Of course, the no. 1 procrastinatory exercise is to do what I’m doing atm with this blog: telling myself (and you lot in the process) how I’m doing and what I’m doing and how it’s all worthwhile and relevant – instead of Just Working On My Thesis. One of the things I keep telling myself […]
Category Archives: PhD
“Copious but not compendious”?
I just realised that I haven’t mentioned where the title of my blog comes from. It’s from a letter from George Ball to Richard Cocks in 1617. At the time, Ball was the head (called the “president”) of the East India Company (EIC) merchants in the East Indies, and resided in Bantam (map), where the […]
NaTheWriMo Day 4
Bleh. NaTheWriMo November 2010 Day: 4 Word count: 510 Transcription word count: 8,300 Blog entries: 5
NaTheWriMo Day 3
Spent the day tweaking things, which is always annoying, time-consuming, not highly productive in terms of increasing the word count, but ultimately necessary. Feeling slightly frustrated but still relatively okay. Downloaded a couple recent(ish) British edition PhD theses for comparison, which made me feel better. NaTheWriMo November 2010 Day: 3 Word count: […]
NaTheWriMo Day 2
Transcribing more stuff doesn’t really count, but the figure’s included in order to spur me to top it with Real Text. Anyway, slow start, but working on it. NaTheWriMo November 2010 Day: 2 Word count: 400 Transcription word count: 2,850 Blog entries: 3
National Thesis Writing Month
This month, I accept and attempt the challenge of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) – or rather, since it ain’t fiction I’m writing (sic), this is NaTheWriMo. Bit of a mad venture, really, but, dammit, words ain’t forthcoming unless ya writes ’em. So, in a nutshell: 50,000 words in 30 days Wish me luck… […]
On tangentials (& pro-crastination)
One of my worse – or better, depending on your viewpoint – features is my tendency to run off on tangents. I’m not sure why this happens, unless it’s just that I find following paths to see where they end more interesting than continuing along a set course to a defined destination. This is, in […]
type, type, type
Really just links this time: this one relates to my earlier post on the value of the arts. Crisis of the humanities indeed – I suppose one should really come up with arguments for why the arts are important, if nothing else then for funding applications.. And on the topic of why are we here […]
Useless post
An archival scholar has to thumb through numerous copies of catalogues of manuscripts held by libraries and archives. Many of these were compiled in the 19th or early 20th centuries, and it has to be said this shows. Some time ago I was going through The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. […]
The value of the Arts
I’ve recently begun to think that the Humanities are not called the Arts for no reason. In fact, I’m currently inclined to argue that that is a most apt descriptor, and much better than “science”. Science allows us to investigate and understand the universe in terms of its details; Art allows us to study and […]