(no subject)
Jul. 8th, 2012 10:04 pmIt has been quite an eventful few days, lately. Family wise both my cousins have had some good news- the major of which is that Prawn as well as having arrived safely in hot foreign climes for two months working with senior people in another university has achieved a first.
I am very very very happy for him. I am also excruciatingly jealous/self-recriminatory/shamed by my own prideful egotism. Because, you know, him, me, Zog- I was the clever one. It is hard to let that go. That was my schtick and it is difficult to see his successes and not compare it to my own crushing disappointment when I didn't get a first, and certainly nobody offered me any sort of sponsored position on a programme or research project. Admittedly I can blame some of this on the Signs of the Times (if I am so inclined to do so, and in doing so pander to my dreadful, dreadful ego)- his field is increasingly popular in terms of practical needs and funding, wheras my beloved University have since cut and/or lost a good portion of its best lecturers from my field, and subsumed the entire department into Sociology- a place where none of them would ever have gone willingly. But still. I'm not proud about my jealousy, but I am jealous. Equally, however, I am so very happy at his sucess and I know just how hard he worked and continues to work for it and I am delighted beyond measure that he has found something that sets his brain alight with interest. As kids I found it so very difficult to keep him entertained- he was always bored by the things I loved, except for telly. He didn't enjoy imagination games or reading so I was often at a loss with him. Suddenly we have something in common- an actual love of Knowledge! And that's pretty bloody awesome.
In other news I spent a very good day visiting![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
still_lycoris and we watched Becket (Glenville 1964) and The Lion in Winter (Harvey 1968) which are both epic, shouty (mostly Henry) and beautiful.
I also went to this poetry group that my friend Anna goes to. She has mentioned it a few times to me but though I was interested every time I remembered to get the date with her it always seemed to clash with the single day a month I was acutally doing something (e.g. Nanny's birthday etc) but this time I went. I was shitting bricks about it because I have a long history of feeling greatly inferior when up against anyone else who writes poetry. It's that whole "Oh wow that was really deep...the next T.S. Eliot...astonishing use of mathematical formulae....etc" and then I stand up and do the equivalent of "There was a young man from Bangcock."- it's happened a lot, and to be frank poetry I do not understand makes me feel small and stupid, which has always struck me as quite the opposite of what I feel poetry should make one feel. Anyway all my fears allayed I actually had a really good time. I even wrote something- only scribbles and I can't quite work out the rhythm to improve on it but still it is far more writing than I have done in a long long time. So that was good.
I am very very very happy for him. I am also excruciatingly jealous/self-recriminatory/shamed by my own prideful egotism. Because, you know, him, me, Zog- I was the clever one. It is hard to let that go. That was my schtick and it is difficult to see his successes and not compare it to my own crushing disappointment when I didn't get a first, and certainly nobody offered me any sort of sponsored position on a programme or research project. Admittedly I can blame some of this on the Signs of the Times (if I am so inclined to do so, and in doing so pander to my dreadful, dreadful ego)- his field is increasingly popular in terms of practical needs and funding, wheras my beloved University have since cut and/or lost a good portion of its best lecturers from my field, and subsumed the entire department into Sociology- a place where none of them would ever have gone willingly. But still. I'm not proud about my jealousy, but I am jealous. Equally, however, I am so very happy at his sucess and I know just how hard he worked and continues to work for it and I am delighted beyond measure that he has found something that sets his brain alight with interest. As kids I found it so very difficult to keep him entertained- he was always bored by the things I loved, except for telly. He didn't enjoy imagination games or reading so I was often at a loss with him. Suddenly we have something in common- an actual love of Knowledge! And that's pretty bloody awesome.
In other news I spent a very good day visiting
still_lycoris and we watched Becket (Glenville 1964) and The Lion in Winter (Harvey 1968) which are both epic, shouty (mostly Henry) and beautiful.I also went to this poetry group that my friend Anna goes to. She has mentioned it a few times to me but though I was interested every time I remembered to get the date with her it always seemed to clash with the single day a month I was acutally doing something (e.g. Nanny's birthday etc) but this time I went. I was shitting bricks about it because I have a long history of feeling greatly inferior when up against anyone else who writes poetry. It's that whole "Oh wow that was really deep...the next T.S. Eliot...astonishing use of mathematical formulae....etc" and then I stand up and do the equivalent of "There was a young man from Bangcock."- it's happened a lot, and to be frank poetry I do not understand makes me feel small and stupid, which has always struck me as quite the opposite of what I feel poetry should make one feel. Anyway all my fears allayed I actually had a really good time. I even wrote something- only scribbles and I can't quite work out the rhythm to improve on it but still it is far more writing than I have done in a long long time. So that was good.
