Monday 31 March 2008

Final post for now

Yesterday the sun shone and I spent the whole day in the garden--and now I can feel all my muscles.

Today I have exactly 6 months left of my PhD.

I spent the morning arranging travel arrangements to Aldeburgh to visit the Britten-Pears archive for the 7th and 8th of April, the last major archive trip I think I'll have time for before the PhD finishes (quite an effort by public transport, but possible!).  (The picture is taken in the garden of the Library, with Mitchell whose four volume Benjamin Britten: Letters from a Life is pretty much my text book).  I've also been ringing Royal Mail trying to trace a package including the Collected Poems of Henry Reed which I need for an article for British Writers, and arranging handouts, visual aids and paperwork for the class tomorrow. And I've been looking at the jobs on www.jobs.ac.uk.  

Looking back over the last month I see I've written more than 10,000 words of my thesis, finished another chapter, spend lots of time using on-line resources and spending vast sums in bookshops (particularly on CDs--including the utterly fabulous Dylan Thomas Caedmon Collection, 11 CDs of the bard's symphonic recitals of his own poetry and others'), but no time in the library.  I've been to a conference, been on holiday, and arranged to go away again to an archive.  I've done hours of admin, and tidied up my study four times--but of course you can still barely pick your way into it via the piles of books, papers and desks.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and have bought what my husband calls 'the pedant's guide' to proof-reading, OUP's New Hart's Rules.   

I hope this research diary was helpful for you, it has been interesting for me!

Saturday 29 March 2008

Back to work

Five days away, no books, one newspaper, one magazine--bliss!  

And now back to the grind-stone.  Today I wrote just over 1000 words and did two loads of washing.  

Saturday 22 March 2008

Happy Easter

On Thursday, just before 11 pm, I sent off chapter 3 to my supervisor.  

Somehow I ought to be feeling more pleased about it, but mainly I feel tired, and flu-y and a bit deflated.  And instead of feeling like I can go on holiday with a clear conscience, all the things I've left hanging while I wrote are now crowding in...

And today the fence blew down, and I've been watching horizontal hail turn to horizontal snow.    It's wonderfully mesmeric.  And tomorrow I'm getting on a plane to Amsterdam, and I plan to do nothing but eat, sleep, drink and only if I can be bothered look at great works of art and Dutch architecture.  

I'll be back in a week a different person.
  

Thursday 20 March 2008

Drafting

Yesterday I spent the whole day going through my chapter with a red pen, then typing up the corrections, then printing it out again and going through my chapter with a red pen, then typing up the corrections.

This morning I am still typing up the corrections, after which I will print it out again and go through it with a red pen--or perhaps get my husband to go through it with a red pen.  

Then I will type up the corrections.

Wednesday 19 March 2008

On and off

As you might have gathered by now, I write madly, from dawn till midnight, and then I'll have two days doing other things (second jobs, cleaning the house, seeing friends, reading trashy novels, paying bills or planning classes) where I won't write anything, or even get in spitting distance of my desk.  

Other people who completed on time sat down every day at 9am, and stayed at their desk till they wrote 750-1000 words.  

The main thing seems to be to write regularly--whether that means every day, or spread over a week.  And that is about writing and not just sitting at your desk staring at the cursor blinking.   Bad text is better than no text.

Saturday 15 March 2008

3,500 words today.

The title says it all.  But I've barely begun to talk about Stevie Smith.  Panic and elation in unequal measures (elation is obviously winning right now!)

Spring in my step

I've been working on the questionnaire I'm about to send out to you all.  It's a way for you to think about how you learn, how you best process information.  As well as the questionnaire that will soon arrive in your inbox, you might like to look at the VARK questionnaire.

I'm your typical academic.   I learn best by reading, only know what I think when I've written it, and like anaylsis, logical structures, books, experts, facts, details, lectures, and asking questions.

It's worth thinking about these things, as sometimes our problems are caused by not paying attention to our style , and trying to learn the way that suits our supervisor, our indeed our module leader...  (And sometimes writing and thinking blocks are best dealt with by leaving it behind and spending an hour in the garden--particularly now it's spring!).

Wednesday 12 March 2008

Lots of words

Yesterday I didn't upload anything because I was doing so much writing.  2,000+ words!  

The book I'm about to review arrived too, though I've barely flicked through it.  

Today, however, I won't get a moment to analyse music or any poems, so the baffling 'Cuex qui luttent' (Stevie Smith, set Elisabeth Lutyens, 1948) will have to wait.

'Ceux qui luttent'

Ceuex qui luttent ce sont ceux qui vivant.
And down here they luttent a very great deal indeed.
But if life be the desideraratum, why grieve, ils vivent.

What do I do about the multi-lingual pun between 'luttent' and 'lute' or 'loot', what about the latin--is it referring to Max Ehrmann's 'Desiderata': 'Go placidly amid the noise and haste, / and remember what peace there may be in silence.' and if so, why?  I have a day to chew on it.
 

Monday 10 March 2008

Back from Poland

Back from Poland--after bumping across the central grey plain of Poland to Lodz (pronounced woodj, don't you know) backwards, in a mini-bus full of poets (Christopher Reid (the 'martian'), W.N. Herbert (Bill), Kate Clanchy ('the woman who sank a website'), and Justin Quinn (Irishman abroad in Prague); spending two days in the Forum Kultury talking about poetry and drinking; back, still backwards, to Warsaw; and a mini-MacNeice-summit with Renata in Warsaw...

Poland is amazing, like Prague before it was renovated, like Berlin but not as cool, like... strangely like Hounslow...  I brought back some very heavy ceramic art, a bottle of bison grass vodka and a head cold.

I came back to a pile of emails, the blank page of chapter 3, and pouring rain.  A good reason to stay in and write...

Wednesday 27 February 2008

Friday: Back up

This is a very boring picture of my key drive.  And backing up is pretty boring.
Still, I'm saving to it, obsessively, every time I do any work on my thesis.  There's another external hard drive back up too, because the horror of possibly losing my thesis is too enormous to consider.  So I'm not thinking about it, but going off to Poland blithely leaving my computer and all its contents behind.
So boring and smug--that's me today!

(Written before leaving for Poland, but strangely not posted...)

Thursday


Yesterday:
Started work, 9am.
Lunch break: 2 hours
Hours worked on thesis: 0
Hours worked on admin / email / teaching / conferences / articles: 7 (of which, hours trying to learn to say hello in Polish: 1).
Cups of coffee: 4

Regrets: Missed most of the lovely sunny day doing email.
Other achievements: Haircut! Birthday dinner for Andreas.

Overall: not bad.

Weds 27 Feb

Just back from Oxford--arrived just after midnight, woken in the night by the earth tremour (feeling slightly seasick!) and then up early as it's my partner's birthday today. The cleaner can't come this week, her back is out again. We've got six people staying the night and a big party on Friday, and then I'm off to Poland for this conference, leaving on Saturday night, so i need to get into town to change some currency, unearth my suitcase, burn a CD with the musical examples I'm going to play and make a handout... and clean the bath.

Having spent two days in Oxford, I'm starting to wonder if I will get any research / writing done this week. I'm sure this is a familiar feeling for other people. I'll let you know how I get on.