in which im the girl from the north country
alright. update. after much deliberation, soul-searching, and more than one email to former tutors with the subject line "help!" - i officially accepted a place in the medieval studies ma program at the university of york in the uk. the centre for medieval studies is widely acknowledged as the best in the uk, if not the world and the english department is particularly progressive, which is a bonus for me given that i am interested in working between (the medieval and modern) periods, something that few british universities look kindly upon. in the end, i was humbled by having to decide between oxford, york, and cambridge (the top three english departments in the uk, in that order) and with every single instructor ive had, both at bryn mawr/haverford and oxford pointed me unwaveringly toward york from the very beginning, i just dont know what took me so long to decide on it. my love for oxford, the city and the university, certainly got in my way but i hope never to be a stranger from that place.
so, in october im off to the northern reaches of yorkshire for 51 weeks of study. ive been to edinburgh, but never in the north of england and i hear its lovely and very mystical - all those anglo-scandinavian and anglo-celtic influences...a friend of mine from bryn mawr is going there as well and we have three (non-academic) goals for the year:
1. visiting our amazing medieval professor from haverford and her family at their sabbatical home in northwestern france.
2. the continuation of the anglo-saxon club begun at the winesoaked table of the aforementioned professor: traveling to ancient cities around the uk, sitting by the oldest gravestone in the oldest cemetary and drinking wine out of a wine horn with anglo-saxon poetry in tow, of course
3. raising the mists of avalon. come on, how hard could it be? stand up on glastonbury tor and wave our arms around. if angelica huston can do it...
oh. a couple of people had told me they were interested in reading my thesis work, which i would be more than willing to email off in an attachment as long as no one makes fun of the numerous typos and dickensian sentence structure. those were stressful weeks spent writing - editing was more of an afterthought...anyway, the title ended up being the most high hill: 13th century mythopolitics and the rise of british medievalism. well on my way to pretentious scholardom.