I have always been interested in history. Actually, to be more correct I have always been interested in a good story, so I spent most of my childhood plopped in front of the television, reading a book, or trying to make my friends re-enact my favourite parts of the first two activities. Early visits to museums, and stories about people and children from the past, a world that was remarkably different from my own, drove me to a love of history. When I finally got the opportunity to choose my classes I took all the history options that were available, especially early history. When I actually got to choose what I would take in University, having been given the opportunity, everyone already knew I was going to take history. I was always very lucky to have a passion that I could follow; actually I have two passions, history and movies, but being more logical than creative I played to my strengths and decided I would enjoy movies much more if they remained my hobby. The difficulty has always been which branch of history did I want to pursue. I was very very close to becoming a Canadian Historian (and one is never certain the direction one's life will take in the future) specializing in New France. My interests tended to be in history that was at least three or four hundred years removed from me at least because, going back to my love of a great story, I liked it to be somewhat foreign, somewhat distant from my own experiences, I guess somewhat like an adventure, or fantasy story, though infinitely more complicated. But when my mom stumbled onto the Medieval Studies program at Queen's University she turned to me and said 'this is you,' and it definitely was. I wanted to go on and pursue more history after my undergraduate degree, but again I had to decide what it was I wanted to study. I eventually landed upon Vikings, and while it always pains me to specialize (realizing that I may be dabbling in many different periods of history in the future) it was Early Medieval, my favourite, as well this time period and geographical location had a large seafaring component, a large exploration component, a well developed mythology, an extensive body of interesting literature, and a very tangible connection to Canadian History. This site is designed to publicize what I have accomplished so far in the fields of Medieval/Viking Age/Canadian History, and it will be added to the more I feel I have contributed. My eventual aim is to become an academic, though I am quite prepared to be diverted on the way. Even should my career trajectory take a different course, my interests in this area will not diminish. Keep up with me on my blog meganarnott.blogspot.com, and on my twitter feed twitter.com/MeganArnott. . |
