I kept this prediction to myself because I didn’t want to jinx myself, but I had the feeling that after my conference I would probably get ill with something. I was hoping for something small, like a cold, but rather I came down with the bane of my existence* — asthmatic bronchitis. The last time I had bronchitis, I had full-blown pneumonia two months later; of course, that time bronchitis wasn’t properly treated. This time, my doctor tutted, commented that I don’t seem to do anything halfway, and said that if I hadn’t come in when I did I probably would have ended up in the ER, as my lungs were almost completely closed up.

So that was fun.

I’m now on lots of meds, including codeine cough syrup, and am mostly useless. I’ve got some of my energy back, but massive coughing fits (and codeine) are not conducive to dancing or studying. I managed to get a few days of work in at the local copyright library (sooo pretty) before the bronchitis kicked in full-force, but more research trips are currently on the backburner. Instead, I’ve been doing a bit of knitting, some clay modeling, and started roughing out a choreography to learn once I’m well. Pictures will follow in a few days.

I’ve also been catching up on ridiculous amounts of TV. I love the Capital One Vikings.

* Secondary bane of existence. The primary bane of my existence is the platypus. The bane of my existence is adorable.

Tags: life
Categories: maintenance
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I currently have issues stringing a spoken sentence together, due to exhaustion. I spent this past weekend at a conference (if you know anything about medieval academia, you’ll figure out which one without me having to say), and I am SHATTERED.

Things I learned:

• Textile-loving people are awesome, regardless of where you are.
• An etsy-seller makes hair-swords. For buns. DUDE.
• I really need to get over  “OMG I TOTALLY CITED YOU IN MY DISSERTATION/THESES!!!” and remember that my heroes are, in fact, cool people with a shared interest.
• I can be a foreigner in my own country.
• People who study monsters are really sweet.
• Academic papers can sound like spoken word performances, if it’s the right paper and the right person.
• Someone will be obnoxious if your paper is rather spoken-wordy. NB: This did not happen to me personally, nor was I this person.
• You can live off of bad coffee and even worse wine.
• Dessert is a necessity.
• DO NOT TELL MEDIEVALISTS IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY. THEY WILL MAKE THE CAFETERIA SING.
• “Once Kalamazoo, always Kalamazoo.”

I will return when I have regained enough energy to both A) begin my fabulous research treks, and B) make something arty.

Oh, and by the way, SURPRISE I REDID THE LAYOUT. Relaunched the main site on 13 May, too. YAY.

Tags: academic,authors,conference,fandom,maintenance,medieval
Categories: Academia, maintenance
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Well, I thought May would be calmer.

I was wrong.

This weekend was fantastic, but as it is I’m already thrown headlong into finishing my conference paper. I’m running around packing for said conference, seeing friends before I head off, et cetera.  And now thanks to that bloody volcano, I’m worrying about getting out of the country.

This is stress that I do NOT need.

Tags: life
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Looking back through this month, it’s apparently been one long thought process on academic influences, with a bit of knitting thrown in (and one entry on bellydance, goodness!). I guess that’s only to be expected, as I’ve been working on a new thesis chapter (which I will hopefully edit and submit tomorrow!).

That said, I’ve still been doing things to keep myself sane—as noted, mostly knitting. I’ve the missing skin and new callus to prove it. But I’ve also, since I’ve been well, started into getting a dance routine habit. I haven’t necessarily been able to dance every day, but I’ve been doing the most pertinent leg stretches as well as some strengthening exercises, with an intensive set last Sunday. I can still feel a bit of twinge when I sit down, and walking up and down stairs this week has been interesting. Surprisingly, I’ve found it easier to move my sore legs if I make myself jog, or at least walk faster than normal. I’m sure there’s a proper physiological explanation for this, but all that matters to me is that it’s made me more active!

And that’s April, folks. A lovely holiday, a bit of illness, a lot of knitting, and a return to research. Now comes May, with my first ever conference (yipes!), research in copyright libraries, visiting family, and (oh yeah) my birthday. Hopefully I’ll have a new site layout to reveal by mid-May, too.

But first, I need to survive this weekend. Beltane + film + ceilidh + who knows what else. It’s going to be MADNESS! In a good way.

So, Lysse-bird out… until May!

Tags: life
Categories: Academia, Arts
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So I should be going and having dinner as a reward for actually writing part of a chapter (2700 words!!), but instead I’m rewarding myself by writing a blog post. Yes, I’m rewarding writing with…writing. My ability to reward myself with the same thing that was my task never ceases to astonish me (seriously, I do this a lot).

That said, I thought I’d write a few notes on teaching. I received a couple e-mails from last semester’s students over the weekend (mostly panics about “will I violate exam rules if I do XYZ?” to which I tend to reply “better safe than sorry, so try not to do XYZ”), and I was surprised at how much this made me miss my students.

I really like teaching.

And I’ve started to have a few worries about whether I’m actually good at teaching. I haven’t looked at last semester’s student comments yet (I’m waiting until I rework my syllabus over the summer—I’d like some distance on the semester before I destroy my soul), but student comment sheets can only go so far. Mostly because people don’t know what makes a good teacher until either a) they’re teaching themselves, or b) they’ve been taught explicitly to do or learn something new. Unfortunately, most of the teaching I do is ephemeral critical thinking skills (that don’t involve a workbook like mine did in elementary school), which is a bit harder to measure. I remember the teachers that TOLD me that I needed to start using my brain (yes, this happened…twice), but I don’t remember how they TAUGHT me to. It just happened as we went along.

Which was why this weekend was really nice, because I got to teach something where both student and teacher could see results. A bunch of my country dance friends organized a knitting afternoon, and one friend asked me to teach her how to knit at said afternoon. By the end of the afternoon she was casting on exceptionally well (I wish my tension had been that good when I’d started!) and have several rows of knit-stitch finished. I kept having flashbacks when I taught a friend from home how to knit, and that she’d been successful in learning, too (I should ask her if she’s still knitting). And tonight, I’m going over to a third friend’s to watch Glee (DON’T JUDGE ME), and as she’s just recently gotten into knitting, I’ve been asked to show her how to increase and decrease stitches. And I’m really looking forward to it.

Goodness, knitting, teaching and friends—since when did I have a social life? You’re not supposed to have one of those when you’re writing chapters!

Ah well. Off to have that reward-dinner now. Lysse out!

Tags: academic,art vs. academia,knit,life
Categories: Academia, Arts, knit
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So for the past few weeks I’ve really been glutting myself on videos of tribal fusion bellydance on YouTube—usually as a break from actual work (or, other times, because the weather was as awful as I felt). Some of my favourite new discoveries are clips from the Indigo’s show Le Serpent Rouge. Not only is the bellydance amazing, but it looks like a good show overall, the sort of thing a general audience might enjoy.

Most bellydancing is “consumed” (for lack of better terminology) by the bellydancing community. The one exception to this is restaurant work, which although invaluable as both a tradition and as a venue for properly learning to improvise, doesn’t provide a setting for duets, troupes, or choreographed show pieces. Restaurant work and haflas can only support the art so far, and—if we want the dance to not only survive but thrive in the west—then our community needs to figure out how to present itself to the general public in a desirable manner.

Which brings us to Le Serpent Rouge’s vaudeville style. It’s an appropriate adoption for a tribal fusion show, as like tribal fusion vaudeville is essentially American in origin and attitude. It also means the dancing can be broken up with musical interludes, comedy acts, and basically anything else you can think of—vaudeville is, after all, closely related to variety shows.

And it is THE WAY OF THE FUTURE!!!

Ahem. Sorry. Got a little excited there.

Originally, vaudeville was family-friendly entertainment: (mostly) clean, alcohol free, and for a middle class (educated, but not affluent) audience. Bellydancing, too, is supposed to be family-friendly (just like its folkloric social dancing origins). A vaudeville format means that, although a show could be organized by a troupe, the burden of performance isn’t necessarily on the troupe. Organizers could pull from a wide range of local performers—it’s not a difficult feat. For example, just from amongst my own social circles I have access to a folk rock band (and straight-up folk musicians), comedy acts, jugglers, stage combat artists, singers, dancers of multiple styles (belly and otherwise!), and a plethora of other artists that I currently can’t think of that would break up a show and keep an audience engaged. Mix all this together with a talented MC, and you’d have an awesome, evolving show that would introduce the general public to bellydance without overwhelming them, and would draw return visitors from both inside and outside the bellydance community.

You’d just have to make sure to keep a high quality of entertainment throughout the show—but not as sterilized as the Bellydance Superstars. It’s about comedy, quality, and variety.

Keep ‘em engaged and they’ll keep coming.

Tags: bellydance,tribal fusion
Categories: Arts, dance
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No proper Friday Focus this week, as I will only be properly posting those when I have thoughts on something that moves me. And I don’t think I made that clear… oops.

But moving onward: as promised, updates on my chess set!

I’ve mostly written and tested the pattern.

I’ve finished typing up the edits, but need to knit a few pieces again to test the changes. The knights need to be given manes and ears, and as I retest pieces I need to photograph the process for the pattern.

And, of course, I need to finish the set, which means another knight, and couple more bishops and rooks, and about a baker’s dozen of pawns. Current, this is more-or-less what I have:

But at least they’re all standing!

Also, I need to finish the chessboard.

This is my first-ever intarsia piece. I’m writing the pattern as I go, and it’s pretty simple. Really, it’s the best place I could start for intarsia, as it’s simply big blocks of colour.

Finally, I’ve decided to work out a checkers piece as well—might as well make the board multi-functional! So… how many checkers are in a set?

Tags: chess set,knit,projects
Categories: knit, projects
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Apologies again for the radio silence; I was ill last week and not up to writing. Seems like I’ve been ill most of the academic year—which is pretty accurate; the only months that saw me completely well were February and March. But now with antibiotics and a lot of sleep, I’m feeling much better. I’ve also gotten much further along on my chess set, which I will write about later this week.

As I spend more time studying the use of clothing/costume in literature and art, I’m developing an increasingly greater urge—even need—to not simply study and record in text but to also create and recreate. This may simply be a throwback to my costuming/reenactment background, but after spending every day thinking about how medieval clothing went together, was made to hang and fit, were cut, recut and lined, I have the desire to work that out myself physically. Textiles are inherently tactile, made to be worn, touched, felt, experienced—not just examined from a distance. The sheer amount of labour and attention that went into the medieval items, the fine embroidery and ornamentation, only confirms this. Art involving textiles should be touched.

This is one reason I get annoyed by modern art. How dare they make such beautifully textured things that aren’t meant to be touched! Art that deprives me of a sense necessary to appreciate it is denying itself and the experience of it.

So what does this rather academic rant have to do with my art? Well, I’m considering investing in a sewing machine—I have one, but it lives in the States with my parents, and it’s become obnoxious over the years to go on holiday and spend my time sewing instead of being social. Otherwise, I’ll keep knitting and thinking on textiles. And I might (re)take up needlework—I used to needlepoint, and have thought of cross-stitching. But really, as I put together my doctorate, I just want to piece fabric together.

Tags: art vs. academia,costuming
Categories: Academia, Arts
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Here’s a hint: if you think about a blog post so long that you’re sure you’ve written it and posted it by the time you go to bed, double-check. You may very well be wrong.

Anyway, to continue from Friday! When I applied to colleges I found one that had a medieval reenactment group. Due to one thing and another, it’s also the college I attended. I almost didn’t join the group, though—I had second thoughts before signing up, and only attended my first meeting because I heard some of my friends were going. I was quickly sucked into both costuming and combat. Fast-forward four years, and I’d served in four of the ten positions on the committee (in order: tech, historian, chessboard, publicity).

That group was That Medieval Thing.

A banner I made in my last year, during a chessboard rehearsal, after our nice one was stolen.

Combined with my fabulous classes in medieval literature and culture, and I’d been hit—I needed to continue in my medieval studies. If it weren’t for TMT, I wouldn’t be in Scotland. It’s amazing that it took me until starting my PhD to realise what I wanted to write on. The late Middle Ages in England and France had been my focus the whole time I was in TMT—I’d convinced the committee more than once to set our festival or feasts there. The day-in-day-out of TMT revolved around costume and combat—if you went to one of those, you’d be sure to know everyone. Now my whole PhD is on costume, and one of my chapters is specifically on arms, armour and heraldry. How did it take me this long?

I’d thought I’d write more than this, but I find it difficult to write on something that held such meaning for me. I honestly don’t think I gave the group the best I could have, but I certainly got the best out of it (my career).

Yesterday was their twenty-fourth Medieval Festival, and it’s the second I’ve missed. I hope they did fabulously. Since I wasn’t able to visit, I wandered my Scottish home, into museums and other important places, reminding myself through artefacts what it was all about.

I ended up here.

A tourist spot now, but once it was alive, active, used for the purpose it was built for. Because it’s not about the objects. It’s about the people.

TMT 2007

Tags: art vs. academia,festival,life,reenactment
Categories: Academia, Arts
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So I idiotically exhausted myself by dancing, typing up knitting patterns, and (GASP) reading for my PhD. Part two of the Focus will be published tomorrow, which is honestly more appropriate — I’ll have a picture to go with it then. Lysse out.

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