Category: Daily updates
Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph
PhD status – November 2012
For tomorrow, I have hundreds of pages to read on regionalism and provinces in Canada. I also have a paper to finish and a slideshow to complete for the Massey coffeehouse. Upcoming, I have two presentations: one on climate change for my environmental politics course, and another on citizen engagement and civil society for my Canadian politics seminar. I have reading to do to prepare for tutoring on Sunday, sixty undergraduate international relations papers to grade, a divestment campaign to plan for Toronto 350.org, books to finish and review, piles of unanswered electronic and physical correspondence, and (at least theoretically) doctoral research to work on, along with two term papers.
I left the civil service largely because my time was used so badly there, with government attention rarely being devoted to matters of importance. School does still involve some trivial busy work – along with tasks that are necessary only for financial sustenance rather than intellectual advancement. Still, the ratio between time spent working on matters of importance and time spent on meaningless nonsense is a lot better as a PhD student than as a civil servant.
That said, I can’t say I am totally sure that a PhD program is an intelligent way to use five years of one’s life. The social interaction at Massey College has definitely been the best part of the doctorate so far. The continued opportunity to get to know Massey people is probably the strongest factor motivating me to continue with the degree at this point.
Massey Halloween photos
I would try to write more, but the college has been over-run with the walking dead during the last couple of days and this occupies a surprising amount of time.
Mel Cappe
1 Dec 2005 – As Canada’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom
12 October 2012 – As a Senior Fellow at Massey College
Slow violence
I am reading Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. He’s a smart guy and a good writer – not to mention, focused on the practical political question of how to achieve more substantial and effective action on environmental problems.
In the e-maelstrom
Emails sent and received – 27 February 2012 to 07 October 2012
Two obvious features of note: school involves a lot of email, and everyone goes on vacation in July.
Time and grad school
Any delusions I had about being able to do original scholarly research as a doctoral student have been dispelled by the first month of school. Just staying on top of the reading for the courses I am taking and teaching uses up virtually all the time I have to allocate. I will probably need to suspend my longstanding practice of reading The Economist completely each week, and pray that I will be inspired to advance research of my own during the breaks between terms.
Note: all this is while working as a TA, not commuting, and not needing to worry about buying or preparing food. I can’t imagine how anyone keeps up with coursework and does research while working part time, commuting, or managing with serious family obligations.
Massey College Founders’ Gaudy 2012
David Jacobson
I ran into the U.S. ambassador to Canada in the upper library after dinner. I told him that my mother immigrated from Czechoslovakia to the United States and became a citizen there, and he suggested we get a photo:
When I told her that she now lives in Vancouver, he asked me to tell her: “Things in America are getting better, and the president is going to win”.
Catch-up
As a result of the Toronto 350.org film screening event, I have fallen frighteningly behind in everything else I need to do – most importantly, all my schoolwork.
I will essentially be in hiding for the next few days while I get back on top of several hundred emails, thousands of pages of reading, planning for my upcoming seminars, etc.
If Toronto 350.org is to operate sustainably during term time, we will not be able to undertake events that require me to ignore so many of my other obligations for so long.