Don't look at me like that, you old hag.
Apparently one isn't supposed to speak in the library. Even the friendly smile to the withered old bat in the seat next to one is greeted with a certain air of suspicion. No, the proper demeaor is that of intense, curmudgeonly study. If possible, one should possess a debilitating tick or two. It is best, really, if one can mutter to one's self under one's breath, and occasionally walk about aimlessly looking at shelfmarks before forgetting where one's original seat was and so ending up with a whole stack of books on Baroque architecture instead of on Edward Lear.
Furthermore, signs posted on every flat surface remind me that I have undertaken not to bring into the Library or kindle therein any fire or flame. It makes me wonder, a bit, who brings in fire or flame. Kindle therein, all right. Sometimes that happens, it's completely understandable - one is reading along peacefully, and whoops, fire/flame is kindled. Happens to the best of us. But bring in? Even Prometheus would have his bag checked at the front door, and I suspect that the guard would not believe that it was a tube full of office supplies. Old P had better watch it, too, because if he did try to bring in the mystery of the gods, the sign informs him that he might incur a fine and would find his reader's ticket in forfeiture pretty smartly.
This article is hideously dull. The author, one Felice Lifshitz, has an annoying habit of using qua every third word. This is a usage which, qua rhetorical device, I find completely ineffective. Furthermore, she has an absolute rash of italicizations, resulting in so much emphasis that one finds one's self a little dizzy by the end of a paragraph. Really!
In an atmosphere so hostile to the affable give and take of civil conversation, I find myself starting to mutter a bit myself, mutter a bit, a bit, myself, yes, a bit, another waffle of lobsters, my good sir, mmmbbffp.
Ahem.
And so, lest I should start to give enterprising and bright-eyed undergraduates chary glances when they sit down, surely it is best that I divert my attention for some short while. To such an end, therefore, I turned my thoughts away from the matter of hagiography and towards you, cognoscenti. Now it's back to work, absent kindled or imported flame of any sort.
Furthermore, signs posted on every flat surface remind me that I have undertaken not to bring into the Library or kindle therein any fire or flame. It makes me wonder, a bit, who brings in fire or flame. Kindle therein, all right. Sometimes that happens, it's completely understandable - one is reading along peacefully, and whoops, fire/flame is kindled. Happens to the best of us. But bring in? Even Prometheus would have his bag checked at the front door, and I suspect that the guard would not believe that it was a tube full of office supplies. Old P had better watch it, too, because if he did try to bring in the mystery of the gods, the sign informs him that he might incur a fine and would find his reader's ticket in forfeiture pretty smartly.
This article is hideously dull. The author, one Felice Lifshitz, has an annoying habit of using qua every third word. This is a usage which, qua rhetorical device, I find completely ineffective. Furthermore, she has an absolute rash of italicizations, resulting in so much emphasis that one finds one's self a little dizzy by the end of a paragraph. Really!
In an atmosphere so hostile to the affable give and take of civil conversation, I find myself starting to mutter a bit myself, mutter a bit, a bit, myself, yes, a bit, another waffle of lobsters, my good sir, mmmbbffp.
Ahem.
And so, lest I should start to give enterprising and bright-eyed undergraduates chary glances when they sit down, surely it is best that I divert my attention for some short while. To such an end, therefore, I turned my thoughts away from the matter of hagiography and towards you, cognoscenti. Now it's back to work, absent kindled or imported flame of any sort.
posted by Katie at
7:30 PM
6 Comments:
Oh civilized being from the developed world...(read: OPPRESSOR!). Thanks for rubbing it in my face that you have a REAL library at your...ahem...real university. We in the lesser developed world, my dear, cannot, in fact (remember "in fact"? in fact, you do remeber in fact), pick up a book on either Baroque architecture or Edward Lear. In fact (there it goes again), you can't even pick up a book on humanitarian intervention. Why? you may ask...BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ANY IN MY UNDEVELOPED ASS COUNTRY! However, there are a few books on Malta (read Mooawlta) that overuse the italics.
The best way to stay warm in Oxford is to buy some really good long underwear. It's thin, and it gives you about the equivalent warmth of an extra sweater.
As for the rest of it, I'd be hesitant to stay for a D.Phil. unless you want to stay in Europe after you finish. American degrees are better respected, you're more likely to network within the right crowds, and you'll actually get a better education at a top US university than you'll get at Oxford because you'll have more support. I only feel justified in saying that as an American who has done both. In some ways Oxford trains you to be an academic by *allowing* you to be an independent academic much earlier in the graduate school process, but on the other hand, the cost of that is that you're not getting the same foundation that your future rivals/peers in America are getting. It's all good and fine to spend three years of your life doing independent research and essentially writing a book (without any guarantee of its passing, either--but don't get me started), but grad school in America is really a professional training program as much as a time to do your own research. Oxford won't prepare you for your profession.
The only thing I will say to oppose that is that the lack of teaching experience at Oxford won't hurt you if you decide to finish your degree there. You won't get a tenure-track position without doing at least a year (and probably much more) of post doc in the US anyway, so you'll have that experience later.
This is the way I see it:
If you love Oxford because you love Oxford, and you want to stay for a third year because you want the experience of spending one more year there amidst the amazing minds, lacklustre but fun formal hall, and the excitement of being abroad in such a unique (well, Cambridge, but whatever) place, then you should do that. It isn't a good career move, though.
Wear two scarves!
It is time to further expand that part of your closet, unwieldy though it be at present.
Hey, I've got a degree from a prestigious (although not Ivy) American uni and I don't have a job. Of course, I took forever to write my thesis... envious of the library. I have to get much of my stuff via interlibrary loan ...
hey katie,
they're getting rid of newcomb, and they've cut 5 of the 7 engineering programs.
http://www.renewal.tulane.edu
bastards.
This post is hi-larious! I love the idea of Prometheus wandering around Oxford libraries, trying to offer grumpy scholars the gift of fire.
"Kindle within," indeed.
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