Beowulf, Retold by Odd Future

So this medieval blog I occasionally check out posted a link to a retelling of Beowulf, and because I'm a masochist, I looked at it anyway. 
It's actually not as bad as I feared it would be.  Mostly, it's just as crazy and ridiculous as actual Beowulf, but with some humor thrown in.  Honestly, it reads like Odd Future wrote it, except with less rape.  (And I'm honestly not complaining.  All the rape in Odd Future really turns me off.) 
So enjoy.  If you can.  I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to go near the thing. 

Being a Medievalist

The professor was actually impressed today during the review for the final on Wednesday. We were actually asking good questions so that we would understand it.
I'm really sad about leaving medieval history, though I suspect I won't have enough time to get upset about, seeing as I have another final, two research papers and a thesis to write in the next nine days.
So maybe I'll postpone that until after the term is over.
But thinking about it now, a few things become clear. First, becoming a medievalist was totally a fluke. I decided one morning freshman year, while asleep in my bed, that I wanted to try a second major in history. All year I did not have history classes and it made me sad. Every history major has to take the basic class, and I choose a class based on location and time. When I signed up, there was no subject and no teacher attached. It was all random that I got medieval. I suspect if it had been something else and the teacher had been cool, I might be obsessed with that now.
Secondly, I'm so glad that medieval happened because it forced me to learn a little Latin and to see how complicated European history is. It's easy for Americans to brush off stuff and just focus on the plague or the Crusades, but other stuff happened, like the Investiture Contest, like the splitting of Charlemange's empire, like the Pope's policy of neutralizing any significant political power in Italy. All of it had long reaching consequences, and all of those examples are important to understanding things today. I'm happy for that perspective.
And also, being a medievalist is just another way I'm nerdy. It's a different kind of nerdy, but one that Dungeons and Dragon kids can appreciate.
I'm hoping that in the future, I will occasionally make time for medieval history. I'm want to keep reading about it.

If you happen to be like me, I can suggest the following books:

God's War: A New History of the Crusades One of the best books I've read on the Crusade. Easy to understand prose. He doesn't shy away from explaining the important ways the Crusades were influences by other things happening at the time.
William Marshal: Knighthood, War and Chivalry Crouch is Marshal's main biographer, and this book is a decent explanation of his life. Might be a little harder to work on if you're not familiar with the events at hand.
Medieval Architecture, Medieval Learning: Builders and Masters in the Age of Romanesque and Gothic One of the strangest books I've encountered in my studies. I'm not sure I buy the argument of the book, which is that architects and masters worked sort of in tandem to create great masterpieces in their respective fields. But the explanations of medieval architecture are perfect. And there are pretty pictures. My copy has those pictures in black and white, but I'd love to see a color version of this book.
The Song of Roland One of the first poems in French. It's the classic story of the brave knight Roland who sacrifices himself to save his beloved king, Charlemagne. Though not accurate historically, it's still a fun read.
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings A glorious book. Easy read and great images to bring the Viking world alive.
Arthur: The Seeing Stone Though not an actual history book, this is easily my favorite fictional book about the time period. Although written for a young adult audience, it's delightful.

Professors

I went in to see one of my professors about a paper. I figure professors love it when you come into see them, since so few students make the effort. I noticed last week this professor's hours were right after a class and just down the street, so it seemed perfect.
There's something off about him. I'm not totally sure yet what it is, but it's been bugging me all semester. I get the feeling that he doesn't like me. Certainly, I've heard other students complain about how pompous he is, which, although he does seem knowledgeable about the subject at hand, doesn't really make me like him all that much. But I feel like I haven't done anything that should earn me his dislike. I've shown up to every class, and participate, and always do the reading and turn in all the homework. What more should a professor want? I mean, sure, I don't always answer questions correctly, but the entire point of a class is to learn, and there's nothing to learn if you already have the answers.
It's possible he thinks I'm pompous. I do think I know a lot about the background of what we're studying. This class is on the Catholic Church in the early Modern world. I've taken heaps of medieval history classes, and, for what I hope are obvious reasons, I've managed to learn a lot about medieval Catholicism. The Catholic Church is not a dynamic institution; as a general rule, if it was once that way, it's probably still that way. So I know a lot about religious orders and saints and Popes and the general "how things work" kind of knowledge, which has been helpful. But I would be the first to concede that I don't know much about mission work or the Inquisitions. I might be quick to guess the reasons why things happened, but I wouldn't know.
Maybe this is the first time a professor has disliked my enthusiasm. I've yet to come across someone who doesn't like that I care about school, but I do. I care not just because it's school with a capital 'S,' but because I'm studying things I'm interested in, and things that I like learning about. And, really, I'm very lucky. Lots of people go to college and either study something they don't like or eventually hate. I get to do things that make me happy.

Medieval Architecture

Today in class we had a slide show about medieval architecture. I really liked learning about this, even though I basically know nothing about architecture. (I'm a little more up on medieval history, thankfully.)
One of the many things I use history class for is travel tips. Hopefully, I will one day go back to Europe, and when I do, I want to see a lot of these things, like Saint Denis and the Monte Cassino.
The last time I was in Europe, I hung out mostly in southern England, which was awesome. I ended up going to a lot of centers for Christian worship. I went to famous places, like Glastonberry Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral, but I also found myself going to smaller churches, like St. Michael Paternoster, which is famous for holding the remains of a man the Lord Mayor of London four times. Or St. Anne and St. Agnes, where I got to listen to a Mozart concert. Or St. Edmund, King and Martyr, which is now actually a bookstore specializing in, you guessed it, religious books. I went to other churches and had other adventures, and I won't bore you with details, but I ended up being a church obsessive, though hardly on purpose.
If my professor keeps up the discussion on church architecture, it's only going to become worse. My next trip to Europe, whenever that comes, is just going to have more churches.