My Opus is Complete!

My major life work, The St. Anselm Death Experience: Coping with Death in the Middle Ages, is finally complete. I finished it late Thursday afternoon and turned it into the bindery. I picked it up on Friday afternoon and submitted it for review. Woot! Here are the specs:

Pages: 71

Words: 19,569

Characters: 115,397

Paragraphs: 438

Lines: 1,691

Now what do I do with myself? In less that 24 hours, I fly off back home. Then what?

Almost Finished

The finish line is so close I can feel the plastic tape ripping across my body as I cross!  My dissertation is 98% finished!  Now I feel like I can take a little time out to report on some happenings lately.  I do have Malaysia stories to tell, but I think those will have to wait until I get home.  My biggest current story is not a good one.

Saturday night, Cardiff was host to  a huge football(soccer) game.  There were fights and drunks and all kinds of horrible things happening down in town.  The group decided that we would play it safe and stay up in our end and not venture out.  We all went to Chewie’s house to watch TV and hang out, but we decided to sit in the living room with the door shut as to not wake her roommates.  There were eight of us in total.  About 12 am, Mooderson (Brian) and I go out for a smoke break (and no, I was just keeping him company) and we lean against the car and watch the quiet neighborhood.  We debated going home because we were both so tired from the previous week of cramming to finish our work.  We decided to stay another few minutes so we went back inside, locked the door, and went into the living room.  Everyone was playing a game, and we played for another fifteen minutes or so.  When we finally decided to leave, I went out into the hall way to grab my bag and Mooderson’s coat off of the banister of the stairs.  It wasn’t there.  We checked all over the house, and Mooderson stepped outside to see if he had left it there.  I was in the kitchen and I heard him yell: ‘WHERE’S THE CAR?!?!?!’  Yep, the car was gone.  Someone had broken into Chewie’s house and stolen my bag, with my wallet, keys, phone, NEW GLASSES, and other personal items, and stolen his jacket with his car keys in it.  That car hadn’t even been in the country for three weeks, as he had just driven it up from Milan.  This was horrible, but I don’t think it was even the worst part.  So, we called the Cardiff Police Department at about 12:30 am, about 20 minutes after the car had been stolen.  They said that they couldn’t get anyone out to us yet, because of the destruction in town.  We asked them to send out a notice on the car, becuase  there couldn’t have been many Italian-made cars with Italian plates roaming around Cardiff, and the sooner they looked, the better chance there was of finding it.  They refused and said we had to wait for the cops.  Do you want to guess what time they arrived?  9 a.m. the next morning! 

We filed our reports, but no word yet on anything.  They could had driven his car to Paris in the time that it took the cops to get there.  I feel so bad for him, and this incident is just the tip of the iceburg of how much these last few weeks since I got back from Malaysia have sucked.  I have cancelled all my cards, AGAIN, and I am heartbroken over my new glasses being stolen.

Hopefully better times are in order.  Hope everyone had a happy and peaceful September 11th!

Acknowlegment Page

Here is my acknowledgment page of my dissertation as it stands right now:

This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Sarah L. Wolfe, who always encouraged me to follow my dreams and make things happen. 

1957-2005

I would like to thank everyone for their contribution and support while I was working on this dissertation.  Thank you to Professor Bill Aird for being my supervisor and guiding me in the right direction.  Thank you to Professor Helen Nicholson for her insights.  I would like to thank my friends in the MBS program, Britton Brooks, Brian ‘McMooderson’ Berni, and Sarah Williams, for their much needed competition and support.  I also want to remember and thank my grandparents, Martha and Richard Wolfe, for providing me with the home base that I needed while I was so far away. A thank you is also in order for my sister, Amanda Wolfe, for being so understanding of my nomadic tendencies and for her encouragement of my completion of my dissertation.  Finally, I want to thank Christine “Chewie” Chua for being my rock and always encouraging me just when I needed it the most.

 

Curiosities

 

I have always been interested in historical curiosities, and the darker side of history. That might explain why, for my dissertation, I am focusing on the death of monks in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

One of my favorite websites, The Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society seems to satisfy my eccentric tastes.

I stumbled across this entry today, which talks about the Museum of the Souls in Purgatory. I found the idea of a collection of religious artifacts that had been believed burned by purgatorial souls to be interesting. Currently, I am working on chapters in my dissertation that deal with Purgatory and death visions. Some monks would have visions of Hell or Purgatory and come back with burn marks on their body and face to give authenticity to their visions.

I am disappointed that I did not know of this museum when I visited Rome last year. It would have been an good excursion for me.

Three Grand

I have hit 3,000 words on Chapter Four (Death Rituals) of my dissertation.  Now I have about 500 words written for each of the other eight chapters, but this is my longest and most involved chapter.  Woo!  20,000, here I come

* You know, of course, that I am going to post each chapter as I finish it and edit it.  Yes, I am THAT narcissistic!  Hey, I will never write a dissertation again. 

xviii. How the Hare was Set Free

Anselm left the court and, while he was hastening to his manor at Hayes, the boys of his household with their dogs chased a hare which they came upon in the road. As they were pursuing it, it fled between the feet of the horse on which Anselm sat. The horse stood still; and Anselm-

First Post, New Blog

As the first post of my new blog, I should be writing something insightful and witty, but truthfully, I am feeling neither.  My dissertation has me running ragged and tonight is the night that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out.  Although I myself am not in line, I am receiving constant updates from Britton, who is.  I have read the last page of the book(thank you Internet), so the suspense is broken for me.  But I like it that way!  Now if I could just sleep so that I can get back to my dissertation and extracting the tiniest bit of  information from St. Anselm.  Until then!