Looking at pictures of the damage from yesterday, it's kind of amazing no one was killed. The National Cathedral had some pretty sizeable statuary fall, and the Washington Post has a picture of a car whose windshield was smashed from falling bricks. We're pretty lucky ( Read more... )

So, as I said in my last entry, I had an interesting meeting with my professor a few weeks ago. I wanted to touch base with him, mainly, on my paper (at that point I was worried I wouldn't have enough material in the Annales Gendanses text to flesh out my analysis on the Battle of the Golden Spurs), but also on a few other issues. I started out ( Read more... )

Well, the glow from that didn't last too long because we got our final grade--and I got only an A-. I'm not happy about this, needless to say but there's not much I can do about it. (Or I should say, will do--I despise grade grubbers.) My midterm grade dragged down my average a bit--I got a B/B+ on it (I don't know for sure because the TA made a ( Read more... )

So, this past week has been a bit stressful--we got the study sheet for the final last Tuesday and it was really no help. Basically it was "go over everything we studied in class." We studied at least 1000 pages of primary sources, not to mention at least that much of secondary sources! And the man really does lecture VERY quickly. But at least ( Read more... )

After the thorough defeat of the English at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, early medieval observers could be forgiven if they believed they had witnessed the demise of the infantry. Harold’s tight column of foot soldiers had ultimately proven no match for the mobility, speed, and sheer force of weight displayed by William the Conqueror’s Norman ( Read more... )

Sweating through my second (final) paper right now, on the role of the cavalry in Hastings and the Battle of the Golden Spurs. Will surface when it's done (probably tonight, I'm on the conclusion right now).

Last night the current President of Sweet Briar appeared at a cocktail party hosted by an alum in her Park Avenue apartment. All NYC-area alums were invited so I showed up to schmooze a bit--Christian told me that the SBC President is really into theater, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to meet her and make a good impression, all for Project Thyme. ( Read more... )

Weather is kicking my ass lately. So, so sick of all this disgusting cold and rain. All I wanted to do this morning was stay in bed with Tatia draping herself across the pillow ( Read more... )

Also, last week for class we read Henry V and watched bits of it in class, both the Olivier and the Branagh. Haven't seen the Branagh since it first came out in '89--it's quite good! I definitely prefer it to my Olivier--I have very mixed feelings about the quality of Olivier's films (perhaps I should say their success--as I emailed to my ( Read more... )

So we had our history final the Tuesday before Christmas--it was modified open book in that we were allowed to have in hand the last text we studied, Le Livre de la Cité des Dames by Christine de Pizan, and we could even have notes in it, but we were not allowed any other text. (And yet, we were expected to be able to cite and reference those ( Read more... )