Reply to Amstr by GEW (with an update)

Thanks for the update, Amster. I, too, blew off the dissertation way too much during the summer. It's very hard not to do that, especially since the hubby and kids are on vacation, too. But in the future, when summer isn't followed by a sabbatical, I will need to really work.

As for my progress, I got a little bit done in August. Basically, I started working up some preliminary notes and arguments for what might turn out to be Chapter Four of the dissertation. Some of it is probably silly, but some of it will be productive.

And today I had my first meeting with my supervisor, which was great. We talked a bit about my notes (regarding Chapter Four), and we discussed my overall plan and the central driving questions of the thesis. We'll meet again tomorrow to talk more.

As for my studies, right I'm looking at primary sources and I'm review some Bakhtin. I think Bakhtin might turn out to be useful! But I'm pretty rusty on theory, so I've got a lot of work to do.

So, Amstr, are you enjoying working during the daytime? How are the September goals going? I really like the "Really see it" project, and I'll be working on that soon.

My Summer Vacation, by Me

Welcome to Fall, my fellow dissertationers. What did you do over summer vacation?

My work stalled out for the last half of June and all of July. I had hoped to get a draft of my RSA conference paper done this summer, but alas, I have nothing. August ended up being a month of easing back into dissertation work. I read a modest amount, finished a paragraph-by-paragraph summary of Crane’s difficult introduction to Shakespeare’s Brain, got back in the rhythm of working, and prayed for September. Why the praying, you ask? Preschool.

Yesterday, both kids spent 2.5 hours with their teachers and other kids while I haunted a table at a Starbucks housed in a 70s strip mall, looking out over a shiny new Shell station. And I got a ton of writing done. I managed to re-write half of the methods section of my prospectus, and I toyed around with possible structures for my RSA paper. I actually came up with a clever idea for my conclusion, too. I hope I can keep up the momentum. Working during daylight hours is really pretty amazing.

So my plan for September:

-draft RSA paper

-read bunch of relevant articles and write Summary-Critiques of them

-revise my prospectus

-finish prospectus bibliography

-re-read FQ Book 3 (and relevant parts of Books 4 and 5)

-finish as much of Sidney’s New Arcadia as I possibly can

My other dissertation-y project is one I found here (scroll down to the "REALLY see it" section). I’m making a mock-up of my dissertation in a 3-ring binder. I’ll put in a title page, table of contents, sections for each chapter, etc. The hope is that it can help me work on small chunks without being overwhelmed by the dissertation as a whole. I may even cover it with “I heart Shakespeare” stickers, just for the encouragement.

Hope you’ve had good summers, and I’m eager for updates!