The problem with following rules

Rules exist for a reason. They give us guidelines to follow, and they show us how to get from point A to point B with minimal fuss. They keep order and prevent society from falling into chaos. At least, most of them do. Some of them don’t. Some rules restrict us, blind us to possibilities, [...]

An epiphany that made me slap myself

I’ve been dragging my feet with my dissertation. That said, my prospectus meeting hasn’t happened yet (so the prospectus isn’t officially approved) and I already have about a dozen pages. But I’ve still been dragging my feet. I’ve been questioning the academic methods and railing against them. I wanted to say something new, not just [...]

Moving along

Getting back to work is sometimes harder than getting to work in the first place. I’ve had to reset and recenter myself several times over the last few years, and it doesn’t seem to get any easier. But when I do manage, it always seems to be worth the effort.

Sometimes, you learn lessons the hard way

I haven’t posted here in quite some time. There’s a simple reason for that: the last six months of my life has been pretty hard. My cat died, then I had cancer, and then my father died. All in the last 6 months. It’s pretty mind boggling. The cancer was minor, and I’m recovered from [...]

Putting it all together: How to write a prospectus

No one ever did this for me. I wish someone had. I wish I’d known before I started. But I didn’t. I started my prospectus with no idea what I was doing. I had two others I had seen, things to model after, but I didn’t know even the basic format, aside from what my [...]

Literature Review: the purpose of this blog

I started this blog in October 2007. When I did it, it was because my advisor and friend Bradley Dilger suggested that it would be a good way to organize my thoughts and keep in mind what I glean from anything I read. He suggested that I write little reviews of everything I read, both [...]

A few thoughts on exams and preparation

So in four days, I start my exams. I have two questions from each of three professors. The first two days will have two questions a piece, and the second two days will each have one. I won’t lie; I am both stressed and scared. But not as scared as I might have been. It’s [...]

The embarrassment of resetting

It’s been a difficult semester for me, as can be seen by how little I have posted here. The long and short of it is that outside stress has forced me to take a step back and find a new way to do what used to come easily for me: writing papers. When in a [...]

Retrospective: Everything I needed to know about Graduate School, I learned at a conference

I’m coming towards the end of my first year in a PhD program. That’s almost entirely accurate. I’ve been in another program that would have eventually resulted in a PhD in philosophy, but since I left with a Master’s degree, it doesn’t count. But now I’m 15 hours into a PhD in rhetoric and scientific [...]