I got my final W2, last week, and completed my FAFSA on-line Wednesday, one day before the deadline. Last year was a broke year, for me: I held a full-time job for three weeks, and spent the other forty-nine scrapping.

I enjoyed that freedom, and I miss it, now that I’m working all the time. However, the time wasted continues to pay off: The government expects me to pay very, very little in tuition next year, and the sum to be saved is far more realistic. London seems nearer daily.

I’ve been teaching myself Old English for poetic reasons I won’t get into, here. It’s a very different English from what we speak today, but it’s close enough that the learning comes quick: After a week’s piecemeal study I can already read some original texts. It’s also been quite freeing: August saw the end to a two-year relationship and six-year friendship. This person had been critical for years of my every impracticality — my straight razor restoration was objectionable, while her obsession with zombie films was right and good. It feels good to be able to slowly write out flashcards in insular uncial without fear of flak.

My first serious study texts have been Bede’s account of the poet Cædmon (glossed Old English here, Modern English here, my translation of the poem here) and ‘The Wanderer‘. Reading these, I get a real sense for the possibilities of the language, but the culture is intangible and abstract. In seeking out context, I found images from the archaeological digs at Sutton Hoo. Most (all?) of this stuff is kept at the British Museum, which, as it turns out, is a pebble’s throw from the main SOAS campus.

Education is so going to rock.

This entry was posted on Friday, 3 March 2006 at 11:13 and is filed under Becoming an Anthropologist, London? London!, Translation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.