Baby's First Conference

WELL. I thought post-dissertation life would mainly involve luxuriating in front of the TV watching endless repeats of Murder She Wrote, but it turns out to be even busier than before!

Alongside PhD applications, conference abstracts, and discussing potential teaching opportunities, I have started a new job; I'm now Project Officer for the Temporal Co-ordination in Communication project run jointly by York and Cambridge universities. My role sounds far more fancypants than it actually is, but basically I am working on gesture and rhythm in speech, and analysing audio and visual data in various ways to investigate how participants negotiate communication using both their voices and bodies. It's SUPER interesting, and I'm enjoying it immensely - I learn about eight thousand new things a day, and working on an actual linguistics research project is the most amazing opportunity.

Wednesday saw my lovely bestie Becky visit Grand Old York, and we had a fabulous time getting spontaneous piercings, exploring the city and the Minster and such (I love any opportunity to go Full Tourist; despite living here for a year, it never gets boring), and kicking through bright autumn leaves like the big kids we are. Subsequently joined by Ed, we all later prepared my house for a Hallowe'en party which went off wonderfully*, with costumes ranging from the typical (ghosts, skeletons, etc.) through a-typical (Caeser, Alice Cooper), to the quite magnificent (a zom-bee, from an apiologist friend). My offering was Daphne from Scooby Doo**:

Jinkies

Following a fantastic few days (and a discombobulating trip around Illuminating York, which you honestly couldn't have thought up unless you were in some kind of trippy fever dream), a different Becky and I headed off to Manchester for the New Researchers Forum in Linguistics, where we would both be presenting our MA research.

I've never been to a conference before, let alone presented at one, so the whole experience was terrifyingly exhilarating. I learnt a staggering amount (with several of the talks being directly relevant to my work, which was incredible), met some truly wonderful people I very much hope to see again, and according to Sam, did my first conference 'properly' i.e. went out to the pub the night before giving my presentation.

My talk had run long every single time I did it, but I think the nerves of the day brought out my usual, jabbery self and I garbled my way through it just on time without missing out too many important points. Questions were helpful and not too intimidating, and people were wonderfully lovely about the whole thing. I know I have a tendency to a) ramble and b) flail about, so it's good to know people got the jist despite my ridiculousness.

Giving it my best presentation face (photo by Becky).

I think the best bit about the weekend was just being able to casually chat about, amongst other things, linguistics and language with like-minded, lovely folk who are just as keen-beany as I am. Glorious. I can see why conferences are so addictive!

One final thing that came from the weekend was a sprawling Twitter-based game of #linguistmovies, which spread into #linguistsongs, and got so fun I decided to collect everything together here - a page which will no doubt be constantly extended, as we continue to furiously procrastinate from our real work by making terrible/excellent puns. Hell yeah, linguists.

*even with the presence of a Jimmy Savile costume, despite my assurance that I wouldn't let anybody in if they were dressed up like him. Not big or clever, guys.

**I'm more of a Velma myself, but my hair is the right colour for Daph.

#BOOM

I am very sorry in advance for the tone of this post, which will be quite shamelessly giddy and slightly bragging, but please do allow me this little immodesty.

MA Linguistics, with Distinction

WELL THAT'S A BIT EXCITING.

Having had a weekful of sleepless nights and anxiety attacks waiting for my results to come out*, we were finally told our dissertation results on Friday. I was shaking like a leaf logging into e:vision, and promptly burst into tears upon finding out I'd managed to get the Distinction I was so, so hoping for.

Basically my reaction. For reals.

My dissertation was a little bit of a risk; there was little background, and the phenomenon I was investigating was entirely unattested. And thank the sun, moon, stars and cosmos it all worked out. This is so far beyond anything I could have imagined that I still haven't quite been able to process it.

So, yeah, I'm basically over the moon! This year has been both the best and worst of my life in parts, and I'm just so happy to have something to show for it, something I'm immensely proud of. And, of course, I am incredibly grateful for everybody who helped me stay sane; friends, teachers, counsellors, and my amazing family.

And now comes the next step; PhD applications are in the offing, and I'm presenting my dissertation at the Manchester Salford New Researchers Forum in Linguistics in a couple of weeks, my first conference. Both terrifying prospects, but incredibly exciting, and I feel so lucky to be where I am right now.

Onwards!

*Remember Little Miss Academic Insecurity? Yeah, this time of year is where that kicks into overdrive and starts to affect me physically as well as mentally. Fun times!

Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare's Globe, 13th October 2012

Oof, I do love theatre. Next to linguistics, it is the light of my life. Compared to last summer, where I practically lived in London and overdosed on the stuff, this summer has been pitifully theatre-bare (pissing all your money away on an MA and then spending your summer writing a thesis for said MA kind of shoots any kind of recreational theatre horse right in the face*). However, I made sure to book for The Globe's closing weekend the day the tickets went on sale -- last night performances always have that something special about them, a kind of exuberant frenzy tinged with sadness from the cast and creatives, and in a theatre like The Globe, that's all the more electric.

Following a thoroughly excellent housewarming party at our new abode, I tore myself out of bed and just about managed a five-hour coach journey to London with a stonking hangover (remind me again why I continue to drink wine?), but was cured by the fresh yet biting October cold, the presence of Emma, and a little hair of the dog.

Classing it up with melon martinis

After a thorough deconstruction of the recent terrible life choices of Team Shameless, we wandered Globewards, queued for a time, and got a sweet spot thrust-left alongside Sophie, Jo, Jan, Rhian, and Rob, living proof that people you meet on the Internet are uniformly excellent.

Our first show of the weekend was The Taming of the Shrew. Though I know the text, I've never seen a production before and have heard that, pitched poorly, it can be DIRE, being one of the most problematic of Shakey's plays to transfer to a modern, enlightened audience. This production, however, overcame any and every issue with the text, resulting in a sparky, filthy, hilarious and gorgeous rendering of the play which left me giggling and delighted for the whole next day.

The onus of responsibility for pulling off a good Taming is going to rest on your leads, and Samantha Spiro and Simon Paisley-Day carried it brilliantly, fizzling with chemistry from their very first moment, and managing the tricky textual relationship between the lovers perfectly. Their Kate and Petruchio were swaggering, kinky and super hot for each other (without betraying their own integrity), and there something about a height difference that makes a Kate/Petruchio dymanic all the more delicious (see also: Rufus Sewell and Shirley Henderson in Shakespeare ReTold).

Height difference!

The 'taming' scenes, where Kate bends to Petruchio's will were played like a game, with Kate indulging her husband very knowingly - a fantastic way of interpreting the script. This Kate has always had to act up to get even the slightest bit of fair treatment, that's all she knows, and this Petruchio sees that and wants to change her for her, not his own gain. Fabulous.

(Also, Simon Paisley Day spends a goodly amount of this production in a thong-codpiece. Props to him for braving the cold, and for having some killer hipbones.)

The younger, flightier Bianca and Lucentio were adorably interpereted by Sarah MacRae and Joseph Timms; the former adding fantastic, calculated cruelness to the textually weak sister, and the latter being the most puppy-eyed, giddy-hearted sap you could hope to see. The entire supporting cast were faultless, adding tiny slivers of comedy to nearly every line and filling the stage with a cheeky exuberance which left you feeling scandalised - in a good way.

Even with such strong leads, two of the supporting roles were absolute scene-stealers. Tom Godwin's Biondello was brimming with rakish charm, twinkly-eyed asides and hilarious physical comedy. From miming the contents of a letter to book-carrying and wielding a sword, everything was executed hilariously and on-point. Jamie Beamish played a beaming (no pun intended), ridiculous Tranio whose exaggerated everything had us consistently in stitches - whenever he, Timms and Godwin shared a scene I swear my face hurt from grinning so hard.

This photo had to be embiggened, for facial expression reasons.

Special mention should also go to Pearce Quigly, whose lackadaisical, snarky Grumio was a thing of beauty, and who managed to make kicking a bucket the most spectacular joke of the night.

Throw into the mix some glorious music, typically gorgeous costuming and a beautifully tender ending and you're left with several hundred raucously cheering theatregoers. All in all, a tremendous stonker of a show with buckets of vibrancy and even more heart. The Globe at its best**.

*That metaphor kind of got away from me there.
**I do think The Globe owes me some recompense for the fact that I shall never be able to get the incredibly catchy Cuckoo's Nest song from my head, mind. However, if you've been standing for three hours watching a show, imitating supernumerary Robert Heard's brilliant 'Cuckoo's Nest Wiggle' is great for the spine.

Doctor Who, Series 7, episodes 1-4

I cannot lie, a second, sneaky reason for reinvigorating this blog was as a place for tellyfeelings, because - lo! - it is Autumn, which brings the best of all the television and more and more reasons not to leave the house. Strictly Come Dancing! Downton Abbey*! The Thick of It! Parks and Recreation! Elementary! New Girl! Spy! And a million and one other new and returning shows delighting (and occasionally frustrating) my eyeballs.

Most of my current feelings come, as always, from Doctor Who, which remains the show of my soul. (I wouldn't have it any other way - I honestly hope I never grow out of it.) And so, here's some brief thinky thoughts about Series 7 so far:

Asylum of the Daleks
An interesting season opener, but rife with flaws and frustrations. Really enjoyed the idea of a Dalek asylum, and having other species suffering from PTSD, even a species with famously little emotion. Oswin was a darling, and I am thoroughly excited to see how it works out with her character, timey-wimey-wise. (There were a billion plot holes and things that will need explaining, but - sigh - this is what we are used to.) Regardless, Jenna Louise Coleman is precious, and I'm always excited for a new companion. I just hope Moffat does her justice.

Alas, the episode was thoroughly sullied by the ridiculousness of the Amy/Rory dynamic. It was, in short, bullshit, and made them both look like idiots: Amy for not voicing her feelings, and Rory for playing the martyr card yet again. And, really, in this day and age, would a young couple who can't naturally have children seriously not think of other avenues - adoption, fostering, surrogacy, IVF, or - I don't know - not having children? It cheapened their relationship, and drove me fucking nuts. A shame, really, because the rest of the episode was decent.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship
I've read mixed reviews of this one, but I am firmly on the 'loved it' side. It was, as Hector puts it, "sheer, calculated silliness"; a good old jaunt full of spacey-wacey, timey-wimey ridiculousness. And DINOSAURS. What's not to love? Of course, the random addition of Queen Nefertiti and silver fox Rupert Graves (who probably had a character name, but it escapes me) was daft, but the whole thing was sweet and fun and lovely. Brian Pond was a delightful addition (how could a character played by Mark Williams not be?), and his mini-arc was absolutely gorgeous, bringing several tears to my eyes. All in all, not a groundbreaking episode, but charming all the same.

A Town Called Mercy
Toby Whithouse is a reliably excellent writer (still not over how awesome The God Complex was), and this was no exception. A really thought-provoking episode with solid plot and characterisation, and a good old moral dilemma. The wild west was gorgeously portrayed, Adrian Scarborough was - again - reliably brilliant, and it tapped into some aspects of the Doctor's psyche (guilt about the Time War, never wielding weapons, what to do when a bad guy's also a good guy, etc.) which have been lately untapped. The Ponds were a little superfluous, but overall it was excellent.

The Power of Three
WARNING: feelings ahead. Absolutely my favourite episode of the series so far. I've heard people criticise it for its lack of plot, so I'll tackle that first. I admit, the resolution was hasty and hand-wavy, but the underlying plot was really solid -- the idea of a slow invasion, one that encourages people to trust the invadee, is excellent, and I thought the whole 'we need to stop humanity before they colonise space' was a brilliant observation (which, I concede, would benefit from being explored properly), and one that reflects cleverly upon our nasty tendency to stick a flag in things and call them ours. (Also, can we have more Kate Stewart in the future, please? Because awesome.)

However, this episode wasn't really about the plot. It was ALL about the characterisation. Oh, and what characterisation it was! In the new series, we haven't explored the dynamic of having the companions gradually fade from the Doctor's life of their own accord; Martha left, but succinctly, and otherwise it has been a swift memory wipe** or banishment to a parallel universe which has signalled the end of a partnership. I liked that Amy and Rory came to realise, enjoy and stand up for the importance of their everyday lives, and build a normality that wasn't based around the Doctor - it's important for their characters.

And the Doctor's reaction was beautifully explored. The scene on the Thames, "you're the first face this face saw, and you're seared onto my hearts" - oh my soul, just gorgeous. He's so used to being the dazzler, the one everybody runs to, that he never quite realised that he runs to people too, that he needs them. And Amy in particular has always been this little girl fascinated by him -- she was the girl who waited, and he's finding it hard to deal with the fact that she doesn't want to wait any more.

And yet, they make such a wonderful team - while Amy and the Doctor have a special bond, Rory is fully integrated into the ~gang, as demonstrated by the badassery of this shot***:

Sauce

Ach, it was just a perfect example of the Doctor/Amy/Rory dynamic - the Ponds and their temperamental space toddler. (To some extent, they really have brought him up!) Of course, this comes but a week before what promises to be a gut-wrenching finale full of woe. But for the moment I'm happily not listening, and am just basking in what was a bloody excellent episode.

*Downton may get its own post, which will mainly be made up of 'WHEN DID THIS SHOW GET GOOD' written over and over again.

**Still bitter.

***Don't even get me started on how good Arthur Darvill looks this series. Your hair looks sexy pushed back, etc.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Were this blog a real-life book, I would be dragging it out from under my bed and blowing dust off the cover. I have been spectacularly neglectful recently; dissertation-madness can take most of the blame, but in general it has been the most spectacularly awful two months*. Heartbreak! Family illness! Everyone I love having emotional breakdowns and crises at the same time! etc. etc. moan whinge.

I am only allowing myself the briefest of whines about all this gumph, however, because the whole damn point of this blog post is change! Newness! Epiphanies! I have one more week until I move into my new house for the year with a lovely bunch of new and old friends, and I am so ready for a change I can't even tell you. New house, new academic year, new ventures - I'm currently looking for work in York, while I spend the year applying for PhD schemes and funding. Really looking forward to getting to know new people, developing new skills and having a bit of a brain break. (Not too much, mind. I'm presenting at the Manchester Salford New Researchers Forum in Linguistics in November - aaaaaah!)

In amongst all the ANGST of the past few months, I have found both solace and eternal frustration in my dissertation, which I submitted eight days ago.

It liiiives.

My preeeecious. Good lord it's terrifying thinking that someone may currently by hacking at this with a red pen, cackling wildly at my terrible prose and ludicrous ideas. I'm working on a blog post that will (hopefully) explain the content of the thesis in non-linguisticky terms, so I will refrain from doing that now, but it has been a labour of love getting it done, and - much as I'm worried about the impending judgement - I'm proud of it.

The MA has finished with a fizzle rather than a bang. Variable deadlines, people going on holiday and a general bereft melancholy that has beset us all has meant that there wasn't really a definitive ending to the whole thing. The finicky time between submitting and moving house has been filled with seeing people before they leave, museum-visiting and frantic job-applying. I feel really lucky that I've made great friends with people from various far-flung corners of the world this year, and hope to visit lots of them in the future. Today's particularly tearful goodbye was to Ali and Bri, two wonderful, wonderful girls who have made this year immeasurably better. You know people are friends for life when they screech AVPM songs with you at 2am <3

And today? Today I have fallen in love with cycling. I bought some roller blades a couple of months ago; I was always more of a skatey child than a bikey one, so wanted to reignite my love of skating. I did, but the pavements and roads around York and prohibitively bad (cobbles! *shakes fist*), and it just wasn't viable to use it as a method of transportation. I'm going to keep skating recreationally, but I bought Ali's bike from her to give that a go instead.

IT'S WONDERFUL. I now wish I'd had a bike this year - I was so worried I'd be bad after so many years off, but, whaddya know, riding a bike really IS like riding a bike! I fancied getting out of the house today, so I cycled off with no particular destination in mind, and ended up accidentally cycling about 20 miles altogether! Around local villages, up and down the Ouse, and the whole Solar System route, all in beautiful sunshine, taking in the most wonderful Yorkshire scenery. My thighs may not forgive me tomorrow, and I am already suffering from sore butt syndrome, but it was such a wonderful way to spend and afternoon. I returned quite invigorated :)

Cycle-weary, but sunshiney happy.

At the final solar system point - Pluto. Still a planet, dammit!

More regular blog posts, including (I hope) more cycling adventures, to come!

*I appreciate I haven't updated since the end of May, but shh.

On Stoke, and a change of heart

Here are two facts about me:

1. I grew up in Newcastle-under-Lyme, a small town right next to Stoke-on-Trent.
2. I used to be ashamed of this first fact.

And a third.

3. I'm no longer ashamed of the first fact, but I am ashamed of the second.

I'm from Stoke. I'm not really a Stokie, nor will I ever be, really, but I'm sick of being embarrassed by my hometown, and I'm angry with myself for having been so in the past. I've had what you might call a minor epiphany, of late, and have realised that a lot of the resentment I held towards Stoke as a city was wrapped up in my own, under-the-surface classism and prejudice, something I'm hoping to rid myself of in the future. Here's hoping this is the start of it.

To provide a bit of history/geography, Stoke-on-Trent is a city in the North West Midlands of the UK, approximately equidistant from Manchester in the North and Birmingham in the South, not far from Crewe and Alton Towers*. 

Look, there it is!

Notable Stokies include the novelist Arnold Bennett; Edward Smith, Captain of the Titanic; footballer Stanley Matthews; Slash from Guns n Roses (for the first five years of his life, anyway); and - of course - Robbie Williams**. It's quite unique in its construction, being a conurbation of six towns - Burslem, Tunstall, Hanley, Fenton, Longton and Stoke*** - which also means it has a complex identity and fragmented sense of self, juxtaposed with a strong sense of local pride.

Historically, it has always been an industrial centre, surrounded by moorlands. Its pottery, mining and steel industries were some of the best in the country, with Wedgewood pottery being its most prominent and impressive export. However, recession and the Conservative government of the 80s led to much of this being closed or downsized - a huge hit for the city's economy. It's never quite recovered.

Perhaps owing to a combination of its faltering industry, lack of 'historic' and stereotypically pleasant architecture and portrayal in the media (as well as other factors), Stoke is often used as a shorthand for non-affluence, dreariness and/or unpleasantness. For example, in Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe, he described a video game which depicted a post-apocalyptic landscape strewn with dead bodies and toxic waste, and likened it to 'living in Stoke'. The amount of times, when telling people I'm from Stoke, I've been greeted with sighs of patronising pity, is really quite ridiculous.

Thing is, I used to buy into it, too. I was embarrassed. Stoke isn't pretty - it's not York or Durham or Cambridge. And it's not a new, thriving urban centre like Manchester or Sheffield. It's stagnant, it's struggling, and it's deprived. It has poor levels of heathcare, a high number of families relying on benefits, and was recently listed as the eighth poorest place in the UK. Football-related violence and BNP support are rife and widely-reported**** in the area. But I've realised that doesn't make it a bad place and doesn't make its people any lesser, nor does it justify a) my being embarrassed by it, or b) people openly mocking it.

I don't claim to be working class - to say would be appropriative and stupid. I may have been mocked by my Southern friends for not trying pesto until I was 18, but I had a middle-class, comfortable upbringing, which is not the case for many people in Stoke. There is an inextricable link between working class origins and violence, low intelligence and laziness, a link perpetuated by the media, and by the inherent classism that many middle class people carry with them. This isn't the place to get into social disenchantment, but the coverage of the London riots displays it perfectly - a generation of people left stranded by their government driven to extremes, yet brushed off with statements about yob culture and poor familial discipline.

It makes me quite disgusted with myself to admit this, but I think my rejection of being from Stoke has a lot to do with my need to detach myself from the city's poor reputation. While I don't think it's the 'working class'-ness specifically that I rejected, the stigma of being from Stoke always annoyed me, and I tried my hardest to disassociate myself. Going to University, the majority of people around you are new and excitingly middle-class, so any opportunity to have a quick laugh at my awful home town was embraced, without me realising that I was perpetuating the horrid stereotypes myself, and adding to the barrage of classism people face day-in, day-out.

Visiting recently has given me a much-needed punch in the face when it comes to my mocking of Stoke. Having read more on classism and prejudice, I realised how awful my own actions were, and how horribly haughty and stuck-up I'd been each time I'd looked down upon people who live in Stoke. I'm absolutely no better than anybody who lives there, and to think otherwise is to have a sense of my own self-importance that is beyond measure. Hideous.

I'm reminded of Jane Austen's Emma, where the eponymous hero mocks the 'tiresome' and lowly Mrs Bates, and is thoroughly chastised by Mr Knightley. 'She should secure your compassion, not your contempt!' Knightley angrily cries, admonishing Emma for thinking herself so above Mrs Bates, who is financially hard-done-by and considered ridiculous by higher society. That's precisely the case with me and Stoke. Stoke has had a bloody hard time of it, and continues to do so. It's not pretty, it's not affluent, and it's not the cultural capital of the country, but mocking it is cruel and unnecessary. It gets a hard enough time as it is - I should be defending it, helping somehow, not tearing it down even further. By speaking poorly of it on such a regular basis, particularly as a native, I'm only perpetuating the awful stereotypes it is associated with, and furthering its poor treatment by the public, a treatment wrapped up in classism and prejudice.

The accent

One of the most salient stigmas I distanced myself from was the accent. I remember being about seven and coming home from school, talking to my mum about a book. The general vowel for the 'oo' in book in the North of England is [ʊ], like the vowel in full; in Stoke, however, it's often pronounced as [u:] like the vowel in cool. When I told my mum about the bewk I'd read, she told me I wasn't to say it like that, that it was wrong, and that I should say buck, luck and cuck. I've said that ever since, and have often cringed when people did otherwise, and have looked down upon the Stoke accent, thinking it common or improper.

I was a fucking idiot, as I have later realised. Many years of linguistic study has made me realise that, no matter how many times people say that there is a correct way to speak (and believe me, people say it A LOT), no accent is intrinsically better than another. They are only judged as 'better' because of the arbitrary associations between location, accent and personal characteristics, and the rise of the Southern 'standard'. I repeat: NO ACCENT IS INTRINSICALLY BETTER AT THE JOB OF COMMUNICATING THAN ANY OTHER. It's that simple. People will say that some accents sound ugly, stupid, or wrong, and they are of course entitled to their opinion, but it's important to understand that such opinions come from years of ingraining prescriptivism into our collective consciousness.

That's why I'm hoping to study the Stoke accent in detail - for a variety with so much idiosyncrasy, connection to identity and stigma attached to it, there's been very little academic linguistic analysis going on. I'm looking at a specific feature for my MA dissertation, and - with a lot of luck and hard work - I hope to use my potential PhD to document, explore and understand the complex relationship between the city's accent, its residents, and the general public.

In my own, quite pathetic way, these projects are like my love letter to Stoke. They're not going to change the world, but I hope that, in a small way, I'll be able to contribute to softening some of the stereotypes people have about Stoke, and I can make amends with the city who, for better or worse, made me who I am.

You're damn right I do.

----------

*I add in these details because, notoriously, nobody knows where Stoke actually is, and I've had to use some or all of these descriptions when trying to explain its location in the past. It comes from being part of the forgotten, unspecified Midlands, I think, combined with not being a notable visiting/tourist destination. Most people's reaction tends to be 'yeah, I went through the there on the train.'

**Definitely our most famous alumnus, it was originally pretty cool to be associated with Robbie, and to be able to tell people I once served his mum in Boots (claim to fame!!1!). I think we tend to play down the association since 'Do The Rudebox' came out. You understand. I'm listening to Escapology as I finish this post -- why did you fire Guy Chambers, Rob? Whyyyy?

***Bennett's 'Anna of the Five Towns' comes from this - he decided to omit one, because it sounded better with five.

****While the tone of this article is often frustratingly patronising, it accurately sheds light on why the citizens of an ailing city, let down by Labour and staunchly anti-Conservative, often drift towards the far right.

Teacher appreciation LIFE

This post had been kicking around in my drafts for about a week, when yesterday I discovered that today is National Teacher Appreciation day. What serendipity! And so, here is a waffly blog post about teaching, and why teachers are tip-top humans.

'Those who can, do. Those who can't do, teach.' And those who trot out this old adage can get stuffed. Those who give enough of a shit that they devote their lives to enabling others to do, teach. Teachers are heroes, inspiration, the best of people. I know it's clichéd, and I'm sure repeated watchings of Mona Lisa Smile* have given me an even more romantic view of teaching, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that I wouldn't be where I am without the effort, support and general brilliance of several staggeringly excellent teachers. Yeah, I'm passionate about learning, and about linguistics specifically, but if through random happenstance I'd not progressed through my schooling having been taught by the people I was, I'm not entirely sure I would be this excited, this driven, this in love with studying.

**

At my high school, every single student between years seven and nine was terrified of Mr Taylor. He was a force of nature, and everyone knew not to cross him, lest face his wrath. And what a wrath it was - he could stand inches from your face and bellow at you, never faltering, almost sinister in his eloquence. Thankfully, this never happened to me, but I saw it many a time, and that was more than enough to stop me crossing him. Of course, it didn't help that Mr Taylor was also a PE teacher, and thus his yelling was also heard on freezing November afternoons as we did cross-country running (or as it was more commonly known, institutionalised torture). Basically, we were shit-scared of the man.

Then came GCSE English, and Mr Taylor was assigned our set. It was like knowing a different man. Mr Taylor smiled, laughed and joked his way through our lessons, vibrant and hilarious but still with an incomparable command of the class (probably from the residual fear that he'd explode - the man crafted his reputation well). He encouraged critical thought, pushed us to be better, but mainly let us feed off his enjoyment of the subject, of poetry and prose, of literary history.

I remember his teaching of Second World War literature in particular. I can recall his explaining the translation of "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"; needing us to understand the terrible irony of the 'glories of war' was incredibly important to him. And the pause, during Wilfred Owen's Disabled, after he read 'In the old times, before he threw away his knees' -- I've never quite been able to shake the power of that line, and I think the pain in his reading of it is the reason. He cared so much, about history and suffering and the importance of art and literature in allowing a generation who never had to live through it to understand, to appreciate what came before them, and how we're able to live so well now.

As is a pattern with all of these teachers, I was a bit of a pet to Mr Taylor. Not because I was particularly academically adept, but I spoke up in class, and went to him for extra help. He used his lunchbreak to gently dissect a piss-awful poem I wrote and help me to draft another (to this day, I remain a piss-awful poet, but he did help), and another to calm me when I freaked out about reading the bit in Great Expectations where Mrs Havisham catches fire and dies, and to read that section through with me, making sure I was okay after every few lines. We also bonded over being Manchester City fans, and thus started my long career of pretending to know more about football than I actually do. At one parents' evening, as my folks sat down at his desk, he said 'Hannah's doing fine - so, did you see the match last night?' and proceeded to talk to my dad about City for fifteen minutes.

When we left year 11, he wrote the whole class a poem (still pinned to my noticeboard), which contained a line for each of us. He also wrote individual poems for a few of us, and I can remember mine off-by-heart, even now.

Hannah Leach
A blue
Good for you
Stay true
To your calling

Hannah Leach
The beach
Lies across the water
Don't do what you think
Do what you ought to
And the sun lounger will be yours

I hope I never forget that.

We went back to see Mr Taylor a few times after leaving school, but haven't been in over a year now. I hope I get to see him again, but more than that, I hope he knows the lasting effect he had on our class. (I'm realising this is getting a bit Dead Poets Society all up in here. I promise none of these stories end with a classmate shooting themselves and a bunch of us standing on tables.)

To complete the picture, a school-aged Han (who apparently only had one photo-pose)

**

Then came college. In my second year, I studied English Language and Literature with the same teacher - Stewart McNicol. Here again was a a teacher who gave a shit, who was interested and interesting, and a little bit weird. He taught us about diphthongs by talking about hyaenas, schooled us in l337 speak, and littered child language acquisition lessons with anecdotes about teaching his infant son the word 'meteorologist' so he'd look super smart when anybody asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He just enjoyed it.

Stoo also invented McNicol's Gallery of Tedious Anthropomorphism, a new instalment of which greeted us nearly every lesson, and elicited a welcome chuckle.

One of the things I remember most clearly is, when talking about books written for children and their simplified syntax, I spontaneously quoted Black Books without thinking - 'look in the alligator's mouth: it's not there either!' Being met with stony, confused silence from my fellow classmates, Stoo finished the quote - 'we all drank lemonade, the end!' - simultaneously a) making me feel like less of a moron, and b) cementing himself as teacher-type extraordinaire.

Since leaving college, Stoo has been kind enough to help me complete my undergraduate dissertation, giving up his free time for naught more than a bag of Tangfastics. Actually, considering he follows me on Twitter, there's every chance he's reading this sycophantic waffle right now. If so, cheers, Stoo!

**

My lucky streak extended into University, where I was fortunate enough to be taught by some cracking linguists, many of whom had paved the field of linguistics in the first place. (I still get a frisson of excitement when I see a book and think 'the author of that book taught me!') Specifically, I was particularly felicitous to be taught extensively by Kevin Watson. While I loved English Language at A Level, it was my three years at Lancaster University that saw me actually fall head-over-heels in love with Linguistics, and Kevin had a LOT to do with that. Here again was a teacher who radiated enthusiasm for the subject, who took pride in the field, and who was sure of its importance and relevance.

Kevin also supervised me through my dissertation, and the man deserves a MEDAL for putting up with me. One time, having gotten nowhere with an assignment for a course he didn't even teach, he sat quietly by as I cried and waffled about the Turkish noun data in front of me that just didn't make any sense god dammit, and calmly told me that I just needed to read a bit further and think a bit harder, and - lo and behold! - having found the right book in the library, it all finally clicked. He made me feel like I could actually do something in this field, make an impact, and do it well.

Beyond that, he's just a damn good teacher. Eloquent without being confusing, clear without being patronising. And, sharing a common thread with the other brilliant teachers I've mentioned, he gave a shit. He cared.

And a uni-aged Han (no seriously, why do I only have one pose/expression when a camera is pointed at me?)

 **

There have been times where I've felt more of a nuisance than a pupil, and generally discouraged from doing anything innovative, challenging, or left-field. Instead, I've felt encouraged to sit back, take the easy option, to not really try. It happens, and while I don't blame certain teachers for occasionally being this way (teachers have bad moods too!), it can be disheartening.

I've been struggling, lately, feeling a little lost academically. And then last week, I had a brilliant meeting with an MA lecturer, who - yet again - seemed to give a shit, and who encouraged me not to abandon my ideas. Good teachers make me I feel like I can do stuff, and do it well. I now have to actually do the stuff, of course, but the encouragement I've received throughout my academic career has been absolutely invaluable.

Teachers are heroes, and a good teacher can make a cosmos of difference.

*I knowww, it's terrible, but it's so pretty! And their faces! And the clothes!