Stepping Lightly but with Purpose

I will go ahead and begin with a truism: It's been a long time since the last post. Frankly, I became a little disenchanted with blogging and the whole bloggity blog world. But around the same time I stopped blogging and participating in blog-related writing groups, my productivity towards my PhD thesis/dissertation* slowed. I'm not sure the two are related (what with correlation not implying causation and all that), but I'm thinking that maybe I should take a page out of Amstr's book (or blog, as it were) and use the blog as an dissertation account, of sorts. She has been blogging, and she has finished the PhD! (Not that one caused the other, of course.) And I send such a huge congratulations to her! Way. to. Go.

Nevertheless, I think I will step lightly back into this blog as a place to keep track of my thesis goals, once or twice a week. It will feel a little lonely without Amstr being on the same path, but I know she will be cheering me on from the finish line, which she has already crossed.

Currently, I'm writing a conference paper that I will give a the beginning of next month. Typically, I would be at the polishing stage by now, but, alas, I have barely started, so the paper is my current priority. From that paper, I will try to build a draft of Chapter 3 of the dissertation.

Between now and Sunday:

1. Review a primary text that is central to the paper
2. Read two articles or chapters related to the paper
3. Craft a clear working thesis statement for the paper
4. Write at least 500 words of the paper

Onward.

*I am American, so I am used to referring to the PhD project as a dissertation. However, my PhD university is in the U.K., so I also will sometimes refer to it as my thesis. I'm not really consistent about this.