Tales from Heather in Pre-Thesis-Land
PhD Comics, one of my favourite web comics, is running a great series on the adventures of thesis-land. Yesterday was QUITE a day, preceded by a day more arduous and today - it wouldn’t look much better if i weren’t being compensated for three hours of editing a French student’s paper for our French Revolution class last semester with crepes… CREPES! Made by someone with my favourite accent… and a mini-break. I need a mini-break.
I spent 14 hours on campus on Monday. There was a milk-run, some photocopying and time on the treadmill in there - but i was awake at 5:30am, doing Latin by 6am and out the door by 8am. Something is very weird with my sleep schedule and i am not pleased. Did i manage to accomplish anything? Well, i translated about ten references to the word “Italy” or “Italian” in Rucellai’s De Bello Italico, getting me about 25% closer to the end of my “citation collecting phase.” I also edited the aforementioned paper for FL - and was running on Red Bull and skim latte when i got home at 10:30 and indulged in an episode of season 1 of House. I do not know what i would do without crap TV.
Tuesday, or yesterday, although it feels much farther away already, began with dropping off an article for a professor pre-9:30am. Then into palaeography class where we covered late antique scripts and i, rather stupidly thinking back, volunteered to present for an hour next week on pre-Carolingian medieval scripts. They aren’t legible - in case you were wondering. In fact, some of them are so, um, eccentric, that they are referred to by using the actual script. I might have a better chance reading Arabic. One of the assigned readings is in German, and luckily a Swiss friend of mine, DR, is my presentation partner. Combined we can read the materials (another article is in Italian). After 2.5hrs of palaeography, i ran frantically to my carrel to attempt to schematize the De Bello based on 37 fully-translated pages and another 60-some-odd pages of first, last and middle sentences of paragraphs. About page 80 this totally broke down - but it was a good exercise because i also came up with a tentative writing schedule that just MIGHT get this thing completed for the due date of March 1st. Then i had a meeting with my psychiatrist, where we tried to address some side-effects i am having (see sleep schedule comments above). THEN, after about 40 minutes of gabbing with other masochist grad students in the history department, had an hour meeting with CC discussing, essentially, just how far i am from being at the writing stage. Sadly, it was a horribly productive meeting even if it is a little discouraging. I tried to get in 2 hours of work in my carrel, but that was a FAIL. Came home, should have eaten dinner, but made cinnamon-raisin bread and brownies instead. My oven and i are currently not speaking over the burning of the latter. Still managed to complete my allotted five sentences of the day and get another 20 pages of a secondary source i have been reading FOREVER done.
Today i have class in the afternoon, must go for a run and need to read for a palaeography prep meeting tomorrow, translate the last six Latin sentences and try to finish Power and Imagination.
Oh… and i am out of white flour - no more bread-baking until that’s addressed. Sniff.
You’re bored, i know. I’m exhausted.
