Summative Post for Friends and Relations
Dec. 26th, 2013 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricAs with the previous instance, most social-media using persons have probably got the general idea, but here I present a summative post for friends, relations and the terminally curious, covering the period Halloween-Christmas 2013:
Yeah, apparently I'm 26. I just had to have mine host figure that out for me. Birthday maths is hard, people.
1. Halloween and other loose ends from October
Firstly, Halloween was a thing. The English Department, especially the film club thereof, takes seriously its responsibility to educate innocent swiss chilluns in the finer points of Anglophone culture. Thus: Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with Time Warp lessons and mini-lectures on 'queering and camp' and 'glam rock culture'.
Two of my colleagues delivering the aforesaid mini-lectures.
leareth joined us, and turned out to be the only person who knew ALL the things you have to shout at the screen. It was a fairly tame Rocky Horror experience - the swiss being constitutionally reserved people - but fun nevertheless.
Also I taught class dressed like that for three hours beforehand.
Right before I left for the UK, my boxes arrived from Australia. On the one hand, several photo frames and a champagne glass had shattered enroute, and several stuffies were covered in glass shards. On the other, I FINALLY had my winter coat back.
Elevator selfie shows me with coat, and also the huge red fuzzy scarf my now-ex-girlfriend knitted for me - which I had never managed to wear in Aus, due to lack of severe winter there.
2. UK and mental healths
Next I spent about a week in the UK with the english manfriend. Some photographs can be found in this post, and I still haven't uploaded the photos from All Saints Brixworth. Fun was had. Silly card games were played, with manfriend's offspring and with a friend of his, a woman of great intellect and terrible sleeping / working patterns. Possibly my greatest victory was teaching Dr J and his offspring to play Cheat - and wiping the table with them repeatedly, until young B figured out my strategy and turned it against me.
While I was in the UK, the first signs of November becoming a Very Difficult Month started to manifest themselves. I realised I was carrying constant anxiety - I'd tense up when a bartender caught my or Dr J's eye, for instance, as my mind clattered through the 'what do we need, who's best qualified to speak french here, what is the person saying?' process... only for me to realise that we're in the Midlands and everyone speaks English. That got a lot worse when I got back to Switzerland, because now I am *aware* of how much of my executive processing gets used up on assessing whether and how to speak French at any time.
Upon my return, November piled up on top of me, with depression, anxiety, and the greatly perplexing fact that dawn was now after 8am. I just can't deal with being awake before dawn, and technically, swiss working hours start at 8am. I slept a lot in November. I stuffed up the sorts of things which I'm normally pretty on top of - work, deadlines, reporting things to the correct person. I felt it necessary to set out my mental health issues to all three bosses, which was... awkward. But at least saves me having the awkward conversation further down the line?
In early December I got in to see a psychiatrist, which I had to do anyway because health fund regulations - meds need to be prescribed by a psychiatrist. Psychiatrist says "you're hardly the first Australian to find that November does their head in" or words to that effect. This is vaguely reassuring.
Work & Seminars
Something of which I have no photos is my thesis - project approved, deadline for submitting about 60 pages of written work, end of June. Oh joy, etc. I'm starting with the ground which most closely relates to my Masters work, which is reassuring. Oh, Ywain, most clueless of knights.
Switzerland is really well set-up for postgraduate study. In Nov-December I participated in three workshops as part of the English doctoral skills program for western Switzerland - two in Geneva and one in Neuchatel.Those have given me a bunch of new interests - who knew press variants in early modern editions could be so fascinating? - and have somehow lead to me getting on Twitter. Anyway. It's all very educational, one gets reimbursed for travel costs, and astonishingly well linked-up. You wouldn't catch universities in Sydney sharing resources like that.
People and visits!
December was full of peeeeople. My friend Lukas, whom I hadn't seen for eight years, had been walking the Camino de Santiago in November and came up to Geneva shortly after, in time for the Genevois civic festivities of L'Escalade. The great victory of the citizens of Geneva over the Savoyard army, 1602, is commemorated and celebrated with chocolate cauldrons, historical re-enactment, and vegetable soup.
Chocolate cauldrons, all ready for ritual smashing.
Thus perish the enemies of the republic! Featuring myself and the youngest student in my class. This was the crowning moment of the snack-program. I refuse to teach a 3-hour class without a snack break, you see, so organised students into a roster. Om nom nom.
Out and about in the city on Saturday there were many strange creatures.
Spaceman with six aliens on a string.
Tiny Genevois warriors fighting a pinyata-type arrangement.
And in the brilliant winter sunshine, the rear view of the Cathedral:
We, withleareth, ended up down in Carouge, where a small Christmas market was underway. There was a fire in one of the squares - Lukas says he hadn't seen Leareth or I look so happy all day. The Australians need warms!
Complicated bell-ringing procession and yodelling horns. No actual yodelling, though.
No sooner had Lukas left than![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
lastwingedthing showed up. Her visit was less eventful but no less nice. Between two visitors and work Christmas dinner I ate three fondues in a week! People act as if it is difficult to eat more than one fondue a season but I could eat many many fondues yet this winter. Ommmm cheese.
3. Other oddments
There was an exhibit of some pan-european ceramics competition
ARTISTIC GARDEN GNOMES
Artistic garden gnomes. It's a thing.
Meanwhile, my best belovedkayloulee, light of my life and baking soda to my vinegar, sent me a parcel of asian foodstuffs and halloween candy:
And this remains the closest I have come to snow:
I don't believe in snow. It's a trick the northern hemisphere is playing on me, like dropbears.
5. Christmas!
I am presently ensconced inniamh_sage's house in northern Belgium. As one is/does. I've been hiding out here since Sunday night, sleeping a lot and using their wi-fi.
The household feline deity disapproves of me. She's not a disapproving beast by nature, but i accidentally locked her in the spare room, and she hasn't forgiven me. She peed on my bed as punishment.
The household sprog is pretty keen on getting into my bed, despite the cat pee incident. Sunday night I went to bed and found that he'd snuck out of his room and fallen fast asleep in the guest bed, presumably out of enthusiasm for me. He's a sweet kid, although not quite up on social boundaries yet. Sometimes this is cute, as when I asked for scritches and he carefully scratched me under the left boob. Kids!
If if can possibly be tied in to Angry Birds, it is. Exhibit A, the board game Trouble is now 'Angry Birds Space Race'. Why? BECAUSE.
... Trouble or not, I can be vicious in my board-game ways.
Christmas is a lot more laid-back here than in the Anglophone world, with Sinterklaas having already dispatched the present-related shennanigans earlier in December. We had dinner with niamh's in-laws, which as tasty and quite convivial (the latter a little surprising, as there's been some family tension of late). I talked military history with the paterfamilias for a while, but still spent enough time piecing together scraps of Dutch conversation that I'm now frustrated that I haven't the time or reason to learn the language properly. I've no background in Dutch, save for Old English profficiency, and yet it's not all that much harder to follow a Dutch conversation happening around me than a French one.
Finally: in the lowlands they put chocolate on their toast and advocat on their ice cream. I cannot bring myself to object.
Yeah, apparently I'm 26. I just had to have mine host figure that out for me. Birthday maths is hard, people.
1. Halloween and other loose ends from October
Firstly, Halloween was a thing. The English Department, especially the film club thereof, takes seriously its responsibility to educate innocent swiss chilluns in the finer points of Anglophone culture. Thus: Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with Time Warp lessons and mini-lectures on 'queering and camp' and 'glam rock culture'.
Two of my colleagues delivering the aforesaid mini-lectures.
leareth joined us, and turned out to be the only person who knew ALL the things you have to shout at the screen. It was a fairly tame Rocky Horror experience - the swiss being constitutionally reserved people - but fun nevertheless.
Also I taught class dressed like that for three hours beforehand.
Right before I left for the UK, my boxes arrived from Australia. On the one hand, several photo frames and a champagne glass had shattered enroute, and several stuffies were covered in glass shards. On the other, I FINALLY had my winter coat back.
Elevator selfie shows me with coat, and also the huge red fuzzy scarf my now-ex-girlfriend knitted for me - which I had never managed to wear in Aus, due to lack of severe winter there.
2. UK and mental healths
Next I spent about a week in the UK with the english manfriend. Some photographs can be found in this post, and I still haven't uploaded the photos from All Saints Brixworth. Fun was had. Silly card games were played, with manfriend's offspring and with a friend of his, a woman of great intellect and terrible sleeping / working patterns. Possibly my greatest victory was teaching Dr J and his offspring to play Cheat - and wiping the table with them repeatedly, until young B figured out my strategy and turned it against me.
While I was in the UK, the first signs of November becoming a Very Difficult Month started to manifest themselves. I realised I was carrying constant anxiety - I'd tense up when a bartender caught my or Dr J's eye, for instance, as my mind clattered through the 'what do we need, who's best qualified to speak french here, what is the person saying?' process... only for me to realise that we're in the Midlands and everyone speaks English. That got a lot worse when I got back to Switzerland, because now I am *aware* of how much of my executive processing gets used up on assessing whether and how to speak French at any time.
Upon my return, November piled up on top of me, with depression, anxiety, and the greatly perplexing fact that dawn was now after 8am. I just can't deal with being awake before dawn, and technically, swiss working hours start at 8am. I slept a lot in November. I stuffed up the sorts of things which I'm normally pretty on top of - work, deadlines, reporting things to the correct person. I felt it necessary to set out my mental health issues to all three bosses, which was... awkward. But at least saves me having the awkward conversation further down the line?
In early December I got in to see a psychiatrist, which I had to do anyway because health fund regulations - meds need to be prescribed by a psychiatrist. Psychiatrist says "you're hardly the first Australian to find that November does their head in" or words to that effect. This is vaguely reassuring.
Work & Seminars
Something of which I have no photos is my thesis - project approved, deadline for submitting about 60 pages of written work, end of June. Oh joy, etc. I'm starting with the ground which most closely relates to my Masters work, which is reassuring. Oh, Ywain, most clueless of knights.
Switzerland is really well set-up for postgraduate study. In Nov-December I participated in three workshops as part of the English doctoral skills program for western Switzerland - two in Geneva and one in Neuchatel.Those have given me a bunch of new interests - who knew press variants in early modern editions could be so fascinating? - and have somehow lead to me getting on Twitter. Anyway. It's all very educational, one gets reimbursed for travel costs, and astonishingly well linked-up. You wouldn't catch universities in Sydney sharing resources like that.
People and visits!
December was full of peeeeople. My friend Lukas, whom I hadn't seen for eight years, had been walking the Camino de Santiago in November and came up to Geneva shortly after, in time for the Genevois civic festivities of L'Escalade. The great victory of the citizens of Geneva over the Savoyard army, 1602, is commemorated and celebrated with chocolate cauldrons, historical re-enactment, and vegetable soup.
Chocolate cauldrons, all ready for ritual smashing.
Thus perish the enemies of the republic! Featuring myself and the youngest student in my class. This was the crowning moment of the snack-program. I refuse to teach a 3-hour class without a snack break, you see, so organised students into a roster. Om nom nom.
Out and about in the city on Saturday there were many strange creatures.
Spaceman with six aliens on a string.
Tiny Genevois warriors fighting a pinyata-type arrangement.
And in the brilliant winter sunshine, the rear view of the Cathedral:
We, with
leareth, ended up down in Carouge, where a small Christmas market was underway. There was a fire in one of the squares - Lukas says he hadn't seen Leareth or I look so happy all day. The Australians need warms!
Complicated bell-ringing procession and yodelling horns. No actual yodelling, though.
No sooner had Lukas left than
3. Other oddments
There was an exhibit of some pan-european ceramics competition
ARTISTIC GARDEN GNOMES
Artistic garden gnomes. It's a thing.
Meanwhile, my best beloved
kayloulee, light of my life and baking soda to my vinegar, sent me a parcel of asian foodstuffs and halloween candy:
And this remains the closest I have come to snow:
I don't believe in snow. It's a trick the northern hemisphere is playing on me, like dropbears.
5. Christmas!
I am presently ensconced in
niamh_sage's house in northern Belgium. As one is/does. I've been hiding out here since Sunday night, sleeping a lot and using their wi-fi.
The household feline deity disapproves of me. She's not a disapproving beast by nature, but i accidentally locked her in the spare room, and she hasn't forgiven me. She peed on my bed as punishment.
The household sprog is pretty keen on getting into my bed, despite the cat pee incident. Sunday night I went to bed and found that he'd snuck out of his room and fallen fast asleep in the guest bed, presumably out of enthusiasm for me. He's a sweet kid, although not quite up on social boundaries yet. Sometimes this is cute, as when I asked for scritches and he carefully scratched me under the left boob. Kids!
If if can possibly be tied in to Angry Birds, it is. Exhibit A, the board game Trouble is now 'Angry Birds Space Race'. Why? BECAUSE.
... Trouble or not, I can be vicious in my board-game ways.
Christmas is a lot more laid-back here than in the Anglophone world, with Sinterklaas having already dispatched the present-related shennanigans earlier in December. We had dinner with niamh's in-laws, which as tasty and quite convivial (the latter a little surprising, as there's been some family tension of late). I talked military history with the paterfamilias for a while, but still spent enough time piecing together scraps of Dutch conversation that I'm now frustrated that I haven't the time or reason to learn the language properly. I've no background in Dutch, save for Old English profficiency, and yet it's not all that much harder to follow a Dutch conversation happening around me than a French one.
Finally: in the lowlands they put chocolate on their toast and advocat on their ice cream. I cannot bring myself to object.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-27 08:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-27 01:22 am (UTC)My linguist prof actually recommended native English speakers to learn Dutch first, because it's just different enough from English to get the brain into "different language mode" without being too difficult.