Back in Black

It’s been nearly two months since my last blog entry. What happened in that time that prevented me from chronicling my life in this highly anticipated blog? Did I fall off the face of the earth? Was I kidnapped by pirates (again)? Whisked away by the sole-surviving Time Lord and taken on adventures through space and time? Or is that that my life has been so mind numbingly dull that I haven’t had anything to write about. Nope. None of these is true. On the contrary, I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to blog. I went to Iceland for a week. I returned in time to work ridiculously long hours at the International Medieval Congress, and had enough time after that to recuperate for a visit from my sister, brother-in law and nephew, their first trip to the UK.

Iceland was absolutely fantastic. I won’t go into detail now. I plan on transcribing my notes from the trip to this journal in the near future. In the meantime, pictures from the trip can be viewed at www.flickr.com. I must also tell of the International Medieval Congress. Several interesting developments resulted from some contacts I made there. Furthermore, I just had some family visit me here in the UK, my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. Each of these merits at least one bog entry each.

So last week was my first full week back in the Le Patourel room (the shared office of postgraduates in medieval studies). While I should have been busily working on my thesis and preparing for my next supervision meeting, I spent my time applying for jobs. Why? Because the contract for my last job ended on 31 July, and it wasn’t renewed. This is because it was decided that since several people would be leaving the office, it would be a good idea to combine several part time jobs into one nearly full time job. Unfortunately, I can’t spare more than a few hours a week away from thesis work, so I won’t be applying for the new position. I also cannot afford to not make any income, so I’ve been whoring myself out, looking for teaching opportunities at nearby universities, and also applying for jobs in the library here at Leeds. Wish me luck!

I also spent some time last week composing a call for papers for a session I am organising at next year’s International Medieval Congress. The session is titled ‘Saints in the City’. Yes it is a pun on ‘Sex in the City’, but it is also a reference to a Bruce Springsteen song. I’ve received a few replies so far, and I hope to get more. Maybe I’ll post the call for papers here soon.

By far, the strangest thing that has happened to me since my last blog is that I have lost my sense of taste. Yeah, I know I never had much taste to begin with, but what I’m talking about is my ability to taste food. It’s a very rare side effect of some medicine I was on. It’s been a very strange phenomenon and makes eating an entirely new experience. Everything tastes of cardboard and wax. Eating is reduced to a purely biological function. I went to the doctor, and he said it was okay for me to come off the medication. I am starting to notice the slow return of my taste buds.