You've crossed over bridges and bridges they burn: the 2013 meme

[dolorosa_12]

1. What did you do in 2013 that you'd never done before?
Submit my PhD.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't make any resolutions last year besides a sort of vague decision to 'get my mental health to the point that I can put it aside to deal with after the PhD is done'. This I kept quite well. I'm actually going to make a bunch of resolutions this year, but I will keep them private for now.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
A huge number of people I know had babies this year, including some good friends in Australia and the UK, and my cousin, whose daughter is the first child of the new generation of my family.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Not this year.

5. What countries did you visit?
I was in Australia when the year began, and I've made a couple of trips to Germany, as well as one to Wales. This wasn't a particularly big year for travelling, though.

6. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?
A UK work visa. A full-time job in the UK.

7. What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
10th December, which was the day I walked down to the Board of Graduate Studies and submitted my PhD. The day about a week before that, when I wrote a panicked email to my supervisor asking why she hadn't attached my corrected conclusion to her email and she replied that there were no more corrections to make was also pretty amazing, because that was the day I truly knew that I had finished.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but it was the PhD. It feels indescribable to have written it.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I let my physical health take a backseat while I focused all my energy on the PhD, and that is one of the things I'm going to be working on next year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just the odd cold, migraine and nosebleed.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Train tickets to various parts of the UK to visit awesome people.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
This year belongs to three people without whose support, kindness, good humour and compassion I would never have made it this far: my mother, Matthias and bethankyou. They are the trio to whom I dedicated my PhD.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
People, who are sadly numerous, who use their positions of power and authority to hurt and bully.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent and living costs.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Finishing my PhD. The wedding of my friends L and C, which was the ASNaC event of the year.

16. What song will always remind you of 2013?
Lots of songs, but in particular, 'Gun' by Chvrches, St. Vincent and Justin Vernon's cover of 'Harvest Moon', and my editing soundtrack of the year, Mr Suicidesheep's 'Taking You Higher' playlist.


17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? Happier. Oh God, so much happier.
ii. thinner or fatter? Fatter.
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Nothing, really. I think I did this year right.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Worrying.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
I was with Matthias' family in Germany this year. On Christmas Eve we had the usual family celebration with his parents, sister and her fiance, which involved decorating a gigantic Christmas tree, a fish dinner and opening presents. I got lots of books.

22. Did you fall in love in 2013?
I fell more in love with Matthias, and with our life together.

23. Did your heart break in 2013?
No.

24. What was your favourite TV program?
My favourite current show remains Pretty Little Liars, which I think is one of the most progressive stories currently on mainstream television, and which makes me feel proud to have been a teenage girl. The best new show was Orphan Black, with honourable mention to Broadchurch, Peaky Blinders, In the Flesh and The Fall. Borgen continued to prove you could make gripping, engaging television without a single incident of violence and with an overall tone of earnestness and hope. Sleepy Hollow deserves a mention for its exuberant silliness and sparkling, wonderful cast.

25. Where were you when 2013 began?
On the roof of my mum's flat in Sydney, watching the fireworks with a glass of sparkling wine in hand.

26. Who were you with?
Matthias, Mum, other family members and friends, and the other residents of the building and their guests.

27. Where will you be when 2013 ends?
At a party at my friend A's house in Cambridge.

28. Who will you be with when 2013 ends?
Matthias and a bunch of other ASNaCs.

29. What was the best book you read?
The best overall book was definitely Les Misérables, which I finished last night on the plane home from Germany, and of which all I can say is 'oh, the humanity' in the best possible sense. The book that gave me the greatest enjoyment was The Bone Season, by Samantha Shannon, which ticked every box to appeal to my id. Zoo City by Lauren Beukes was thought-provoking and intelligent.

30. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Chvrches, dubstep as exemplified by Adventure Club and Seven Lions, and above all Samantha Shannon's playlist for The Bone Season.

31. What did you want and get?
A completed PhD. Matthias to get a new job.

32. What did you want and not get?
A full-time job.

33. What was your favourite film of this year?
The film I enjoyed the most is probably a tie between Pacific Rim and Thor 2. The best was definitely Rush.

34. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was in London for most of the day. In the morning I wandered around my favourite parts of town (Soho and Covent Garden), had coffee and lunch and browsed bookshops. In the afternoon I met bethankyou at the train station and we headed off to catch up with a bunch of other sraffies, including H and C, who live in Texas and whom I'd never met in person before. We at dinner at Pizza Express and generally had a great time. I had to rush off early because I was flying to Germany at 7am the next day. I turned 29.

35. How many different states/cities did you travel to in 2013?
I began 2013 in Sydney in NSW, and spent most of the year in Cambridge, aside from a couple of day trips to London, a visit to Bangor in Wales, the odd excursion to towns around Cambridge, and two visits to Germany in which I went all over the place.

36. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
YOU WILL NOTICE MY CRAZILY-PATTERNED SKIRTS OR ELSE.

37. What kept you sane?
Going to have to go with last year's answer: Matthias, bethankyou and the knowledge that I was loved.

38. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Tom Hiddleston's antics this year have been entrancing.

39. What political issue stirred you the most?
Like last year, misogyny and rape culture. Thanks, Robin Thicke.

40. How many concerts did you see in 2013?
Just the one, Mogwai at a small venue in Cambridge.

41. Did you have a favourite concert in 2013?
By default, Mogwai must be my favourite, but it truly was fantastic. We leaned against the wall at the back of the room, and this wave of sound just washed over us for two hours. It was like a religious experience.

42. Who was the best new person you met?
It was nice to finally meet H and C in person, and I've really enjoyed getting to know the various new LJ and Dreamwidth friends I've added in friending memes this year.

43. Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year?
No.

44. What was your most embarrassing moment of 2013?
I'm not easily embarrassed.

45. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013.
There are large areas of my life in which I'm motivated almost solely by fear, and that's okay. Fear can be productive. I am not, and have never been, an ambitious person, and that's okay too.

46. What are your plans for 2014?
Pass my PhD viva and graduate. Get a work visa and a full-time job, and start my post-study life in the UK.

47. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
'You've been on a road that just don't seem to end
Where that broken old heart of yours won't ever mend
You've crossed over bridges and bridges they burn
So many rivers and so much to learn
So many bridges and so much to learn.' - Emmylou Harris, 'Waltz Across Texas Tonight'.

Also, 'You're on a different road, I'm in the Milky Way
You want me down on earth, but I am up in space
You're so damn hard to please, we gotta kill this switch
You're from the '70s, but I'm a '90s bitch.

I don't care. I love it.' - Icona Pop, 'I Love It'.

Comments

[bethankyou]

Love you. :) I shall have to do one of these

[dolorosa_12]

Love you too! I've been doing these memes since 2007, and I find them really useful. They're a good way to reflect on how your life has changed in a year.

[pax_athena]

I'm throwing imaginary confetti for finishing the PhD :D Because it has been something to be celebrated!

Also, the whole "not taking care of one's physical health during the final stages" seems to be a pattern ... Also getting really ill after submitting (I managed to avoid it this time, but I suppose by sheer will power, because I submitted on Friday and had a conference on Monday).

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

*dances around in the confetti*

I agree with you about the physical health thing. I just had too much to worry about towards the end, and I neglected to exercise regularly or eat properly. But now that I have more time, I should be able to get back on track. I got ill after submitting too.

I am in awe that you were able to go on to a conference so soon after submitting. I would have been utterly wrecked.

[promiseoftin.livejournal.com]

A Ph.D. is a HUGE deal! Many congrats on the progress!

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I still have the viva (the defence) in late January, and will have to do corrections in the light of that, but the end is in sight.

[wildrose.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you've had a pretty good year. Doing your PhD is such a huge accomplishment, like I said before I am proud of you.
What does ASNaC mean?
Oh and I also read "Les Miserables" this year and was thrilled - such a lovely book.

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm pretty happy to have finished it.

ASNaC (pronounced 'az-nack') is the acronym for my department, Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, which is for studies of the history, literature, languages and material culture of Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia during the Middle Ages. People who have studied in that department at one point (as undergrads or postgrads) call themselves ASNaCs, and one remains an ASNaC for life!

Les Misérables is astonishing. I still feel in awe of it, to be honest.

[spotsofcolour.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on submitting your thesis! May I ask what the title was?

Do you have any ideas on when your Viva will be? It's usually about three months from submission here, which would be February/March time? But I don't know if things work differently at other institutions!

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

Thank you. My thesis was on literary representations of exile in medieval Irish literature.

The viva would ordinarily be about three months from submission like at your university, but my examiners very kindly agreed to have it earlier than that, so it's going to be on 28th January. I'm nervous, but at the same time I'm really keen for the whole thing to be over, so an earlier viva date suits me just fine.

[spotsofcolour.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, that sounds fascinating! Any texts in particular that you've focussed on? I've not done any medieval literature since undergrad, with The Dream of the Rood, Owl and the Nightingale, and the ever-popular Ancrene Wisse, so I probably wouldn't recognise them, mind. I know a guy who is looking at representations of the devil in medieval literature, haha it's possible given the semi-incestuous nature of academia that you may even have come across him!

Good luck, I'm sure you'll be absolutely super! After all, no-one knows your work better than you.

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

The thesis focuses on five texts in particular: Lebor Gabála Érenn ('The Book of the Taking of Ireland', usually translated as 'The Book of Invasions'), Dindshenchas Érenn ('The Lore of the Notable Places of Ireland'), Acallam na Senórach ('The Colloquy of the Ancients'), Buile Shuibne ('The Frenzy of Suibne') and Immram Curaig ua Corra ('The Voyage of the Uí Chorra Coracle'). I'm not sure if you would have heard of them unless you were studying Irish literature in detail. They're all from roughly the same time period, and deal broadly with the history and land of Ireland (but from different perspectives), but to my knowledge no one has brought all five of them together for study in the one thesis/book/article.

And your own studies sound awesome! I haven't done any Old or Middle English myself since undergrad, and I really loved all the stuff I read (which was Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, lots of Chaucer, the Old English elegies and some extracts from Beowulf).