Four weeks to go: what I did this week

So, this week has been pretty productive.  Summer has arrived.  As some of you will already know, I find summer extremely isolating, and the lack of activity makes me feel a bit closed-in, but on the other hand I do get a lot done, having nothing else to do but work.  I wrote the bulk of my thesis during the summer months last year.  So, what have I achieved since I last blogged?

Following my panic last week, I bought a notebook to organise my job-hunt and keep myself afloat.  For some reason, having a dedicated notebook, and keeping track of what I’m doing/needs to be done makes me feel a bit more enthusiastic and much calmer - probably a control thing.  I’m not great at art, or straight lines, but I made up a few pages about the purpose of the notebook, the purpose of me, and some grids to record when I looked at what job websites, and for what kinds of job:

I’ve almost fooled myself into being excited about, rather than scared of, the future!

Also this week, I wrote my paper for the Children’s History Society’s inaugural conference, Horrible Histories, which is happening on the 16th-18th June.  I surprised myself by writing the whole thing in one day - usually, it would take me at least two!  I guess I was a) excited to be producing words, rather than deleting them, and b) excited by the topic.  I will be talking about how only children used only-child stereotypes to frame their childhood experiences, and I think that’s one of the more interesting and intelligent aspects of my thesis.  Whereas with the 30-minute paper I did a couple of months ago, I wasn’t sure if I could fill the time, with this 20-minute paper, I had to select only the best examples, and leave out things I would have liked to talk about.  Could this be a potential journal article?  I’m really excited about the conference itself - as well as being society secretary, I’ll know lots of people there, and there are lots of exciting papers (in three concurrent strands, making it a nightmare to decide which ones to see!).  Not to mention that it’ll get me out of the house, and it might well be my last multiple-day conference (we’ll have to see).

As for the thesis, I have one more chapter and the conclusion to brutally edit, and then final draft 3.docx will be complete.  It will pretty much be the final piece - I’ll have it another read-through or two before I print it, of course, but there won’t be any more major changes.  Hopefully I’ve weeded out most of the typos - I’ve been through pretty much sentence-by-sentence, and been shocked by mistakes I’ve overlooked in the past!  I’ve deleted a whopping 3,961 words so far, which I’m amazed by, quite frankly.

My plans for the next week, then, are to finish the fine-tooth comb edit, practice my Horrible Histories paper, and go to the conference.  As one of the conference days is a Saturday, I’ll be sure to take a day off in the week in lieu!