2020s
- Pre-pandemic, I defended my dissertation proposal.
- I revised that proposal and submitted it for IRB review.
- I then changed my dissertation scope twice.
- I collected all the data for my dissertation.
- I analyzed all the data for my dissertation.
- I drafted my dissertation. (All of that was accomplished in 10 months, which is pretty impressive.)
- I conducted 3 interviews for my research assistantship.
- I analyzed 14 interview transcripts for my research assistantship.
- I managed having the house painted.
- I had plumbers out at least 3 times. (Probably need to get on a service plan.)
- I presented a virtual poster at Fan Studies Network North America.
- I learned about and tried different methods of stress relief.
- I planned a special private birthday video chat storytime for M’s birthday with his favorite storier, Mr. Jim.
- I managed virtual preschool/unschooling from mid-March to mid-December. (Cutting the kid & myself a break during his school’s break time.)
- I kept going.
- Learn about pain management & find pain management that works for me.
- Read for pleasure & talk about what I’m reading.
- Learn for pleasure & talk about what I’m learning.
- The Lessons, Naomi Alderman
- The Rachel Papers, Martin Amis
- Possession, A. S. Byatt
- The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
- The Magus, John Fowles
- The Lake of Dead Languages, Carol Goodman
- The Magicians, Lev Grossman
- Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
- Dead Poets Society, N. H. Kleinbaum
- A Separate Peace, John Knowles
- The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, E. Lockhart
- The Year of the Gadfly, Jennifer Miller
- The Wild Girls, Pat Murphy
- A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik
- Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl
- Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling
- Memoirs of a Woman Doctor, Nawal El Saadawi
- Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers
- Vicious, V. E. Schwab
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
- Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
- The Truants, Kate Weinberg
- The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
- If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio
- Bunny, Mona Awad
- Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo
- The Raven Cycle, Maggie Stiefvater
- The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
- The Secret History, Donna Tartt
- Legendborn, Tracy Deonn
Me at 5 am: It’s fine, I’ll take a nap this afternoon.
Me at 5 pm: Why would I nap when there’s Bring It On fanfic I could be reading?
2020 Year-in-Review & 2021 Word of the First Quarter
I just re-read my 2019 Year-in-Review & 2020 Word of the Year blog post, published a little over a year ago. When I look at all the stuff I got done in 2019, all the places I went, all the people I spent time with, I am struck by how different 2020 has been. We all know it, but I’ve actually become inured to it. And then I read something like this. Cons. Travel. Flotation therapy. All things I haven’t done in 2020.
Because, you know, global pandemic.
But I still did some stuff in 2020!
My word of the year for 2020 was FULL, specifically filling my well and being my full self. I think I’ve succeeded brilliantly, so yay for that. I also wanted to read for pleasure, play video games, and pursue my core desired feelings of ease, creativity, and connection. I’ve done all that stuff, too! So even though 2020 changed a LOT of my plans, I still did what I hoped to do. That’s pretty cool.
One of the things I realized this year was that daily projects don’t suit me, for a variety of reasons. I need a little more flexibility. So I’m giving myself permission to do daily projects my way - which is to say, to focus on increasing how much I do the thing, rather than being sure I do it daily. So I read more poetry this year than ever before, but I didn’t read a poetry book a day every day in August. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.
I’m also realizing that natural cycles are the best way for me, personally, to measure time. So I’m setting goals and planning in quarters instead, specifically Wheel-of-the-Year-style quarters. So from December 21 to March 21, my goal is to get my dissertation done and, ideally, defended. (The defense may be closer to the end of March, and that’s fine.) I don’t know what comes next after that, and that’s okay.
And I’m selecting a word of the quarter, which may turn into a word of the year but I often find that by mid-March, a new word has revealed itself. My word for the first quarter of 2020 is PLAY, which I’m using in its broadest possible sense. So I’m going to try learning to play some of the musical instruments I have around the house, playing more games, trying new art forms, and deliberately engaging in purposeless activity.
I hope you find a way to have fun, regardless of what 2021 brings.
Image Caption: This is what the best days at pandemic preschool look like for us: different kids on screen together, all pursuing work that lights them up. (M. is in the foreground and his classmates are actually hidden behind their work.)
🔖 Yes to Masks. No to Parties. 2021 Will Be a Lot Like 2020: disheartening, but not surprising.
🔖 Run, Die, Repeat: How Roguelike Games Helped Us Get Through 2020 - Roguelikes reflect not only the cycle of the pandemic year, but also the cycle of chronic illness.
Here are my goals for 2021:
Don’t @ me about SMART goals. Do @ me about what you’re reading/learning.
Want to read: Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning by Tom Vanderbilt 📚
📚 Friends, there are at least two modern retellings of Jane Eyre coming out this year: The Wife Upstairs and Mrs. Rochester’s Ghost.
🔖 Where Year Two of the Pandemic Will Take Us I will never not appreciate Ed Yong.
🔖 The Vaccine Rollout’s Known Knowns and More In Zeynep Tufecki’s Insight newsletter, Whitney R. Robinson explains the intersection of exposure, infection, and fatality risk and how it interacts with vaccine prioritization.
🔖 The Life in The Simpsons Is No Longer Attainable I don’t have a word for how this article hit me, but it hit me hard.
Time to crowdsource a tagline! I’m going to start calling myself a Consulting Scholar-Librarian, with the tagline “Like Sherlock Holmes with ____.” But I’m still working out what goes in the blank. “More databases” isn’t specific enough. “An ORCiD” is too specific. Thoughts?
More dark academia books!
Me to W: You know how you sometimes for fun you give people advice on research design in a Fan Studies Discord server?
W: I have not had that experience, but go on.
Want to read: Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas 📚
Want to read: Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth 📚
I bought myself a Theracane and it’s not arriving until Thursday. I’m really looking forward to having it and also sad that I might still have this right shoulder/deltoid trigger point pain until then.
🗯️ Read Lore Olympus episodes 1 - 10.
Gorgeous art, fun characterization, planning to keep going.
🎮 Currently playing Hades on Nintendo Switch.
Been coveting this for a while, so when W. suggested getting it today, I squeed. Love the art & vibe so far. Button mashing & playing in God Mode.
I’m still obsessed with Dark Academia. Here are some books I’ve read or will read that have dark academia vibes.
Currently Reading
Want to Read
Finished Reading
Currently reading: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova 📚
Living with chronic illness is really hard and I don’t like it.
🔖Humans Used to Sleep in Two Shifts, And Maybe We Should Start It Again
via @Miraz
Humans Used to Sleep in Two Shifts, And Maybe We Should Start It Again sciencealert.comArchiving...
🔖 How Literary Female Friendships Shaped the Fiction Market
This piece by Sarah Lonsdale describes the kind of literary friendship I fantasize about having. Who wants to be my literary bff?
How Literary Female Friendships Shaped the Fiction Market ‹ Literary Hub lithub.comRead: lithub.com
Highlights & Notes
Naomi Royde-Smith was an astute literary editor of the Saturday Westminster and brought Macaulay, an awkward “innocent from the Cam” as she described herself, into her circle of friends, who seemed to Macaulay “to be more sparklingly alive than any in my home world.”
Please. Bring me into your literary circle.
Macaulay would often stay in her friend’s Knightsbridge home where they held soirées for authors and journalists to bolster each other’s standing and forge mutually supportive networks.
We can host soirées. I’ll set up the video chat.
Tell me about your favorite literary friendships and relationships! I’m especially fond of the Shelleys, who wrote collaborative diaries. ♥️
Also, I don’t know who in the SNL writers' room is a mom, but solidarity, friend.