31 December, 2008 | 6 Comments

A few favorite photos from 2008:

I’m spending New Year’s Eve in my pajamas, eating Thai take-away and watching a murder mystery on DVD.  I went out earlier to see The Nutcracker at the Royal Opera House and then came home to relieve my co-worker so she can go out.  The ballet was nice.  I’m not a ballet fan in general, but The Nutcracker isn’t too long and the music by Tchaikovsky is absolutely wonderful.  Plus, the Royal Opera House is very glam and there were people in gowns and tuxedos drinking champagne.  One needs a bit of that on New Year’s Eve.  So even though I have to be on duty tonight and all day tomorrow, I don’t feel too cheated.  It’s so freezing outside I’d rather stay home anyway.

For the most part, I’d prefer not to look back at 2008 too much and just move forward.  2008 wasn’t necessarily a good year for me.  There were some achievements and good times: I successfully upgraded to full PhD status; I won big in my court case against the Evil French Landlady; I traveled to Paris a few times and also visited Hungary twice, plus the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium; I also went home to the U.S. for a visit; I made significant progress on my novel this autumn; also this autumn, almost every week I went out to the theatre, opera or ballet; I also read some great books this year.

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30 December, 2008 | 3 Comments

Just some book-related bits and bobs as 2008 comes to a close…

While I was in the U.S. I bought Roberto Bolano’s 2666, which makes me feel special because it’s not yet published in England. Rather than buying the 900-page hardcover, I bought the box set of three paperbacks, which will make reading more manageable. I realize not everyone who reads this blog is a book lover, so I’ll just clue you in that 2666 is the literary sensation of the year. I normally don’t like to jump on bandwagons, but 2666 seems to be something special. I want to start reading Bolano now (jet lag be damned), but I have a lot of reading to do in preparation for the classes I’ll be teaching next term. Still, I may not be able to resist…

I was thinking about the novels I’ve read this year and I’ve decided that these are the five best novels I read in 2008 (in random order – not one of these books was actually written or published in 2008):

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

The Easter Parade by Richard Yates

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

All of these books were written by men, which distresses me.  I’ve always been a great lover and defender of fiction by women. In fact, a good portion of my doctoral thesis deals with the ways in which writing by women is labeled and degraded. While this is certainly true, I find increasingly that I need to read novels that engage with ideas and the world in a certain way and that the novels I found this year that filled this need were all written by men. C’est la vie.

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28 December, 2008 | 9 Comments

I arrived back in London this morning.  Since too many of my travel-themed blog posts involve me describing airport-related disasters in a bitter tone, I will spare you the gruesome details of this trip.  After about three hours at the Atlanta airport I burst into tears.  Really, I’d rather not relive it, but here’s my holiday message of peace and hope to the folks at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport and Delta Airlines:

Bite My Ass, you completely incompetent and useless morons.

Oh – and the icing on the cake.  Once I actually got to the gate to board my plane, having somehow survived what those &%?*£@! put me through, I went into the ladies room, where a piece of metal sticking out of the wall cut my leg.  It’s a small cut, but deep enough to have caused bleeding.  And given that this piece of metal was in the bathroom, it was probably filthy.  Lovely.  Today when I got home I called NHS Direct.  They think I should see the GP tomorrow for a tetanus shot just to be safe and I also need to monitor myself for signs of infection (fever, etc.).  I swear I’m not making this up. Atlanta is the gift that keeps on giving – and hey, maybe it’ll even kill me!  We’ll see.

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24 December, 2008 | 1 Comment

Nativity scene, Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome, Christmas 2006.

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!

I haven’t been online too much during my trip, but I’ll post more once I get back to London on Sunday.  Until then, I just wanted to say Happy Christmas to those who are celebrating it.  I thought I’d post a few photos from my past Christmas travels…

Best wishes for the holidays!

Love, Anglofille xx

Notre Dame at Christmas.

The Coliseum, Rome, Christmas 2006.

The Empire State Building, NYC, Christmas 2007.

22 December, 2008 | Comments are off

It was Anglofille’s birthday yesterday!  And also the Winter Solstice, which means the days will start getting longer now little by little.

[I have disabled comments for this post.  I don't want you to feel that you must leave a comment wishing me a happy birthday.  I'm not that shameless!]

For several years, I have been excited to turn 36.  For quite some time, I’ve felt that I would sell my book while I am 36.  I have no idea where this feeling comes from, but it’s always been very strong.  Weird, huh?  Now that I am 36 and I have 364 days left to fulfill my destiny, I’m a little worried because:

1) My book is not finished.

2) I don’t have an agent.

3) We’re in a global recession that has hit the publishing industry hard and this will make it extremely difficult for a debut novelist to sell her or his book.

Still, I will soldier on.  I hope to have a strong draft of the book finished by June and this winter/spring I will begin looking for an agent.  This “feeling” that I’ll sell my book during the next year is likely based on nothing, but if it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, so be it.

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20 December, 2008 | 3 Comments

I think I’m suffering from culture shock.  It’s nothing to do with UK vs. US, but city v. country.  I’ve really become such a city girl that being in a small town is tough.  I’m used to walking out the door and having the world at my fingertips.  Now if I walk out the door…I’m in a parking lot.  You can’t go anywhere here without a car!  And I don’t have my own car, obviously, and no one will let me drive their car anyway.  So I have to tag along with everyone else as if I’m 5 years old or otherwise just stay home.

It sorta feels like I’m like an animal that’s been captured and put in a cage.  Such a strange feeling…

17 December, 2008 | 6 Comments

I made it across the pond yesterday – 9.5 grueling hours from London to Atlanta.  There was only one empty seat on the entire plane…and it was right next to me.  Lucky lucky!  This almost made up for all the screaming babies and toddlers and the heavily pregnant woman nearby who filled up seven air sickness bags during the flight.  [No joke.]

The day did not start off well.  First, the backstory: On Monday I went to the Laduree in Burlington Arcade to get my sister some macarons and marshmallows, plus a bottle of Salted Butter Caramel Spread (which ain’t cheap):

I made the mistake of taking this in my carry-on bag, where it was confiscated by the security staff at Heathrow.  It’s not a liquid, so I thought it would be safe.  Guess not.  But then, we all know Al Qaeda is likely to bring down a Boeing 767 with caramel spread, smuggled on-board by American university students.  Let’s face it – the terrorists have already won.

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15 December, 2008 | 4 Comments

a combined birthday and Christmas present.  Just FYI.

Actually, I think I may start giving people Christmas presents and saying “Happy Birthday” as well, even if their birthday isn’t until next summer.  I mean, this one-for-two thing should work both ways.  Hmph!

15 December, 2008 | 8 Comments

I’ve noticed something strange in London at Christmastime.  I’m not saying this goes for the whole of Britain, since I only have experience of London, but in London there doesn’t seem to be much emphasis on charity at Christmas.  In the States, there are Salvation Army bell ringers everywhere — you can put a few dollars in their pot to help the needy.  There’s Toys for Tots, where you can donate toys for underprivileged kids.  There’s all sorts of food drives for the homeless and poor.  In general, charity has a huge presence and during the holidays, you always see places to donate money, toys or food.  In fact, there is such a charity presence that you’ll feel guilty and selfish for not donating.  In London, I see almost nothing like this.  It’s very strange.

This year, I really wanted to buy a toy for a needy kid, but I have absolutely no idea what I’d do with the toy once I bought it.  Last year, I thought it might be nice to organize a food drive in the hall where I live/work.  I thought it would be a good thing for the students, many of whom are quite privileged, to at least give something back to the community.  I wrote to the local council about this and they never even wrote back.  I could find no way to organize such a thing.

For me, part of Christmas is giving to people who are less fortunate than myself.  It helps neutralize the rampant consumerism of the holidays.  The only thing I’ve seen here is Card Aid, which is where you buy Christmas cards and the proceeds go to charity.  I also receive emails from Crisis, but that’s because I’m on their mailing list.  The lack of emphasis on giving at Christmas makes London seem like a cold, greedy, mean city.

My only theory on this is that perhaps charity and giving seem too closely linked with Christianity or religion and for the most part, Christmas here seems to be completely separated from its Christian origins.  I know Muslims and atheists here who have demanded to be given Christmas off from work, forcing their Christian co-workers to work on Christmas, and they see absolutely nothing wrong with this.  Christmas is just a day off work, after all, and has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus Christ.  While this feeling does exist in the States too, it’s much more pronounced here.  I really think they should change the name from “Christmas” to “Winter Bank Holiday” because that’s what it is for a huge portion of the population.

Perhaps you are surprised that I would write something like this.  As most of you know, I am not a religious person.  But I do have my own spiritual beliefs.  I was raised as a Christian and the person of Jesus does mean something to me.  If Jesus didn’t mean anything to me, I wouldn’t celebrate Christmas at all.  There’d be no point.  I think more of a focus on giving to the needy would help remind people that Christmas is not a generic bank holiday, it’s a holiday about a specific person who emphasized the importance of charity and giving.

13 December, 2008 | 4 Comments

Heaven help me, I went Christmas shopping today.  It was the worst possible day for shopping, since it was pouring rain.  Going from shop to shop with lots of bags is rather unpleasant in the rain.  A lightly falling snow would have been okay.  Even fog would have been acceptable.  But not rain.  My feet were soaked and I was cranky.  Still, I leave for the States on Tuesday, so I had to do it.

I did most of my shopping online, but needed to pick up a few things today.  I went to Marylebone High Street.  Yes, I know, very posh, but it’s one of my favorite shopping streets in London. I love Daunt Books and some of the other shops there, plus it has a real village feel to it.  [There are lots of French bakeries too!] I’m not the type to buy someone cologne or a tie or a pair of socks for Christmas, unless of course that’s what they want.  I’m not into generic gifts like that.  I prefer to find something unique that the person would really like, even if it’s something small.  Because of this, Christmas shopping makes me feel pressured, which I don’t like.  This time of year is already stressful enough.  End of term.  Trans-Atlantic Travel.  Birthday.  Christmas.  I think my head might explode.

Despite how charming and pleasant Marylebone is, it’s right next to the dreaded and evil Oxford Street, which I had to visit.  Nooooooooooooooo!!!  According to Wikipedia, Oxford Street is Europe’s busiest shopping street.  I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s Europe’s biggest version of hell on earth, that’s for sure.  Add Christmas and rain to the mix and you’d have to be insane to go there on a Saturday night like I did, but I wasn’t alone.

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10 December, 2008 | 5 Comments

I have a birthday coming up, so maybe I’m sensitive about my age…

Tonight in the hall I was eating dinner with some of the students.  The topic of driver’s licenses came up.  Where I grew up, we got our license when we were 16, so I said I’ve had my driver’s license since 1989.  And one of the students laughed and said he wasn’t even born until 1985.

It’s weird not being young anymore.  Sometimes the reality of it just sneaks up on me.  I realize that if you’re in your forties or older, I am still considered young.  It’s all relative.  But regardless, the past couple years I’ve felt my perception of myself changing as I’ve gotten older.  When you’re really young, no one ever warns you about how strange this feeling is.

9 December, 2008 | 13 Comments

I have been a bit stressed out lately, what with having four jobs and working full-time on the PhD.  [After this week, I'll only have three jobs.  Hurrah!]  Still, I think breaks are important, so on Sunday I took a break to see The Baaeder-Meinhof Complex.  A two-and-a half-hour blood-soaked German movie about terrorism might not be the ideal way to spend Sunday afternoon, but I have a particular interest in the themes of this film, given what my novel is about.

Well, what an amazing film!  I had never heard of the Baader Meinhof Group or Red Army Faction, a left-wing  “urban guerrilla” group that committed terrorist acts (bombings, assassinations, kidnappings) and bank robberies in West Germany primarily throughout the 1970s.  The group was formed by student radicals amidst the political turmoil of the late 60s, who were against the Vietnam war, Western imperialism, capitalism, etc, etc.  They were an extremely violent bunch — from the film, it didn’t seem that peaceful protest à la Martin Luther King was even considered as an option.  It was all about guns and bombs.

There are some who worry that this film glamorizes the Baader-Meinhof group and thus terrorism itself, while others in Germany have said this is the first film that actually hasn’t glamorized the Baader-Meinhof group and shows them as heartless, savage killers.  Since I don’t know the history or context of all this, I can only say that to me, it did glamorize them to an extent (there can be no doubt about that), but this is balanced by horribly graphic scenes of the group machine gunning people to death and shooting them in the head.  Only an extremely sick person would find that glamorous or appealing.

On a sort of related note, after doing some research into this film, I am now acquainted with the term Prada Meinhof, which refers to the way left-wing figures (Che Guevera, the Baader-Meinhof gang) have become “chic,” with their images emblazoned on t-shirts and worn by morons who are slaves to capitalist consumer culture yet think they’re somehow revolutionary.  [See this Guardian article from 1999: Come the Revolution, We'll All Be in Combats.]

Part of what makes this film both fascinating and disturbing is that some of the views of the group are appealing, at least to those of a liberal persuasion.  [And for the record, a great many of their views, not to mention their actions, are morally repugnant and indefensible.]  During the 70s, the group had widespread support in West Germany.  I found myself agreeing with some of their views – the anger they felt resonated with me on some level. This was more at the beginning of the film, before they murdered innocent people and started robbing banks to fund themselves.  Much of what they were so angry about are issues that are extremely relevant right now — war, Western imperialism, capitalism, globalization, etc.  It’s interesting to juxtapose the reaction of people in the late sixties/early seventies to these issues (anger, passion, protest, action) with the reaction of Americans and Europeans to the same issues today (complacency, apathy, ignorance and insane adoration for middle-of-the-road Barack Obama, who is heralded as a “left-wing” hero and savior).  It’s sad how far we haven’t come.

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8 December, 2008 | 4 Comments

I swear, I need a personal assistant to help me with research for my novel.  Unfortunately, I can’t afford one, so perhaps one of you can help.  There’s a minor character in my novel, a Hollywood starlet who dies of a heroin overdose around 1934.  I need to find out whether this is realistic.  Does anyone know if the recreational use of heroin was widespread in the 1930s?  If so, was it smoked, injected, what?  Was the kind of heroin taken back then strong enough to kill someone via a single overdose?  Does anyone know of a famous/noteworthy person who died this way during the 1930s or earlier?  I have done some research on this, but I’m not having much luck at all.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

6 December, 2008 | 9 Comments

Hey, just to update you on my previous post, yesterday went swimmingly!  I taught two creative writing classes and I really loved it.  It was wonderful being able to teach in my own field — I had fun planning the lessons (they seemed to really like the Raymond Carver stories) and teaching the classes themselves was a joy, because the students were actually interested in what I had to say.  I’ve been teaching at the language school lately, where the students aren’t motivated and don’t care at all.  At the language school, I was just there to get a paycheck because the students weren’t interested in learning.  It’s such a different experience to actually teach students who want to learn and to feel, at the end of the day, that I may have expanded their thinking a bit or at least exposed them to a writer they’d never heard of before.

Though the language school offered me a raise the other day, on Thursday I ended up quitting my job there.  My university has offered me teaching for next term.  I don’t know all the details yet, but I’m really excited about this opportunity.  My boss at the language school ended up being really understanding and congratulated me.  I know my days of teaching crappy classes at crappy schools aren’t behind me, but at least for next term I get to be a university lecturer!

3 December, 2008 | 8 Comments

This week and next week, I will be teaching two creative writing classes at my university.  This opportunity arose last week while I was in Budapest.  The person teaching these courses cannot finish the last two weeks of the term.  It’s damn near impossible for PhD students in my department to get teaching work, particularly in creative writing, so this is a great opportunity for me.  And did I mention this job pays a ton?  In dollars, the hourly rate is in the triple digits!

Though I have a fair amount of teaching experience in the field of English, I’ve never taught creative writing before.  And this is what I want to do for a living when I grow up.  The thing is, it’s very difficult to get teaching work in creative writing at university level without having published a book, hence my lack of experience teaching in this area.  I’ve taught literature, essay writing, dissertation writing, basic writing skills, English as a second language, etc., but never anything creative.

The upshot of all this is that I’m a little worried on Friday I’ll discover I’m not good at teaching creative writing and/or that I don’t like it, which would mean I’ve just wasted the last three years of my life. But hey, no pressure or anything.

I’m planning my lessons now.  I think on Friday we’ll focus on Raymond Carver.  I just opened his collection, “Where I’m Calling From” and thought I’d share the epigraph:

“We can never know what to want,

because, living only one life, we can neither

compare it with our previous lives

nor perfect it in our lives to come.”

-Milan Kundera

1 December, 2008 | 7 Comments

This afternoon at work, Anglofille is determined to quit her teaching job for next term.  She tentatively agreed to do it a few weeks ago but is now having second thoughts.

Anglofille says: “Um, I don’t think I can teach here next term.”

Her boss says, while making a face of extreme pain: “Why? I really need you next term!!!”

Anglofille, feeling uncomfortable, says: “I know, but, um, I have another opportunity.”  [Anglofille explains other opportunity, which is not a sure thing.]

Her boss says: “But can’t you do this job too?”

Anglofille, realizing that he is not going to give up without a fight, says: “The thing is, on the days I teach here, I don’t get any PhD work done.  And I need to finish my book next spring.”

Her boss, sensing Anglofille is weak, says: “How about if we only schedule you on one day a week instead of two?  Then you can do the other job too and still have time for writing.”

Anglofille, growing annoyed that her attempts to extricate herself from boring, low-paying job are backfiring, says: “Um, well, that would be helpful, but you see…I don’t mean to sound crass, but the amount of hours I spend here versus the amount of money I make…it’s, um, not really worth my time.”

Her boss says: “I’ll increase your pay.”

Anglofille did not see this coming.  She is offered £4-per-hour pay rise.  Anglofille suddenly realizes that her boss thinks she’s playing him.  She feels drunk on power.

Anglofille says: “Well, hmmmm.”

Her boss says: “I’d really hate to lose you.  Even though you’re not here that much, you’re part of the team.  And you have expertise that others here don’t have.”

Anglofille, realizing that flattery really does gets you everywhere, says: “Okay then.”