Taking oral exams in grad school is really a terrible experience. Even if you pass, it’s absolutely emotionally draining and it’s nearly impossible to do as well as you’d hoped..
Our friend M took her Quals recently (and passed, of course!!) and then came over to our place that evening to decompress. The picture above shows her curled up with a purry Bobette-kitty, letting the anxiety of the day drain away.
Isn’t it great how cats and friends and cozy purple couch can make it all better?
For those who are still counting, it’s now 4 for 4. 🙂
Incroyable!!
and no more papercuts, either…
I’ve got a big meeting today with my dissertation committee. Can you keep your fingers crossed for me and send me some good calm energy?
Thanks! 🙂
A pic of me reading/studying. This is what I do.
This past few weeks I’ve been steadily working on all kinds of projects. But I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels and not really getting anything done. So to prove to myself that I have been working hard, here’s my grant/fellowship tally (my 12/19 tally):
HU done 12/15
WH done 1/2
SC in progress–due 1/14
PF done 1/7
MH decided to wait until next year to apply
I’ve also nearly finished the rough draft of my dissertation prospectus (due tomorrow). So I haven’t been a slacker. And I am getting things done. I just have to keep telling myself that…
On a completely unrelated note: We had our bathroom light fixture fixed today. So no more fumbling with the odd lamp in the darkness (yay!). We also replaced the burnt-out bulbs in the fixtures above the sinks. What was a dark cave is now LIGHT. Light is good. Really. Happy light.
Episode 3 is posted, in which Prof Jeff Wasserstrom makes a strong case for why we should all be caring about China (and reading his latest book). It’s good stuff, people–not that I am at all biased in the matter….
So take a moment to tune in.
Oh, and for my next podcast I’ll be interviewing Pulitzer-prize winner Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Stay Tuned!
People:
This is one of the most evocative paragraphs ever to cross my desk (note: yes, it is from a university undergrad student in a class I taught quite some time ago). The topic of the essay: racial inequity.
We show each other as different in order to show them that they are somebody meant to be in society?…We are making separations and distinctions when we should be showing that we are all squish meat only governed under heartless elitism like a meritocracy should be. In short, we are contributing to the problem in the sense that we are trying to solve race relations by making race. We group people together and they duke it out as what we made them, of different races. To help close this issue before I get carried away, we may have to deal with the fact that ill race relations forever. We make race, we distinguish by race. We all know race and shoot ourselves in the foot.
Even now, our family often laments that we are all just ‘squish meat’ duking it out in our heartlessly meritocratic society…
On Christmas Eve, I posted the latest installment (part 2 of episode 2) of Making History Podcast (a gift for me!).
If you’re interested, this particular episode has a great Q&A with historian Martha Hodes.
