Wednesday, March 01, 2006

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.

8 comments:

Jen said...

My vote? Put fun stuff on the walls- AKA nothing to do with history. There will be enough history stuff on the tables, why put more on the walls? Put some funny cartoon poster thing on the wall. Something to relieve the tension when you are crammiing in twenty more pages of reading before class. Make it make you smile.

Anonymous said...

The English office at UofS has some hilarious posters, such as the silly walks one, and a few on procrastination, and stuff like that.

Limon de Campo said...

I just received an action figurine for my office: she is a shushing librarian. Very cool.

*Sigh* I miss graduate school--it was way more fun than my past two jobs. Blech.

Meg Persson said...

My vote for your walls is to put up the Remembrance Day sayings we came up with - maybe even make them into posters. In particular, I recommend CRamsey's idea.

Queen of West Procrastination said...

I had to go back and remember our Remembrance Day slogans:

Cramsey: (regarding his idea for the McPoppy Burger) "Lest We Forget Deliciousness."

Meg: "Wal-Mart Will Be Open from 8-5 on Remembrance Day."


So many good ideas for the office. The action figure is also such a good idea. The CBC sells a John A. Macdonald (1st Prime Minister of Canada) action figure.

Anonymous said...

I can't stop laughing at the McPoppy Burger slogan.

Limon de Campo said...

Well, here she is http://www.mcphee.com/laf/

I recommend the deluxe version.

Queen of West Procrastination said...

I love that! My favourite part is that she's based on a real person.