akashiver: (blown away!)
2007-02-04 07:23 pm

Research

The new IUCAT system works a lot better, though it still has a few glitches. I like that they now tell you the meaning of the subject headings they've assigned.

Today's research thought: Crossdressing Sailors )
akashiver: (think of the kittens.)
2007-01-20 02:04 pm

Northwards, with balloons

Just wanted to say that the [livejournal.com profile] novel_in_90 is really working for me. That's 1 week now, and over 10,000 words on a manuscript I haven't touched in a looong time. What I really like about the novel in 90 concept is that it sets a word count well below what I could probably manage on my schedule. (In the past I've tried to do at least 1000+, but that's a difficult pace to maintain when academic writing and other projects are competing for your attention.)

Now if I can get a similar system set up for my actual dissertation, I'll be set.

In other news: I bought ze new runners yesterday. The salesman assured they were nothing less than magic jogging shoes that at the very least would keep my feet from doing 'orrible things to themselves as I run. So now my last excuse for not exercising has been removed! Um. yay?

Fun research facts: arctic explorers took mini printing presses with them on their boats. They also took bunches of balloons. The idea was that if they ran into trouble, they could send up distress messages in the balloons, which might in turn drift to the mainland. Overall, the printing press/balloon combo seems to have been more successful at generating some very weird parties on the arctic and antarctic ice.

So yeah. Printing presses and balloons in antarctica. Of Montreal should write a song about that. Oh wait, they already have.

Now off to the library I go!
akashiver: (People who read too much!)
2006-11-02 12:43 am

Ze Proposal, part 1 of many

Those who were witness to my guilt-fest earlier may be interested to learn that I just completely rewrote the last 500 words of my proposal and made myself feel a lot better about it.

Of course, the tail end of the final paragraph did threaten to plunge my dissertation off into "oh really?" land, by which I mean that it made claims to the effect of "I will read everything EVER WRITTEN" and "THIS PROJECT WILL DO AMAZING THINGS, UP TO AND INCLUDING YOUR LAUNDRY SHOULD YOU APPROVE IT."

Ye gods. But at least I'm in a better place than I was oh, forty minutes ago.