Sorry faithful readers, for the lack of content. I've been on the road a bit lately, with a seminar in Kobe and a few days at the in-laws. I contemplated giving up this space because, even though it doesn't take up so much time, it does take some, and time is something I have little of these days. I figure if I can't do something consistent enough to build and maintain a readership, it isn't worth doing.
But then I realized that I do enjoy doing this, its a nice distraction. So I'm going to keep at it, and perhaps some of the rest of you would be tempted to try your hand at it. If you even have the slightest hint of a twinge of a possible desire to try it out, go for it. Don't even think about if what you say is worth reading. If its worth your thoughts, it worth publishing here. Can't be any worse than what I put up.
While I'm going on like this, I want to lay out a bit about how busy my life is, maybe we can have a competition or something. The big thing going on right now is my PhD dissertation, final copy due first week of December or so. I need to get a general introduction with outline done by the end of June for my prof to okay, and then give her a working draft by September so she can read and comment by October so I can revise and edit for the final draft.
Her involvement is complicated by the fact that she is a Slavic language linguist and I ended up as her student only because my original advisor abandoned his position at the university here while on sabbatical in the US (presumably for another job but he may have died, no one knows for sure) and left me floating. I washed up in her lab, which is a mixed bag. I have total freedom, the flip side of which is I don't really have any support and work in an intellectual vacuum. Sometimes I really wonder if the work I'm doing is worthwhile, because I don't have a sounding board to bounce ideas off of and get criticism and stimulation from.
So that is why I'm also involved in these seminars and conferences. The seminar last weekend in Kobe was actually a pragmatics seminar, not really my bag, but it was an opportunity to rub elbows with other researchers and get some socializing in on the side. I also have a presentation next week in the lab at school (the outline of which is due Friday but won't get turned in until Monday) and then a major conference presentation the following weekend at the Asian Studies-Pacific regional conference at the University of Hawaii. The weekend after that is another conference in Tokyo.
The beauty of all this writing and conferencing is that my field studies aren't complete and only half of my data is translated. To add icing to the cake of Nute, I start teaching 3 days a week on Tuesday. That actually may turn into a benefit though as it adds structure to my life which hopefully translates to productivity.
I still make time to browse the news and contemplate life so I should be able to find stuff to drone on about here (hey, did you know that the FCC is going to permit massive media conglomerates to take control of the flow of information on Monday?!), but if you come to notice a lack of activity, its just that I'm busy. If you do happen to enjoy what I write about, please don't give up on me, as I will continue to post, always aiming for consistency, but settling for blasts of multiple posts on days when I find time.
And with that, I'm back to work. Cheers!
Posted by Nutrimentia at May 31, 2003 10:48 PM | TrackBack