Take Two

Yesterday we started building the sofabed and Critical Companion documented the whole process with comments like “what I enjoy most are the sound effects”. Alas! as it is being shipped in two parts [when I called IKEA with a perplexed voice they were like “didn’t you know that?”], I can’t show you the finished product in place in our livingroom yet, Mother.

This Friday evening was spent in the lovely company of Berkeley’s Folklore program during which I acquired this awesome addition to my already outspoken purse.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it on the blog before – so many events from and facts in my life go ondocumented due to unplanned secrecy and/or lack of proper timing – but I’m planning on doing what is called a ‘designated emphasis’ in folklore during my time in the Ph.D-program in the Slavic department. It is basically the same as a minor for an undergraduate degree; I guess they decided to go with a different name for the graduate level in order to keep things fresh and exciting. I took the first required class out of three last semester and I’m taking the second one this semester. Somehow I and another student from my department got on the Folklore mailing list recently; thus, we were duly invited to celebrate the new academic year with a toast in champagne in the Folklore Archive on campus followed by a pleasant dinner at the house of one of the other students. It was a good time and installed the feeling in me of belonging to yet another awesome campus collective – as most comrades should know by now, I’m all about my own department but it does feel nice to have the opportunity to meddle with some other folks from time to time. I’m excited about already having met the other students in the folklore class I’m going to attend this semester; I’m almost equally excited about already having a ton of reading assigned for next week as well. One class required we read a chapter from Auerbach’s Mimesis and it was nice to pull out my Swedish translation of it from the bookshelf and have a sense of not being entirely new to just about everything here. As of yet I don’t feel exhausted or completely consumed by the imminent work load ahead – but then again, it has only been two days of instruction and I’ve only had one class so far in Old Church Slavonic and even though that one left my head spinning I’m still keeping my mood in a positive mode – because in so many ways I’m more prepared for what’s expected of me this year than I was at the same time a year ago. Now when I meet first year students I keep having these strange aha-moments; it is almost like I’m getting to know myself in the past and getting to see how much change one year here inflicted upon me.

I’m hoping that my next article appears in print tomorrow in Göterborgs-Posten [August 27^th 2011] especially since I was paid on time yesterday – that almost never happens – but then again, working with an editor like mine is an experience filled with sudden surprises. Though I think most people would agree that the suprises that aren’t sudden are like the worst because they’re not really surprises anyway.