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Nov. 16th, 2011 08:52 amI need to be very efficient today. If I'm not, I won't get lunch until 3 pm. This is the kind of day it is. Lots of stuff to do. A tendency for things to go wrong (three computer programs have been glitchy so far, for instance). And I'm recovering from a mild but drawn-out stomach malaise (very effective method for weightloss, not so good for maintaining my wondrous record of actually finishing what I start).
I wanted to say "If something actually happens today, I'll blog again" but I'll only blog again if there's something more to say than "I taught; I progressed through my list; I think I know what I'm doing with Ch 2 of my dissertation (maybe); I've successfully endured the weatherchange." If that's all I have to say, you've already heard it.
The big development for Ch 2 was that I worked out how to be my own case study. It's not only OK in my new field, it's actually essential for the dissertation, but I have great trouble with being my own case study, so it takes a long time to say "I can write about these amazing research things concerning other people in a different project - right now I must write about me."
I also have to add more about Feuchtwangler and White because I still have that annoying tendency to assume that people have read all the key writings in their own field*. This gives me an excuse to revisit White from my new vantage point of someone with brand new theories (albeit ones that will have to be written about *after* the dissertation, unless I find more time in my day and work on it alongside - hah!) and that's going to be fun. The evil side of Gillian can look at White's views and Tosh's views and develop an intellectual collision.
And now you know why I don't write about this side of things very often. I am exceptionally fond of a particular kind of explosion. And yet I am a gentle person.
*Which doesn't seem nearly as preposterous to me as it did when I did my first doctorate - not only are fields of knowledge strange and unmanageable, but the more one learns, the more fallible is one's memory - one can have written 30 pages of factual analysis of Medieval society and completely forget all the substance, as I discovered yesterday. I wanted to email Katrin saying "We need to do all that research again, from scratch, for this text is unreliable." And yet it wasn't. It was my recent memory that was unreliable. Every 3 years I announce this on my blog, too, as if it was something new. One day I'll learn to trust my own work...
I wanted to say "If something actually happens today, I'll blog again" but I'll only blog again if there's something more to say than "I taught; I progressed through my list; I think I know what I'm doing with Ch 2 of my dissertation (maybe); I've successfully endured the weatherchange." If that's all I have to say, you've already heard it.
The big development for Ch 2 was that I worked out how to be my own case study. It's not only OK in my new field, it's actually essential for the dissertation, but I have great trouble with being my own case study, so it takes a long time to say "I can write about these amazing research things concerning other people in a different project - right now I must write about me."
I also have to add more about Feuchtwangler and White because I still have that annoying tendency to assume that people have read all the key writings in their own field*. This gives me an excuse to revisit White from my new vantage point of someone with brand new theories (albeit ones that will have to be written about *after* the dissertation, unless I find more time in my day and work on it alongside - hah!) and that's going to be fun. The evil side of Gillian can look at White's views and Tosh's views and develop an intellectual collision.
And now you know why I don't write about this side of things very often. I am exceptionally fond of a particular kind of explosion. And yet I am a gentle person.
*Which doesn't seem nearly as preposterous to me as it did when I did my first doctorate - not only are fields of knowledge strange and unmanageable, but the more one learns, the more fallible is one's memory - one can have written 30 pages of factual analysis of Medieval society and completely forget all the substance, as I discovered yesterday. I wanted to email Katrin saying "We need to do all that research again, from scratch, for this text is unreliable." And yet it wasn't. It was my recent memory that was unreliable. Every 3 years I announce this on my blog, too, as if it was something new. One day I'll learn to trust my own work...