Week 9/10 - Pulling Out the Stops

Manor House, Godstone, England

Week Nine and part way through Week Ten.  Hectic, stress, frenetic, and overwhelm seem to be the uppermost words that spring to mind.

Although today is a glorious blue with a biting cold in Aber, I sit inside after a hasty bus trip into town to get more ink for the printer.  I've finally run out of ink!

As the semester slides toward the holiday break, I've just completed a 2497 word essay (Do NOT exceed 2500 or you will be marked down) for my PGM0120 module on Research.  Although only 15 workshops were necessary, I attended thirty and listened to another that was recorded earlier.  Still a glutton for punishment and over-achiever.

Stairway to the theatre in the School of Art

I also sent in my Abstract of 180 words (Not to exceed 200 word count) on my novel and planned analysis, which is part Critical Theory and part Self-Analysis of my writing process and will hopefully challenge how Classic is defined in literature.

Then there was PGM0410, Ways of Reading, a study in the various theories of deconstruction.  I chose to write on Narratology as it is theory of the narrative.  Relatively new as theories go, I completed 3497 words just three words short of the max thereby preventing me again from losing points.  The UK take their word counts very seriously.  As I compared Bleak House by Charles Dickens, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, and Sepulchre by Kate Mosse, I began to get the hang of foreshadowing and backshadowing, framing a story, genre, as well as verbal patterning and motifs used.

I eventually took the plunge and did an analysis of the opening paragraphs in my novel, Standing Stone.  I read the words as a reader coming fresh to the page rather than a writer, who has toiled with each word, trying to make sense of the story that likes to peek-a-boo around corners, show itself as I drift off to sleep, or present itself in the chance remark of another student, professor, or perfect stranger.  I was pleased for these few paragraphs, 215 words, passed the litmus test.  I could see motifs, a frame, foreshadowing of events... and, of course, knowing the end, I could see that I had backshadowed the eventual outcome.  Happy Dance!

Theatre or Classroom in School of Art.
(Rich and Ash in front row)

 Then, of course, was the fine tuning of just over 4000 words of the novel to hand in to my second-reader.  That will happen shortly, possibly tomorrow, just one more review.  The assignments (over 10,000 words) are ticked off my rather lengthy list and I can now hopefully settle into a daily writing pattern, getting to know my characters and telling their interwoven story as they whisper to me.  Another author, Pete Fromm, said once that he had the best job in the world because he got to go to the basement and play with his imaginary friends each day.  Lovely.  I so understand.

Maybe I can do this, I said to myself, referring to my great undertaking.  For cheek-by-jowl with the euphoria of handing in assignments early and tickets for home taped just above my computer, the PhD is a solitary process.  Incoming students are warned that this honing of skill, this laser focus on becoming an expert in one's chosen discipline, can consume both life and the art of living.  Choices must be made and consequences faced.

Thanksgiving this past week dawned without fanfare and sans turkey.  I had leftover stir fry before which I presented my Visa to the proper campus authority which will enable me to return home next month.  However, despite feeling sorry for myself that I was going to be alone, I was grateful for modern technology and the chance to see everyone via Skype.  My daughter held her iPhone with me on video chat from Wales, while my son-in-law held a second smart phone connecting my husband from Oregon so that we could join the sixty gathered in Utah.  After going round the room and giving each a chance to say what they were grateful for... a new baby coming, religious freedom, being together, "my smokin' hot wife," family, country, and, of course, the food, which threatened to collapse several tables, the two phones were held together for a Thanksgiving kiss across the miles.  It made me smile, lessened the ache caused by distance, and made me ever so much more grateful as I listened to and was included in our joint and heartfelt family prayer.  Thank you sweetheart, children, grandchildren, extended family, and friends for your love and support.  Families are truly forever.

Aberystwyth Bay/the Irish Sea.  View from the cafeteria.

Sunset over the campus on my walk home tonight.

Dear Readers:  I plan on a bit of a hiatus while I return home to enjoy the Christmas season with family.  See you in the New Year.  May your holidays be joyous and 2013 filled with blessings.

Week 4 - The Finding

Kensington Fairyland in Astoria

 Before my send off to Fairyland, er um, Wales, I wasn't sure what I would find.  I knew I would face loss as I left my own dear little fairykin behind, but I was unprepared for the finding and the enormity of the finding and the change in myself at the finding.

I turned inwards as I travelled, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, and facing my own inordinate fears of being lost yet again, I realized that in spite of my daydreams of world travel I am a closet-coward.  Let me phrase that a bit gentler.  As a child I was lost at Kreske's or perhaps Woolworth's Department store in Chicago.  I don't remember the name of the store just that it was the holidays, the store was packed and as I looked up, my mother was no longer standing in front of me.  I stood still, remembering that mom would find me if I just stood still.  True to her word, she did.  I was scolded for not paying attention but hugged for standing still so I could be found.  I've made it a point to not put myself in a position to get lost ever again.  Silly?  Perhaps but it is the random childhood memories that shape our lives.

Now in Aberystwyth, I'm learning to wander, to lose myself in history, in a novel, and in the experience.  Not bravely perhaps but I'm learning.  In exploring the base of the castle ruins, I noted several mosiacs facing the roadway.  At great peril to life and limb (UK drivers have the right of way and one takes their chances when stepping onto a roadway), I photographed several that caught my eye.

Death in the Castle

Eisteddfod

As I journeyed into the ruin courtyard, now a manicured lawn, I came across young male students with Nerf guns running in what looked to be a weaponized game of tag.  Another young man with a camera seemed to be recording and though I may be nervous when travelling, I have absolutely no compunction about talking to perfect strangers if I'm seeking information.  I queried him as to the "rules" of the game.  Half the team was Zombie and half (the ones with weapons) were the "normals."  It was the Zombie's responsibility to convert as many townies as possible.  The last one standing was deemed winner.  I watched for awhile, staying out of their playing field and then... the stones caught my eye.

Standing stones... a ring of standing stones carefully placed within the castle courtyard.  My reseacher's heart beat a little faster.  The game faded,  I walked into the stones as well as the game and noted they (the stones) were not completely symmetrical, some were carved with runes or stamped with what appeared to be tortoise symbols.  Wait!  My analytical brain called me up short when I saw the runic inscriptions.  This is a seaside town with corrosive salt air and these incisions were still crisp.  I photographed each one and looked forward to a long research session on my computer.  How lovely to find standing stones in my back yard!

However, the finding was not an easy finding and led me to another finding - another layer of Welsh history, another path I  least expected, a history that now plays peek-a-boo in the pages of my new novel.  These were not ancient standing or Druidic stones but were Bardic stones, newly placed during the1916 Eisteddfod, and representing the 13 original counties in Wales.  The Bards gather for competitions and each hopes to win the coveted prize:  a silver chair for the best storyteller, a silver tongue for the best singer, and a silver harp for the best minstrel.  I believe the runic carvings to be the names of the original counties.

As to our mystery skeleton - He appears to have been buried in the mid-1600's, within the castle which is in itself unusual.  He was approx. 28 years old, in above average health (good teeth), and buried hurriedly.  However, he was never reinterred in consecrated soil?  Was he murdered?  He is now resting at the Aberystwyth Free Museum, waiting for his fate to be decided.

But in my findings and research of those findings, I've learned to expect the unexpected, to use a bus schedule, to realize that in spite of age and my previous voluntary dependence on a vehicle, one can, indeed, regenerate unused and tired muscles.  Ultimately, it is the mind that seeks to find and it is in the finding that we discover... life, and maybe the odd fairy or two.