Once more with feeling
Jun. 8th, 2009 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12I wrote this in my 'paper' diary this morning, but looking at it, I think I'd like to put it out in the semi-public domain of this blog. I was thinking about yesterday's meme, with the question 'what's the best way of telling someone that s/he means something to you?' and for me, this is a way I can let certain people know how much they mean to me. It's slightly edited.
I have written before about how unhappy I was in 2007. I lived that life for almost two years: January 2007 to September 2008. Is this all there is? I thought. Am I always going to be miserable and dissatisfied with life? Am I always going going to feel a separation between being and doing?
I was really, really unhappy. Indescribably so. I felt like everyone else around me had discovered the secret of being a functional and cheerful adult, and I'd missed the introductory lecture. While they'd been out living, I'd been reading about lives more interesting than my own from the safety of my bedroom. I explain all this only to emphasise how deeply, deeply distressed I was by the events of 2007-early 2008.
But then something amazing happened. I got accepted to do an MPhil at Cambridge. I even got some funding. It was in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic. I intended to write on the 'Alba motif', the idea of going into exile in Scotland as expressed in medieval Irish literature.
I got onto a plane and (after an initial, horrified thought of what have you done?) flew to London. I caught a bus to Cambridge.
And I stepped off it into a world in which I belonged.
I fell in love with my housemates, a mixed bunch of fourth-year undergrads, MPhils and PhD students from around the world, with razor-sharp minds and the ability to talk intelligently about their research. (Keeping the kitchen tidy and the dishes washed up was quite another matter.)
I fell in love with my subject matter, which, after an initial meeting with my supervisor, morphed into a more general look at exile in the 12th century, with heaps of potential to expand it into a wide-ranging PhD. My supervisor was enthusiastic about my research and encouraging in my efforts to stay on at Cambridge to continue it.
I found I adored writing it. I've always loved writing, but something about the Cambridge environment really unblocked my brain, and the worlds just flowed. Steadily my little kernel of an idea grew into a 15,000-word dissertation.
I found I even liked coursework. I liked the systematic, thorough way languages were taught at Cambridge, even though at times I felt I'd been pushed in at the deep end.
But most of all, I fell in love with ASNaC itself.
I've always thrived when I felt I was part of a small, misunderstood elite. The times at which I've been most happy have been such situations: as an IB student in years 11 and 12 at 'Bundah, as an English Honours student at Sydney Uni. And ASNaC fit such specifications perfectly.
It's a small department - about 40 undergrads, 30 PhD students and eight MPhils. We study stuff that no-one else gives a damn about - medieval languages, history and literature, and the intersections between these things. It's multidisciplinary, intense, and slightly deranged. We encompass everything from Anglo-Saxon numismatics to literary depictions of betrayal in Old Norse, kings and kingship in medieval Irish literature to the verb 'to be' in Old English. And we all respect one another for caring about these strange things.
We sit in our common room, removed from the English Faculty (of which we are a part) and we are zany and accepting and we know how to party. I haven't had more fun with a group of people in years.
Part of it is the fact that we all hang out together, undergrads and MPhils and PhD students (and sometimes faculty members), without hierarchy, without snobbishness, with the idea that we can all learn from one another. I might know the most about exile in Immram Snédgusa ocus Maic Riagla, but when I want help with my Latin, I'm going to ask my first-year undergrad friends. There's an easy democracy that I haven't felt since I was at 'Bundah.
I walked into this group of people and felt instantly at home. These people, who had a drinking-horn which they filled with mead which the new ASNaC committee members were expected to skull ceremoniously, who built Viking longships out of snow, who carved 'Artorius Rex' in their regular pub table, who admitted to crushes on Snorri Sturluson - these were my people. It was a zaniness like that of my frisbee-playing, hat-made-of-human-hair-wearing, Candleheading 'Bundah friends, and my midnight-soccer-playing, jumping-around-to-'Breathe'-by-the-Prodigy Usydgroupians: welcoming, all-encompassing, defend-your-right-to-eccentricity-with-my-life type of zaniness. Once you were in, you were a member for life. (Why yes, I do like compound adjectives a bit more than is healthy.)
I made several close friends among the ASNaCs, but it was that zaniness that meant the most to me. It was the feeling that I'd found my tribe. I'd found people who were like me, who were on the same page as I, who (although they might be totally different to me) got me in some indefinable way. They understood what I wanted out of life, because they wanted it too.
It was this, more than anything, that made Cambridge for me. In 2007, the internet saved me, but it saved me in the way a bandage tied over a cut staunches the bloodflow. It covered over something that was severe, traumatic and potentially life-threatening. Cambridge, and the ASNaCs, removed the wound altogether.
They took me out of my depression, and they showed me that there were things in the 'real world' that I enjoyed. They showed me that there was a place in the 'real world' for me, in fact. And they showed me that I had things to offer the 'real world' too. They took me outside myself, made me be better, think harder, know more. They kept me young and happy, and as such, they helped me to grow up.
I've tried to explain this to some of them, but because they didn't know me before, they can't truly understand what they have rescued me from, and how much they have rescued me.
I write now in the final week of my time as a Cambridge ASNaC MPhil. Prior to this, I went to my favourite cafe and read through my dissertation for errors. I came home and made corrections, and after tomorrow's meeting with my supervisor, it will be ready to hand in. My mother is arriving on Thursday. My college's May Ball is on next Tuesday. Life is sweet.
And what of next year? Everything's very up in the air. I still have not received funding. I may not receive PhD funding. But somehow, a long time ago, I accepted that. I accepted it because it's not really the point. Oh, sure, I want to do my PhD, and I want to do it here, but if I can't, it won't matter. Even if after this I go back to Australia and work in a mediocre job, it will be enough that I have had this year. Because I have finally found somewhere I belong, a place, not an age or a time. I have finally found something which I am content to be as well as do. If I never find it again, it will be enough.
You see, coming here, being and doing ASNaC, I grew up. Growing up is not being able to cook and clean for yourself, or support yourself financially. I've been able to do all those things since I was 15. Growing up is about finding yourself, about being content where you are, about travelling far, far, far away, pressing on boundaries, crossing over out of exile and finding yourself right at home.
I suspect this will be very tl;dr to most of you, but I want the ASNaCs and other Cambridge friends of mine who read this blog to know that they mean so much to me. It's very hard for me to say these things directly to you, but that doesn't mean I don't feel these things.
I have written before about how unhappy I was in 2007. I lived that life for almost two years: January 2007 to September 2008. Is this all there is? I thought. Am I always going to be miserable and dissatisfied with life? Am I always going going to feel a separation between being and doing?
I was really, really unhappy. Indescribably so. I felt like everyone else around me had discovered the secret of being a functional and cheerful adult, and I'd missed the introductory lecture. While they'd been out living, I'd been reading about lives more interesting than my own from the safety of my bedroom. I explain all this only to emphasise how deeply, deeply distressed I was by the events of 2007-early 2008.
But then something amazing happened. I got accepted to do an MPhil at Cambridge. I even got some funding. It was in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic. I intended to write on the 'Alba motif', the idea of going into exile in Scotland as expressed in medieval Irish literature.
I got onto a plane and (after an initial, horrified thought of what have you done?) flew to London. I caught a bus to Cambridge.
And I stepped off it into a world in which I belonged.
I fell in love with my housemates, a mixed bunch of fourth-year undergrads, MPhils and PhD students from around the world, with razor-sharp minds and the ability to talk intelligently about their research. (Keeping the kitchen tidy and the dishes washed up was quite another matter.)
I fell in love with my subject matter, which, after an initial meeting with my supervisor, morphed into a more general look at exile in the 12th century, with heaps of potential to expand it into a wide-ranging PhD. My supervisor was enthusiastic about my research and encouraging in my efforts to stay on at Cambridge to continue it.
I found I adored writing it. I've always loved writing, but something about the Cambridge environment really unblocked my brain, and the worlds just flowed. Steadily my little kernel of an idea grew into a 15,000-word dissertation.
I found I even liked coursework. I liked the systematic, thorough way languages were taught at Cambridge, even though at times I felt I'd been pushed in at the deep end.
But most of all, I fell in love with ASNaC itself.
I've always thrived when I felt I was part of a small, misunderstood elite. The times at which I've been most happy have been such situations: as an IB student in years 11 and 12 at 'Bundah, as an English Honours student at Sydney Uni. And ASNaC fit such specifications perfectly.
It's a small department - about 40 undergrads, 30 PhD students and eight MPhils. We study stuff that no-one else gives a damn about - medieval languages, history and literature, and the intersections between these things. It's multidisciplinary, intense, and slightly deranged. We encompass everything from Anglo-Saxon numismatics to literary depictions of betrayal in Old Norse, kings and kingship in medieval Irish literature to the verb 'to be' in Old English. And we all respect one another for caring about these strange things.
We sit in our common room, removed from the English Faculty (of which we are a part) and we are zany and accepting and we know how to party. I haven't had more fun with a group of people in years.
Part of it is the fact that we all hang out together, undergrads and MPhils and PhD students (and sometimes faculty members), without hierarchy, without snobbishness, with the idea that we can all learn from one another. I might know the most about exile in Immram Snédgusa ocus Maic Riagla, but when I want help with my Latin, I'm going to ask my first-year undergrad friends. There's an easy democracy that I haven't felt since I was at 'Bundah.
I walked into this group of people and felt instantly at home. These people, who had a drinking-horn which they filled with mead which the new ASNaC committee members were expected to skull ceremoniously, who built Viking longships out of snow, who carved 'Artorius Rex' in their regular pub table, who admitted to crushes on Snorri Sturluson - these were my people. It was a zaniness like that of my frisbee-playing, hat-made-of-human-hair-wearing, Candleheading 'Bundah friends, and my midnight-soccer-playing, jumping-around-to-'Breathe'-by-the-Prodigy Usydgroupians: welcoming, all-encompassing, defend-your-right-to-eccentricity-with-my-life type of zaniness. Once you were in, you were a member for life. (Why yes, I do like compound adjectives a bit more than is healthy.)
I made several close friends among the ASNaCs, but it was that zaniness that meant the most to me. It was the feeling that I'd found my tribe. I'd found people who were like me, who were on the same page as I, who (although they might be totally different to me) got me in some indefinable way. They understood what I wanted out of life, because they wanted it too.
It was this, more than anything, that made Cambridge for me. In 2007, the internet saved me, but it saved me in the way a bandage tied over a cut staunches the bloodflow. It covered over something that was severe, traumatic and potentially life-threatening. Cambridge, and the ASNaCs, removed the wound altogether.
They took me out of my depression, and they showed me that there were things in the 'real world' that I enjoyed. They showed me that there was a place in the 'real world' for me, in fact. And they showed me that I had things to offer the 'real world' too. They took me outside myself, made me be better, think harder, know more. They kept me young and happy, and as such, they helped me to grow up.
I've tried to explain this to some of them, but because they didn't know me before, they can't truly understand what they have rescued me from, and how much they have rescued me.
I write now in the final week of my time as a Cambridge ASNaC MPhil. Prior to this, I went to my favourite cafe and read through my dissertation for errors. I came home and made corrections, and after tomorrow's meeting with my supervisor, it will be ready to hand in. My mother is arriving on Thursday. My college's May Ball is on next Tuesday. Life is sweet.
And what of next year? Everything's very up in the air. I still have not received funding. I may not receive PhD funding. But somehow, a long time ago, I accepted that. I accepted it because it's not really the point. Oh, sure, I want to do my PhD, and I want to do it here, but if I can't, it won't matter. Even if after this I go back to Australia and work in a mediocre job, it will be enough that I have had this year. Because I have finally found somewhere I belong, a place, not an age or a time. I have finally found something which I am content to be as well as do. If I never find it again, it will be enough.
You see, coming here, being and doing ASNaC, I grew up. Growing up is not being able to cook and clean for yourself, or support yourself financially. I've been able to do all those things since I was 15. Growing up is about finding yourself, about being content where you are, about travelling far, far, far away, pressing on boundaries, crossing over out of exile and finding yourself right at home.
I suspect this will be very tl;dr to most of you, but I want the ASNaCs and other Cambridge friends of mine who read this blog to know that they mean so much to me. It's very hard for me to say these things directly to you, but that doesn't mean I don't feel these things.
