Factory Shift Mentality

I won’t bother telling you how unproductive I was last week. It seems as though I’m living in the old factory-shift mentality of one week on, one week off. One week of mad-dash work, putting in as many hours as possible, followed by a week of minimal engagement with the outside world. Need to work on developing a 9-5 mentality, or something like it.

I’ve done a little more reading on phenomenology, still trying to wrap my head around it, although I came across a very handy blog post by Jennie, another PhD student, who kindly recommended some sources for me to look at.

This week will be an ON week though. I’m heading to my first ever academic conference, Talking Bodies, at the University of Chester. It starts tomorrow, but I’m going to drive to Chester today and stay in a B&B for the night so I don’t have to leave at bleak o’clock in the morning to arrive for 8:30am registry. It’s a multi-disciplinary conference that looks at different aspects of the body, from embodiment to performativity to literary representations and spoken word poetry. I’ve been pretty nervous about going just because I’m not going to know anyone, but I finally sat down and worked out what seminars I’d like to attend, and now I’m feeling rather excited. Just hope I can survive on significantly fewer cups of tea an hour than I’m used to at home.

When I get back I need to do that work for my supervisors that I mentioned last time. I really thought I’d have it done by now, I’ve no idea where my week went – I quite literally lost Friday to the winding back streets of Sheffield, but I did see some excellent landmarks (pictures on my instagram). I think I’m getting to grips with what I’d like to say in it though, and I’ve bookmarked some of my notes to use when I write it up.

Boring post this week, but I hope to have something more positive next Monday.

Word count: 0

Gym sessions: 0 (But I did walk 6 miles on Friday, so that counts for something right?)