Technically this post comes under the “and everything in between” part of my tagline, it’s got nothing to do with the OU or the Masters and everything to do with getting ready for when I start in September, in the shape of the must have stationery items, which of course I absolutely need to buy 6 months before the start of the course…..that’s my excuse for going a little off topic anyway 😉
But wow writing about A200 is taking me forever (a bit like doing a TMA hehehe) and I had got a little sidetracked by deciding that I needed to raise my profile on Twitter a little too. The planner finding obsession came about after I’d gone into Paperchase after meeting up with Laura, Beverley and Brenda, the lovely Classics ladies (more on the lovely ladies in a later blog post) to see The Suppliant Women at the Royal Exchange last week (which was fab) before I met up with Mike.
I’ve always loved Paperchase and after coming out of the place empty handed, which I think is a first for me where Paperchase is concerned, I came home and then put my OCD head on and immersed myself in the 1001 different kinds of planner which can be bought online.
Filofax, Erin Condren, Webster’s Pages, kikki.K, The Happy Planner, etc etc are just a few names that I became very familiar with over the course of my searching and I watched hundreds a couple of YouTube videos of (mostly American) ladies comparing them all. I really didn’t know (and actually don’t know why I should have known) but there is a planner obsessed community out there and some people have hundreds of the things, but they don’t seem to write anything much in them…..and not only that, but planner accessories are big business too as I found out from going on Etsy from which I may just have made a few purchases 😁 I started thinking of these ladies as Crazy Planner Ladies (CPLs) of which I must now proudly be one too ha ha.
Plus they all seem to have motivational quotes, I don’t like these kind of things as they’re a bit too bleugh and cutesy even for me and there doesn’t seem to be one which would quite fit the bill for the motivation I currently need to write about A200 and rather than something like this…..
I should get something simple like this…..
So there was loads of pretty on these websites and I quite happily immersed myself in the CPL planner world for a couple of days (again, A200 avoidance?!) and I finally came up for air having decided I was going to buy a kikki.K planner. When I showed this to Lauren she asked if she could get it for me for Mothers Day, so now I’m waiting for it to come from Singapore (only £6 shipping quite impressive) so thank you Lauren!! 😘😘😘
The planner accessories have started to arrive in dribs and drabs and they are all cute and gorgeous and are sat on my desk looking pretty. Of course it remains to be seen how much I’ll write in mine, but at the moment I’ve got my CPL hat on and I’m feeling very planner optimistic.
But moving onto Twitter, I’ve noticed that a lot of the historians/academics/students tweet a hell of a lot, so I felt I should try and get myself more followers so as to raise my profile a little for when I start, so that I won’t be embarrassed by my lack of followers (at the time of writing I had 13, pretty poor really).
I’ve had advice from a few people (thank you Elaine & Lauren) on how to go about it, but my best tweeting moment was when I tweeted how I’m attending the History Masterclass lectures in York in August to see Dr Suzannah Lipscomb and Dr Sam Willis and they both liked the post and retweeted it. Plus I was so excited to learn that the University of Leeds, where I’ll be going in September, came 4th in the Student Experience Survey 2017 in the Times Higher Education recently that I tweeted about it and the Times HE liked it and it then went on to have over 8500 views – which for someone who is actually quite private (although me writing this blog may make you think otherwise) is great!
So just a fledgling user at the moment and still learning how to go about it all. I don’t tweet often, I should maybe tweet more? But if anyone would like to follow me I’m @debsadac In the meantime, back to A200………
Deb's Adventures in Academia 