Recap!

As the title suggests, this is a recap post before the Two Week Break,* and as such there won't be much new here. What there will be, however, is plenty of recappery, beginning now!


Iceland

What is there for me to say about Iceland. This is attempt two, electric boogaloo, for me in Iceland. The debacle that was attempt one was just that, a debacle, and left a (temporary) bad taste in my mouth. Fortunately, the mouthwash of time has ejected the ashen bitterness of defeat like a minty-fresh doorman hurling a sour-mouthed belligerent from a pub, and replaced it with the rich, buttery complexities of victory!

I truly do enjoy being here; yes, the bureaucracy can be a bit...opaque at times,** and most things are horrifically expensive compared to home,*** but these are not deal-breakers. Far from it, in fact. Perhaps because I am from Ontario, I am more used to dealing with layers upon layers of contradictory bureaucracy than the Yanks or even Andrew. Navigating through the stream of Official Offices can be a chore at times, but once I realized that it was essentially the same as back home, things have clicked.

The countryside, as you may have surmised by my excessive amount of photo-dumping after each field trip we take, has captivated me. Coming from, and living in, industrial cities for the vast majority of my life has certainly given me an appreciation for nature, odd as that may seem, and Iceland delivers that in spades. There's something about the starkness and absolute desolation of the Interior that, when combined with the majesty and grandeur of the mountains, the raw power of the ocean, the freshness of the air, and my (clearly evident) penchant for hyperbolic romanticism, makes me feel constantly in awe.

The city itself is also great. It's absolutely an international place - on any given day, you can hear at least a half-dozen languages other than Icelandic or English being spoken - and at the same time has the sort of clannishness and neighbourhood charm that makes every place feel like home. It's like being a kid again; I might not know the names of everyone in the neighbourhood, but I recognize them, they recognize me - a feat which, I will admit, is not difficult for them to do, as a man so striking**** as myself is hard to forget - and that fact makes me feel a kinship to this place.

The architecture (of which I have taken regrettably few photos, but that will be remedied after the Two Week Break) is also a major feature of the city for me, at least aesthetically. Those of you who know me well know that I'm rather "function over form" in my outlook to most things, but I do appreciate beautiful things. The juxtaposition of 1920s-style stucco-fronted row houses, late-80s glass and steel office buildings, constructivist public facilities, and the few rare neoclassical manors is, at first glance, chaotic, but it has an odd sort of symmetry to it. And then there's Harpa. It's a strange looking building, but there's something about it that draws the eye. It looks something that William Gibson or Katsuhiro Otomo would have peppered throughout their late-80's take on the year 2015, like an monument to a future that would never exist. When I go walkabout after classes, more often than not I find myself down by the harbour just to look at the building, especially at night when each panel of glass is illuminated and timed to create a shimmering effect. It is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen, but that could be as much a commentary on my pining for a late-80s futurist aesthetic as a commentary on the objective beauty of the architecture itself.


The MA experience

This is the reason I came to Iceland and, as such, one would assume that I'd have the most to say about it. That's apparently not the case, however, as I've been racking my brain for the last thirty minutes trying to figure out what exactly I can say about the program. It's been a fantastic experience, no doubt, and the access to scholarship - plus the sheer amount of the stuff! - dwarfs the access and amount I got at Brock, at least insofar as my particular area of interest is concerned. I've had a good time of my courses, for the most part, as well; the historical survey course went exceptionally well for me - I wound up with a 9.0/10 for the course - and the literary survey was entertaining as well; the only area of concern for me is, unsurprisingly, my Old Norse/Old Icelandic class. I could make excuses, but that's all they'd be - the fact of the matter is that I need to work harder at understanding the underpinnings of the grammar in order to succeed.

A very good point was made in our end-of-term meeting for the class; when we've all got our PhDs and are struggling to make ends meet as professors, our ability to teach Old Norse will likely set us apart from everyone else in the department. Thus, this is a job-security thing, and not merely an academic qualification thing. That in and of itself is motivation enough for me to do my damnedest to get this stuff down.

Next semester's coursework looks to be promising as well - Paleography, Old Norse/Old Icelandic II, and Mythology are all on the slate, plus a one-week seminar on the Viking Mind at the beginning of the new year, taught by Neil Price. That's another thing about the university; I've had the opportunity to meet with absurdly famous***** professors in the course of the first semester, including Rory McTurk and Margaret Cormack. For those of you who aren't into medieval Scandinavian history, that's like meeting Bobby Orr and Brett Hull. For those of you who aren't into hockey, I'm not making a second analogy. Suffice it to say that they're both phenomenal scholars, and it was slightly surreal to just hang out and chat with them over coffee.


The People

This brings me to discussing the people I've met here. My first impression of my classmates has remained fairly consistent this far into the term. Living with four of them - Sarah, Paul, Ryder, and David - has been a not unpleasant experience, and hanging out with them has been great as well. We've developed a bit of a cabal - Paul, David, Ryder, Ásdís, Bond, Carline, and I, with Miriam, Sarah, and Elias being frequent guest-stars - and frequent a pub which allows smoking indoors when we're not poring over books or frantically typing essays due the next morning. Good foundations for long-lasting friendships, I'd say.

The professors have been awesome as well; the MISanthropes have been invited to end-of-term parties at their houses, and we've had weekly jaw-sessions with other profs. Everyone is accessible and willing to talk about concerns with classes, projects, and life in general. Exceptionally supportive, too.

The non-university-related people I've met, too, have been awesome. Hana, her fella Pálli, her roommate Siobhan, and their friend Erika are all awesome people as well; many a night has been spent in their presence, shooting the breeze, drinking, and - on one memorable occasion - flexing my mighty Trivial Pursuit muscles to the point where the next meeting promises be a 4-against-me battle. One which I don't intend on losing, either.

Unfortunately, four of our number have either left already or have announced their imminent departure from Iceland; Carline has returned to Norway, wherein she will resume doing dream-related things pertaining to her MA; Erika also returned to Norway, where she is, I assume, doing more diving-related things; Rouan is taking a year off after this semester, and returning to New Zealand; and Erin is returning to Sweden to finish her MA on historical matters both political and military.


The End...?

And with that, I conclude my recap of the first third of my Icelandic Adventure. Barring any major events, this station will now go off-air until the new year. In the event that nothing major occurs, I wish you all a merry merry and a happy happy, and I shall return in the year 2012!


*Which I have decided needs to be capitalized and, as such, is now a holiday akin to Jimmas as far as I'm concerned.
**By way of example, Paul and I spent forty minutes getting to the welfare office to get a letter that says we'd never been to the welfare office, so that we could renew our Student Permits.
***In all fairness, almost everything here is shipped in. Overhead costs get passed on to the consumer. Such is life.
****And by 'striking,' I don't mean to imply 'handsome.' I mean to imply 'heroically proportioned and profoundly hirsute .'
*****Famous in that I've used several of them as sources for my BA thesis and the essays I've handed in during my academic career.