To-do list

Deliberately separate from today's other post so i can find it more easily...

In the next week i need to:

• transfer a lot of my bibliography into endnote (must do on campus as haven't got it at home);
• finish up ethics statement and add bit about all the lovely skills i've learned this year;
• make neat versions of both the above to display my great word-processing skills;
• print a clean copy of my powerpoint slides for presentation skills (with a w-p'd version of my last conference paper?)
• Sort out my CV and press release, along the lines given in the relevant workshops.
• Think about something to do for research planning and time management (another statement? dissertation timetable, since i'm ahead with that?)
  
• check how many skills need to be included in this portfolio!

With the above, i'll be able to show evidence of development in:

• library skills (search of library catalogue, e-journal databases etc, very thorough because i did this for my post-representation society chapter)
• building a bibliography
• presentation skills
• word processing - 'harnessing the power of MS word', the workshop was called
• CV writing (although i haven't had an interview, so can't show anything there)
• Media awareness
• Awareness of ethical issues
• Research planning and time management
• Observation and ethnographic research (subject to being able to do some observing...)

Stuck on what to use for:

• Interview skills - extremely relevant compulsory workshop, but i haven't interviewed anyone so far!
  
• Problem exploration in research - the one where they make you do a fingerpainting of your research project. This is something i do every damn day, but all i have on paper is a few scrappy mindmaps. Could transcribe one of those onto e-mindmaps... (or just show this blog entry!)

Don't know if i need:

• Poster presentation skills, since the class was mainly aimed at scientists and it isn't a skill i'm ever likely to use.
  

why update?

Tiny little bit done on state critique chapter. But i figure i have time to work slowly, since i've got quite a lot done already. (apparently most people are just starting to write/plan their dissertations, which puts stuff in perspective, as does remembering that i'd hardly done anything to mine this time last year)

twice in as many days...

Did a draft of a statement of ethics - partly for research training and partly to get stuff clear in my own mind before attempting fieldwork. (this is kind of important for me to do - i'm researching a movement i also participate in, so behaving unethically or irresponsibly would be like crapping on my doorstep!)
Also a weeny bit on the second long dissertation chapter, the one criticising the assumption that protest is/should be focussed on the state. Less than i'd planned to do, but there's non-work stuff getting me down right now that buggers it up a bit.
My hard drive and memory stick now contain files called 'fieldwork' and 'journal articles'. Seeing them will remind me to get off my arse and do the things in question. I hope.

oh yeah and...

While we're at it, the exam results were ok. Nothing exceptional (except quant meth which was exceptionally grim) but on track to be allowed to stay on at uni.

update after an eternity

Having fewer different tasks means i don't need to blog about work as much, i guess. Anyway, the first of the two long dissertation chapters is done, if only as a draft.
Also, i've decided to write an ethnography of the G8 protests and submit it to a journal that has asked for papers in that vein. Yes, they do want ethnographic writing. Yes, as a humble theorist this will be a challenge to do. And yes, the journal's publishers charge a rip-off submission fee. On the other hand, it will help a few things, including my future career (the more publications, and the earlier the stage you start at, the better) and the research training portfolio i have to hand in in August. (ethnographic research being one of the skills i'm supposed to have learned - also, i'll have to type and word process the thing, meaning that i can demonstrate my ability to use Word. Lateral thinking was always my strong point)

working slowly, blogging more slowly

I've gone through a bit of a writer's block phase. I get them from time to time. Occupational hazard, i guess. Nonetheless i've just managed to write the other short dissertation chapter, so self-loathing is being kept to a minimum. Two chapters in the first month of summer (as opposed to merely post-exam) isn't to be sneezed at, unless you get hayfever, so i must try to remember that rather than the fact that i was tapping away slowly all day, one sentence at a time for the last 12 hours. Also to remember that i've produced something, rather than that i've produced something that will need a shitload of editing.
I added a couple of new links to this blog - one direct to Holloway's Change the World Without Taking Power which i needed to refer to but had lost the photocopies of (hoping to get a proper, y'know, book copy at the weekend, given that i'm going to Norwich Anarchist Bookfair and all) and one to Endpage. Endpage is a brilliant source of all the sorts of literature that i've needed over the past couple of years. It is also a total pain in the arse to find anything on, but keep at it as there are all sorts of gems on there that are hard to find anywhere else. (and, totally outside this blog's remit, reading it brings back the wooden smell of the Jubilee iscra cos that's where i first looked it up - memories of the nice part of last summer)