PhD-Ness Part 7 - Material Gathering, Thinking, Useful Procrastination

Gravestone of Ann Carr (4th March 1783-18 January 1841) - leader of Female Revivalists and Presidentess of the Friendly Sick Society, pro christian gospel, education and anti-drink 

this months post it note, field visit notes, ticket to an excellent production, date notes re two of my Anns.....

It's just a month since I've written a blog post and as I am supposed to be working on my literature review (I am - it is churning away in the back of my mind) but I am struggling to get it down on paper or rather computer screen  so I am usefully procrastinating and thought gathering by writing this instead -  I've always found writing blog updates on what I've been up to academic wise useful.  Plus ever since I read an article that explained that procrastination isn't usually inspired by laziness but by fear of the task you're putting off or rather failure at the task you're putting off, I've felt better about procrastinating and doing equally useful stuff in its place instead. Like this, I have also written and prepared the slides for a talk I am delivering in May - I know its official name is now Leeds University of the Arts but it will always be Leeds College of Art to me - anyway they have asked me to talk to their current masters students about what it is like to be doing a PhD (in short exciting, difficult and wonderful) and so I've prepared that and it'll just need a bit of checking and final edits/polishes before the talk itself.

I like wherever possible to be working ahead of myself  - I hate doing everything at the last minute and as I'm not meeting with my tutor to discuss my literature review for another couple of weeks I still have a week to draft something and get it to her a week in advance of when we're due to meet...I shall keep tell myself this when I am metaphorically tearing my hair out and still struggling to get words on the screen by the end of today....

So what else, well the other useful procrastination I have been doing which is also vital research work is material gathering - be it in the form of site visits and photograph taking and making at St George's Field, reading books like Mortal Remains by Chris Brooks, Vigor Mortis by Kate Berridge, Pablo Fanque and the Electrolier by Katrina Palmer for starters...and I have been doing a lot of research into the life of Ann Carr and mulling about how best to represent/recreate/make work about her and her extra ordinary life. In an age where women were positively dis-encouraged to speak out (even more so than today) and legally far more restricted than today she was an amazing proto-feminist - though like the other nineteeth century proto-feminist who I admire greatly like Elizabeth Gaskell and Mary Elizabeth Braddon she would not have recognised or used that term to describe her actions. 

I am really enjoying trying to find out more about Ann and the circumstances in which she lived - it means poking about in the library, trying to read old census records, looking things up on the internet and just generally looking at old musty things trying to fill in gaps - basically things that make my heart sing. I do not share Ann's love of the Gospel or her strict teetotalism but I very much admire her bravery and constancy and strength in fighting for what she believed in. I laid a flower on her gravestone on what would have been her 235th birthday - what she would have made of such an action I'm not sure - other than she'd have exhorted me to read and abide by the Gospel and forgo my treat of gin at the weekends. I'm also researching other women called |Ann who are buried in the site - with varying levels of success so far. I have many more library visits in my future.....

I've also been battling lurgy - the cough/cold/flu kind that make my asthma flare up and leave me coughing my guts up and gasping for breath so I lost a good few days of study to that as well as taking a week off to celebrate mine and my husbands ninth wedding anniversary. We went to Falstone near Kielder so we could sky gaze at Kielder Observatory, sadly we only go to do that on the first evening as the rest of our stay and our trip to the Observatory was shrouded in snow and low cloud - but the nightsky we saw that first clear night was utterly incredible - don't think I've ever seen so many stars and we even got to see the Milky Way - it's made me want to do lots more stargazing and I can now recognise many more things in the night sky than I could before - I might even start watching The Sky At Night.

I love the title music more than the contents of the show to be honest and if I do see it I still feel like I am staying up very late indeed. The tinternet tells me the music is 'At The Castle Gate' from Pellias and Melisande by Sibelius. The snow also put paid to some of my plans too - I still have a problem with my left knee which means I do all I can to avoid slipping and so making it worse - so when it is snowy or icey I am extra cautious (using a stick) and some days like last week when it was really bad I err on the side of caution and just stay at home til I feel it's safe again to venture out.

I have been trying different ways of working - I got lots of reading done when we changed broadband provider and the tinternet was down for the afternoon so I've been working at the dining table without the computer as the temptation to keep checking social media is often too great when I'm working on the computer, and instead of Radio 4 burbling away in the background (I've mostly stopped listening to Radio 4 Extra apart from when I go to bed - as they repeat programmes two or three times over a 24 hour period and I was getting feelings of great disconcertion and wondering what on earth time it was) I've been listening to music shows on NTS Radio after catching Chris Carter's amazing set - which you can listen to here - I found it really conducive to working.

So am going to try doing more of that - I also get lots more done if I'm out of the house as I don't have a smartphone (though that can also be a disadvantage in this app focused age) and so have to concentrate upon what I'm doing/reading.  But it was thanks to Radio 4 that I was listening to whilst doing the ironing that I heard Tacita Dean talking about film as a medium which was really interesting. Social media helps me keep in touch with chums but it is also my biggest timesink and distraction....

Well I think this is enough useful procrastination for now and it's now in danger of becoming avoidance...so I'll just check my email, have some lunch, listen to the news and the Archers repeat and then lit review it is........