Saturday 18 December 2010

Early New Year's Resolutions

I just hit 50,000 words on my dissertation, meaning that I'm technically halfway done. (The "technically" is because I'm halfway done if I decide that I should attempt to submit something that is incredibly disjointed, missing a number of footnotes, and lacks any theoretical framework for large portions of the text. Realistically, I'm going to have to heavily, heavily rewrite and edit parts of this after I present it to my department and get their feedback about two and a half months from now.) Still, this puts me on track to have 60,000 words and about three chapters by the time I get back to Oxford, which would be a huge relief.

I realized I'm also nearing New Year's and have to figure out my resolutions for the upcoming year, one of which involves scaling back my use of Facebook and Twitter and using this blog more, since I'm increasingly realizing that I'm weirdly more self-reflective and less self-involved when I take the time to write like this than when I post brief and snarky posts directed to a semi-captive audience. (The other resolution I've developed is to begin assembling a dowry for myself, which was triggered by visiting New York and realizing that all my friends have spent years acquiring all the furniture and dishes and things they keep in their apartments, whereas I will be settling down somewhere in July with approximately two suitcases full of clothing, most of which I have had since my freshman or sophomore year of college. I think setting aside enough money to afford a bed and a set of dishes is probably a good investment.)

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