Probably not the best use of my time right now to spend two days painting my sister-in-law's living room, but I don't want to be one of those people who says "no" to everything because they are so focused on their own careers/work/needs.
Grad school seems to create that kind of person - mainly because the younger the student at entry, the more susceptible they are to the academic bullshit that "your scholarship is so important, and making a name is so hard, that you must work non-stop at it, and get rid of anything in your life that doesn't get you ahead." Whereas those of us who came to academia from actual careers know that academia is a narrow little world and most business people have nothing but contempt for its cushiness - if indeed they even think about academia at all.
But back to work. Here's where my work stands. I have 3 chapters completely finished and revised, ready for the committee. Two more chapters are finished, but need minor revisions based on my advisor's read. Another chapter needs a major overhaul, because it is combining two former chapters into one, so there is a lot that needs to be done setting the stage more broadly and then incorporating transitions and connections.
Two more chapters are in progress right now, and that's the major focus of my work this week.
The last, summary chapter, is not started. (Although I think it probably has an outline and some notes already.)
My goal today is to figure out how to organize all the materials on economic development discourses, in order to figure out how to sequence the chapter. A bunch of parts of this are done; it's a question of making a logical narrative of them.
Posted by otto0114 at March 18, 2008 8:34 AM