CRRS Conference: Rethinking Early Modern Print Culture

Just got home from the second round of a two-day annual conference (the title is in the title of this post, naturally) and of course find a cold apartment and nothing to bake! My strategy of cooking just to warm up my apartment won't work today, I guess.

But to get to the interesting part, I am so fortunate to have had the opportunity to go to this conference, because the department that puts it on is actually the Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, and no other conference in years past or future will have as much to do with my degree as this one did. An international conference, I briefly chatted with natives of France and Italy, and the keynote speaker works at Oxford. I went to some fascinating (and not-so-fascinating) panels, nodded off through a few of them, but took good notes in most, and helped arrange, clean up and register attendees. Also, I snagged lots of great scones and cookies. Not to mention I got a free book, with another potential one on the way. Depending on how many other volunteers want it.

Some of the topics included the economics of the European book trade in the early modern period, marginal notes in Renaissance texts, and collated volumes of plays by different authors.

I brought my books with me and did some reading today, which turned out to be a popular conversation-starter. Apparently two or three attendees have read the same texts, and freely gave me their opinions on them.

And now, after a very full Friday and Saturday, I have not gotten much reading done, have tons left to do, and am so knackered all I can think about is sleep.

Another Crazy Weekend and A New Drink Recipe

Last Saturday my cousin got married. The ceremony was lovely, the reception fun... and a good time was had by (well, me, at least).Not many people danced, and after the reception ended, the DJ thanked my sister and me for dancing, since we pretty much held up the dance floor. It must be awful to DJ an event at which nobody dances.

Attending the wedding involved some more crazy travels and much less sleep than I'm used to. I'm definitely ready for a boring weekend where I try to get up early and get my reading done! I flew out on Friday, and got back on Monday just in time to go directly to class, where I had to turn in an assignment. After I ate, and edited another assignment due that evening, I had another class and was feeling pretty ill, thanks to the dry, recycled air on the planes and the changing pressures during flight.

Since my siblings and I were all home at the same time for the wedding, we decided to have an impromptu Thanksgiving dinner, so we all got to eat some amazing food and share some good times with family and friends, even though it wasn't really Thanksgiving (Canadian OR American). I discovered my new favorite cocktail, which is called a Sporran Cooler (see the link for Wikipedia's definition, which matches up with my experience). For your future delectation, I will provide the recipe here:

Sporran Cooler:
2 1 msr Drambuie
1 msr fresh lemon juice
1 (approximate) tsp Grenadine
(Hefty) splash of Bitters
4 msr soda water

Msr = approximately 1 oz
(...) are peculiar to my own style of mixing.
It turns out this really pretty pink/peachy colored drink, fruity and honeyed with a bit of a tart kick.

I may have to stop by the liquor store tonight as well as the grocery store, given my nearly-empty "bar", which at the moment contains a half-bottle of Drambuie.

Well, the reading doesn't get done by osmosis, so I'd better get back to work. If you try the drink recipe, tell me what you think, and if you changed it up at all! I'd be interested to know others' takes on it.

Canadian Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Weird, I know. It's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, which is throwing off my internal timetable. I mean, I've only been in school for a month, and the weather's still at 70 degrees! (That's Fahrenheit - I think it's 20+ in Celsius, but I'm not sure.) Not to mention I've not seen a football game yet, there's no Macy's Parade, no Christmas sales starting on Tuesday (Christmas is still two and a half months away!)... It's not even almost the weekend - the weekend's almost over!

I just can't wrap my American head 'round it.

An American in Canada

Last week, sitting in my tutorial and listening to a presentation on an article about the Internet in Trinidad, I came to a sudden realization: I have never been as foreign as I am right now in my department.

The epiphany occurred as I puzzled out comments by two of the presenters. The Internet, to them, has an identity. Not just any identity, but an American one. "What?", I thought.

As soon as the presentation ended, I raised my hand to address one of the discussion questions, which regarded the identity of the Internet, and individuals' identification while using the internet. As I asked the question, "I don't know if I'm the only American here..." I scanned the room of twenty or so people, and got nothing. Nobody moved, nodded, shook their heads... only my professor chuckled.

Shocking. Even in Scotland, I couldn't attend any of my classes without at least being in the company of one other American. Here, the classes are completely dominated by Canadians (although I don't think I was the only foreigner in class that day).

I've never felt so foreign in my life, except perhaps when I was the only American in Italy on a European exchange program.