Yes, I'm still alive
It's been a haze of work lately. I feel like I'm in some type of bizarre limbo because I'm still waiting to hear back about various fellowships, each of which would arrange the next 1-2 years of my life in a fairly different fashion. Things should be essentially settled by next Friday, but until then, I have to be patient.
It's technically my spring break right now, but I've been using the time to do some serious catching up on work and rest. I'm presenting a paper at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association next week, so my co-author (who's currently doing fieldwork in China) and I have been taking turns working on it almost 24 hours per day for the last week or so. I've also discovered that I need to defend my dissertation prospectus earlier than planned, since one of my committee members has decided to take a guest teaching appointment in Singapore in early May, so that's had me in something of a panic. But after putting together a few new drafts and talking to my committee members, I'm feeling optimistic about getting things done in the near future. I can't wait to have this off my back. And really, I can't wait to get to Japan.
That's somewhat surprising, actually. In a lot of ways, I love Japan. But I'm often ambivalent about going there for long periods of time--I get lonely, you know. But this time, I feel like I'm really ready for a change of pace. I'm getting restless. Maybe it's just that I'm coming to the end of my fourth year in graduate school, and I feel like I should be moving on to something else--because that's about the time I was in college or high school or junior high. But not this time.
Bah, too much on my mind. Too many plans, too many contingencies. Gotta put it out of my mind and just focus on the task at hand.
It's technically my spring break right now, but I've been using the time to do some serious catching up on work and rest. I'm presenting a paper at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association next week, so my co-author (who's currently doing fieldwork in China) and I have been taking turns working on it almost 24 hours per day for the last week or so. I've also discovered that I need to defend my dissertation prospectus earlier than planned, since one of my committee members has decided to take a guest teaching appointment in Singapore in early May, so that's had me in something of a panic. But after putting together a few new drafts and talking to my committee members, I'm feeling optimistic about getting things done in the near future. I can't wait to have this off my back. And really, I can't wait to get to Japan.
That's somewhat surprising, actually. In a lot of ways, I love Japan. But I'm often ambivalent about going there for long periods of time--I get lonely, you know. But this time, I feel like I'm really ready for a change of pace. I'm getting restless. Maybe it's just that I'm coming to the end of my fourth year in graduate school, and I feel like I should be moving on to something else--because that's about the time I was in college or high school or junior high. But not this time.
Bah, too much on my mind. Too many plans, too many contingencies. Gotta put it out of my mind and just focus on the task at hand.