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Artful Lounger learns Sanskrit (among other things!)

Artful Lounger learns Sanskrit - a GYG Blog?

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I wanted to make one of these at the start of the year, more as a way to maybe be publicly shamed into keeping on top of my work than anything else (maybe also to have something to procrastinate with when I should be doing me work) :colondollar:

Alas, I managed to procrastinate about making this GYG blog thing even, and so here I am finally making it...in reading week, halfway through term :redface:

About Me

I'm a mature ( :cry:

) student, studying (mostly) Sanskrit at SOAS. Previously I spent...quite a while studying in various STEM fields before eventually leaving due to my mental health taking a nosedive in about second year, as well as having lost my enthusiasm for STEM fields. I found while studying Ancient Greek with the OU that I enjoyed studying ancient languages, so decided to embark on studying Sanskrit at SOAS!

Outside of academics I mostly otherwise occupy myself with gaming, primarily being my guild's long suffering (in my view :tongue:

) healing officer on WoW Classic...and also for my sins I play LoL :colonhash:

Aside from that I play Monster Hunter World: Iceborne from time to time (although I've not actually played much after the Alatreon update; once I finally beat it I was a bit tapped out! I need to go back to try and take down Fatalis now that it's in the game though...), and used to play Runescape a fair bit, now less frequently as I don't have so much time to do so.

Academics

I'm studying a Certificate in South Asian Studies at SOAS, which I'm doing part time over two years.

This year I am taking the following modules:

Sanskrit Language 1A
Sanskrit Language 1B
Introduction to Linguistics
Themes in the Art and Archaeology of South and Southeast Asia

All of these except Sanskrit Language 1B are term 1 modules, however the linguistics and art & archaeology modules are examined in the summer, which gives me a bit more time to delve into the readings for those modules during term 2 while preparing for the exam, when otherwise I will just be studying the second Sanskrit module module. I still need to do all the assignments for them this term though!

During the coronavirus times, all teaching and assessments are online. SOAS initially had planned to have some in-person teaching commence from term 2, however with the new lockdown recently they've changed their plan to continue with the same model as term 1. This also means the final exams should be online in some capacity.

However I'm also taking Greek for Beginners A and Latin for Beginners A at UCL as a life learning student (so it is not for-credit, and I don't take the exams, but have access to all the module materials, go to lectures and seminars, and submit homeworks/quizzes/etc) this term).

So in reality I am taking in a sense 5 modules this term; that was possibly too many languages and other modules!
:bricks:

I won't be continuing with Greek and Latin next term though, so hopefully will feel less like I'm just barely keeping up with everything all the time!

My plan for the second year of the course is to continue to Sanskrit Language 2, hopefully! I'm not sure what I will take for the other 30 credits yet though :s-smilie:

Goals, aims, hopes, wishes?

I guess my primary goal for this year is to learn Sanskrit! Also to hopefully consolidate my Ancient Greek and get a good grounding in Latin, perhaps even when time permits (in term 2?!) to spend some time comparing what I've learned in each beyond the obvious surface level similarities of inflection (like looking a bit more at the apophony/vowel gradation in Greek as compared to Sanskrit). I also hope that I do well in my modules, since ideally I'd like to use this Certificate as a basis of an application to a full degree programme in next year's application cycle, probably to some ancient language related area (e.g. Classics/Classical Studies).

Outside of academics my main goal for next term is to look for a part-time job near me, as I left my previous job before starting this course and moved back to my parent's house to save money while studying (admittedly at the time I had thought I would be eligible for a maintenance loan, even a reduced one as I was living at home...unfortunately I was mistaken, so a job is even more essential now!). In term 2 I'll have far fewer timetabled hours (I have 2-4 hours of timetabled activity every day currently!) which should make it easier to find something.

Post Index

This is where I'll post links to further posts (which I'll hopefully remember to make!), under the spoiler:

Term 1:

Spoiler

Term 2:

Spoiler

Tag List

From looking at other GYG threads it seems people make one of these and tag them in on posts (not sure if every post or just notable ones...?). I've added the people who expressed an interest in this thread here, hopefully I won't spam your notifications too much with it! Let me know if it is excessive, I've no idea how to run one of these :redface:

Spoiler

(edited 3 years ago)

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Reply 160

becausethenight

Original post by artful_lounger

Honestly not too sure - I like the people within the department/section I work in well, the work itself can be kind of stressful but a lot of that is just not knowing what I'm doing and having to figure it out as I go along! On the other hand the pay is better than probably any other job I could get here/now and the experience is probably more transferable/relevant to applying to "career level" roles later.

Then again it's full time so I won't be able to continue in the way I have been past mid September anyway. I also suspect if I went part-time I'd likely end up having to do the same amount of work, just in fewer hours :s-smilie:

However it does seem the company has a history of taking on as permanent staff temps from the agency who placed me here (one of the more senior people who was sort of managing/training me a bit originally started as a temp from the same agency, albeit in a different part of the business).

Seems quite complicated then... Probably worth continuing until Sept if you can if the pay is good and it's not way too stressful, but that would just be my thoughts?

Absolutely agree that it isn't a good idea to have too much extra work-wise going on while uni's on though.

Reply 161

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by becausethenight

Yeah, definitely no reason not to extend at least until a couple weeks before term starts if they offer that. Longer term not too sure, but they also might not need me to continue longer term - the main reason they brought on temps was for a temporary project after all (albeit one that looks like it will drag into October at least)!

Reply 162

becausethenight

Original post by artful_lounger

Reply 163

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by becausethenight

Lol well they just gave me this morning a new project which is likely to be ongoing for a while so...I guess the "they might not need me longer term" issue is not quite so much one :tongue:

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 164

becausethenight

Original post by artful_lounger

Lol well they just gave me this morning a new project which is likely to be ongoing for a while so...I guess the "they might not need me longer term" issue is not quite so much one :tongue:

Hahaha you can have too much love :tongue:

Reply 165

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

So, bit of an update for planning for next year, it seems one of the modules I wanted to take (the Sanskrit texts module) won't be running :frown:

So I need to start looking at alternatives now. Unfortunately it does somewhat restrict my planned trajectory for this course because no matter what it's going to be less language based as a result, unless I pick up a second language (Prakrit perhaps? Middle Persian is also running but that might be a harder sell...).

There is one texts module running next year on Sanskrit poetry, however it was designed for the third year students of the old South Asian Studies (Sanskrit Pathway) degree, assuming they had taken the Sanskrit Language 2 module previously. I had discussed with the lecturer the possibility of me auditing it next year (which is probably the last year it will be offered) just to get the exposure to it without being graded, so I could potentially see if I could take it for credit instead...but I don't know if that's a good idea because I'll be learning concurrently with that module the language topics I should know as a prerequisite for it, so I'm not sure it's really advisable.

Possibly alternatives are looking into the first year modules for the new languages and cultures course - if I match those first year modules in this certificate programme I'm studying, I could potentially apply for second year entry to that degree (and maybe for part time study as SOAS only permits part-time study after first year...and in exceptional circumstances). However I don't think it would be possible to do that while also taking Sanskrit 2.

I could also look into taking more linguistics and/or art history modules - although I don't think there are any South Asian focused art history modules running next year. There are also the directed readings modules in a South Asian language, however for these I'd really need to have a project in mind and I don't. There were some interesting looking modules in the religions and philosophies department linked to what I'm focused on, but I don't think any are running this year!

Overall, a tricky situation. I'll have to keep looking at the options available and see what I can figure out. There is also the dual problem of, ideally I want to find a module(s) that are going to be taught wholly online, to save me needing to commute to London one or two days a week...which may restrict my options even further.

Spoiler

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 166

The_Lonely_Goatherd

Hmmm does all sound very tricky to navigate :frown:

Am sorry the module you wanted to do won't be running next year. I know I get really thrown by curveballs like that, so I hope you're holding up OK :redface:

Reply 167

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by The_Lonely_Goatherd

Hmmm does all sound very tricky to navigate :frown:

Am sorry the module you wanted to do won't be running next year. I know I get really thrown by curveballs like that, so I hope you're holding up OK :redface:

Yeah, it's a bit frustrating especially because it's hard to find time to send out emails to module conveners to check if I can take their module/if it's running already in the first place! At least I found out now rather than the beginning of term, that would've been really stressful to try and figure out last minute D:

I just need to sit down this weekend and have a think about what I'm hoping to do afterwards and see what modules help connect the dots in the meantime :s-smilie:

Reply 168

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Results - Finally!

So I finally got confirmation of my results - they all stayed the same as my provisional results in the end :redface:

My year end results are then:

Sanskrit Language 1A: 91%
Sanskrit Language 1B: 78%
Introduction to Linguistics: 80%
Themes in the Art and Archaeology of South and Southeast Asia: 75%

I'm very happy I did so well, and I was especially surprised (as previously noted!) that I did so well in the linguistics and art history modules. For next year I'm probably going to see if I can take some more linguistics modules alongside Sanskrit Language 2, since the Sanskrit texts modules for second year Sanskrit students aren't running next year. Still waiting to hear back from the lecturers for those modules to see if I can take them though :colondollar:

I did look into the possibility of continuing my trend of taking an art history and a linguistics module alongside the Sanskrit language module, but none of the art history modules available this year I was that keen on, as the only South Asian related one is a bit later and mostly continues one section of the course which while interesting, really had a lot of content and I was somewhat ambivalent about compared to the rest of the course.

On non-academic stuff, things have changed a fair bit in terms of what I've been doing outside of my course!

Spoiler

In any case, I will be making a new one of these blogs for the coming academic year Soon™ - let me know if you want to be tagged in the new one (I'll probably just carry over the current tag list but if you don't want to be tagged in the new one also let me know, I won't judge :colondollar:

). That new blog will probably start up with my trying to figure out which modules I can/should/want to take next year in place of the not-running texts module, and also hopefully my catching up on this MOOC I signed up for a few weeks ago and then fell behind almost immediately with (although it's available for free for 6 weeks so still have a couple weeks to catch up!).

Spoiler

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 169