life list: moving along, really, moving along
CHAPTER 1 OF THE DISSERTATION HAS BEEN TURNED INTO THE COMMITTEE.
It's 44 or so pages, it's largely pieced together from other things that I've written (some of which have been read by this crowd, though mostly not). I did about 5 pages per day of combined "new writing + editing from old papers" since May 1st. I'm worried because I still think it needs a lot of rewriting, but I also just wanted to get the thing out there, to the committee, and see what they say about it. I know I'm going to now get three sets of entirely different feedback, which will be weird and hard to deal with, (and amusing, since i sent it out to four professors), but whatever. ROUGH DRAFT = ROUGH DRAFT.
Here's what I emailed them along with the chapter (in case you're curious what I was writing about):
Dear Chair, Art Professor, SF Professor, Lit Professor,
I hope this email finds you well, and not too tired from the unexpected heat this early in the spring/summer. I'm delighted to attach my draft of Chapter 1: the Landscape of Science Fiction.
I look forward to your comments/suggestions/thoughts on the overall draft of the chapter. I hope that you will have time to provide me feedback on this chapter by the end of June. I will be continuing my research and working on Chapter 2, hoping to send you a draft of that chapter by the first few weeks in July (I want to try to get it done before I leave for Japan on or around July 10-12).
In this chapter I set out my argument for the consideration of science fiction illustration as a discourse, differentiated American illustration from the illustration found on the covers of the Japanese SF Magazine, and argued the way in which that construction of landscape intersected with a cultural history of science fiction in Japan produced a unique identity of science fiction fan in Japan.
I am most concerned about the following five areas:
1. Evidence: Do I use enough of the covers of the magazines to build a compelling argument? (either for the American or Japanese magazines)
2. Even though this chapter attempts to both present a theoretical standpoint and a cultural history, does it work together? In what ways is it uneven?
3. Are there sections where my tone seems to change/shift or places where a sense of my own voice seems to be lost?
4. Is the Tatsumi section too long? Are there any other sections that seem too long?
5. Are there places that you believe need to be reordered to provide a solid ground before I make my argument? (I have reordered this chapter twice, and believe this is the most compelling progression of both argument and information, but remain uncertain)
Thank you so much for taking the time to look at this and provide me with commentary.
Take care,
Kate
I repaired my favorite chair! That utterly and totally broke on Sunday.
i am in no way qualified to do upholstery or furniture repair, so I took a page from my Mom's book and just got angry enough at the world that I figured out a way to do it. See, I love my couch/chair combo that I bought off of craigslist when I got posession of this place. But the chair has always had a funny weakness in the arm. And it's been getting weaker and weaker (another screw pulled loose somewhere, I could tell) over the last couple of months. I was showing the house and in the middle of the interview with prospective new housemate the chair literally died when i sat on it. It sucked! But it had pulled apart enough for me to realize that as long as I was happy destroying the clean look of the arms I could put a couple of screws through them and restablize the chair. And I got out my christmas present from my mom - my screwdriver/electric drill tool - and started drilling holes. Promptly stripped three screws trying to get them into the chair. Cried. Yelled at my housemate a little for continuing to talk about herself while I was literally stripping screws in frustration in front of her. Then settled back down to widen the holes (I only have three drill bits and they were all much smaller than the screws I had to use) and get the damn thin back together. Hooray!
I am pretty sure I've achieved a new housemate!
Thank goodness for small miracles, the women started emailing me about the apartment. Although the final contract isn't signed, the new housemate will be bringing it and her deposit over on Monday, so I think it's safe to talk about it without jinxing it.
I'm going to be a lot lonelier than I have been though (which is probably good - Current housemate has been a lot to handle, even if we have gotten along great, just because she's not been working and so is around the house all the time, is pretty self involved and analyses everything TO DEATH, and had a bad breakup after falling in love with a guy who she'd started seeing two months ago). New Housemate is a photographer working downtown from 11 am - 9 pm, and she's pretty sure she's mostly going to come home and crash every day. And she has a boyfriend in San Diego she goes and visits every weekend. It will be interesting to basically be living alone with someone else paying half the rent.
And I'm soo sooooooo glad to be done with the rat race of housemate hunting for the moment. I can never really tell anything from an email, so I'm always willing to meet with someone to show them the house, but both me and the dog just get tired of the "come, visit the house, it's this much rent, what do you do for work, etc." conversation.
Southern California is Burning!
but apparently San Diego is actually burning. And the heat wave is bad enough. DEAR GODS ITS HOT. AND I DON'T HAVE AN AIR CONDITIONER. I've taken to self-defensively watering (even though I never water) just so there's some moisture in the air outside to cool us down a little. I'm still stewing. And a little terrified since we haven't even really hit summer yet. Two fans in the windows help a little, but only *really* help if there is cool air outside.
I have been watching Agents of SHIELD, Supernatural, Hannibal, Arrow, Elementary, Person of Interest, Game of Thrones, and FINALLY Veronica Mars
(but I am too tired right now to actually expound on them (except I did like the Agents of SHIELD finale too). Oh, and yes, Veronica Mars is awesome. :)
also posted to katekat on dreamwidth | you can reply here or there
It's 44 or so pages, it's largely pieced together from other things that I've written (some of which have been read by this crowd, though mostly not). I did about 5 pages per day of combined "new writing + editing from old papers" since May 1st. I'm worried because I still think it needs a lot of rewriting, but I also just wanted to get the thing out there, to the committee, and see what they say about it. I know I'm going to now get three sets of entirely different feedback, which will be weird and hard to deal with, (and amusing, since i sent it out to four professors), but whatever. ROUGH DRAFT = ROUGH DRAFT.
Here's what I emailed them along with the chapter (in case you're curious what I was writing about):
Dear Chair, Art Professor, SF Professor, Lit Professor,
I hope this email finds you well, and not too tired from the unexpected heat this early in the spring/summer. I'm delighted to attach my draft of Chapter 1: the Landscape of Science Fiction.
I look forward to your comments/suggestions/thoughts on the overall draft of the chapter. I hope that you will have time to provide me feedback on this chapter by the end of June. I will be continuing my research and working on Chapter 2, hoping to send you a draft of that chapter by the first few weeks in July (I want to try to get it done before I leave for Japan on or around July 10-12).
In this chapter I set out my argument for the consideration of science fiction illustration as a discourse, differentiated American illustration from the illustration found on the covers of the Japanese SF Magazine, and argued the way in which that construction of landscape intersected with a cultural history of science fiction in Japan produced a unique identity of science fiction fan in Japan.
I am most concerned about the following five areas:
1. Evidence: Do I use enough of the covers of the magazines to build a compelling argument? (either for the American or Japanese magazines)
2. Even though this chapter attempts to both present a theoretical standpoint and a cultural history, does it work together? In what ways is it uneven?
3. Are there sections where my tone seems to change/shift or places where a sense of my own voice seems to be lost?
4. Is the Tatsumi section too long? Are there any other sections that seem too long?
5. Are there places that you believe need to be reordered to provide a solid ground before I make my argument? (I have reordered this chapter twice, and believe this is the most compelling progression of both argument and information, but remain uncertain)
Thank you so much for taking the time to look at this and provide me with commentary.
Take care,
Kate
I repaired my favorite chair! That utterly and totally broke on Sunday.
i am in no way qualified to do upholstery or furniture repair, so I took a page from my Mom's book and just got angry enough at the world that I figured out a way to do it. See, I love my couch/chair combo that I bought off of craigslist when I got posession of this place. But the chair has always had a funny weakness in the arm. And it's been getting weaker and weaker (another screw pulled loose somewhere, I could tell) over the last couple of months. I was showing the house and in the middle of the interview with prospective new housemate the chair literally died when i sat on it. It sucked! But it had pulled apart enough for me to realize that as long as I was happy destroying the clean look of the arms I could put a couple of screws through them and restablize the chair. And I got out my christmas present from my mom - my screwdriver/electric drill tool - and started drilling holes. Promptly stripped three screws trying to get them into the chair. Cried. Yelled at my housemate a little for continuing to talk about herself while I was literally stripping screws in frustration in front of her. Then settled back down to widen the holes (I only have three drill bits and they were all much smaller than the screws I had to use) and get the damn thin back together. Hooray!
I am pretty sure I've achieved a new housemate!
Thank goodness for small miracles, the women started emailing me about the apartment. Although the final contract isn't signed, the new housemate will be bringing it and her deposit over on Monday, so I think it's safe to talk about it without jinxing it.
I'm going to be a lot lonelier than I have been though (which is probably good - Current housemate has been a lot to handle, even if we have gotten along great, just because she's not been working and so is around the house all the time, is pretty self involved and analyses everything TO DEATH, and had a bad breakup after falling in love with a guy who she'd started seeing two months ago). New Housemate is a photographer working downtown from 11 am - 9 pm, and she's pretty sure she's mostly going to come home and crash every day. And she has a boyfriend in San Diego she goes and visits every weekend. It will be interesting to basically be living alone with someone else paying half the rent.
And I'm soo sooooooo glad to be done with the rat race of housemate hunting for the moment. I can never really tell anything from an email, so I'm always willing to meet with someone to show them the house, but both me and the dog just get tired of the "come, visit the house, it's this much rent, what do you do for work, etc." conversation.
Southern California is Burning!
but apparently San Diego is actually burning. And the heat wave is bad enough. DEAR GODS ITS HOT. AND I DON'T HAVE AN AIR CONDITIONER. I've taken to self-defensively watering (even though I never water) just so there's some moisture in the air outside to cool us down a little. I'm still stewing. And a little terrified since we haven't even really hit summer yet. Two fans in the windows help a little, but only *really* help if there is cool air outside.
I have been watching Agents of SHIELD, Supernatural, Hannibal, Arrow, Elementary, Person of Interest, Game of Thrones, and FINALLY Veronica Mars
(but I am too tired right now to actually expound on them (except I did like the Agents of SHIELD finale too). Oh, and yes, Veronica Mars is awesome. :)
also posted to katekat on dreamwidth | you can reply here or there