reporting for duty!

And though before my fall I was captain of you all, I'm a member of the crew. (16 points)

So, this week I went to Portsmouth. Well, not for the whole week, of course. But I ought probably to start with the weekend, when I went to Huddersfield.

Huddersfield

I don't know if you may have heard of Huddersfield, but it was a very important town in the Industrial Revolution, though not so important as, say, Manchester or Birmingham. Anyway, that basically means that there is really nothing there to see, even though they try to pretend they have a cultural heritage. I went out there to see a performance of "The Yeomen of the Guard," a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, by the Huddersfield G&S Society. It was lots of fun, as always, though the first act lagged quite a bit. However, both of the finales were good, and that's very important in G&S. It was a bit depressing for G&S, too: of the 3 marriages at the end, 2 of them are not very happy ones, and there's even a jilted lover, which never happens in G&S. The story ends with the jilted lover falling dead to the floor as the happy couple set off, cheered by the chorus. Ee.

Bucklebury

My great-great grandfather grew up farming in a little, bitty village community called Bucklebury, in West Berkshire. (This is on my Dad's side of the family.) So on my way down to Portsmouth, I stopped at Reading and took a bus out to see Bucklebury. There was basically nothing there -- the actual village consisted entirely of an old Norman church and a few cottages scattered about -- but it was sure beautiful country. (For those of you familiar with the Idaho Falls area, it was very much like taking someone to see Coltman or Ucon.) I had a nice little walk from the bus stop down to the village, and took some public footpaths through the field along the way. I felt a lot like Elizabeth Bennet, walking the three miles to Netherfield and in the process getting her petticoats soaked "six inches deep in mud" (7 points for that quote, though I hope you all know it). It had been raining on and off all day, and so my pants really were soaked through by the time I got back on the main road. I took some lovely pictures of the countryside, which I will put up on my website ASAP so that you can see them. By that time, though, I was worried that I wouldn't make it back to the bus stop in time to catch the last bus back to Reading (there are less than 5 buses to Bucklebury per day), so I didn't linger long in the "village." And on the way back, I did something really daring and ... hitch-hiked! (Gasp! Oh, horror!) I think the guy was rather surprised when I told him I only wanted to go a mile up the road to the Bladebone Inn. I'm sure he would have taken me all the way into Reading if I'd asked him to, but it was probably best as it was. (He was a very nice, middle-aged man in a nice, clean car, on his way to a business meeting, apparently, so I would have felt comfortable going that far with him, too ... but I'd already paid for the return to Reading by bus.)

Portsmouth

Portsmouth was just what I had expected. The worst I can say for the town is that the cabbie was pretty rude to me. But he may have been funning, I couldn't quite tell, since I could only see his eyes in the rear-view mirror. Anyway, I saw the HMS Victory, which was wonderful! I was a little disappointed that they didn't let us go up on the poop deck, but we did get to see just about everything else, so that was OK. We even got to see the Grand Magazine and the hold, so that was cool. And they showed us the exact spot where Admiral Nelson was shot, and then where he died.

I then went to see Charles Dickens's birthplace. His parents lived on the main street in town, though you wouldn't know that nowadays. It's tucked away in a little section of the old street that's been preserved (probably because of Dickens's home), while the city has grown around and away from there. The house itself wasn't that great, but it was nice to know that I was in the place where the genius Dickens spent his childhood. While there I bought a Dickens book (they had them for dirt-cheap in the gift shop), and the lady even stamped it for me so that I will know for all eternity that I bought that book at Dickens's birthplace.

In the afternoon I decided to go see Southsea Castle. It really doesn't look like much from the outside, and it isn't much on the inside, either. The former was intentional, though, while I don't think the latter was. It was purposely built very low to the ground in order to give the enemy a smaller target to shoot at. They are very proud of the fact that Henry VIII (who built the castle) watched his flagship, the Mary Rose, sink from there at the beginning of a big battle. They are also particularly proud of the fact that there has never been a shot "fired in anger" from Southsea Castle during the 400+ years that it served as an active military post. That seems a bit silly to me ... I would be more proud of a castle that had actively defended my city than one that had never had reason to shoot at anyone, personally. It seems to me that fact merely serves to point out that Southsea Castle was superfluous. Oh well ...

That evening I bought a bag at Debenham's -- which made me very happy, since I've been looking for one for a while -- and then went to have dinner. I seriously considered having Indian, but I ended up in a pub called -- wait for it! -- The Hog's Head! For you HP fans out there, you know how hilarious that is! My British friends, when I got back, told me it was rather a common name for a pub, but I still think it's awesome.

School

Well, back to the reason why I'm even here, eh? I went to pick up my marked coursework today, and did quite well. I had previously seen my dissertation proposal-thingy and discussed it with my supervisor, so I knew that I had done well on that one. I got 71 for that paper, 68 for sociolinguistics, and 66 for my crap class (also known as CDA). I can't read most of the comments on my CDA paper, either, since the professor was German (well, Austrian, really), and she has that loopy German writing. I got quite good at reading that writing on my mission, but it's been way too long, and I don't care enough to ask her what it means. In any case, I've done quite well overall, and that's really good to know. This means that if I can only get a 70 or higher on my dissertation, I'll have earned a Distinction, which would be great!

I had a really good discussion with my supervisor today. I've been doing some tagging work for him, along with some other stuff, and so I had a few questions about that stuff. He also gave me some more information on this program I'm trying to use to help out with my texts and my computer analysis. And then we ahd a good discussion about the reading I've been doing, theoretical problems I have to work with, and some of my concerns about my PhD program. It was very helpful, and I now feel like I can face my dissertation again. Which is good, since I really have to do so, especially tomorrow and Saturday.

Tomorrow, actually, I'm going to Kendal, which is where my mother's side of the family came from, and I'm meeing a member from the ward up there who's going to show me around a little. Saturday night is EuroVision (kind of a Europe-wide version of American Idol, or Pop Idol), so I'm planning to watch that with "The Girls." And then next Tuesday I'll go up to Harrogate to see "Pirate of Penzance," which I'm very excited for!