Hello friends 🤗
Can’t believe we are in March already. Where does the time go?
This week has been dedicated to re-reading some STS literature and re-thinking my second chapter. That leaves the real hard work for next week: actually re-writing the damn thing! It’s been good having a firm plan all week of what I am doing. I should work like this more often really.
📆 Activities 🛼
Tuesday 5 March. Teaching for Madness
Wednesday 6 March.
AM. Meeting with Neil about dissertation
PM. Lecture by Olive Mugenda for International Women’s Day
Evening. PhD office drinks at Footage
Sunday 10 March. Reading for book review
🖍️ Thinking Through 🧠
Neil and I had a very productive supervisor meeting on Wednesday, lasting all morning. It was great to dedicate so much time to discussing my thesis and, as always, Neil had some great insights. We talked through some of the issues I have been having with the material, and hammered out a better structure. I don’t want to get ahead of myself but I am feeling optimistic that I can rework the chapter next week along the lines that we discussed.
Part of me is a little worried, though. Neil likes my first chapter so much that I am not sure if this one will ever be able to live up to it. But I can’t let that stop me from trying my best!
📚 Mysterious Publisher ❓
I got the library to order two books about the history of O&M in the US - both were published by Galde Press. I can find very little information about the publisher, though. They mostly seem to publish science fiction so I don’t know how these books figure into their repetoire. Originally I thought they might be a vanity press but I am not sure. More investigation required.
Anyway, I read both books on Monday and learned some extra tid-bits but nothing altogether new. It does reinforce what I already suspected on the historiography front, though. They have pretty exclusively been written by the ‘founding fathers’ of O&M and their protegés. This produces (and reproduces) a certain perspective that I think should be examined.
The books in question are Journey to Excellence: Development of the Military and VA Blind Rehabilitation Programs in the 20th Century by Stepehn Miyagawa (1999) and Russell C. Williams: A Journey Well Traveled by JJ Whitehead (2019).
🧩 Entertainment 📺
📺 Lots of Desperate Housewives - just started season 4!
📺 Still watching The Apprentice and (rewatching) Gossip Girl
📘 Finished reading The Maid. Autistic-coded main character was pretty cool
📖 Started reading Tell Me How This Ends. Pretty sure this main character is supposed to be autistic, too - I’m not choosing these intentionally I swear.
🧩 Started working on the map jigsaw Russell got me for my birthday. It’s the first non-rectangle puzzle I have done, so an especially fun challenge.
🎮 Continuing to eek out Pokemon Violet
Now that is a whiteboard full of ideas 💖
You can do it and the second will be a great as the first