Hello friends 🤗
It’s been a very social two weeks while I have been doing my sonic aid chapter revisions during the work day. It’s good to have balance, but I don’t want to lose sight of my goals while I am out having fun. Gotta keep an eye on that.
📆 Activities 🛼
Monday 16 June. Joint supervisor meeting; Accessing Archives network meeting
Tuesday 17 June. Planning for Research Impact training
Thursday 19 June . Therapy; Big bro staying
Friday 20 June. Food and Showstopper: The Improvised Musical with Samuel
Sunday 22 June. Date at the People’s History Museum
Tuesday 24 June. Manchester Univeristy Press feedback and phonecall with Neil; food and hang with Arlo
Wednesday 25 June. Met the PhD student kindly recreating audible pedestrian signals for me; filming for Manchester Museum health collections
Thursday 26 June. Therapy; know your rights training planning meeting
Friday 27 June. Evening drinks date
Saturday 28 June. House of Books and Friends date
Sunday 29 June. Games date
📑 Chapter Revisions ✏️
After meeting with Neil and Duncan two weeks ago, we made the wise decision that I would spend the rest of June tweaking my sonic aid chapter before moving onto the new stuff.
So I’ve made some big cuts (bye bye Canterbury Child’s Aid), some rejiggling, re-wrote some transitions, and sprinkled in some additional secondary literature. I think it’s a more cohesive chapter now, but I also still need to give it a read through to catch any strays.
![Printed chapter covered in yellow stickynotes, arrows, notes in different handwriting and pens in the margins. One of the notes is from Neil saying: 'the best [chapter] yet, Well done!' Another scribbled note says 'gender is a major theme!'](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wmcJ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fed6c00ce-a184-44b4-831c-f9c36c98a8d4_4032x3024.jpeg "Printed chapter covered in yellow stickynotes, arrows, notes in different handwriting and pens in the margins. One of the notes is from Neil saying: 'the best [chapter] yet, Well done!' Another scribbled note says 'gender is a major theme!'")
I highly suspect that I could do more streamlining. The chapter is still 15,000 words (or about 12,500 without footnotes). I am probably too attached to some elements that don’t add an awful lot to the central argument. I want to include all of the ideas and arguments I have developed, but I’m finding out that may actually detract from the overall chapter and thesis. Sigh.
Next week I will have another conversation with Neil to thrash out what idea from this chapter I’m going to develop into an article and pick which journal I am targeting. That will force me to streamline even more. But that can wait till the end of the week since I have a 3-day summer school and a conference presentation Monday through Thursday! Busy bee.
⚠️ Spotted: More bad tactile paving ⚠️
Here is the most egrigious tactile paving installation I have come across so far. In Manchester city centre. I have no words for this one.
🧩 Entertainment 📺
📖 Started reading the second book in The Cull series (The Escape)
📘 Finished reading Friends With Secrets (4.5 stars!)
📺 Watching Love Island – a beautifully messy and dramatic season of the likes we have not had since the early seasons. Love Island is back, babyyyy
📺 Watched Overcompensating - I hope a second season happens!
📺 Started watching the Ultimatum: Queer Love (season 2), Tires, and Nurses
🎭 Showstoppers: The Improvised Musical (Ended up being titled What a Waste of Time, set on bin collection day)
🎮 Playing Tears of the Kingdom! Finally investigated all of the regional phenomena
▶️ New favourite youtube channel: diplomaduck. Here is the first video of theirs I saw – ADHD explained by ducks.