Dissertation Diary: Week Fifteen
Research/Writing:
I did stuff this week again! Mainly it involved making notes on Zotero before returning library books (including, sadly, the Bunche biography). I am now hopelessly devoted to Zotero, mostly because it means carrying stuff online rather than in notebooks and backpacks.
It also involved paperwork and the discovery that I will probably have to take summer school in order to remain “enrolled” while papers are processed. Many of you know about strange university policies on enrollment/continuing registration/other strange terms while doing graduate work, and those of you who do not really don’t want to know, believe me. I have only taken summer school once before–right before my senior year of high school–and it was a blast. I might have to miss some vacations, which is less of a blast, but as our department chair told me, “When you leave here you will have a degree in bureaucracy.” And degrees are useful, I suppose.
In Other News:
There was a baby coup in Guinea-Bissau (only a couple of days), which resulted in being expelled from the African Union. Though we’ve had two coups in the last few weeks (with very different motivations), the situations in Guinea-Bissau or Mali should not be interpreted as a sign of widespread violence or chaos. Read some articles, see some nuance, please.
Jacob Zuma tried to become Nelson Mandela by getting married on a major-milestone birthday, but unlike Madiba in 1998 he didn’t invite children to visit him and learn about how to wash their dishes before the ceremony, so it may not actually work.
Today is April 20, which makes it National Marijuana Day, Hitler’s Birthday, and Invisible Children’s Cover the Night Day all rolled into one. It’s a perfect storm. Or something. I will be sitting on the couch eating pizza tonight.
Other stuff probably happened too, but to be honest I haven’t paid attention to much news this week, so it doesn’t count.
And Finally:
Worlds are colliding again! Anderson Cooper is coming to DC to be on Jeopardy, and I could not be more excited. I don’t know if he’ll stop by to say hi, but if he doesn’t I’ll console myself with this photo from when we saw him on the Mall a few years ago. It’s about as impressive as seeing a space shuttle on the Mall.
April 20, to me, will always be the anniversary of Columbine. Any time there is a school shooting (which there seem to be an awful lot of these days), it’s like picking at a scab.
Oh, I had forgotten that Columbine was also on this day, Chloe. What an awful memory–scary for all of us, and particularly for those of y’all who were so geographically close. April 20 does seem to have taken on a lot of loaded (and many unfortunate) meanings.