Welcome Back

The title is more a reminder for me. I have been less than faithful to this blog in the past months. My excuse--school. Its been pretty challenging the last month or so especially but I got my paper handed in and I am currently on break. All that means is that I get to read all week without going to lectures or class. Which will be fun.

So this last week my cousin came up to visit me in England and oh wow was it fun. We drove up to Chatsworth House, where Pride and Prejudice was filmed. It is also the house of Bess of Hardwick who was one of the jailers of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary was actually kept in the upstairs rooms of the house. The house has seen several infamous characters over the years and its personality is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. That includes everything I've seen in Oxford so far. The house is in the middle of Devonshire and it has rolling hills and rocky outcroppings above the house. A cascades starts several hundred yards above the house, disappears underground for a moment to reappear as if its flowing from a small temple-like structure. There are mazes and boulders, stairs and streams, trees and gardens all over the grounds. Outside the house sheep graze over the very green grass, the fields spread to the hills where they disappear into the forest undergrowth. You approach the house through a series of twisting, winding roads that gently bring you into view of the yellow-gold of the front of the house. To the side there is a long pool with a fountain spraying high into the air. I could keep describing it and continue to bore you all but suffice it to say, it was beautiful and I am in love.

We also visited the white cliffs of Dover, and officially I have gone from the red hills of Kansas to the white cliffs of Dover. Then we went back to London and had several days of adventuring there. Now I am back in my own little room where I have spent several hours catching up with some friends and family through Skype and email and also trying to make sure I am caught up on reading. Tomorrow I shall spend some time going through a bibliography of secondary sources that would apply to my dissertation topic and then begin reading those. The work of a grad student, particularly (at least in my opinion) that of a history grad student, is never done. There is always another book, always another philosophy that needs to be read or understood. Its a great time though.