I am a horrible person :)

Yes, I know I haven't updated in a while. This year has been quite busy for me, and updating my blog has fallen to the bottom of my To Do list. As the semester winds down, and as I come to the end of my second year of my PhD, I've had some time to reflect on my time here. Also, I figure it's only fair that I at least fill people in on how I've been spending my time.

So, going back to my last post, or at least right after my last post. During the semester break (in January), a friend of mine from the department and I took a trip to Krakow. It was my first experience in Eastern Europe and I cannot recommend it enough. Poland was an amazing country to visit, and even though we went in January, the weather wasn't actually all that bad. We spent 5 days in and around Krakow, doing all the touristy stuff like wandering around the city, looking at all the cool architecture, visiting the amazing salt mines, and of course, going to go visit Auschwitz/Birkenau. Definitely an interesting experience and not one I necessarily want to go in here. But if you are interested feel free to ask me about it.

The new semester started in February and I found myself tutoring 3 sections. I thought it wouldn't be so bad since I was at least teaching Roman History (unlike the Fall semester when I was teaching Greek History, a subject I know very little about). The evening degree was fun, as always. The students are basically there because they are interested in the subject and so they actually do the reading and are engaged during class. My experience of my undergrad groups was not quite as good, but on the whole they weren't as bad as everyone said they would be. I had an interesting experiment because of my two sections, one was comprised entirely of guys, the other was all girls except 2. And the verdict.... The boys mostly came to class having done the reading, were engaged and wanted to discuss. Those classes ended up being mostly us just sitting around talking about the material. The girls on the other hand, rarely came prepared and were expecting me to just lecture them. Weird. Every time I said something they would all write it down in the notebooks. Very scary. I only hope I didn't say something stupid that will turn up in one of their essays in the future.

I also had the opportunity to give a paper at a conference at Yale. The conference was on "Provincials and Empire" which is basically what my thesis is on so I was quite excited to go. Plus, it's Yale.... The conference itself was good but it made me realize how much happier I am being in the British school system. A number of the students (who were all American postgrads) were still basically taking courses. It is not until well into the third year that they actually start doing original research, whereas in the British system, I've been doing original research since day 1. I don't want to sound snobby but because they haven't had the opportunity to do a lot of research the caliber is not quite what I'm use to. Most of the papers were just expanded term papers, not really adding anything new to the discussion, but sound in the research nonetheless. I guess I've just been pampered by spending a lot of time at British conferences. Also, they are petrified of talking to professors. I guess there's still this divide between professors and students. In the UK, in most cases at least, the professors treat you like colleagues and so talking to professors is not really intimidating for me anymore. Turned out quite well, since it meant I spent a lot of time talking to professors because everyone else was scared to. Also, I ended up being a bit of a rock star since everyone wanted to know how it was to work with GW (my supervisor). He's pretty famous in the ancient history world and so it was quite fun to shatter everyone's preconceived notions of what he is actually like based on his writing. All in all, it was definitely good times.

During the trip I spent a couple days with a friend of mine in Boston. I think that Boston is now on my favourite cities list. It's a great city, with so much history. I'd have to say I really enjoyed my time there.

So, as soon as I got back from my trip all the undergraduate essays were due, so I have basically spent the last 2 weeks trying to finish marking, get my chapter done, and submit my report for my second year review. Looking back, this year has been really good. I've accomplished a lot and learned a lot. I'm still enjoying my time in Scotland immensely although the next year will probably start being quite stressful as I will not only be trying to finish writing up my thesis but also starting to look for jobs. Eeeek!