Home in Perth

Hi guys,

I got back from the conference last night feeling very energised having had such a fantastic time! It was a 3 day conference, 9-7, including an hour of 'practical' stuff each day - I made chain mail and played Viking games, but decided to skip the bread grinding! The papers were very diverse, with lots of Anglo-Saxon stuff, especially poetry, plus Byzantine, Pictish, Irish, Scandinavian, and quite a bit of church stuff, especially iconography. It was great to hang out with people with similar interests again (a definite highlight of Uppsala!), although Anglo-Saxonists are slightly odd... I'm looking forward to next years, especially if my local uni pays my airfares and accomodation again :-) It's in Sydney next year and I'm hoping to convince a young and promising French archaeologist who will be visiting me to give a paper so we can see Sydney together...

I'll now turn the paper I gave into an article for hopefull journal publication. And I'm also doing a review of The Cross Goes North for a journal. Then I plan to turn my rune essay into an article - I'm just waiting to get hold of the recently published corpus of Scan runes in Britain. And of course apply for my phd to perth and melbourne. I've already been told I'm gauranteed in Perth and I like the idea anyway - partly as they just paid for me to go to the conference! - but also as it would probably be better for Aurore and I here. I hope to have Alex as an external supervisor, so the local uni doesn't matter so much. And UWA (the one in Perth I'd go to) really want me and have lots of money - travel grants, pay you to publish, have a paid teacher training program etc And then I'll quit work at the end of March! :-)

Before then I'm going to France for two weeks to visit Aurore for her birthday and Valentines - it will be fantastic, and how romantic is that!!!

Next weekend I'm off to the 'outback' to visit my grandparents so I'll post again then!

cheers

Hello from Portugal

Glad to see us coming together again through this series of «hello» posts. And it seems we're going somewhere in our countries, even if slowly.

As for me, I had a preliminary interview with a college professor in Lisbon last Tuesday. Presented my CV, an idea for an article on king Sigurd Jorsalfare's raids in Portugal and also a general outline of the phd proposal. He took extensive notes and will present everything to the other members of the board of the Institute of Medieval Studies next month. I'll just have to wait and see what happens. Just in case, I sent him the essay I wrote for the expansion course so they can get a better idea of what I'm proposing.

In the meantime, I'm still working on the presentation for the congress on Identity and Citizenship in about three weeks from now. I have 15 minutes to talk about Icelandic sense of identity as a free people as opposed to those under the rule of centralized kingship in Norway. Will use maps and present quotes from some sagas and Landnámabók.

Other than that, there's not much more to say. Summer has clearly left these parts, which means less beach and bike rides for me. I miss my Lisbon's routine like hell, but there's not much I can do without a house of my own there - rented or otherwise - so I've been spending most of my time in my home town. Last Sunday I went northwards to spend some days in Coimbra, the Portuguese equivalent of Uppsala, but my interview ended up being scheduled for Tuesday, so I had to go back home and then to Lisbon in a bit of a rush. Didn't even had the chance to take pictures (sorry, Aylin!).

And that's about it... After studying during one year in Sweden, life here feels too slow and too boring. Better days lie ahead, I hope! I'll post some photos next time.

Cheers!

hello from Melbourne

Hi guys, I'm at the early medieval conference in Melbourne. My paper went well and I've met some Anglo-Saxonists, including one that has come across Svante!! But hopefully some good contacts. And Aylin, I heard a paper yesterday on the Byzantine grand palace in Istanbul by a guy from UWA!! You really should go and have a look - it's only a small museum but has probably the best mosaic floor I've ever seen, and in situ! I think it's around the back of the blue mosque, where it gets really hilly!

I'll do a more involved posting when I get home.

Hello from Istanbul!

Hej!

First time I've ever written something in a blog! Despite the fact that we've scattered like dust to the four winds, I'm glad we are still together. Helio and Shane I'm jealous, feel like I'm mentally wasting away... Please keep me up to date with any interesting books - Helio you too, any more interesting rites of passage!!! Read an article about Sumerian culture in Turkish. It mentioned how women who covered their heads were priestesses and having sexual relations -both homoerotic and hetero was seen as the norm. Helio?? any ideas or any books on the subject :) So off to find work next week wish me luck- Tak!