#phd journal

[sassy-roman-spirits]

🍂 PhD Journal 🎃

I’ve finished my second draft of chapter 2. My supervisors found the smaller sections the most interesting (the Exemplarity of Roman Tyrannicide & the Chronology of Power in Syria (44-42 BCE), which gives me a bit of confidence.

The entire chapter is starting to take shape, but more work needs to be done. I’m finding my methodology to be a bit different than I expected. That is, it isn’t working for the chapter…I’m not sure if that’s a common thing people come across. I’ve never had that issue before so it’s a bit confusing, as it is confidence-destroying. So, I am rereading a lot of my notes on ancient authors to try to find this new ✨made-up method✨ that I must try to construct.

Gratitude

- Hot cocoa

-Easy access to online ancient sources (in both Latin and English) - thank you, LatinLibrary!

-The few moments of calm before the day (and work) begins.

[ahistoriantobe]

100 Days of Productivity (again.)

...because it’s somehow more satisfying and even a little bit more exciting to count down than to go indefinitely.

Day 1 [18.09.2019]

Started the day early by talking a long walk on the shore. Fun & sets a wonderful mood for afterwards.

Went to the bank to sort out account-related stuff while I was out. I need to go for a second time but it put my mind at ease.

Sent out my CV to another company, and aced the trial test (unlike the other day’s disaster). The waiting has thus doubled.

Worked on the afore-mentioned chapter of my thesis. I randomly came across the name of one of my pavilions in a newly-published, tangentially-related book. There’s a strange satisfaction in the fact that I’m probably the only one who knows and can proove that what the author wrote about it is flat-out wrong. I can’t fault him much - it’s not at all closely related to his main subject, but still - if you’re making a claim based on having come across a single document, at least make to sure actually read the document before making remarks and putting them in your publication, no?

Started a bullet-journal type of thing only to keep track of conference-related deadlines. Putting the stationary I hoard to good use.

I’m trying to wrap up the chapter I’m working on by the end of this week, and move on. My entire writing strategy has become to just put words on a paper. That’s about all I expect from myself from now on. I know I’ll fix it all later. Just... get stuff out on the sheet. That’s all. I’ve worn myself out quite enough these past few years to suffer anymore. :)

[ahistoriantobe]

A few things I promised myself when this nightmare is over:

A professional human design reading

Some Sims expansion packs or stuff

A holiday for at least a week. Real holiday. Away from here. Preferably by myself. Somewhere will hills and lots and lots of trees.

Finishing my behemoth of a story BTWD.

In other news, I got tricked into attending the graduation ceremony in July, which I had previously declined. Yesterday Prof.A forwarded me an email she’d received about how she’d be invited to the stage with her doctoral student to receive her diploma, and I sort of melted and contacted the alumni office to practically beg them to take me back. It was surprising how emotional I got about this, as I never marked the accomplishment of a graduation by actually attending the ceremony in either of my previous uni graduations. That, and considering this is more than likely my last chance of putting on the cap and gown..

Yep... it really is happening. In just over a month, this period of my life will be over. It feels really surreal and will probably continue to hit me in waves of emotion over the next few weeks.