“Lives matter more than careers. Focus on building the life you want rather than pursuing the career that people think you should have.” - Dr. Kelly J. Baker in Succeeding Outside the Academy 💬📚

Finished reading: The Freelance Academic by Katie Rose Guest Pryal 📚

🔖 What are we folding when we are folding laundry in quarantine is a beautiful poem by Sarah Ruhl. Probably time for me to pick up my copy of 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write and keep reading it.

🔖 I love this take. I’d love to see it even more fleshed out: WandaVision Is Basically a Retelling of the Scarlet Letter (LitHub) 📺

Apparently it’s going to be an up-every-two-hours kind of night.

SAVE THE DATE! My dissertation defense is set for April 14th from 1 - 3 pm. It will be held via Zoom. SILS dissertation defenses are open. Please get in touch with me if you’d like the Zoom details. 📝

A picture of Star Trek: The Next Generation's Captain Jean Luc Picard pointing with text overlaid 'Dissertation Defense? You Got This.'

Sewing is not going great because my machine is old and unhelpful and difficult to find a manual for. (I’ve tried all the places but if you find me a manual for the Seammaster 1700 you’ll have my undying gratitude.) 🧵

I threaded a needle and pulled up the bobbin thread! 🧵

A sewing machine needle threaded with light blue thread.

I wound a bobbin! 🧵

A bobbin with light blue thread sits atop a sewing machine. A spool of thread the same color sits behind it.

Taking a mini-spring break over UNC’s Wellness Days & the weekend, including bailing on Social Media. See y’all Monday!

No YOU meant to go to bed an hour ago but got distracted by online window-shopping for sewing supplies. 🧵

I’m Kimberly Hirsh and I just sent my finished, formatted dissertation to my advisor, who will send it to my committee. All that remains is for me to defend, revise, and submit! 🎉🎈

We are now at the “Watch Studio Ghibli instead of PBS Kids” stage of the pandemic. 🍿

In the process of scheduling and thought to myself I should be sure to invite my Grandmomma. 😢

Catching up on MCU. My favorite parts of Daredevil S2 are when Matt Murdock & Frank Castle have quiet conversations about vigilante ethics & motivations.

Me, justifying my discussion chapter to the committee in my head: It’s only 1/3 of a dissertation so that’s why there’s only 1/3 of an original contribution to knowledge in it.

I may have finished my discussion chapter. I definitely sent it off to my advisor.

Discussion section: behind the scenes [Alt text: A piece of paper showing a black and white diagram with several shapes on it and text overlaid on the shapes; red numbers are written in marker on the shapes. A red marker sits on top of the paper, which sits on a wooden table.]

Wrote ~1200 words. Time for a cake break! 🍰

Oh no, there’s no cake! Time for a donut break! 🍩

Today’s writing music: FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Original Soundtrack SQUARE ENIX MUSIC

Me, this morning: Sure buddy, I’ll find those missing toys for you!

Me, after taking everything out and spreading out because I might as well organize while searching:

I’m thisclose to requesting submissions for a WandaVision digital zine. To be edited AFTER I finish my dissertation, of course.

As long as I defend before the semester is over I’m good. On the off chance my post-defense revisions are so substantial I can’t make the April 21 deadline, I can submit after that & technically have an August degree date and that’s fine. This message brought to you by anxiety.

Today: Day 3 of garbage sleep. Empathetically worried about funding for the PhD cohorts coming up behind me. In so much pain that I actually whimper when I sit up. Writing being done: 2 sentences, a copied-and-pasted blockquote. And I really think that’s all I have in me today.

🔖 This piece about WandaVision & fan theories has me musing on the difference between trying to figure out who will make a cameo and, say, analyzing the cinematography in Veronica Mars to see how it draws on the visual language of noir. via Elizabeth Minkel. 📺