Finishing the Program

This is going to be my last post on this blog, unless I later return to the UK. I received notifcation of my final mark on my dissertation, which was an 80%, an upper level distinction. According to Ed, this is an absurdly high grade for the British grading system. All three of the examiners agreed that my work is of publishable quality, which of course my dissertation supervisor (one of the examiners) has been saying all along. So we'll be working on publishing a new version of it in the upcoming months. Anyway, because I got a distinction on my dissertation and most of my other courses, I'll pass with distinction from the program, which I think is less common at Master's level.

In related news, my supervisor and I have submitted an abstract of a paper for presentation at Euralex, and lexicography conference in Norway in August. Our paper is related to the topic of my dissertation and is a summary of why the current dictionary entries for "like" are insufficient, giving suggestions for improvement. If it's accepted, my partner will present at the conference, and I miiiiight be able to go too, but I'm not sure yet.

In other news, I got a job at a Catholic women's junior college in Kagoshima, Japan, starting in April, and I'm very excited about it. It's good money, room and board included, only seven classes a week plus an hour of tutoring, eleven weeks of vacation, and it's in a warm climate on the coast. So I'll be starting a new blog once I get into that. I haven't thought of a clever name yet, though.

Anyway, Brighton was a lot of fun and probably the best place I've lived so far. I was sad to leave it for various reasons.

Around Brighton

There are a few sights around Brighton that I never bothered to take pictures of until I was almost gone. Luckily there was that week of sun and heat that let me get out one day and record the town.

Here are a few pictures of St. Peter's Church, the biggest church in town, and one of the major landmarks.

Here's an obelisk at the base of the church grounds.

I think this is called Victoria Gardens. I find it really weird because it's a park that's a long strip of pretty landscaping, whatever, but it's right in the middle of the busiest road in town--the road is split so it's one way on one side of the grass, and the other way the other. Who the hell would want to hang out there? But they do.

Further down in the park is one of the millions of statues of Queen Victoria that are strewn about England.

She was kind of an ugly wench. But the people love her.

 

This is a gate to the Pavilion Gardens, which are the grounds of the Royal Pavilion, THE major landmark in town. We've really just moved across the street from the statue. I kept telling Ed that Brighton is a one-street town, but he didn't like that.

Here are some areas around the Pavilion Gardens. Some of it is protected, so you can't go on it. But the rest always has people picnicking on it and such, plus buskers, and they also have events over there frequently.

Also on the grounds is the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, which we went into a couple times.

This is the back of the Royal Pavilion, which was built from another structure as like a vacation place for King George IV, back when he was just the Prince of Wales. It went to his successor and then to Queen Victoria, but she didn't really like Brighton because it was kind of skeezy back then, so she (well, her government) sold it to the town in 1850. Since then it's been used for tourism mainly.

These photos are of the front of the Pavilion. I don't have any pictures of the inside because even though I went with Ed about a year ago, they don't allow photos on the inside. You can find some on Google Image or whatever, though, if you're curious. The inside is pretty ridiculously extravagant, as you can probably imagine from seeing the outside.

 

 

 

 

In front of the Pavilion is Old Steine. According to the Victorian-era prints I got at a flea market, it used to be just a nice big grassy field, and according to some website, it was the social hub of town. I guess that makes sense, since both the Pavilion and the beach are right there. Anyway, there's not a helluva lot of grass left, just a little triangle between the two halves of Brighton's one road, which has this veterans' memorial on it.

Across the road is a fountain that people sit around and eat their lunch and stuff.

Another major tourist attraction in Brighton is the pier. It's a pier--arcades, rides, junk food.

Perhaps I never mentioned this, but the Brighton beach that's so popular a destination is a frigging pebble beach. Those rocks hurt.

It's hard to tell from the photo, but these are the adult version of Johnny Jump-up. You jump up and down on a bungee harness over a trampoline. It looks fun, but I can't do it because of my neck.

Here are some beach photos.

Then I decided to take some "art" photos.

This is the West Pier, which has been rebuilt a couple times, but keeps meeting with disaster. I think they've given up.

Here's the pier at night, specifically White Night, which is a festival they have on the night before the clocks fall back. I guess they figure if you're going to get an extra hour, you might's well spend it partying.

The rest of the pictures are from White Night, too. This is just light displays we saw on the beach. We'd wanted to go to the aquarium, since I'd never been and it was open until late night (allegedly) and free, but the wait was like 40 minutes when we got there, so we decided to skip it. Apparently for the second year in a row they had to close way before the target closing time of 2am or something, because it was just too many people wanting to get in.

This ferris wheel is a very recent addition to the Brighton shore. I imagine the inhabitants of the likely very expensive beach view apartments (flats) across the street are pretty pissed off.

That's it for Brighton sights.