Introducing myself

[girlyswot]

When I first started this LJ I intended to post only fic here. I had a long Antonia Forest fic and then I started writing some HP drabbles. I didn't feel like I knew anyone who was reading it (and there weren't many of them) so I used only my LJ name and had no real personal information on here.

Anyway, over the course of the last few months I have felt like I am getting to know and trust those of you who check in regularly. And I've had a smallish spate of new friends in the last couple of weeks. So it seemed like a good time to say hi properly.

I'm Ros. I'm 32 and although I live in Philadelphia (actually just outside the city limits) I'm oh-so-very British. I'm studying for a PhD in Old Testament, which is what brought me to the US last summer.

I've written fanfic for years before I knew you could call it that and I never dreamed that anyone else might be interested in reading it. I like the Harry Potter books but I don't think they're great literature and it's probably not even my favourite fandom to write in. However it's a great place to learn from other writers and readers and I know my writing has improved in leaps and bounds over this past year as a result. But I definitely prefer fics set outside the limits of the books - whether pre-PS, post-Hogwarts, or minor-character centred. Too much H/G (except that of the stmargaretsvariety) makes me feel a little queasy. But the world never has enough of Charlie Weasley, for my taste.

I'd love to write poetry (and have made various more or less successful attempts) but I fear I may have to accept that there are some things that lie beyond my natural abilities. Like singing. I keep threatening my flatmate that I'm going to apply for American Idol next year and she very kindly points out that I'm not American enough.

I wish I had more time for things like writing and knitting and watching trashy TV, but sadly I have a reading list of 157 books which I'm working my way through far too slowly.  And semester starts again next week with classes and papers to get in the way.  Though, to be honest, if I won the lottery tomorrow (which since I never enter, is marginally less likely to happen than if I did) I wouldn't change a thing.  I love what I study and I feel incredibly privileged to be able to do it.  I might get a new sofa, though.

Comments

[moonette1.livejournal.com]

Hi Ros!

I'm so glad you wrote this post! I was curious why you moved here. Old Testament PhD? Wow. Fascinating. I was a theology minor "at uni" as you British say. I wish now that I'd taken only the minimum science requirements to med school, as I had to review it all again anyway once there. I would have much preferred sticking with philosophy and theology classes, as they seem much more meaningful to me.

I'm so glad we've been able to be in contact. I do absolutely appreciate your kind support of fic authors and count myself lucky to have been on the receiving end. I also absolutely agree with your thoughts on H/G - queasy is actually a very good word choice. St. Margarets is the only H/G I've been able to enjoy. I just don't like reading much about the kids. And I do think the more original stuff included in fic -characters, setting, etc., the more I enjoy it.

So welcome to the U.S., and welcome to LJ!

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Annette. I've really valued your support and encouragement of my writing over the last few months and I'm glad you feel the same. It's so nice to find someone else who agrees about H/G!!

Wow - med school. I didn't know you were a doctor. My first degree was in Physics and I didn't really study anything relevant to what I'm doing now when I was at school (high school). I started again four years ago, practically from scratch, and absolutely loved it. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed learning the languages, and particularly at how much I appreciated the literary aspects of the text. I think lots of the work I've done over the last few years has made me a better reader and writer of fiction, as well as of the bible.

[rhetoretician.livejournal.com]

Hi Ros,

How interesting! May I ask what your comp fields are? (Married as I am to a PhD in American Civilization, I know full well what "157 books" means.) And have you a notion of your dissertation topic? (I don't mean to make you nervous; if I'd asked my wife that question while she was studying for comps she probably would have thrown something.) Have you ever run across Robertson Davies's hysterical little story, "The Ghost Who Vanished by Degrees?" It's in his collection High Spirits, and it's just the thing to put it all in perspective.

~Ken

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Hi Ken,

The 157 books that I'm working my way through at the moment are for a general OT introductory reading course. In the summer I'll have to do a similar NT list. I plan to write my dissertation on the Song of Songs, so I guess I'll take the poetic and wisdom books for comps. The focus of the program is on Hermeneutics and Biblical Interpretation, so there are lots of courses on things like second-temple interpretation and NT era interpretation which are fascinating but involve a lot of Jewish literature that's fairly much unknown to me.

I haven't read the story you mention but I'll certainly look out for it.

[grandma-kate.livejournal.com]

Glad to know more about you, Ros. I'm sure it doesn't feel like it sometimes but you are young to be in a doctoral program and have your whole life ahead of you. I was 39 before I went back to get a PhD, newly divorced, and the sole support of three kids. I'd been "PHT-ing" (putting hubby through) for eleven years.

Gerry wrote today that she hopes to be able to meet you while you are in the US. I'm all they way across the country in California and think my traveling days may be over for a while.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that perspective, Kate. I look around at the other PhD students I'm working with, most of whom have families to support and have to work jobs to put themselves through and I know I have it easy as a single student with no dependents and full funding. It does mean that I hope to get through my coursework by summer 2008 and then maybe I'll move back home.

It'll be fun to meet up with Gerry - she's promised to show me Mark Twain's house and Harriet Beecher Stowe's house.

[sibtrelawney.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to it, Ros. I'm sure we can work it out.

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

I was wondering why you'd moved to the US too! My relocation is really boring (husband's job!). I don't usually like H-G fics though they don't make me feel queasy. I think it is because Ginny is done so badly so often but St Margarets writes her so well. I think it's because pre-OotP many readers thought she was sweet and quiet and post-OotP we realised she wasn't and few people managed to get the balance right.

I agree with the not great literature comment - but they are just so *interesting*! Plus there are lots of oportunities for fanfiction, which a great deal of more superior literature doesn't have.

I'm glad you've posted this too. I've been wondering about you recently as we seem to have so much in common in background, interests and even emmigration! (I still think it's a crying shame we didn't get that ISIHAC thread!)

Cheers, Bel

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Hi Bel,

You're quite right about Ginny. She's much more fun when we get to see her feisty side (which St M really gets). And yes, HP is lots of fun - and lots of opportunities for really interesting fanfiction. Which is why it's a shame that there's so much dull, cliched and poorly written fic. Oh well.

How long have you been in Australia? I think it must be a while from things you've said. Were you excited when you first went? I have a good friend from Sydney who I met last year when she was on an exchange program at my college in London - it does sound like a really fun place to live.

Maybe we should try for something with broader appeal - radio 4 panel games? Although we might get hijacked by the Quote/Unquote fan!

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps the Nicholas Parsons fan! Maybe a Radio 4 thread. From the comments the swanee-kazoo discussion got, there were a few people who listened (I think Starsea and Wonky Faint joined in).

I've been in Sydney since 1993, almost 14 years. My daughter was born here and counts herself as a real Aussie despite her mother. We went to a cricket match recently and I wore my England cap and she her Australian one and waved her flag.

There's always a lot going on in Sydney, plus there's the beaches and harbour and a lot of bushland, so it is quite a good place to live. I've lived in both Manchester and Leeds in England and Sydney is probably a better place to live, as big cities go, especially with children.

[jen-c-w.livejournal.com]

thanks, and thanks for the AF fiction. If you're as glued to AI as I am you'll know that this year one of the contestants is from former Brit-popettes North and South...

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. I hadn't noticed - which contestant on AI?!

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I suddenly was bitten by an AF plot bunny last night so you never know when there might be more of that to come. 'The Cricket Term' from Miss Hellier's POV. Lots of lovely staff room gossip and chance to write about something other than actual cricket.

[jen-c-w.livejournal.com]

ooh, exciting. I like cricket tho'...
Now, the AI contestant, I think you are ahead of us, but he definately got through the first round...
found via that google thing...
"Tom Lowe: Tom has some impressive credentials. He is from the UK where he performed with a band called North and South. The band’s single, “Man Not a Boy,” charted at #7 in the UK. He was also cast a BBC series called No Sweat, and performed in several musicals, including Les Miserables and Cats before leaving for the U.S. to attend Harvard University. He has a degree from Harvard in East Asian studies.

His band, Tommy and the Tigers, began performing together while they were students and became the school’s most popular band. They recorded an album, Dance Rock, but I can’t find any evidence that it’s been released."

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

'Man not a boy' - now I remember! How exciting.

[dogstar101.livejournal.com]

Hi, thanks for the biographical information. It's interesting to hear that you're studying in America - how exciting. I'm at the start of a PhD programme myself, stuck in grey London for the time being.

I agree with you that HP isn't great literature - or even great children's literature - but I do find the books fascinating nonetheless. I think that bit of emotional distance may be what makes it possible for me to write fanfic set in that world, and extend it a little in my own way. If I had to list my favourite children's book series, HP would lag behind AF's books (and Arthur Ransome's and a few others too). But when I dipped into the fandom, I found I didn't want to read AF fan fiction for some reason. I think I'm *so* attached to those characters, and have been living with my interpretation of them for so long, that other people's seemed like an invasion. But then, I'm quite choosy about my HP fan fiction too! I don't really bother with H/G and R/Hr, because I prefer my own interpretations of them usually and yes, there is so much tooth-rotting dross out there. For me too, St. Margarets's writing is the exception because of its quality.

Back to AF - following on from your post the other day about epilogues - did Patrick marry Nicola or Ginty? I would rather answer that question for myself. I really applaud Antonia Forest for simply saying that she didn't know, and he might not marry either of them. Anyway, that's why I didn't continue reading your Nicholas story, which was SO beautifully written, I felt like I owed you an explanation :)

Antonia Forest wrote the book on understated shipping IMHO.
"Will you dance with me practically continuously?"
"My pleasure." Which it was, too. No fooling.

How sad is it that I can write that from memory and the only Shakespeare sonnet I can recite is the one in The Player and the Rebels?

/waffle

[dogstar101.livejournal.com]

StMargarets's? How the bloody hell did that get in there?

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Hey, no need to apologise/explain about stopping reading. When I wrote those AF pieces - most of it years and years ago - I never in my wildest dreams imagined that anyone would ever read them. They're my Nicholas and Bess and my Nicola and Patrick - they don't have to be yours or anyone else's.

And you're quite right about AF and understated shipping. The flight of geese that should have been Nicola's. And the bit where they've just realised they've all forgotten Ginty's birthday and Patrick says to Nicola, 'Better stay forgotten. There's no point...' and when she prompts him, 'Just no point,' as if he'd discovered there was more to the phrase than he'd known was there.

I've never seen Cymbeline (I don't even know what it's about) but I could recite 'Fear no more the heat o' the sun' perfectly!!

[dogstar101.livejournal.com]

Oh, Falconer's Lure. I read it when I was 11 or 12 and then could never find it again (no doubt some canny AF fan nicked it from the library). I LONGED for it for the next 20 odd years! Then of course, when I read it again, it was *even* better. 'Tom's Angel' - shivers down my spine. And sleeping in the haystack. Hehe. How shocking. ;)

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

YOu don't have to be American to enter American Idol. There was a British bloke who auditioned this year (in Seattle I think, or maybe Minneapolis) who'd gone to the US especially for AI, and he got through to "Hollywood".

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

All is not lost! Though I think you do still have to be able to sing.

[sibtrelawney.livejournal.com]

Uh--not from what I saw in the first week of auditions... ;-)

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Hee hee.

[stmargarets.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you posted. I didn't know you had moved to the US for graduate work. I was a little worried about you this Fall when you mentioned that you had just moved to the US since I know what a huge transition that is. But you are there for a purpose and at least in school you can meet all kinds of intelligent, interesting people. Aren't you glad you had online life as a touchstone while you were in the moving process? For me it feels homey to have the same relationship with the same people no matter where in the world I am with the computer.

Oh, dear. H/G - you don't know how often I've heard that. I started out with that pairing and then branched out to other characters, but I keep coming back to them as my favorites to write. (Ironically, I don't like to read much H/G fan fiction. LOL - maybe I have the same problem with the sweetness and light.)

Word on Charlie Weasley! I hope to fill a gap in the fandom with him soon!

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Hooray for St Margarets writing Charlie Weasley!

And thanks for all your encouragement. You're so right about the internet - it's been like a real lifeline over the last few months, both as a way of keeping in touch with people back home and, as you say, maintaining some relationships without any change at all.

[ladywhizbee.livejournal.com]

It was so fascinating to find out why you moved here, and what it is that you're really interested in. I made a big move to get my Masters degree--but certainly *not* out of country! Good for you. Studying is so much fun...as long as you have the time to invest in it. Good luck as you start into a new semester!

Hugs! :-)

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I am really grateful not to have to work my way through (at least at this stage of the studies) and I am trying not to do too many other things, although that's easier said than done.

[ladywhizbee.livejournal.com]

oooo...please let it be Charlie/Luna! :-)

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I agree.