Procrastination by dissertation.

I have to grade exams---75 of them---so guess what I'm doing instead? All that secondary-source reading I put off doing until now! And, actually, I must admit that I really should have read this stuff and digested it a year ago. But whatever. It's done now, and that's that. I continue to be pretty enthusiastic about my dissertation, though I can't say I'm actually writing it yet. But that will come. I'm gathering material for my background chapter.

Speaking of exciting things, Israel looms in just over a week, and then I'm off to Ottawa to visit my family, and then later in June I'll be just outside DC for a conference. I'm going as a spectator this year, and am quite thrilled that one of my supervisors told me I really should go. I think I mentioned before on this blog that a good contingent of us U of Ters will be there, and now it looks like we'll have one more: one of the current MA cohort who is coming back in the fall to start his PhD. He's keen on getting himself to the conference, but I heard that he wasn't sure about accommodations. So I took it upon myself to see about getting him a hotel-mate. Three e-mails later to grad students I met (if only briefly) at last year's conference, and he's got himself a couple people to share a room with. I'm feeling rather good about this, I must say. This is exactly the kind of thing us upper year students should do. And, we do! Nice to know we can be at least a little useful at times. I helped out another of my historian-friends today too.

Today wasn't all about good grad student karma. I had lunch with historian-turned law student (come the fall) FPW and an old acquaintance from high school who's now in med school here. I don't have particularly strong memories of the latter guy, but no matter: lunch was nice, and maybe we can catch up again in another 9 years. (Although lunch itself wasn't that nice, since I stupidly decided to order something spicy and it came very spicy. It was difficult to eat. FPW finished it for me and I think he suffered more than I did while eating it! Awesome. I think I've proven my toughness.)

After lunch I went to Robarts Library to take out a couple books and ran into CS and the cool upper years. So of course I went and had tea with them. It was great to see them!

This evening I proved something else, too: my ability to make a decent dinner on my own. FN wasn't feeling well so it was up to me to provide, and it turned out well. My secret? A good recipe ;-).

And tomorrow I suppose I really do have to grade some exams. Blech and a half.