I’ve been very remiss with my blog posting over the summer. Apart from writing about my meeting with Homer and his tomb back in July I’ve been quite quiet on the blogging front. That’s mainly because I wanted this blog to be about uni things and not home things. Another reason for my absence is because after I finished year 1 in May I’ve purposely given myself a break from even thinking about uni work. That’s not to say that I’ve stopped reading stuff on the history of medicine, but every time the thought of studying came into my head I’d purposely push it out again.
That was easy enough to do, as the summer actually became ridiculously busy after we put our house on the market in late spring and had an offer which we accepted just a few weeks later. We then found a fantastic house which needs a lot of decorating (my FAVOURITE thing EVER!) and so all thoughts of 18th century anatomists went rushing headlong out of my brain and scrambling in quickly to take their place came thoughts of kitchen renovations, new bathrooms, Farrow & Ball colour charts, Victorian houses and a newly found interest in watching Grand Designs.
And now here I am at the beginning of October with a house move imminent and of course year 2 of my Masters. I’m trying (quite successfully at the moment) not to panic about everything that will need to be done over the next few months and at the moment seem to be managing that quite well.
This first semester for my Masters will be much quieter and calmer than the first semester last year – click here if you want to see how that went, or be reminded of it if you’re an avid follower (thank you if you are 😊). I don’t have any modules to take until semester 2, so my first timetabled seminar isn’t until the end of January 2019 – hurrah!
But I always like to have a bit of a cunning plan, so to get a head start I met up today with my supervisor to go through a plan of action for my dissertation so I can at least try and get a little bit ahead before I need to do any actual work.
The meeting went well and (for now) I’m feeling quite positive about it but there’s still a hell of a long way to go and a hell of a lot of reading, writing and researching to do before 
the end is in sight. I also thought I’d take advantage of going on one of the Library workshops which I didn’t sign up for last year – this year I’ve signed up for quite a few of them while I’ve got more time and the one I took today was excellent – Writing Skills for Taught Masters. Hopefully I’ll apply this learning when the time comes to put pen to paper so to speak (or finger to keyboard to be more precise) and it was 90 minutes well spent I think. I’m trying to get as many tips and techniques under my belt as I can before I start in earnest, that way I’ll be armed and dangerous when it comes to making a proper start on the dissertation. Well I can dream.
A little bit of poetic licence now and the picture above has nothing to do with Leeds or the masters and was taken when Sarah, Lauren and I went for a fab few days to Hoarcross Hall for a bit of mother/daughters pampering. Don’t be fooled by the sports gear, I only put it on for a brief walk with Lauren early one morning, the rest of the time was spent in a dressing gown being massaged and well and truly spoilt. It was just what I needed to help recharge the old batteries after a challenging year, and to rest and relax before tackling what I’m sure will be another challenging but hopefully enjoyable second year which results in a fantastic dissertation submission. Again…….I can dream.
Deb's Adventures in Academia 