Okay, just one quick blog post...

I'm in the PhD office again, desparately trying to make myself read about state size and GNP in nineteenth century Europe. Woo, quantification. But there are so many interesting things in the office to explore, and that's sure distracting me. One of the History MAs across the hall bought a bunch of posters to spruce up their office, and he was showing me the weird stuff the previous students had left on their walls. Our office, on the other hand, is pretty stark. We have a single picture of a kitten on our bulletin board, along with a lonely Calvin & Hobbes strip. Oh, and a printed sign that says "History Department PhD Office." Thank you, weird sign, for informing me where I am. After I used my keys to get into this room.

I found a pile of posters on one of the high shelves, and they're fairly random: Monet, JFK, a wanted poster of L:ouis Riel, an ad for a show at Saskatoon's Mendel Art Gallery from 1991. Oh, and a really long brown-paper banner depicting the history of the 1970s in Canada with marker drawings. I haven't fully unfurled it, but there's an FLQ guy and Trudeau talking about staying out of the bedrooms of Canada.

I'm thinking that this room needs some sprucing up. Any recommendations? (Keeping in mind that others share this room.)

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I also had a really good meeting with my supervisor today. We got all excited about our plans for my directed reading course in the fall. We're thinking about expanding it into a seminar (provided that one of our potential PhDs for next year accepts the department's offer), and looking at wider cultural issues in Europe, and internationally, from the 1890s to 1945. Film, music, visual art, literature, and who knows what else.

He also got me excited about my comps reading, oddly enough. We're directing my construction of my lists by making up courses about the field topic. I may even come up with a syllabus. This helps me, both because my fields are all the sorts of things I'll end up teaching anyway, and with my background in course design it gives me a framework for how to pick out sources. It also made me realise that I have a bunch of sources, as a result of an online course I helped to design and write.

And now I'd better return to my reading. (Grumble.) Planning out my comps lists is actually helping me with my reading, because a lot of this is going to show up on my reading lists, and so I feel like I'm getting more accomplished now.