I finally met with my assigned adviser this afternoon. She's nice, and she does kind of religious institutiony type things, so she's a great person to talk to for advice on that kind of thing. And her basic reaction to the discussion of what I'm interested in and think I want to pursue for my thesis and potentially beyond was something along the lines of "wow that's really interesting. but you know you can't really do that in the States, right?" Her take on the fact that pretty much EVERY SINGLE PROFESSOR in the US focuses on the Mediterranean/Spain/Italy is that it isn't cool/politically correct to focus on England. Too much WASP animosity. The modern trend is to decrease association with English heritage and to instead embrace other identities like Irish, Italian, whatever. Plus history is an easy department to force to be multicultural by employing people who study "minority" kinds of areas. And there's no student demand for courses on England. Which I actually disagree with. I think there is a lot of frustration amongst college kids about the lack of courses on Western Europe. That was true at BU and its been true at all of the schools people here went to for undergrad. I think there is actually a void that universities are neglecting to fill, its just that there is no incentive to fill that void by hiring another medievalist. Ok, end rant. Sorry.
So basically her suggestion was to either do a PhD here and get a job here or find a really great adviser in the States and go really broad comparative. She did a PhD here and had planned to go back to the States to teach but was basically laughed at when she said what she focused on. So her options were to come here or to reinvent her academic interests and focus areas.
All of which is, you know, super fantastic. I'm so excited to not have employment options. Grar. So I'm supposed to think about doing a thematic comparative study of religious institutions across England/France/Sicily and perhaps Spain. Not that there's anything wrong with that in particular, I just have basically no background in Sicily or Spain. Although, Frederick II is basically my favorite historical person EVER and he was sort of Sicilian. Try wikipedia-ing him, he's pretty much awesome. Crazy, but awesome.
And I can't stay here, if only because my stomach rebels every time I eat pretty much anything that isn't bread, crackers, Nutrigrain bars, yogurt, rice or cereal. So basically prepackaged boxed items. PB+J has been ok, lunch meat and cheese sandwiches are not. Ditto grilled cheese, so I know its not the lunch meat. Actually, pretty much anything involving cheese is not. I think I just can't handle crazy British cheddar cheese or something. Except that I can eat the chips with cheese from the place down the street. Ok, so make that anything involving cheese from the local grocery store. Now I realize that you can have an adjustment period for food and whatnot in a foreign country, but it has been almost a month at this point, so I don't know. On the upside, only eating like 1.5 meals a day and walking around everywhere/ up 3 flights of stairs to my room means my jeans are at the point where I need to obtain a belt. Or just shrink them in the dryer that is apparently notorious for running hotter than it says it is and therefore shrinking all your clothes.
So basically this amounts to I have a year to kind of re-evaluate what I want to work on and then apply for grad schools for entrance 2011. Of course that also means I'll have to find a job for that year. And apparently I shouldn't go with the woman at BC because I really need to try to move away from political/legal stuff around the Conquest because that won't let me go broad-based comparative. Which is kind of disappointing because BC does pretty intensive "professor training" (teaching you how to develop a curriculum, how to lecture, basics for courses you're likely to have to teach like Western Civ) and they do tuition remainders and a pretty nice stipend for all their grad students. Plus it is sort of in Boston, which I already know and am familiar with. So now I have like no plan for my future and my stomach hurts. Great day. Now I'm going to watch tv and avoid reading. I've got tomorrow off; I'll do it then.
Also, I am officially allergic to dish soap. All kinds of dish soap. It makes my hands very not happy with me.
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