I Passed My Test!!! And so, I’m Back to Working on the Blog!
Hi, everyone! Sorry that I’ve been away from the blog for most of the month of November (& quite a bit of October). However, I do have a reason for this: SCHOOL! Basically, between taking classes, teaching classes (and grading), and reading for my Prelims (slang for Preliminary Examinations–the last major checkpoint that I had to pass before I am allowed to start on my Dissertation). I’m usually pretty good about finding an hour a day to knock out a blog post, but this semester has been incredibly difficult to do. So sorry!
I Passed My Test!
So, I had to respond to the criticism of my Prelims through an oral portion of the exam to nail some of the specifics for the test. Prelims are a strange beast as the way to pass is to show breadth of knowledge and mastery of scholars and scholarship in your field, but also to be super-specific and answer the question. I’m really good at either one or the other–I can either be super-specific and detailed or I can go general and show a breadth and wide-range of different scholarship, but I don’t usually have to do both in essays. In other words, I went for the breadth option and left some elements a bit vague, so the readers (professors) asked me to do an oral exam to nail down some of the specifics. I did so a week ago and managed to really well (YAY!) and so I passed. Now, I get to work on the Prospectus (a plan for the Dissertation) and once that is signed off on, I can then start the Dissertation itself (officially)!
As the test itself was Oct. 25th, and the oral exam was just last Tuesday, it is easy to see where my time has gone and the reason why the blog has languished (suffered). While I’m currently in the process of catching up on grading and assignment sheets, hopefully I’ll be more regular in my blogging (the semester ends on Dec. 4th, with my last Final Exam day for my classes happening on Dec. 11th), so no matter what, I should be back to a (mostly) normal schedule in the very near future!
What’s Next?
So, while I’ve been ensconced in reading, grading, planning classes, etc., I have been trying to stay current with media and current events (mostly to keep my stress level reasonable and to STAY SANE!) In doing so, I’ve have quite a bit of material to blog about, so please start looking for blog entries to start appearing more frequently. I won’t promise a full 5 day a week schedule yet (though I might hit that at some point), but blog entries should pop up with more regularity now that I’m on the Dissertation path!
So, long story short, I’m back to blogging (for probably the 3rd time this year), so look for more blog entries and for the blog to make an end-of-the-year surge to finish 2019 out strong!
Oh, and did I mention? I PASSED MY TEST! 
