After much jaunting about, I am back in Bishop Auckland, and it is a very well-timed transition indeed, seeing as internet has still not been restored in my flat, and we may be forced to switch providers because man, the customer service has really not been great.
But I have internet here, so huzzah! For me, at least. My poor housemates remain deprived. Hopefully it'll be back online soon.
The inaugural NENC symposium was a great success! We had a good crowd, lots of good papers and questions to go with, and a lovely dinner afterwards. My advisor unexpectedly showed up for the afternoon, which completely frazzled me for a short while, but he seemed to have a good time as well, so I'm glad he was able to stop in. Now all that's left to do is mopping up loose ends and doing lots of reimbursement forms for people.
Other than that, I've now just been settling back into dog-walking and getting up early and trying to get my stupid chapter edits done. The progress at this point is moving at a glacial pace, but I'm determined to be done with everything at least before I start teaching. It may be a struggle. A struggle full of me wailing about how much I have yet to learn because I haven't gotten around to reading ALL THE THINGS, never mind that reading all the things when on a deadline is impossible.
I'm finding that academic writing is, for me, like the Kubler-Ross stages of dying, and right now I'm doing a cross between bargaining and depression--bargaining consists of saying 'If I manage to write 500 words today, I am allowed to relax for the evening' or something of the sort, and depression consists of the aforementioned 'I'M NEVER GOING TO BE ABLE TO KNOW ALL THE THINGS THAT I NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE THIS PERFECT, WHY GOD WHY'. At some point soon, I'm hoping to reach acceptance and then just plunge face first into finishing everything. So there you go, a glimpse into the ridiculousness.
I think that's about it, for now. I have teacher training on the 26th to go over my English department gig--hopefully they've kept the syllabus for Intro to the Novel similar enough that I won't have to buy many more books--and then it's back to the academic year. This summer has gone by monstrously fast!
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Saturday, September 8, 2012
My dependency upon the internet is truly astonishing.
Over the past few days the internet in the house has gone from spotty to altogether gone, such that I have been forced out to Elvet Riverside on a weekend in order to check in with the outside world. This has, of course, further reminded me of just how ludicrously dependent I am on being able to access internet things for everything from banking to email to tech support, the latter of which is especially difficult, seeing as I am in need of tech support about our router, so yeah.
But! On the other hand, getting a chance to check my email meant that I was informed that I have also gotten the teaching job for Combined Honours! So that was excellent to hear, and I'm looking forward to getting my head around some new material.
Other things: I went and attended the workshop in intellectual history, and it was very interesting! And also very, very oriented towards the assumption that I knew lots of things about philosophy, particularly early modern iterations of it, which...I don't? So it was a little intimidating, and I haven't decided whether it was actually helpful or not. But the people were very nice, and the seminar I was assigned to was more approachable than the larger discussions, so it wasn't a bust, by any means.
Incidentally, getting this second teaching job means that I will now be getting that crash course in early modern intellectual history which I clearly needed this past week. So hey! Swings and roundabouts.
And now, I continue to be very busy indeed, since the symposium is on Wednesday, so I have to sort out all of the printing and stuff which hopefully is happening on time, and I still have to sort out my chapters and get them to not be crap so that I can start October fresh. I have decided that I greatly dislike editing. Or at least, editing things that I wrote over a year ago, and are therefore not at all up to the standard I'd like them to be. Anyway.
First in my priorities, though, is fixing our stupid internet. I need it for things, and having it on my phone is not enough.
But! On the other hand, getting a chance to check my email meant that I was informed that I have also gotten the teaching job for Combined Honours! So that was excellent to hear, and I'm looking forward to getting my head around some new material.
Other things: I went and attended the workshop in intellectual history, and it was very interesting! And also very, very oriented towards the assumption that I knew lots of things about philosophy, particularly early modern iterations of it, which...I don't? So it was a little intimidating, and I haven't decided whether it was actually helpful or not. But the people were very nice, and the seminar I was assigned to was more approachable than the larger discussions, so it wasn't a bust, by any means.
Incidentally, getting this second teaching job means that I will now be getting that crash course in early modern intellectual history which I clearly needed this past week. So hey! Swings and roundabouts.
And now, I continue to be very busy indeed, since the symposium is on Wednesday, so I have to sort out all of the printing and stuff which hopefully is happening on time, and I still have to sort out my chapters and get them to not be crap so that I can start October fresh. I have decided that I greatly dislike editing. Or at least, editing things that I wrote over a year ago, and are therefore not at all up to the standard I'd like them to be. Anyway.
First in my priorities, though, is fixing our stupid internet. I need it for things, and having it on my phone is not enough.
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