Technical matters
My week’s work has been spent switching over to Mellel from Word (recommended to me by Michael) and backing up my journal entries from 2004 onto Mac-journal, images and all. I have to say, it has not been the most joyous way of spending time and I am still unsure as to whether this is useful stuff for my PhD (Mellel seems to be helping with visual decisions around my Clinical Diary piece), or if it is just a punishing way of procrastinating. I am getting to that point where the PhD is make or break; you know what I mean, when one has got to sit down and make sense of it, write it.
Having said tat, my job provided a useful day, for a change. I hosted one of the twice yearly student presentation events, where I invite a keynote speaker to talk about an aspect of their work that relates to research degrees. Nicky Bird led the day and it was wonderful to hear her talk about her struggles with the photograph below, and compelling to see her read excerpts of her examiner report. I was so surprised to see how little things have changed. I mean, we still worry about writing in relation to PhDs, but hers, the first practice-led one at Leeds University (completed in 1998) addressed the reader in first person.
I learned about writing props (what a fabulous idea) and I chose one for myself (Étant Donnés, of course). When I got home, I started on the introduction, in Mellel. Maybe I am not an irredeemable procrastinator, after all. I do know PhDs are ridden with guilt…
Photo of the week:
Ed Feingersh, 1955 (from Marilyn Fifty-Five: photographs from the Michael Ochs Archives by Ed Feingersh, text by Bob LaBrasca, Bloomsbury, 1990)