Michelle Athy's Blog, page 10

Queen Victoria's Last Three Kids

Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert was born on May 1, 1850, the seventh of Victoria and Albert's large family. He was named after the Duke of Wellington. At age sixteen, Arthur entered the Royal Military College at Woolwich, graduating two years later, and becoming a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers Corps. From there, he moved around in the army a bit and served in places like Canada,

Queen Victoria's Middle Three Kids

Prince Alfred. From the National Portrait Gallery. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's fourth child was born on August 6, 1844. He was their second son and so, second in line to the throne after his older brother. His parents named him Prince Alfred Ernest Albert. Alfred was known as "Affie" in the family. He wanted to enter the Navy and was allowed to at a young age. Victoria granted him the

Queen Victoria's First Three Kids

In this week's seemingly random blog post (and when is this blog not random, I ask you), I'm going to start a brief rundown of each of Queen Victoria's nine children. Having nine children, Victoria and Albert were able to marry their kids to various royals across Europe. And while 2019 is the bicentenary of Victoria's birth (and Albert's birth too, three months after his wife's birthday), their

The Tortured Artist is a Myth

Writers are creatives. Creatives are constantly in turmoil. They put themselves in uncomfortable, contortionist emotional and mental pretzels as they piece together ideas to write a fully-fleshed Good Thing. We think a lot. We dredge up bad joo-joo in order to be creative. We're weird. We isolate ourselves in order to observe. We drink. We're depressed. We're dead inside and simultaneously too

Guesting on Fuckbois of Literature podcast!

“He was just gonna Poland Spring that right up!” -@SunflowerRei in her upcoming FBoL Guess the title! — FBoL (@FuckboisOfLit) May 4, 2019 Hey everyone, I'm the guest this week on my friend Emily's podcast Fuckbois of Lit!! We talked about the middle grade book Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit. I read it in sixth grade and discovered that I completely misremembered everything about that

Queen Victoria's 200th birthday

I missed it by a day, but May 24th was the 200th anniversary of Queen Victoria's birth. She was born in 1819 in Kensington Palace, London, the only daughter of Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent and Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Victoria was born during the reign of her grandfather, George III. She was christened Alexandrina Victoria. Her father was George III's fourth son and--it turned out-

Questions for the FrankenIdea

1. Can somebody explain the British university system to me, please? Thank you. 2. Can anybody explain the process of a UK country house becoming a business/graded and protected/National Trust home? 3. I could probably research all this, but I'm researched out at the moment. :-)

Last Week in Library School...

*pops head up* Oh, hi. So, I had a many and varied week this past week, an interesting mix of fun and school. First, school: I have something like three more weeks until this semester is over. Of course, I have finals coming up, but I also have a research paper to write, a sort of study/presentation thing to do, and other shenanigans. I had two presentations last week--one was a group

Reiwa!

Today, April 30th, Japan's Emperor Akihito abdicates. He became the Emperor in 1989. Japan's Emperor is a purely symbolic role. Technically, it's a constitutional monarchy, but I'm not sure of what official governmental roles the imperial family actually fulfill except to be symbols of Japan. Japan tells time by eras, like many historical periods. There's the Edo-jidai or Edo Period, from 1603

TV Shows and Other Things

So I'm on spring break this week, though I'm working on two projects plus work, so...is it a proper break? At any rate, I caught up on Fosse/Verdon, a miniseries on FX about famous Broadway choreographer and director Bob Fosse and the rather contentious relationship he had with his wife, muse, and the best Broadway dancer of all time, Gwen Verdon. It stars Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams and