highlyeccentric (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
highlyeccentric) wrote2014-05-01 05:59 pm
highlyeccentric) wrote2014-05-01 05:59 pm
Summative Post for Friends and Relations, Mark Four
Wow. Two months has been a LONG TIME, this time. As with previous such posts, social media means you've probably got the idea, but here, a summary, with pictures!
Point the first: Medieval Sex
It's really hard to remember what else I've been doing since semester started, because I've been having such fun teaching a course on 'Marriage, Sex and Chastity in Medieval English Literatures'. All the medieval sex jokes! In one notable instance, six high school students appeared out of nowhere (apparently their teacher was supposed to warn me, but did not) on visit-the-uni day just in time for my special seminar on medieval torture porn. (No seriously, it's a legit academic question. If you have all these violent stories about gorgeous virgins being tortured and tormented, what kind of voyeurism is at work? Discuss.)
Point the second: Theatre is Exhausting
So there was this play, and it kept me very busy for the first part of march - and during the week of the show run that tipped over from 'productively busy' to 'exhausted zombie'. It was fun and yet I was wrecked and hated everything at the same time. Very confusing.
Subsequently I've been attending playreadings again, with the WWI play 'Journey's End' and Stoppard's Rozencrantz and Gildenstern being particular highlights.
Point the third: there are many ways to fuck up a job lecture / interview
I won't go into detail, because professionalism, but we had five job talks and five informal 'chat/interview with staff' thingies for a professor post coming up here. It was really interesting to see the process in action, and really instructional to observe what made a bad job talk, and how easy it was for candidates to screw it up. When 2/3 of the interviewees manage to insult someone, your chances are boosted simply by not doing that!
Point the Fourth: Birdies and Scenery
The weather turned warm and sunny (with occasional attacks of dismal, as today) in late March, and there are FLOWERS and stuff and I understand the enthusiasm about spring now.
This is the Parc Des Bastions, in which the Arts Faculty buildings live, at dusk.
FLOWERS
The funfair came back, this time in its warm-weather incarnation (thus the weird 'put your child in a plastic ball and set them loose on a pond' installation).
And it's just been replaced with a circus. I feel like I'm living an Enid Blyton life - here comes the circus!
Observe, my versio of the iconic Junction shot. On the left, the Rhone rushes south from Lac Leman. On the right, the Arve has more recently come from a glacier, so is heavy with minerals, and it is also shallower. It looses the battle of the rivers just past the bridge, dissipating into the Rhone.
The Black Kites have appeared and on sunny days they can be found playing in the Rone valley and fishing in the river.
I've descended rapidly into bird geeking, with a strong bias toward waterfowl. There's a wildlife park on the top of a hill overlooking Junction, so I am enabled by many native and imported birdies there.
Look at this magnificent duckie.
Peacocks in mating season are total dorks.
Tourism and Partnerin'
I went across to Brum for an extended weekend in late March, fun was had and ducks were observed there too. We went to the Birmingham Museum and Gallery to see the Staffordshire Hoard (again), and also saw...
The glistening abs of Lucifer the Well-Endowed.
Young couple, young cherry.
This be the last time I visit Dr J in Birmingham (his contract is due to end soon), so I'm kinda sad about that. I was getting to like the place!
Hey look its mah englishman.
Said Englishman came over *here* during easter break. More ducks were observed. We took a trip up to Lausanne and were toured around by a colleague who lives there - I don't seem to have taken many (any?) photos that day. Last Friday's expedition to Montreux & Chateau Chillon I did photograph, although I haven't finished uploading yet.
Same Englishman, different scenery.
Horticultural Smurfs, on the boulevard at Montreux.
The Chateau de Chillon sits on a hunk of rock, separated from the shore by a natural moat, and manages to be both a hulking road-guarding fortress and a tiny speck in the vast scenery.
Hey look, a 12th c donjon.
A 16th century fire truck.
Serious business gothic dungeon going on here. With bonus natural rock outcrops, and supposedly Lord Byron's graffiti on the post in the foreground.
Pretty vertiginous countryside even on the not-the-alps side of the lake - this photo is taken from the top of the 12th c donjon.
I think that is all the things that have happened to me. The end.
Point the first: Medieval Sex
It's really hard to remember what else I've been doing since semester started, because I've been having such fun teaching a course on 'Marriage, Sex and Chastity in Medieval English Literatures'. All the medieval sex jokes! In one notable instance, six high school students appeared out of nowhere (apparently their teacher was supposed to warn me, but did not) on visit-the-uni day just in time for my special seminar on medieval torture porn. (No seriously, it's a legit academic question. If you have all these violent stories about gorgeous virgins being tortured and tormented, what kind of voyeurism is at work? Discuss.)
Point the second: Theatre is Exhausting
So there was this play, and it kept me very busy for the first part of march - and during the week of the show run that tipped over from 'productively busy' to 'exhausted zombie'. It was fun and yet I was wrecked and hated everything at the same time. Very confusing.
Subsequently I've been attending playreadings again, with the WWI play 'Journey's End' and Stoppard's Rozencrantz and Gildenstern being particular highlights.
Point the third: there are many ways to fuck up a job lecture / interview
I won't go into detail, because professionalism, but we had five job talks and five informal 'chat/interview with staff' thingies for a professor post coming up here. It was really interesting to see the process in action, and really instructional to observe what made a bad job talk, and how easy it was for candidates to screw it up. When 2/3 of the interviewees manage to insult someone, your chances are boosted simply by not doing that!
Point the Fourth: Birdies and Scenery
The weather turned warm and sunny (with occasional attacks of dismal, as today) in late March, and there are FLOWERS and stuff and I understand the enthusiasm about spring now.
This is the Parc Des Bastions, in which the Arts Faculty buildings live, at dusk.
FLOWERS
The funfair came back, this time in its warm-weather incarnation (thus the weird 'put your child in a plastic ball and set them loose on a pond' installation).
And it's just been replaced with a circus. I feel like I'm living an Enid Blyton life - here comes the circus!
Observe, my versio of the iconic Junction shot. On the left, the Rhone rushes south from Lac Leman. On the right, the Arve has more recently come from a glacier, so is heavy with minerals, and it is also shallower. It looses the battle of the rivers just past the bridge, dissipating into the Rhone.
The Black Kites have appeared and on sunny days they can be found playing in the Rone valley and fishing in the river.
I've descended rapidly into bird geeking, with a strong bias toward waterfowl. There's a wildlife park on the top of a hill overlooking Junction, so I am enabled by many native and imported birdies there.
Look at this magnificent duckie.
Peacocks in mating season are total dorks.
Tourism and Partnerin'
I went across to Brum for an extended weekend in late March, fun was had and ducks were observed there too. We went to the Birmingham Museum and Gallery to see the Staffordshire Hoard (again), and also saw...
The glistening abs of Lucifer the Well-Endowed.
Young couple, young cherry.
This be the last time I visit Dr J in Birmingham (his contract is due to end soon), so I'm kinda sad about that. I was getting to like the place!
Hey look its mah englishman.
Said Englishman came over *here* during easter break. More ducks were observed. We took a trip up to Lausanne and were toured around by a colleague who lives there - I don't seem to have taken many (any?) photos that day. Last Friday's expedition to Montreux & Chateau Chillon I did photograph, although I haven't finished uploading yet.
Same Englishman, different scenery.
Horticultural Smurfs, on the boulevard at Montreux.
The Chateau de Chillon sits on a hunk of rock, separated from the shore by a natural moat, and manages to be both a hulking road-guarding fortress and a tiny speck in the vast scenery.
Hey look, a 12th c donjon.
A 16th century fire truck.
Serious business gothic dungeon going on here. With bonus natural rock outcrops, and supposedly Lord Byron's graffiti on the post in the foreground.
Pretty vertiginous countryside even on the not-the-alps side of the lake - this photo is taken from the top of the 12th c donjon.
I think that is all the things that have happened to me. The end.