Farewell to 2013

I started this blog in January, and then I didn't post on it all year. Nice. So here's my year in review--some things that happened, in no particular order.

1. I traveled quite a bit. We visited my sister in Florida, we camped in Shenandoah National Park, and I went to Michigan once and Utah twice. More excitingly, Peter and I traveled to Hong Kong to visit his friend William. We breathed terrible air, did some hiking and sightseeing (Lamma Island, Kowloon Walled City Park, Hong Kong history and art museums, several temples and street markets), ate loads of dim sum and other delicious food (we're mostly vegetarian at home, but we realized pretty quickly that avoiding meat in Hong Kong wasn't really feasible; my stomach was grateful for the pork buns), and just generally enjoyed hanging out in a completely new place.

Dirty air! Skyscrapers! Boats!

Ruins in Macau!

Buddhist nunnery and temple complex! With skyscrapers!

I also spent a month in London doing dissertation research. I love both London and archival research, so this was fabulous. Peter also joined me there for the latter half of the month to participate in a seminar for librarians. I spent my days reading depressing but fascinating World War II documents, and in the evenings, we rode the Tube, revisited favorite places, explored new parts of the city, saw plays, and took basically no pictures (that weren't related to my research).

Oh, wait! I found some failed selfies:

In Greenwich

On a bridge

2. Peter and I celebrated our first anniversary (and now we're at a year and a half, though it feels like longer). I know that's nothing compared to many of our friends, but it was nice to reach that milestone and feel very settled and comfortable in our marriage.

3. I spent time on hobbies that sometimes fell by the wayside during grad school. I started binding books again. With a local choir (and the North Carolina Symphony, in some cases), I performed Holst's The Planets, Bach's St. John Passion, Handel's Messiah, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and probably some other things I'm forgetting. I continued working on projects with LDS WAVE. I read more books for pleasure than I have in years.

4. I started a new job as a journals production coordinator at a university press. It's a temporary position, but it's fun to be doing some publishing work again and it's a good transitional job to help me move from a tenure-track-focused graduate program into the alt-ac realm.

5. I successfully defended my dissertation! I still have a few minor revisions to make before I turn in the final version in January, but I feel relieved to have reached this point. I'm also proud of achieving a goal that seemed far away and unattainable during much of my program--it was difficult to find the way forward in a situation with little structure and guidance and lots of isolation. But I did it! Freedom, after 5+ years!

6. My strong, generous, wonderful grandma passed away. I drove directly to the airport from my defense to fly home for her funeral. It was nice to be with family I hadn't seen in years and to hear new stories about Nana's life, but her death was fairly sudden and I'm sad that I didn't have more time to spend with her.

7. My immediate families had two weddings and two new babies. (I haven't met S's yet, but R's baby is very sweet and adorable, and that's coming from someone who's really not into babies.) Two siblings also started college, and one of those is now on a mission in Chile.

These kinds of lists tend to make people's lives sound momentous and awesome. So in the interest of avoiding misrepresentation, I will also say that 2013 featured many mundane and/or frustrating moments: a fight with mold in a poorly maintained apartment, a move to a new apartment, lots of dread and procrastination and frustration related to my dissertation, anxiety about jobs and health, and expensive car repairs. But overall it was a year of good experiences and positive transitions. Here's to an adventurous 2014, in which we graduate, search for jobs, and move who knows where!

Want to see where I work?

I thought so.

One of the first things I did after we moved into our apartment was to set up a writing area in our second bedroom. It's a quiet corner filled with essential books, decorated appropriately with poetry and pictures of England, and outfitted with a substantial collection of office supplies as well as a printer (under the desk) and my IKEA chair Jeff (actually Jeff 2; I broke Jeff 1 by leaning too hard on the plastic backrest, then tried to make do with duct tape for a while before admitting I could probably just spring for another $10 chair).

So here's my writing nook:

...and here's where I actually do most of my work:

Not pictured are the stacks of books I often leave on the floor around the couch and the dishes that usually join me at the coffee table for lunch. As you can see, I've noted some of the convenient distractions that surround my work area of choice. I could also have pointed out my phone, although it's not much of a distraction because it's a three-year-old non-smart phone, and the big, comfy blanket my sister made for me.

Okay, so it doesn't seem like the most productive way to work, but I actually work better here than at my desk. Not only is the desk a little too high to sit at comfortably with a non-adjustable chair like Jeff, but when sitting on the couch I have more space to spread out my books and papers and I can look out the window once in a while to feel less isolated. Even when I had an office on campus, I rarely worked there outside of office hours because it was too cold and lonely. My ideal place to work is a coffee shop or a busy part of a library, because the background noise and the feeling of having other people around help me to be more focused and motivated. There are coffee shops just a short bike ride in either direction from my apartment, but I don't take advantage of those alternative work spaces as often as I'd like to. (Partly because I can only drink so much tea and hot chocolate. Also because my computer has to stay plugged in (it has no battery) and sit on an upside-down muffin pan (it overheats easily).)

How about you? Do you work best in quiet environments, or do you like background noise? If you work from home, how do you stay focused (I hear that working in a designated area helps, but I've already failed on that front)?

I live!

While lying awake far too late last night (too much sugar from eating brownies? constant coughing from that cold I can't shake?), I decided I felt like writing again. My old blog, which I lost interest in over the last few years, didn't seem like the right place to start up again, so here I am! Why?

1. Part of me feels a little stressed or guilty every time I write something that isn't my dissertation. But actually, any writing, however unrelated to my work, helps keep my brain in writing mode and makes the words come more easily when I do get around to the diss.
2. I'm living in a place where I know almost no one and have few opportunities to make friends, so I'm feeling disconnected. I want to be better at reaching out and staying in touch with friends and family in a venue other than Facebook, which already knows too much about me and where I'm not comfortable addressing personal or controversial topics. (Yes, I realize I'm complaining about Facebook's creepiness on a Google-owned platform, but I'm choosing my battles. That's a post for another time.)
3. I don't keep a journal, so it would be nice to have some record of what I'm up to and thinking about.
4. For Peter's sake, I should have somewhere to talk through and share my thoughts. Because I spend most of my time alone, I talk his ear off when he's around. True story: Almost every night he'll finish his dinner before I'm even halfway done because I talk so much.

When I was a freshman in college, I named the first incarnation of my blog "Inane Ramblings of an Incurable Cynic" (although the title later cycled through cynical Vonnegut and Beckett references).  I expect Blog 2.0 will be less cynical, possibly still inane. I imagine I'll write a lot about the things I think a lot about: books, food, feminism, travel, politics. But we'll see. Come along if you'd like!

P.S. I hate thinking of blog titles and addresses, so as often happens, I've resorted to literary references for both. Bonus points if you recognize them without googling.