Monday 29th March

Might be April in a week, but right now there's an inch of wet snow accumulating outside, and I've had to put the heating on. Yuck. More snow to come too if the weather forecasts are right.
So... uni. Up until about 5 pm I've been working like a mad thing on my gender essay, and up until say what 4.55, I've was pretty happy with it, I was thinking well I'll read it through again and then.. if I feel ok, I'll upload it. Then - via Facebook of all things, a sort of rumour come info from friends suggested there was a mass extension on the cards - checked my uni email account, and yep, the deadline's been extended until Friday. So much for having worked like a dog across the weekend! The worst thing about this is essentially I could tear the whole thing up and start again - no... please no, or I can spend the rest of the week ruining what I already have by taking out snippets and adding bits to it.
Actually what I'm going to do is to take a day off from it, and construct myself another passage which I think has relevence on the Beguines. So it will all be to the good, particularly the bit about getting away from it. I'll be fresh and can look at what I've written with clear eyes. Or so I hope at any rate.
As for the presentation, under the circumstances I feel it went as well as could be expected. These blasted powerpoint things basically just serve to distract you - mine came up without the forward and back arrows on it, or at least I couldn't see the forward and back arrows, which feels a great deal more likely. I was standing looking down at a laptop screen, and it was all a bit hazy. Which actually reminds me, I'm supposed to be going for another eye test soon. But anyhow there were no arrows, I got lost in the slides, and what happens, I lost god knows how long out of my time slot trying to get back to where I had formerly been. A presentation that ran bang to the dot of ten minutes every time I'd been through it at home had to be jettisoned wildly, and I just sort of ran through to the end. However, I didn't get a mad surge feeling of panic, which I hope showed, although I was furious about it. And thinking back to it now, I probably should have said something to Mark about it, the fact I couldn't see these wretched arrows probably would count for something. But I ain't the type to go begging for credit or anything much, beyond perhaps castigating most of what I do as being 'wrong' 'bad' or whatever. In fact I do this so much that I feel it's about time I stopped. I think the proposal is sound, and it'll stand or fall on that basically. Besides, I have a feeling that the real key to the whole thing is the dissertation itself.

Sunday 21st March

Well I'm feeling quite pleased with myself, which is probably a short step to disaster, but nevertheless.. today I finished my second essay of the three, well two essays and a dissertation proposal. That got handed in on Friday, and now I have number two out of the way. I've also managed to get the slides organised for the coming ordeal on Friday next, when I have to present said dissertation proposal. This will be done at Lilybank House, which is the normal venue for our RRSH lectures where we don't need to be sitting at computers. It's a pretty startling room, in fact Lilybank is a pretty startling building. I remember having anthropology seminars there back in the 90s, before the restoration - it's an old, I'd guess pre-Victorian building, and they've found some sort of paintwork in there, in the room where we gather. So whilst the room bristles with slide projectors and mix and match seating, all the sorts of things a fairly modern lecture room would need, it also has a wall with rather exotic looking paint effects - in a rather unpleasant shade of red unfortunately, with the main bulk of the wall in an odd and unmatching green. It's not quite British institutional green, but frankly it's not far off, and the red is that oxblood shade that's not quite brown but isn't exactly red either, in sweeping somehow flowery cascades. Actually I don't think there's a flower in there, but somehow I look at it and I think flowery. Every week for the past few months I've been looking at this, and thinking that I should like it more than I actually do, and now it's going to witness my first, and probably last attempt to give a presentation with powerpoint slides.
You know you'd think I'd've organised an attempt to practise this since I've never done it before, and I would have liked to, but somehow either it wasn't offered to us as part of RRSH - which is a bit odd and makes me suspect I somehow missed it, as RRSH has usually been pretty good about offering us every opportunity to play with every variety of gadget in the academic toolbox. Anyhow, it's only ten minutes in duration - or at least it's supposed to be, and I don't have to use very many slides, I just click on the mouse to make it move to the next, so I'll wing it along with everyone else, making damn sure I take handouts along with me. Then people can fiddle with bits of paper, a sure way of distracting them from what I'm saying.

So.. yep the Constructing Faith essay is done and will be handed in tomorrow, yippee. Just the Gender essay to go, which is all planned out and just needs to be written. Then.. the great blank stares me in the face, and this is I suppose the really interesting bit. As a part time student I then technically have nothing else to do until term starts again in September/October. I do have the dissertation to actually do, and I will be working on it across the summer - I have to, I'd never get it done otherwise, but basically that's it. I've set myself the task of a) I absolutely must definitely absolutely find some work, which isn't easy as apparently Glasgow has an unemployment rate that's 10% higher than the rest of the country, or so they told us this week. This goes some way towards easing my concerns about not having found anything so far, but without having work, lord how am I going to fill my days? At some point in May/June/July -ish I have to deal with whether or not I'm going to have to move as my lease runs out, and I have to say I'm hoping very much that I don't because it's been a great little flat and I hate moving anyway. Luckily most of my friends will still be here across the summer because they do have dissertations that have to be written and handed in by September, so I shan't be lonely, but the lack of a day to day routine will still niggle, you know?
But as I say let's cross the first bridge first, and get the Gender essay written and handed in. And of course, let's just keep everything crossed that the bloody essays get pass marks!

Friday 12th

Day two of the big countdown to completion of the dissertation proposal. Today I got a good page and a half done, and three pages worth of tables to go with it, but I really need to watch that. I think they'll have to be redone, as they're simply too big size wise - no way should they be occupying three pages! But squashing them up is going to be difficult what with all the formatting that went on. But still, they do look good. Here's a thought, am I being overly impressed with them, and in reality they mean nothing? God knows.
Anyhow I guess the really big deal is that I sort of have a title. It's called The Miracle of Health: What can accounts of miracles tell us about health in antiquity? I thought that's quite snappy. And sufficiently loose to be flexible about what I actually write. I can include mental health and people with limbs falling off - there's one of these miracles that involves a chap who's basically described as a comic actor from Curubis, who (you've got to feel for this chap) not only is suffering from paralysis, but genital deformity as well. Lord only knows what state he was in after his healing, but you've got to wonder if this wasn't some sort of scam he was pulling, thinking I go in there, drag the old leg a bit, get prayed over and helped to the shrine of the martyrs, and hey presto, get cured and maybe there'll be a meal and a few coins in it for me. It is entirely possible that that's what was going on here, or alternately, I really should say its equally possible that he was on his last legs (no pun intended) and really, genuinely got healed. There's absolutely no way to tell. I'm the sceptical 21st century girl here, and this happened back at the end of the, well lets say 420 which is when Augustine 'published' all this. It's well pointed out by Peter Brown I think (sorry my referencing is used up for the day) that Augustine was a pretty savvy chap, and this chapter of miracles is sort of tapped on to the end of the City of God. I don't think there's any doubt that its his work, but it is kind of an odd change of direction for him. Until you get into On The Care To Be Had For The Dead, which was part of the Retractions, and it's pretty plain at that point that the Church was having problems making the pagans toe the line when it came to burials and death practises. People where having memorial celebratory meals by the graveside, people where claiming that Great Uncle so and so appeared to them in a dream and told them where he had buried the family doubloons when the Goths so inconveniently invaded a few years back... My but they must have been having trouble. The Christian Church is always an organisation that likes people to do as they're told to do. They are a religion of the book, and it's by the book, or you could get into some mighty hot water. Back then at any rate. They hadn't actually started burning people at that point, but they weren't far off it. Augustine had to find ways to explain all these funny dreams, and he didn't much care about whether they dined at the graveside is my guess, but he'd really rather that they didn't. So he took a leaf out of St Ambrose, who essentially came up with the Cult of Saints, and instead of dining at mother's graveside, you could pop her in next to some holy bones, and that would do her nothing but good in the afterlife. As for the dreams he's very firm that your ancestors aren't in the least interested in having a chat with you in your dreams, they are far too busy up there doing a bit of worshipping, but it's entirely possible that an angel could pop down to have a chat, and pass the information on when they get back home. Augustine's angels are the biggest gossips in the afterlife, it's a hoot!! At any rate, his contributions to the way the church presented death and the afterlife were very influential indeed.
Anyhow I hadn't exactly intended to write a mini lecture here, and you'll have to take all this with a pinch of salt because it's the end of a very long day, with far more to come tomorrow. I'll keep you posted!

Thursday 11th March

Oh I am so tired. It's always the same on Thursdays, its a long day for me - get to uni, class on gender, class on rrsh - get something to eat, I go home via M & S, which is my Thursday treat, home and veg out. I can veg out tonight, but come tomorrow it's back to the books. I have more deadlines for essays/work than I know what to do with.
I have actually got a good deal of my Constructing Faith essay done, which is a good thing even if it isn't quite typed up yet. But top of the list for my to get finished list is my dissertation proposal. This is due next week, and this afternoon we were all like "Are we all in the same state of panic?" I think pretty much everyone is. We're masters students so we don't do 'panic' in the way that say a first year undergrad does, but underneath the somewhat calmer exteriors is a rather numb feeling of oh God I haven't finished the bibliography, I haven't done this, that's only just started.. like most of my colleagues I have a loose collection of paragraphs on different bits of it, and it all needs to be stitched together. Bit's of it I'm very chuffed with, like for instance I have a small mini database that ok, only comes from one chapter of Augustine, but yay, it makes tables, and this Looks Good. Or it will look good on a powerpoint slide. Let's just hope that it will fit on a powerpoint slide.. oh God I didn't think of that.
Enough. It's 23.48 as I type this, and if I don't stop now I won't sleep a wink tonight until I get up, put it onto a powerpoint slide and find out if it fits or I have to spend another six hours putting it into a size that will both a) fit and b) be comprehensible.

I cannot tell you how much I'm looking forward to the 27th of April. After the 27th, it will all be done, dusted.. until next semester.