okay so this is what's been going on
A whole lot of stuff, that's what.
Since the last time I really posted about myself, I have dealt with a huge amount of fencing drama, finally landed on the topic of my dissertation proposal, gotten elected president of my fencing club (p much against my will, haha), driven from grad school land to Texas to New York, and attended a weird methodology summer camp where I played lots of soccer and tried to learn things.
On the fencing stuff, I am... fine, I think. There was some pretty heavy stuff going on, with accusations of harassment flying in various directions, and a lot of restructuring of the way we try to shape the club culture and be good to each other AND I was trying to deal with all the normal club stuff AND hire new coaches AND my cat had just died so I was kind of not having a good time. It's really exhausting being the person people view as especially responsible and accessible when you just want to tell everyone to fuck off and let you burrow into a hole. But! Made it through, I guess. I still enjoy fencing when there's less drama, and the local clubs and local fencing division has been a really good way to keep myself level when the college club is getting to be too much. I also get a lot of validation from fencing nowadays, with people telling me I'm doing a good job and that they're glad I exist and that I'm a good coach/fencer/member of the community. It's really nice to have that when it used to be that fencing is where I lost all of the self-esteem capital that I'd gained, haha. I'm okay with taking on the presidency this coming year, but I think after that I'm pretty much done with the college club (although I'll be at least another year with my PhD).
On the dissertation thing, I am SO GLAD that I'm on track again. Now I just need to actually write my prospectus. And my actual dissertation. Stay tuned. (I'm happy to talk about what I'm planning, but only in PMs/email since it makes me super identifiable. Even I have limits.)
After the end of the semester I took a couple weeks off what with driving around, and then I went to this two week summer institute thing which was extremely useful and also very great for networking. Which is what we call friends when we are professional adults talking about professional things. Or maybe I'm just not super good at networking. I always get really nervous about meeting and interacting with new people all the way up until it happens, at which point I remember that I'm pretty good at this stuff! But I also remember that I get friend crushes super fast and super hard - I actually don't think it's happened on this level since I was in college. It sucks because I only actually got to hang out with new friends for a couple of weeks, and also because friend crushes make me super edgy (nervous that I'm going to embarrass myself, nervous that my interest will be interpreted as non-platonic), but it's also great because... friends. More friends! I don't know how to talk about this stuff, sorry. And maybe I will get to hang out with these people at future conferences or on roadtrips or something. Although it's hard to roadtrip to London/Germany/etc etc.
Now I'm back home and trying to plow through all the work I ignored for about a month. Wooooo. Supposedly I'm going to have a draft of my prospectus done in two weeks, although I should probably let my advisor know that's kind of implausible.
This entry was originally posted at http://neveralarch.dreamwidth.org/87707.html. Comment wherever you want.
Since the last time I really posted about myself, I have dealt with a huge amount of fencing drama, finally landed on the topic of my dissertation proposal, gotten elected president of my fencing club (p much against my will, haha), driven from grad school land to Texas to New York, and attended a weird methodology summer camp where I played lots of soccer and tried to learn things.
On the fencing stuff, I am... fine, I think. There was some pretty heavy stuff going on, with accusations of harassment flying in various directions, and a lot of restructuring of the way we try to shape the club culture and be good to each other AND I was trying to deal with all the normal club stuff AND hire new coaches AND my cat had just died so I was kind of not having a good time. It's really exhausting being the person people view as especially responsible and accessible when you just want to tell everyone to fuck off and let you burrow into a hole. But! Made it through, I guess. I still enjoy fencing when there's less drama, and the local clubs and local fencing division has been a really good way to keep myself level when the college club is getting to be too much. I also get a lot of validation from fencing nowadays, with people telling me I'm doing a good job and that they're glad I exist and that I'm a good coach/fencer/member of the community. It's really nice to have that when it used to be that fencing is where I lost all of the self-esteem capital that I'd gained, haha. I'm okay with taking on the presidency this coming year, but I think after that I'm pretty much done with the college club (although I'll be at least another year with my PhD).
On the dissertation thing, I am SO GLAD that I'm on track again. Now I just need to actually write my prospectus. And my actual dissertation. Stay tuned. (I'm happy to talk about what I'm planning, but only in PMs/email since it makes me super identifiable. Even I have limits.)
After the end of the semester I took a couple weeks off what with driving around, and then I went to this two week summer institute thing which was extremely useful and also very great for networking. Which is what we call friends when we are professional adults talking about professional things. Or maybe I'm just not super good at networking. I always get really nervous about meeting and interacting with new people all the way up until it happens, at which point I remember that I'm pretty good at this stuff! But I also remember that I get friend crushes super fast and super hard - I actually don't think it's happened on this level since I was in college. It sucks because I only actually got to hang out with new friends for a couple of weeks, and also because friend crushes make me super edgy (nervous that I'm going to embarrass myself, nervous that my interest will be interpreted as non-platonic), but it's also great because... friends. More friends! I don't know how to talk about this stuff, sorry. And maybe I will get to hang out with these people at future conferences or on roadtrips or something. Although it's hard to roadtrip to London/Germany/etc etc.
Now I'm back home and trying to plow through all the work I ignored for about a month. Wooooo. Supposedly I'm going to have a draft of my prospectus done in two weeks, although I should probably let my advisor know that's kind of implausible.
This entry was originally posted at http://neveralarch.dreamwidth.org/87707.html. Comment wherever you want.