A medievalist, feminist, life-long student, and middle school teacher sounds off on any and all issues that inform any of those identities.
The name is simply a misspelling -- because English has lost a few characters over the years -- of the Anglo-Saxon words for "she" (Heo) and "said" (Cwaeth).
There are two basic rules for this blog:
1) Comments are welcome from anyone--agree or disagree--but will be deleted if they are vile.
2) I decide what's vile.
When I am in one of my egregiously sentimental moods, I can ignore even my own pet peeves about the rewriting of history for the purposes of selling a neat, cutesy, Kinkade-level narrative about the past in order to imagine myself a part of that idealized and terminally gag-worthy imagined past. It's truly obnoxious, and one of my least favorite things about myself.
And yet I do it. I sit in the draftiest corner of my urban dwelling, and take out my translating work. I then carefully transcribe the next ten lines, and begin checking in my books and sources to create an interlinear gloss. And that stuff is actually necessary for me to translate, a part of my process, so that's all OK.
But THEN, I imagine myself somehow a member of a double house, with no responsibilities other than work in the scriptorium. And my imagination creates a world very like a 1960s-era film of a monastery would be, and completely unlike any reality that probably existed. And somehow my imagination puts my uncle, the dominican priest, in benedictine tonsure while in my celtic monastery with me. Because he's the only clergyperson I know who would want to be in a scriptorium, and makes a damned fine Bloody Mary besides. And if you're going to be in a monastery, there should be family and alcohol around.
And everything is all very peaceful. And all the nuns and monks are rosy-cheeked and get along well. And they smile at each other while singing. And at some point Julie Andrews or Sally Field or that singing nun from France show up.
Sickening, right? But anyway, there's a subjunctive on the seventh line and a technicolor confection in my head, and I'm happy.
But THEN something like this happens, and I read about it, and I remember that nuns and monks are often completely badass, and the real history of the monasteries was so much better than my maudlin technicolor imaginings can be now.
I have spent the majority of the past few months in and out of various funks and moments of introspection that acted as bridges between funks. This is, to be honest, my natural state. And yet, there are times in which I become so bone-weary at the thought of my voice being linked with complaint that I simply refuse to speak much about any topic. My best friends find this very vexing, but I assure them as I do you that they/you would find my incessant existential crises vexatiously tedious. At best.
Anyway, I am back to gruntled now. Or, I'm at least gruntled enough to be willing to examine any random disgruntlements. Full gruntlement is outside the reaches of my DNA, I'm afraid. Frankly, I find people who are thoroughly contented with their own lives, work, and minds a little scary. And sad. I mean, really? Middle management, Khaki pants and a golden retriever and you're good? That is seriously FUBAR. I'm pretty sure they have pills for disorders like that these days.
So, one of my existential crises was this: May I really call myself a medievalist if I spend the majority of my time attempting to increase the lexile scores of midgets? I do sometimes find some time to fiddle with older texts and stuff for my own enjoyment, but doesn't that make me a dilettante? And then that train of thought runs me straight into pissedoffville.
You see what I mean about the transient nature of the gruntles.
I have come to this conclusion, anyway. Even if I am not currently engaged in going from dilettante to profi medievalist, I will damned well be the best little dilettante in the Intertubes.
I just had the most superfantabulous conversation with my niece, in which I realized that things are coming along quite nicely in the Heo family, thank you.
* Eldest niece is returning to college to be a teacher like me.
* Second eldest niece completed her Associate's, and liked it so much she may try another degree.
*Eldest nephew is registering for classes next year despite a difficult and troubling freshman year, because if Aunt Heo can do it, he can.
*Sisters 1 & 2 are both openly discussing quitting smoking. Because if baby sister can do it, they can too. (You can't even imagine how astonishing this is. Both have had minor cancers, and continued to smoke, because they wouldn't be told what the hell to do by anyone, especially know-it-all doctors.)
You see, I've been following my own heart. To the extent I have the courage (snerk) to do so, anyway. But I've also been engaged in social engineering in the micro sense. A college graduate in the family begets more college graduates, because she shows it is possible, or perhaps just activates the competitive streak in others. And it's working! Wait until they see me after I finish all this !#$@^& working out. (In this case they'll be the product of social engineering in the third generation. Courtesy of Bardiac, Dr. Virago, and Ancrene Wiseass in the generation before mine. Because if Bardiac can ride a bicycle around the North Woods in the winter, and Dr. Virago can run a marathon, and Ancrene Wiseass can learn martial arts while writing a diss, I can get off my butt and go to the gym in my building once in a while.)
Hooray!
However...
Can somebody please explain to me why I, who spent nearly all of my time in grad school having emotional breakdowns because I had to write, and it wasn't good enough, and I wasn't good enough, and everybody else thought of it first, and all the other writing block-inducing stuff one can imagine now want nothing more than to research and write about something. I've had some odd cravings in my life, including craving information, but I have never craved the whole research project.
I've spent my weekend trying to get ahead on grading and planning (Yikes, the paper! When will I no longer feel assaulted by paper?) and intermittently dashing off on the Metro and bus lines to local memorial sites. It is very nice to be DC-adjacent when the national holidays come around. I mean, you can choose to go to a barbeque and just have a day off to relax, but it's also really easy to choose to commemorate the dead by going to the places we have designated for commemorating the dead.
I know the long, infrequent blog-post with an opening apologia for the lack of blogging and commenting, and otherwise allowing the world at large to know that I yet live has become a bit of a cliché about the place. Yet I am loath to promise to do better, because I know how very lazy I am. And so here we are. If it helps, I promise I have been reading your blogs (those who have them), and wondering at your dedication.
Anyway, the R.B.O.C. which explains the post:
Two months or so ago, I went to the doctor with a mild illness. My BP was, as it had been every time it'd been taken since I was 18 years old, 120/70. Perfect!
Two weeks ago, I went to the doctor with another mild illness. This time my BP was, much to the consternation of everyone in the room, 230/128. Less than perfect.
There ensued many questions, the visible blanching of medical personnel, and the shouting of acronyms which would have been somewhat alarming had I not understood them. Since I did understand them, I was temporarily convinced that I was already dead, but for the paperwork. (Doctors never ask what jobs you used to have, just the job you have now. No reason for an English teacher to comprehend all that jargon.)
Since then I have been magnetized and polarized, and probably digitized as well. Seems as if everything is normal, except for the whole nearly-dead level BP.
So now I have to take pills which give me side effects which mimic what I should have been feeling with the Crazy BP, but bring me back to a normal pressure. Ironic, no? And there is more -izing to follow, which I hope will answer the question that is pinging around my brain; i.e., "WTF?!"
Temper tantrums about quitting smoking, and changing my diet and incorporating exercise only to THEN develop hypertension seem ill-advised at the moment. Which is not to say these tantrums haven't happened, they're just shorter than they would otherwise be.
Anyway, "show me a reason and I'll soon show you a rhyme" or whatever. That is to say that I need a plan rather than a reaction.
Thus, I have devised a new health plan I am calling "triple-yogh days." Because I need unity and completeness and nerditude right now.
Yogh the first: Actual yoghs. Other people have their habits that get them through the weird times. Most of those habits -- like alcohol, gambling, and random sex with strangers -- raise the blood pressure. Fortunately for me, I have the decoding of archaic and arcane language. Which is a blast and a half, and does not raise the blood pressure. Yay!!
Today I'm working on this from the Boke of Nurture:
Cast vinegre & powder þeron / furst fette þe bonus þem fro. Crabbe is a slutt / to kerve / & a wrawd wight; breke euery Clawe / a sondur / for þat is his ryght: In þe brode shelle putt youre stuff / but furst haue a sight 592 þat it be clene from skyn / & senow / or ye begyn to dight. And what ye haue piked / þe stuff owt of euery shelle with þe poynt of youre knyff, loke ye temper hit welle, put vinegre / þerto, verdjus, or ayselle, 596 Cast þer-on powdur, the bettur it wille smelle. Send þe Crabbe to þe kychyn / þere for to hete, agayn hit facche to þy souerayne sittynge at mete; breke þe clawes of þe crabbe / þe smalle & þe grete, 600 In a disch þem ye lay / if hit like your souerayne to ete. Crevise* / þus wise ye must them dight: Departe the crevise a-sondire euyn to youre sight, Slytt þe bely of the hyndur part / & so do ye right, 604 and alle hoole take owt þe fische, like as y yow behight.
I'm kind of stuck on "Crabbe is a slutt." How funny is that? It must mean something else, despite context clues, but it's fun for now.
Yogh the Second: Yoghurt. Don't fuss about the spelling now; it's about to get worse. Anyway, I may have a diet that is lacking in all the -iums: calcium, potassium, and magnesium. Yogurt provides 2/3 of that triad, and comes with yummy blueberries if you shop well. So, a heart-healthy diet doesn't have to be complete torture. Yay!
Yogh the Third: Yog(h)a. Because I am no longer allowed to exercise as I have been. And I do need to exercise, because I need energy. And you need to spend energy to make energy. I also apparently need to calm the hell down. So, exercise that is reputed to calm one the hell down = yoga. But I will say that yoga does hurt in a way that belies the soft voice of the instructor. Qualified yay.
And, in the service of calming the hell down, whenever one of my challenging wanna-be students makes me want to quit teaching and buy a soy farm, I hum this to myself:
I'm just back from visiting with the technologically challenged Heomodor, but wanted to pop up and wish you all a Happy Easter. I'll be back soon with news and other trivia, promise!
