verstehen libre.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
There's a light at the end of the tunnel...
...and I'm pretty sure it's not an oncoming train. Chicken and I blew through the entire comparative canon in one fourteen-hour shot yesterday, which I think was a pretty awesome strategy in the end. It really forced us to take a very broad view of the whole field in all of its awesome, fearsome absurdity, and that was actually exactly what I needed, and I suspect also what this ridiculous exercise is really about. I'm closing in on finishing my focus field, too...by tonight I should be through most everything except the "global civil society" stuff, which, let's face it, is basically a footnote in the literature anyway. At some point I need to give myself a few hours to blitz extremely superficially through theory, and come up with a couple of random thoughts on the environmental justice/democratic citizenship-type questions that I anticipate being asked. And then...hope and pray that I don't embarrass myself too profoundly in front of three people I hope to have on my dissertation committee, one of whom has already hired me to teach in the fall (that means he can't fail me, right?)
For the moment, I'm off to refill my coffee mug, and then I'm quite looking forward to spending the afternoon settling in with a long-anticipated pile of the most interesting stuff from my focus field list--the stuff that actually makes it my focus field, and not just another lousy tour through Civil Society and Putnamia. But I'm just an asshole like that. ¶ 11:30 AM
For the moment, I'm off to refill my coffee mug, and then I'm quite looking forward to spending the afternoon settling in with a long-anticipated pile of the most interesting stuff from my focus field list--the stuff that actually makes it my focus field, and not just another lousy tour through Civil Society and Putnamia. But I'm just an asshole like that. ¶ 11:30 AM
Friday, May 09, 2008
Generals, in a nutshell.
"We pretend to examine you, and you pretend to take it seriously."
That, and a simultaneously maddening and exhilarating process of mind-numbing repetition punctuated by moments of amazing clarity and discovery.
And too much time in the lab, and not enough beer. ¶ 4:19 PM
That, and a simultaneously maddening and exhilarating process of mind-numbing repetition punctuated by moments of amazing clarity and discovery.
And too much time in the lab, and not enough beer. ¶ 4:19 PM
Monday, May 05, 2008
Be excellent to each other.
Not only did I just realize I have two final paper presentations to give in classes tomorrow, but one of them is at 9-motherfucking-am, which means I actually have to finish the damn thing tonight, which means I probably need to start it pretty soon, hey?
I've been getting a lot of advice about generals lately that says, essentially, all you really need is one solid week of studying before the exam in order to ace the thing. Which is good, because that's pretty much what I'm going to give myself. I find out my committee on Wednesday, and then I am going to start pretentiously disappearing with my notes to Top Secret Hiding Places With No Intertubes that involve the Boston commuter rail and secluded gardens. Yes, yes I am really that much of an bourgeois asshole. But I know what works for me when the pressure is on, and hanging around and subjecting myself to the angsty, pointy vibes at the department (or, god forbid, at home with my insane and demanding roommate) ain't it. Getting the fuck out of Cambridge and communing with the bees for a few days will, I think, do the trick, or at least help a lot. (I saw the season's first big fat bumblebees just this morning, so they're on my mind. One of them was slowly hurling itself stupidly and repeatedly into a window at the department, the other was just chilling in the garden by the design school. Yay, bees!)
It is going to be a very interesting week. And I know I've said it before, but I really do love just immersing myself in this crap, because when it works and the poli sci mojo really begins to flow, everything starts to click together in a really amazing and coherent way, and my own work suddenly begins to seem like part of something bigger than itself; something relevant and cumulative and, if not important, at least worthwhile. ¶ 12:29 PM
I've been getting a lot of advice about generals lately that says, essentially, all you really need is one solid week of studying before the exam in order to ace the thing. Which is good, because that's pretty much what I'm going to give myself. I find out my committee on Wednesday, and then I am going to start pretentiously disappearing with my notes to Top Secret Hiding Places With No Intertubes that involve the Boston commuter rail and secluded gardens. Yes, yes I am really that much of an bourgeois asshole. But I know what works for me when the pressure is on, and hanging around and subjecting myself to the angsty, pointy vibes at the department (or, god forbid, at home with my insane and demanding roommate) ain't it. Getting the fuck out of Cambridge and communing with the bees for a few days will, I think, do the trick, or at least help a lot. (I saw the season's first big fat bumblebees just this morning, so they're on my mind. One of them was slowly hurling itself stupidly and repeatedly into a window at the department, the other was just chilling in the garden by the design school. Yay, bees!)
It is going to be a very interesting week. And I know I've said it before, but I really do love just immersing myself in this crap, because when it works and the poli sci mojo really begins to flow, everything starts to click together in a really amazing and coherent way, and my own work suddenly begins to seem like part of something bigger than itself; something relevant and cumulative and, if not important, at least worthwhile. ¶ 12:29 PM
