Life in Thesis-land : day in the life

Day in the Life 8: Pub O'Clock and Good Night

Karen.Hall — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 08:56:00 GMT

And because it wouldn't be a day in the life of a postgrad if alcohol wasn't involved somehow, I'm off for drinks before going home. Plans for tonight are cooking dinner, proofing another three articles to get back on schedule, and watching Heroes. Goodnight all - and thanks for joining in!

Day in the Life 7: Boundaries of Research?

Karen.Hall — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 08:08:00 GMT

I've been flicking through Lois McMaster Bujold's Ethan of Athos, one of the books I'm planning to discuss in the current chapter, which has led me to ask: if this day is about what research students do, then does that question depend on the definition of research? If research, for English researchers at least, is reading/watching and thinking and writing, where do those activities start and end? Does reading a book you enjoy become research if it has a 'research output' attached to it? Do talking about signification and Big Brother at home count? More to the point for myResearchSpace, how can this generic hybrid of formal/informal, public/personal, academic/colloquial sit in the kinds of work that research students do? Is this a space to develop a different kind of writing voice from that demanded by the thesis? Should there be a difference? What might that difference be?

Day in the Life 6: Tea time too

Karen.Hall — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 07:23:00 GMT

I'm just back from afternoon tea (one of the cute (not-so) little cupcakes over at Neds). Is it just me, or do postgraduates have an obsession with food? I know that my mother was quite shocked when, on her recent arrival at the house, I offered to introduce her to Pierre and Norman - Pierre and Norman being the two camembert cheeses that I'm in the process of making. They've been through the white and fluffy stage and are now wrapped up, waiting to mature and get eaten. Poor little things. Maybe it was a bad idea to name them.

Day in the Life 5: Some Context

Karen.Hall — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 05:55:00 GMT

I'm staring blankly at the screen, so I figured I might as well start on this next post, in which I plan to talk about the thesis and my writing process.

While I don't want to go too much into specifics - either you the reader won't care, or if you do, I'd rather you read a more polished version - I hope it is enough to say that I'm looking at a particular type of science fiction story, and following it through from the late nineteenth century to the present day, in order to ask questions about genre formation and re-negotiation, as well as about these types of stories. As a way of making this manageable, and because it presents other interesting questions, I'm focusing on print texts and texts by women writers.

At the moment I'm slowly making my way to the finishing line: two chapters are drafted, redrafted and will only need minor work (touch wood) in the final overall editing, another two have been drafted, then ripped apart and redrafted and will need a bit more finalising, one chapter is drafted and with the supervisors, and the last one is - staring back at me from the screen - begin drafted. The structure of my thesis is a little strange - the result, I suppose, of chronic indecisiveness and multiple intellectual and theoretical commitments. It is chronologically organised in the sense that it moves from the beginning of the period I'm studying the the end, but it is also built around thematic foci of genre, memory, space, time and evolution. In practical terms, this has meant three sets of paired chapters, where the first of each pair provides the nuts and bolts account of what is going on in the long nineteenth century, the first half of the twentieth and the second half. This is where my materialist/history of the book side comes out. The second chapter of the pair is the 'thematic' one, where the texts introduced in the previous chapter are explored from a different perspective. Trying to get the balance between the pair right has been the main cause of re-structuring and re-drafting in my thesis process.

Now that I'm on the last chapter, I have a fairly good idea of what it needs to say and do - which, strangely enough, doesn't make it all that more pleasant to write. In the earlier stages, I felt more open to wild ideas, strange connections and just seeing where things would take me. Now, for all that I do feel more competent ('Of course I can write a chapter, I've already done it five times'), I feel a little more hemmed in.

Day in the Life 4: Nutrition? We Don't Need No Stinking Nutrition!

Karen.Hall — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 05:07:00 GMT

By which title you might guess, I had Guild food for lunch. (The other quote that comes to mind is the second marriage being 'the triumph of hope over experience' - it always returns to me as I stand in the queue, for some reason). I suppose there are some large points to be made here: about institutional food and institutional identity and the institutionalisation of postgraduates in general; about the need for financial planning and value for your food dollar on a fixed or limited income (yes, it is almost tax time, why do you ask?); or about health and well-being and nuturing (though I'm probably not qualified to talk about this!). But for the moment I will settle for gesturing in the direction of those ideas, and try to settle back to work.

Day in the Life 3: Pre-emptive Strike

Karen.Hall — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 03:44:00 GMT

I'm off for a meeting at 12, so I'll leave readers with a link to further reading the may be of interest: Horace's Required Reading for Graduate Students.

Day in the Life 2: By the Numbers

Karen.Hall — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 03:02:00 GMT

New words: 114

Percentage of new words that I think will need to be re-written: 80% (because text titles and joining words will have to stay in)

Spam deleted: 286

Coffee breaks for the day: 1

Caffeinated beverages: 1 (Coke Zero - don't judge me)

Vaguely interesting ideas that I'm sure I'll be over by the end of the day: 2 (ideas about viruses and medical responses to viruses in Ammonite are mostly about constructing or contesting the 'normal' body; characterising medievalising as making abject relies on a category that is inherently unstable).

Day in the Life 1: Possibly TMI About Domestic Chores

Karen.Hall — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 02:08:00 GMT

Well, given my home computer has gone from 'mostly dead' to 'all dead' (and even before that, it resided in dial-up hell) this 10am check-in is my first 'day in the life' post, and will be mostly filled with an account of pottering aroud the house this morning.

The chores have fallen behind a little, as I took to my bed on Monday with a bout of influenza - rather Victorian-romantic-heroine-ish, but with a messier bed and more nausea - and now my sister, who I share a house with, is ill as well. So the day started with a wake-up tap at the window from the puppy-dog around 6.10am, with getting up postponed until 6.30 when my radio alarm piped up with the latest on the Dockers Darwin debacle (oh, boys... ). Feeding the dog is, of course, the first priority, then watering the potplants, and while the dog is out of the way, sweeping the kitchen floor. Breakfast of OJ and vegemite toast - because if there is a time for gourmet experimentation, it isn't breakfast - and taking out the compost, doing the dishes, quick clean of the bathroom, shower and dress. The picture above is of the puppy-dog refusing to be compromised by being caught on film chewing on one of the essential fashion accessories for chores-doing on cold winter mornings - a knitted Peruvian llama hat. (Think of Jayne's knitted hat in Firefly, change the colour scheme to black, grey and white and add stylised llamas.) The other essential. of course, is ugg boots, though I feel rather sartorially inadequate in my plain uggs compared to the hot pink boot versions I saw parading around the library as I arrived.

At this point, heading to uni meant hitting peak hour traffic, so in the interests of reduced fuel consumption, the planet and my sanity, I worked on another article. I'm proof-reading the forthcoming volume of Studies in WA History, and my schedule for having it all done by Friday was thrown by Monday. I'm thinking about a longer post on the process of proof-reading sometime because (geekily-enough) I find it quite fascinating. But I finished the article, left supplies of lemonade and the phone with my sister, and headed in to uni. And now I'm blogging, which takes me up to the present moment in one of those crazy reflective spirals, so I think I'll hit publish and get on with my day.

'Day in the Life' - 1

Karen.Hall — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:35:00 GMT

Tomorrow is 'Day in the Life' Day! (Okay, it doesn't sound so catchy when put like that). Still, as Sanna has reminded us, this is a chance to break blog silence and to find out how other research students get through a day. See you tomorrow!

Challenge: A Day in the Life

Karen.Hall — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:35:00 GMT

What do research students actually do? It's a question we all get hit with: at family events, by undergraduates, by acquaintances from long ago randomly encountered at the shops, as an occasional wail of despair to ourselves, or to each other across disciplinary divides. So, my suggestion is that one week from now (Wednesday 20 June, according to my calendar) we answer the question by posting updates throughout the day on what a day in the life of a research student looks like. Updates can be as short or as detailed as you like, and as often or irregular as the mood strikes you. I'm aiming for on the hour every hour that I'm online. Tagging posts with 'day in the life' should make it easy for future generations to read it all together. Any takers?