we're #1

I was wrong; it was a very cheering class. The results of the Research Assessment Exercise were published today, and York has come out as the top-rated English department in the UK, so our seminar leader - who joined the department in the seven years since the last RAE and must therefore feel at least a bit responsible for our meteoric rise - was very happy, and we had champagne. With the result that some members of the class (not me, I'm not that much of a lightweight) were slightly tipsy by ten in the morning and shouted about how Wilkie Collins doesn't understand women.

I'm oddly proud, and not the least pleased because this has a massive effect on funding for the next seven years, though I'm not sure how much of it will trickle down to Ph.Ds. BUT STILL. And then I was given back my procedural essay and had a very brief supervision consisting of the phrase "it's terrific" and a very long reading list. Whee.

Now over the next two days I need to do laundry and vacuum the floor and wrap gifts and PACK and get the very long reading list out of the library and write more of the next essay and go to two parties. And then I'm coming home.