Nottingham, Part Two

The new semester here has begun! Irish Literature and American Literature are behind me now and my previous anxieties of passing the former have been extinguished. I enjoyed and learned a lot from both, including the knowledge that I never want to become a professional academic, at least not in the same way as these literary critics I have been reading.

Before moving onto new news, I will look back on the old for a bit more, because I never did post up some of the Alps pictures. These are of when my brother and my cousin Arnaud went to visit Les Contamines for some skiing and mountain-gawking. We stayed with my uncle Demian.

Stefan, Arnaud, and I about to do some cross country skiing

Skiing is a difficult thing when you don't know what you're doing and have a bad knee, but the woods were beautiful

Up on the mountain. I stayed back because of the aforementioned reasons, a position that Arnaud and Stefan were apt at symbolizing, shown here

Post-ski drink time

After all that and Paris, I came back and lived with my grandmother for about a week, while my mom was off traveling with her friend, Deb. Because of living in the States, learning French late, and visiting only so often, I never really knew my grandma, at least not more than my mom's mom who spoke a different language but was always very kind and provided delicious food. Now I know that all of those things remain true, but are only parts of a whole, a whole that I got to know more during my short stay. I'm glad to have had that experience.

And now I'm back in Nottingham, already learning about Norse mythology and religion in general. Ice and Fire: Myths and Heroes of the North is the absurdly exciting title of the former, and Introduction to the Study of Religion the latter. In one corner I will hear about how Thor smote giants with his mighty Mjollnir and in the other I will hear about how such a mythical character is really an archetype of the collective unconscious.

Apologies: my last lecture was all psychoanalysis

Semester two promises to be a fun one, and my goals include not severely injuring major joints and getting to know more people. I'm doing well with both so far.