It's a Wonderful Life
Issues 116 of my PhD Journey
Hello friends 🤗
A feel-good week! Super pleased (and kind of shocked) that I got offered the internship that I interviewed for last week. Neil was a great cheerleader in this, and gave me encouragement (and permission) to have fun with my current chapter. Celebrated by treating myself to a new friend from the just-opened Jellycat General Store. Tilly sent me good news about the RNIB archive, and I got to spend quality time with some of my favourite people before leaving. Plus, I am feeling happy to be home for the holidays. It doesn’t get better than this.
📆 Activities 🛼
Monday 9 December. NWSSDTP Writing Retreat online; Jellycat store w/ Shen
Wednesday 11 December. Supervisor meeting w/ Neil; Come From Away at Lowry w/ Arlo
Thursday 12 December. Historical Perspectives meeting; train home
🤨 Inspiring Writers 🗺️
Was reading Jai Virdi’s Hearing Happiness on the train on Thursday with a mind to my sonic aid chapter. Her writing is just so good. Reading excellent historical writing just inspires me to push forward with my own work, re-invigorates me, and offers a sort of pattern I can play with.
I particularly appreciate how Virdi incorporates her own experiences handling various hearing aids in the archives. Hopefully, I can manage to emulate the grace with which she does this in my own thesis, since I have had the chance to handle some electronic aids and canes now.
In the future, it might also be worthwhile writing these reflections straight away. I am sure there are details that I have forgotten or not written down, having left time from handling to writing. On the bright side, I do still have an audio recording of my first encounter with two canes from the late twentieth century.
🤩 Persuasion Industries 💚🦯
After being a reviewer for an Oxford Annotated Bibliography, I got to choose $100 of free OUP books! I would have done it anyway, but the books are definitely a bonus. I opened both packages yesterday and got started on The Persuasion Industries by Steve McKevitt.
While I can’t help having my own work in mind, I am mainly reading it for fun. This is how I got away with starting it on a Saturday afternoon. I have read the introduction and am part way through the first chapter.
Fun fact: Thomas Cook was state-owned until 1972.
Anyway, that’s not what the book is about, but it is something I did not know before. McKevitt’s big claim is that in the 1980s the persuasion industries (marketing, PR, branding, advertising, etc) stopped being about selling products to “rational” consumers. Instead, and began to be about cultivating a ‘brand’, with strategies underpinned by new academic research on human behaviour and psychology, appealing on the emotions of individuals in an increasingly individualistic culture.
I look forward to continuing the book over the festive period!
🧩 Entertainment 📺
📖 Reading Hearing Happiness and Persuasion Industries (non-fiction)
📖 Started reading People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd
📺 Started watching Swiped, Confession, and Louder Milk
📺 Still watching Designated Survivor, Matlock and The Ultimatum
🎭 Saw and had a bop to the hit musical Come From Away. Great company, heartwarming story, talented ensemble and catchy music. Fab evening!
🎬 Still not a solo-watching movie person, but Mum had some excellent picks this weekend. We watched Wonka (stunning sets by the way) and Red One.
🛍️ Shopping! Metrocentre with mum and new Jellycat General Store w Shen
