Back to work (well...)

Cambridge students have a slight problem in terms of their online presence.  All that's really visible to the outside world -- our facebook friends, family, blog readers -- are depictions of us in black tie, hobnobbing like high-class toffs.  In our defense, that's the kind of stuff you want pictures of.  Hunching over one's laptop in the library doesn't tend to scream "Kodak moment" to most people.  (As an aside, do you think that expression will live on now that film is not the primary means of taking snapshots for most people, or will I just keep using it in isolation, the way my father still calls the refrigerator the icebox?)  In any event, there has been the usual array of such events to document in the past couple weeks.  Here's a snapshot version of them:

• Choir dinner.  Not nearly as much fining as last year, which is a good thing given I've been up to embarrassing shenanigans...
• MCR farewell dinner.  I laid off the alcohol but enjoyed seeing my friends celebrate the end of the year.  It was also following the one good day of bumps, so I was feeling good.
• Boat Club Dinner.  Pretty self-explanatory.  Lots and lots of attempted or real boat club incest to watch happening at the after-party.
• Downing May Ball.  Finally a may ball that lived up to its reputation!  A good group of friends, plenty to do, see, eat, and drink.  Happy!
• Trinity Hall June Event.  This remains the best event of the year, in my opinion.  Between the college grounds being so cozy and knowing such a high percentage of people, I can just wander carelessly until I bump into people I know, chat with them, go see some music or dance at the silent disco, or whatever, and then move on again.  Love it so much.

In the midst of not sleeping very much, I also threw together a paper for a conference on Sherlock Holmes.  It was an interesting and convivial gathering.  Almost no one -- even the "proper academics" -- was a specialist in Holmes, but all were fans of some ilk.  Some, indeed, joined us from the online fan community, and it was refreshing to have their razor-sharp knowledge of the canon and unabashed passion at hand to inform discussions.  And for all that, they didn't wield their knowledge to take the rest of us down a peg, as they might have done.  As you know by now, my research has nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes, but I thought it would be a nice distraction / chance to branch out.  And in reading through the stories, I actually did come across a throwaway comment by the great detective that I may work into my dissertation.  My paper was on a personal hobby horse of mine: "How Smart Is Watson? or, The Role of the Sidekick".  I ended up arguing that Watson is an intelligent person hamstrung by his author, who needs him to fulfill a certain narrative role.  I hope I didn't stray into surrealist theatre, but the answer to the title question really seems to depend on whether you look at the doctor from inside the fictional world or outside of it.  They're planning to publish some of the papers in a book, so fingers crossed!

And now it's back to the grind, if I can reacquaint myself with where I left my PhD.  Today I avoided the madness of graduation day (much love to my undergrad friends who are moving on...) by staying in my room trying to produce words.  Y'see, my supervisor and I came up with a schedule that should theoretically produce a full draft by Christmas.  The problem?  I could manage the volume if all I had to do was write.  Unfortunately, there's still a lot of hunting around to do.  Throughout the PhD, I've been much more comfortable dealing with the stuff that gives context for the fascination of philology (language history).  I'm really struggling to identify exactly where that influences Tennyson's poetry, as opposed to him just knowing and liking old-fashioned poetic words from, say, Milton.  Fortunately, the first chapter is all about setting the stage, so I can indulge in the "easy" stuff for a while longer.