well, it cannot be helped. Massive amount of photocopying, everybody will get Swedish notebooks and pencils for Christmas and I might make a hasty trip to somewhere like Uppsala because being aware of the upcoming possibility of the world ending, I just have to work on it hard.

Nope, can't be books. That would make the things much easier but... nope.

Next time: Whines and/or late Comnenian frescoes at Gotland, depending on my mood.