phdiletant-blog

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[phdiletant-blog]

[phdiletant-blog]

October routine

okay, dear diary, the first two months behind my back, now I just started to chill out and miss my academic appointments (that’s not true)

I spent my October under the slogan derived from Allain Ginsberg (with slight modifications though). “I’ve seen the best research ideas of my generation destroyed by a brief literature search”. Howl as it should be raised nowadays in the university. This is to say, I am starting to prepare for my comprehensive exam and feel a bit frustrated by the amount of “I-should-have-written-this” and “I-should-have-read-this-before-writing-phd-proposal” articles and books. By the way, discovered several very useful research societies and publications, and thank god for Russian #dissercat that publishes bibliographies under free access. 

what else. This October I sent out my first international conference application (remains to be seen if it’s accepted), found a couple of workshops to participate in, spent way too much money on wine and booked a ticket to Prague. And at the same time I discovered my older colleagues from Sorbonne to make some career progress (Francesco edited the last issue of La Révolution française, and Paolo replaced Toby as Institute librarian, poor Toby). What can I say? We’ll see who’s gonna be ahorse in three years!

[phdiletant-blog]

(midnight)

ok folks, and now to some midnight frustration

I am not very promising a scholar, I have to admit. not to mention my 2 year gap in studies, but methodology still makes me wanna cry sometimes, and I am afraid to send an abstract for a conference  because last time I performed at a conference was 6 years ago. to worsen things a bit, I’ve just learned that one of my fellow phd’s won a prize for best MA thesis last year at the same university we are attending now. so, like, EVERYONE will be comparing (the professors, I mean), and not, you know, in my favour.

And it is only October of the 1st year of studies. Sigh.

[phdiletant-blog]

first post ever

hello world,

I started this blog for my 27-th birthday which was almost three weeks ago. Why have I never posted yet? Well, mostly the reason is the same as for getting this page started: PhD studies. I’ve just started my first academic year in the field of Comparative History, and so far iit is so exciting that I wish to share some of the thoughts, useful infos and emotions it brings into my life. But -- I simply don’t have time to.

Aaaanyways, this must not hold me back, must it? So to begin with I just wanted to express my thrill over the fact that Mendeley (you know Mendeley, right?) does not only synchronize your offline pdf library with its online version, it also keeps track of your recent readings and suggests similar articles and books. Hadn’t have time to check the quality of suggestions yet, but still impressed. Going to get some more of that juicy readings right now!