The Rains of Cryptography and other garble on how I’m doing.

Hello, blog–it has been too long. Here’s a bit of a catch up as to what I’ve been up to.

Since I’ve last written, trees have shifted into full fledged fall color and many have begun to lose leaves in the blustery gusts that are this city’s namesake. The gusts lately have a new feeling to them, a sense of the cold winter air that will be here soon enough. Even the last few warm days seemed to be a reminder that much colder temperatures are on their way, whether we’re ready for them or not. Winter is certainly coming has been a phrase muttered a lot over this week (and not just because of a recent casting of our seminar as Game of Thrones characters)–cold weather is coming and with it, deadlines.

While moving forward, my thought process these last few weeks has felt a lot like this:

If I could try to describe the feeling of the last two weeks and feeling overwhelmed by not a lack of ideas, but an abundance of them, the sound and feeling elicited by the sound of dial up internet would be pretty accurate…yep. For a while now, I’ve felt that my research would be better utilized in making a catalog of the 40+ items I paged for future researchers to use rather than any synthesis and claims that forced, but expected for this paper. As interested as I was–and still am–in marginalia and the titles that I’d seen, my work felt forced and like I was attempting to write without any passion anymore. And when you’re starting to feel like that, sometimes you just need to take some time to think about something else, talk to dear friends, and watch The West Wing. It finally feels like thoughts have stopped buffering and started to load.

This week has seen more processing of notes and working on articulating my focus as I’ve gotten through some more transcriptions of annotated volumes that I’m going to write extensively on. Over the course of this week I stumbled upon two–well–three things that have shifted my focus and course of this project. First: the fashionable practice of cryptography in early modern England. Because of the abundance of symbols and images, I tracked down two articles on early modern cryptography. While I’d be surprised if any of the annotations I’m studying are elaborate codes that require “cracking”, I was struck while reading these articles how similarly this field read to how I’ve been thinking about marginalia and that a lot of the same factors (the idea of universal communication, writing with intention that those who should read would be able to, fashioning oneself to fit a model, the magnitude of a reciprocal relationship between an author and reader are just a few of the early ideas that first came to mind again; more on these again soon.)

Second: this week for a large part has been going back and processing photos and notes of the main volumes I know I will use in my focus. A book central to this paper is The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio printed in 1561. This copy was annotated heavily by at least two hands; the majority of these notations are claimed by Gabriel Harvey, an annotator who signs and leaves his initials throughout the volume–some notes are even dated. I began research last week into who Harvey was and was astounded to find a lot of scholarship completed on his life and shockingly–his annotations. While there will be a lot more about Harvey and his notes and doodles soon to follow (and as a major section of this paper), I’ve found that one of his notes has been instrumental in how I’m framing this project. This note is scrawled on one of the last pages of the volume; the blank page is filled with his hand in English, Latin, and Greek.

No excellent grace, or fine cumlie behaviour without three cunning properties; a sound judgment to informe; an apt dexterite to conforme; & an earnest intention to performe.

[transcribed in original spellings; direct page numbers are yet to come for this unnumbered book–apologies for no more specific annotation currently]

This line captures motivations that I believe marginalia plays into as an action taken to inform, conform, and perform. With the realization of the similarities to cryptography and the concepts summarized in this contemporary annotation, my topic’s focus has evolved into a look at how marginalia (at least for some early modern English annotators) was more than a peripheral reaction to works and was an action to assert oneself into the company of the fashionably learned of the era. I set out into the writing process with a new focus, a new thesis, and a new attitude.

Oh, and the third gamechanger? An hour long loop of an instrumental version of The Rains of Castamere. 🙂

redecorating my mind palace.

“Research is messy.” Ian remarked during our session this afternoon on learning some electronic tools we’ll be using in our individual research and projects this semester and as it would seem, that remark really struck a chord with me today.

The morning was spent with small groups to do ‘Neighborhood Walks’, an activity that all ACM students studying across the world are participating in this fall. [There will be a post about this coming shortly, so keep an eye out for that sometime over the next few days.] In short, I spent the morning walking around a neighborhood to the west of the Gold Coast and the program digs. Suffice to say, I wasn’t surprised when we were waiting for the bus back after a quick lunch that we had walked around five miles over the course of our meanderings. But more on that some other time.

I’m excited to learn to implement these new tools to help organize and on a night like this, I could use a forum to organize my thoughts. As I have written before, I nod to my college’s block plan scheduling in it’s efforts in making a multitasker out of me. But the curse of a multitasker and at times, self-identified overthinker like myself is that with so many ideas and mental catalogs of lists and things to think/write/accomplish at a given time, at times it’s a juggling act to know which ‘to do’ should go back on the shelf for a bit and what to do with a given amount of time. Minds, as I think we all can relate, get cluttered sometimes. Any fans of Sherlock will know the idea of a “mind palace”; tonight I’m thinking mine could do with some redecorating.

My mind palace is a bit full tonight with the reminder of an application’s deadline hanging around like a relative that wish as you may, you can’t quite see to the door. After spending longer than I would like to admit to on an email in regards to an administrative aspect of my application, I felt exhausted. And, 15 minutes later, I got an email back from the mentor I had cc:ed on the email, turns out, the email in question (in which I summarized my interest in the scholarship, personal passions and dreams, and specifics of how the program aligns so closely with my future goals) was…well…not necessary, as the letter would be written by another committee who already had materials to reference. …alrighty, then.

I’m sure there will be many trips back to my ‘mind palace’ and while I’m sure it will always change, tonight my mind is back in a favorite coffee shop near Cornell; the indie music from my Spotify syncs with the typical coffeeshop tunes and a dear friend sits across the table, working on some scientific reading that I will never understand. There’ll be the familiar long drive back to the hilltop campus and a mix of profound conversation and (poorly) singing along to the radio. But, at some point, I’ll have to leave my mind palace and with that said, I’m going to go heat up my own chai.

I’ll leave you with a Sherlock gif (be prepared for more gifs to come!) of the phrase I’ve mentioned. Cheers! 

the importance of being early

Today has been a full day. Not the kind that leaves you exhausted, but one that leaves you feeling tired yet content. It’s days like this make me appreciate getting up early (at least on the standards of a 20somethings weekend) and making a day of it.

The day started getting up before 8 and getting ready to go around the corner to the Division and Dearborn Farmers Market with my roommate. We embarked out when it was definitely raining, but light enough that my rain jacket seemed enough to stay dry. My, was I wrong. Nearing the end of our browsing the market–whose booths span two blocks of the closed street–it began to come down harder and harder. Once back to the apartment, I was soaked but happy with a bundle of fresh basil and a tomato which will inevitably find their way onto a pizza in the next few days.

After the sudden downpour and subsequent toweling off (which I am not exaggerating), sweatpants and Netflix seemed much more inviting than heading to the library to get a start on some paging. Just as I was starting to embrace the option of holing up in the apartment for the morning, I looked outside to see blue skies and ambition returned.

The materials I looked at this morning were exciting and a great introduction into my future time doing research in the Special Collections room [seeing as my vast interest falls within their holdings]; today’s volumes date to 1601 and 1618. While I intend to write about that experience again soon, I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by how much French I was able to remember to the point of understanding the concepts of much of the text if not a translation; Latin–that could use a bit of a brush up… more on those sometime soon!

In the afternoon I explored the Lincoln Park neighborhood with my sister, which was a lot of fun. We’re both excited to be able to share adventures in the City and to swap stories of academic successes and snags along the way–her beginning a Ph.D. program and for me, adventures at the Newberry.

I just got back from a cupcake run (run may be misleading…) with a few others and am ready to settle in for a cozy night before working on coursework and a post grad application tomorrow. There will be tea and hopefully by then, my Converse currently perched on the windowsill will be dry and ready for another day padding around the City.

a few favorite photos from the market this morning.