First Day

Today was the first day of school! I wore a special outfit! No, in fact I didn't even take a shower as the entire building was devoid of hot water when I woke up this morning. Britain! It is no longer WWII! Stop rationing shit.

Anyway, had my first class--Intellectual History of the American Revolution. Professor is an American, class is full of Americans (and a man who seems to be the school's token Scot, who looks like a very pink cross between Ziggy and the Penguin), talking about American history...why did I move across the world again?

Love child?

I think it may be harder than I anticipated to get back into the swing of school. Discussion was fairly good, especially for the first day, but I couldn't bring myself to speak up. I don't know, I guess I've gotten so used to mulling things over in my own mind, on my own time, that I wasn't ready to just spit thoughts up onto the seminar table. We spent most of the time talking about the difference (or lack thereof) between intellectual history and the history of ideas, the role of bias in historians' work, the responsibility to follow the evidence. People were very worked up about what seemed to be fairly obvious statements. The entire discussion seemed to hinge ultimately on the fact that any scholarship (hell, any life with any thought process at all) is about determining what counts. But that's also so obvious as to be worthless, and so I stayed put. I did mention liguistic theory at one point, only to receive a collective shudder from professor and class, so apparently we won't be going down that road, but if you plan to talk about biases it seems a useful place to look. I don't know, I mostly spent the time swinging between feeling smugly superior to their plebian thoughts, and like a (thankfully not gibbering) idiot, looking desperately left and right as I tried to follow the train of thought. Never a middle ground for me, nope.

I do think it will get better once I get my feet under me. One thing that can get in the way, but for which I am ultimately very grateful, is that I tend not to speak unless I have something to say (excepting this blog, of course), which seems relatively uncommon in academia, at least at this stage. That's an unkind and pretentious statement, I know--but it's also true. So I just need to wait until I feel I can contribute meaningfully, and then blow them all away with my insight and erudition.


As a palate cleanser, overheard between two little boys in short knickers and kneesocks on their way to school this morning:
Boy #1: Which do you think is the better game, Harry Potter or Star Wars?
Boy #2: Star Wars. It's easier to get into character.