Chatelaine Feature!

Bride of New France is featured in the January issue of Chatelaine! (p108)

The Value of Friends

Things haven’t been a perfect smooth ride for us in London over the past thirteen months.  Our two biggest challenges have been finding the money to pay for international tuition rates and finding the time to do any school work.  We have tossed around various options: childcare, part-time jobs, packing it up and returning to Canada, but have somehow avoided all of these so far. 

However, we have recently had new troubles pop up with our flat.  The place was never fantastic in that we had to deal with issues like a washing machine that didn’t work and took months to have replaced (we smelled like gym socks the whole while that we waited as the old washing machine took so long to “wash” the clothes that they came out slightly mildewed).  We had some “damp” (mould) form over the window which we would wash weekly with water and vinegar, and we had several water leaks from the flat above.  But it all got worse in July when we realized that we had cockroaches in our flat!  It was so discouraging to realize this especially since we didn’t have the money to move (pay a new deposit to a landlord and also to an agent) and frankly we just didn’t want to spend the equivalent of $6000 Canadian to possibly move into a place that was just as bad.  However the situation got even worse when our gas boiler broke down, leaving us without heat or hot water for ten days.  When the repairman came to look at it, he told us that it had not been safety checked (law in the UK) and that it wouldn’t pass as it wasn’t electrically grounded and didn’t have enough of a clearance for the exhaust. 

Where is the silver lining in all of this, you may ask? 

We have friends.  It was friends who let us use their shower, advised us on how to press a complaint to make sure we get our deposit back from our landlord when we leave, and a friend who will now be our new landlady when we move into her flat on November 1st (formerly occupied by another friend), a friend who had us for dinner last night and will be our new neighbour. 

And so we carry on. 

Rod started his PhD at Goldsmiths today amidst all of this drama and our impending move.  I’m gearing up for my upgrade from MPhil to PhD status by writing my thesis introduction and a chapter with an outline for the rest.  Julien is partying in a toddler way, growing more expressive each day, and we are happy to say that we are with him throughout!  (except for one date that we had together on Saturday while our friends – here we are again! – looked after him).

If anybody is actually reading this, do take time to write or call a friend today.  They are so valuable and more important than any work, money, accomplishment, household chore.  These are the people who will pick you up when life brings you down.

xoxo

mushy mind

so this is what it used to feel like to sit behind a computer in academe mode all day long… pretty crappy, really.  My back is killing me!  Could also be because I haven’t bothered to buy a good office chair in London so have been sitting on a hard wooden kitchen chair behind my laptop all day!  Luckily I have yoga class tonight.

How can I summarize the past two months of my PhD work…?  Doing funding admin to get money for this year, a few meetings with my supervisor before she heads off to the States, and working on my first conference paper in England (the University of Essex Graduate History Conference).

I am really missing Creative Writing so have been sneaking in a little reading of the Guardian’s section on books (really want to read Booker-nominated The Slap by Aussie Greek gay writer whose name escapes me, but begins with someone slapping someone else’s toddler at a middle class garden party — I’m hooked already, not that I’ve ever had this urge   Otherwise reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Unaccustomed Earth” and Margaret Atwood’s “The Penelopeiad”.  

For my research I’m looking at pardons and what historians have had to say about those in the early modern period.  Mainly Cynthia Herrup, but I have yet to go to the library (Wednesday’s plan) to get her article and Simon Devereaux article which is on my computer but I haven’t yet read.  Am beginning to climb Everest (metaphor for a babyholic doing a thesis).

muah for now and up I get from this brutal chair!

Meeting with supervisor

As with most things, it will take me a while, maybe a long while, to integrate this blog into my routine.  I am a Capricorn, very slow to make changes in my life.  Well, other than moving countries every few years, that is.  But the smaller things, like taking my vitamins regularly, going to yoga class, while not forgotten, are still not as integrated as I would like. 

I can’t believe so much time has elapsed since I last formally met with my supervisor.  I did see her at the Transatlantic workshop at King’s last month, but our last official meeting was at the London Metropolitan Archives before that. 

Admittedly I have not done all that much since our last meeting.  But it probably always feels that way before you meet your supervisor, especially in the UK where the majority of your academic contact is centred around these meetings (at least I think it is, unless I am doing something wrong!)  But rather than hang my head in shame beating my chest whilst repeating mea culpa (some of the only Latin I know)  at our next meeting, I figured I had best look back at what I have actually done. 

Mainly: 

-sent out a Call for Papers to a conference being organized by my friend and fellow Franco-Ontarian (there can’t be too many of us in London!) at the University of Essex. The conference is in September and the theme is “Worlds of Violence”.  My proposed paper will analyze the 80 or so women sentenced to Transportation (to America and the West Indies) from London’s Old Bailey Court between 1674 and 1718.  I think it will be a good paper and the basis of a good first chapter to my thesis.  Of course I still have to write the paper.  But for now I will show the outline to Dr. Gowing.

- I have been back to the LMA several times (3) to go through Peter Wilson Coldham’s list of sources on emigration to America.  I am about half way through and have transcribed 13 pages of notes that deal specifically with transported women.  I will email these to Dr. Gowing as well so she can get a better idea of the kind of source material I will be using to write my thesis.  Hopefully there are enough references to “reconstruct” the transportation experience of women from England…

and that’s about it… Oh, I have received conference funding to attend the “London Lives” conference in Heretfordshire on July 5, 2010.  I am totally freaked about leaving Julien for 14+ hours to attend, and afraid I will end up in some random place in England whose spelling ends in “ough” and I will pronounce everything in an accent that locals do not understand and never find my way back to my child, but of course that is a bit irrational…

I really do wish I had a bit more to report such as that I can now suddenly read early modern legal latin shorthand…  but I am just my humble self… mainly momming it every day and not regretting that for an instant, for I know that the ins and outs of acquiring a degree– or two, or three– will not be something I remember in the decades to come, inshallah. But the little moments with Julien, for instance this morning when he strung together two words for the first time saying “Lucky bye-bye” (“Kee, buh-buh”, actually) to try and get our ferocious grey tabby to move out of his way so he could pass, or when he finally figured out that he was brave enough to tackle the playground slide so long as he went down feet first on his belly, seeing him devour fruits, sleep in his pram, dance and do a hip-hop style arm up when a car goes by thumping the bass, hearing him squeal with a guilty laugh when I catch him standing on the table.  Not one of these moments would I give up for money, glory, or anything really… of course his dad gets them as well since we split caring duty, but that’s OK (mostly) since I still get the full report afterwards. 

Luckily my supervisor is also a mom– of a four-year old boy– so she has been very understanding this past year.  I wish I could produce more at a faster rate, but frankly my studies are a distant second fiddle to my time with Julien.  But that doesn’t mean that I am less committed, reliable or good.  In fact since my son was born 17 months ago, I have never worked so hard in my life, starting the day at 5am and ending it at 10pm.  Once my little man starts school and makes that first (sniff, sniff) major step towards adulthood and pursuing his own life path, I will have the free time that I lack at the moment with all the brilliant work skills, focus and fierce determination I will have acquired as the mother of an infant.  What a combination! 

For now it’s my meeting with Dr. Gowing on the work agenda, showing my work since our last meeting, signing a form for my next SSHRC funding instalment and discussing what will happen to my supervision now that she is heading off to Johns Hopkins in the US for a year. 

Hopefully I will find the time to write a post mortem on our meeting.

A new blog!

Yay!  I’m excited that Rod (hubby) helped me to get this blog set up.  It’s fairly unconventional to record history research in such a forum, but it will super useful so I can keep track of my progress.  Especially as I have to produce a report for SSHRC in August on what I have done with their money this year.

I can’t believe I have already been enrolled for eight months!  I have also been editing my novel for Penguin throughout– Bride of New France (January 2011 publication date).  Fortunately the final manuscript was accepted by the publisher in April and I am now at the copy editing phase. 

Of course, along with Rod, I have also been looking after my (now) sixteen-month old little boy, Julien.  Rod is also a full-time student (MA, Digital Arts, Camberwell College) and will continue to study as he is beginning a PhD at Goldsmiths.  We considered it, but neither of us feel ready to put Julien in ”nursery” just yet.  So it looks like juggling studies with childcare and working in short bursts will continue for the foreseeable future. 

So, what have I done this year for my PhD?  I will have to look back through my notes and calendar to be sure I don’t miss anything when I write my report, but off the top of my head:

- I met my supervisor, Dr. Laura Gowing, a historian of early modern English women, numerous times at her office and in libraries and archives of London

- I did a one-week archives training course with Dr. Simon Trafford

- one-day British Library History research training course

- attended a number of IHR (Institute of Historical Research) seminars

- attended a conference on Empire and a workshop on the Atlantic World

- applied to present a conference paper in September at the University of Essex (Worlds of Violence)

- wrote my literature review for my thesis

- devised a chapter plan for my thesis

- created  a database of women sentenced to transportation to America at London’s Old Bailey, which will provide the primary source material for my first chapter and conference paper

- am set (hopefully fees covered) to attend a conference at Hertfordshire on London Lives, 1674-1800

Things that are pending:

-upgrade from MPhil to PhD status (usually show two chapters of thesis and a plan for the rest)

-based on above item, must start writing chapters!

-in order to write chapters, I need to do some more primary research, which means travelling to the London Metropolitan Archives and going through Peter Coldham’s lists of emigrants to find mention of convict women

-France!  do I include women sent from France to Quebec and Louisiana in my thesis as a comparative, or just leave it at the English women?  — must decide this by next fall!  Part of the problem is travelling to France.  I don’t want to leave Julien for an extended research trip, but it’s hard to move the whole family there for a time…

- reading original 17th c. English documents is still a challenge for me.  must take the time to study paleaography to help me out!

- legal latin for 17th century would be useful too! 

All things considered, though, things are in pretty good shape.  At least I have been finding plenty of references to transported women.  There is a thesis in it and most historians I meet seem very interested in the topic.  The rest is just a question of finding the time and discipline to get the work done! 

We will be going to Montpellier, France (south, not Paris where my research is to be done) to see our friends and to frolic on the beach for a week on Thursday.  Then in late July, we are set to go to Toronto to catch up with family and friends there.  Hopefully those trips will revitalize us and give us the energy to tackle our studies anew for the Fall 2010 academic year.

bisous!!!!