Status Update

I'm getting close to sending a full draft of the thesis to my supervisors (and I mean 'close' in terms of time, not coherence), and while I'm not close to finishing just yet, here is my research to date in (approximate) figures:  

Flying the Flag... of Turkey? Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest

I trust you have packed away your face paint and gnome hats and recovered from the glory that was Eurovision 2011. If you were not too sozzled from the drinking games during the event itself, you may have been moved to ask: Why did the Azerbaijani entrants, this year's winners, wave the Turkish flag?

The Elephant and the... Post-War Nation-Building Project?

Do you know the Black Books episode where Bernard and Manny decide to write a children's book? The finished product, The Elephant and the Balloon, is awesome.

Being and Not-Being Smart

At a recent gathering of like-minded postgrad lady folk we got to the topic of being, and not being, smart. Specifically the kind of smart that makes one postgrad or academic stand out from the rest: we can assume some basic level of intelligence in the cohort as a whole, but there are some people who make the rest of us wistfully sigh with an envious "She's really smart (not fake-smart like me or even normal-smart like him)."

Good Enough

I'm rewriting my thesis. All the parts exist (except for a conclusion, and it's not like that's important...), but they don't flow, and there are still gaps in the literature that need plugging. I'm hoping to get a complete draft ready before the end of semester, which is about ten or so weeks away. For someone who only works two days a week... Well, it's not a whole lot of time, even with my weekend tinkering thrown in.

Still, it will be done.

Wordle Count

I'm clobbering together my last chapter, after which I get into exciting and terrifying intro/conclusion/rewriting- territory. To try to get a slightly different perspective on the whole thing I thought I'd Wordle my thesis. So here it is, a word cloud of a work in progress.

A Contradiction in Broome

I went to Broome over the weekend. It was an interesting place, although not much is open during wet season. What is fascinating is how embedded the town's pearling history, even its contradictions, is in everything you see.