Back in the Saddle

This week, I have been inspired by my attendance at the Digital Researcher event at the British Library in London to dust off my academic blog and get down to some serious reflection (although this will be more of a panoramic catch-up).

I note that my last post was somewhat less than enthusiastic about the whole doctoral process, but I think I can put that down to a rather general air of gloom that can seize me as the days get shorter.

Things are moving on apace, as they are inclined to, even given a curmudgeonly outlook.
Christmas was surprisingly excellent, and I was surprised (and delighted) to receive a Kindle reader from the Husband. Turns out that not only can I get digital reading matter for it (no more Waterstone's 3-for-2 offers for me!) but it can store my PDFs on it! Now, PDFs are the bane of my life as I think I have mentioned before, cluttering up my laptop in digital form and desk in hard copy. Using a simple drag-and-drop action when the Kindle is attached via USB, I am gradually rationalising them into logical collections. Fab!

I delivered a short paper introducing my research at a study-day seminar last week, which was held off-campus at the Old Templars' Hall at Bolsall just south of Birmingham. the timing meant that I had to travel down from York the night before, but I stayed at the University of Birmingham Conference Park Hotel at Lucas house on Edgbaston Park Road. This was, pathetically, a bit of a daunting prospect as I haven't actually spent a night away from my family (except for producing them!) in years! I must say I felt a bit anxious on the train down and thinking about it, should have arranged to have arrived before it got dark. My thinking was that I'd still be around when the kids got home from school and then leave at teatime.
As it happened, they weren't terribly bothered (the Husband had promised them a Pizza Hut pizza) and I just felt like I been hanging around all day waiting to set off. I wasn't in the mood to do any writing up, so concentrated on getting my Powerpoint right and rationalising some prompt-notes, but that didn't take very long at all. Arriving at New Street Station, I decided to take a taxi to the hotel rather than negotiate the branch-line train and a walk down a rather dark tree-lined road. Consequently, I got to my room just before nine pm and was pleasantly surprised by the accomodation - simple but comfortable - although the hotel appeared to be a maze of corridors and right-angle turns. Turning in early, I drank tea (eeuw! - Millac Maid UHT milk), ate some 85% choc and watched Big Fat Gypsy Weddings ( the Husband would not be impressed).

The breakfast was generous, but I limited myself to three courses(!) and headed off to the minibus pick-up point. All went reasonable well, I think, although no doubt I would be horrified by my performance had I been captured on video. I ended up doing that thing at the end when you read from the slides (only the last two though!) because you've lost your train of thought. Still (feedback says) I appeared relaxed and confident. I did make the effort to stand up and move round a bit and it felt quite good, if not entirely convincing. The rest of the day was sociable and enjoyable, including a trip back to campus via Tolkien's old haunts.

Last Monday, as mentioned, saw me at the Digital Researcher event at the BL's conference centre. Early start: the 6.30 train from York to King's Cross, a quick catch-up with London-based Daughter #1 in the St Pancras Pret-a-Manger and round the corner to register and log-on to the facility's network. Things initially threatened to go tits-up as the system didn't seem to want anyone to get online with it and it sulked by going very slowly. Eventually it was sorted out and we had some workshops and a plenary talk before lunch (including being charged with the group-task of producing some reflections on the day to give to the participants later on in the afternoon. After lunch it was a workshop session of choice (I chose Social Citation and Bookmarking), tea and then reassemble to cobble together our piece which took the form of a Blogger blog. The day finished with a talk on the pros and cons of digital research and researchability and finally a welcome glass of wine in the bar. The train back to York was the non-stopping one (save for Doncaster) so I was back home in less than two hours - which is far swifter than the stinky CrossCountry train from Brum, and was altogether a nicer train experience (more leg-room and frequent at-seat service).

I've been trying to fit a reasonable amount of exercise around my studies since Christmas (honestly, my pastry-eating and laziness was getting beyond a joke!) so I've been popping to the gym (ten minutes walk away) and swimming first thing in the morning before I start work on the computer. This has been quite invigorating mentally, but I do feel quite physically tired and sometimes I wonder if I can keep it up (the exercise, not the doctorate). Still, I shall -nay, must! - persist until I see some good results.

Unfortunately, I overestimated how long I had to knock out the 10,000 words I breezily promised my supervisor for our next meeting.
I thought that we had agreed to meet on March 26th, but looking in my diary realise that in fact, the date we eventually arrived at (he had a meeting on the 26th) was the 17th!
Not only had I lost a working week, but next week is half-term which usually seriously compromises my work intentions! I worked out that I had to write 714 words a day to hit the target, but the research that has to be done just eats up the hours available. It's all quite fine-grained stuff at the moment (linguistic and exegetical commentary work) and almost every word has to be minutely looked into, and its usage and nuance examined in depth.
I am trying to be focussed, but things keep cropping up and distracting me. Like I had to re-organise my train ticket for tomorrow (I'm off to the Ancient Languages Taster Day at the University of Liverpool - another cross-country odyssey) because I realised I'd booked on one an hour later than I intended (which would get there way too late).
And books keep arriving from Amazon: I've decided I need to reinvigorate my reading into consciousness, so I'm trying to read some new stuff in the field; Domasio, Rose, and Searle on language. I think I'll take one on the train tomorrow, but I find train-reading doesn't lead to in-depth assimilation. Hey ho! The life of a doctoral researcher! At least I'm back in the academic blog-saddle!