Filling the Diary (and Baby's First Glasses)

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I'm a girl who needs a framework to get anything done. Leave me deadline-less and I will happily read novels until I go blind (more on that below!), preferably in a good hot bath until I turn into a prune/get shouted at by housemates, write letters to friends, doodle, make random paper-based objects that will never see the light of day and, in short, get very little done on my seemingly vast uphill climb of a PhD.

I've kickstarted myself by beginning to commit words to paper in possibly the least coherent literature review ever written. I'm now on about 8,000 words - how many of these will make it into the eventual thesis I cannot say, but it's keeping my head clear and on course.

I have, however, found that another way of focusing my mind is to get involved with projects, thereby plumping up the ol' CV and forcing myself to think time management - for example, if I'm in meetings and seminars all day Monday and Wednesday, then I am forced to sit myself down and get working hard on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Here's the things I'm involved in:

• So it's all about conferences in the first year - I'm submitting abstracts and I have already presented a bit, but most interestingly, I'm involved in organising not one, but two conferences for 2013. The first one is PARLAY (Postgraduate Academic Research in Linguistics at York), the first PG conference for general linguistics that York will have hosted in some time, if ever. This will be held in September and is being overseen by the indomitable and impressive Catherine and Emanuela. The second is a librarian-esque Unconference, which I'm organising with a couple of linguists, a computer scientist and the GSA...and we're keeping our heads down and getting on with the organisation at the moment, so more details to follow soon!
• I've signed up to be the new chief editor of the York Papers in Linguistics, whose pages last year contained a short paper by yours truly. We haven't got a lot to do just yet, but it should get busy around summer time, which will prove a pleasant sideline.
• I'm still teaching one seminar group in Introduction to Syntax, which keeps me sane, even if the Friday morning early start has me all fingers and thumbs, breaking chalk and accidentally flinging board rubbers around. I'm also down to cover a couple of Practical Psycholinguistics seminars towards the end of the term, which I'm really excited about.
• For my sins I am the PhD rep for the department, so I sit on the Graduate School Board and the Board of Studies. It's a good insight into the administration required to run a department, and useful to be able to take fellow students' concerns directly into an arena where they can be seen to.
• Aaaaaaand there's an intriguing little side project which will be taking up a bit of time between now and March...I can't say much more yet, but suffice to say I'm a bit blown away by it!

So with all of these commitments filling up my timetable, it leaves me specific times, luckily usually a full day at a time, when I am free and therefore VERY motivated to get on with my own stuff. 

And on a side-note, here's the first piece of physical evidence of the effects of librarianship/postgraduate study...

Baby's first pair of glasses

That's right, they've robbed me of my eyesight. 

That's a little dramatic, actually - with a prescription of -0.75, I'm hardly blind, and I don't even need to wear them to drive or ride my bike. But it was scary how much clearer the world became when I tried them on for the first time yesterday...

Ah well. This new-found clarity should help me see the pathways that the PhD is opening up for me, and to take them with confidence!