Time for an update on all that has been going on:

• I was accepted for the fellowship I applied for back in October!  This seminar in March will help me put together my dissertation proposal.
• I have registered for those two classes, although I haven’t dropped the research hours yet. 
• I accepted the full time job, and my husband has accepted that I will not work for as long as necessary after that.  He’s genuinely supportive and enthusiastic about the planA
• I talked to Adviser and we are tentatively planning my comps for either May, right after finals, or August as soon as he gets back into town. 
• We got a little christmas tree last night – potted so that we can plant it in the back yard after the holiday.  We also got me a little rosemary bush; we’ll see if I can manage not to kill this one. (I’m 2 for 2 so far…)
• I had a good  meeting yesterday with our contact at the dept. of ed about data; we may actually get some at some point….
• Mentor and I met yesterday about our paper for March and while my 1st bit of writing is better than past bits he gave me some good ideas for how to brainstorm structure and conceptualization that I need to bring to it.  I have the facts; now I need the linkages….
• Adviser gave me a couple of excellent comments on my history of ed proposal; one was about being very specific in a certain distinction I am making and the other (more critical) was about not inferring 21st century motivations onto 19th century events.  (The troublesome motivation was a concern for self-concept.  He correctly noted that there really was no such notion in 1844 NYC.  Having said that, my goal is to look at the newspapers of the time and see if the idea was there even if it wasn’t called anything so concise.)  Both will improve it when I submit the proposal (revised) to the larger conference.

So, I am feeling better.  I have a plan, which will be MASSIVE amounts of work for 6 months but is interesting and at the very least time-banded.  It scares me a little.  But I feel better having a plan, no matter how hard a plan it actually is.

Now, christmas shopping…I have tonight and that’s about it without my husband…. He needs a few more things for under the tree and in his stocking…..

Academics; tell me about your prelims/comps.  What was the format?  Were you given a reading list?  Tell me about the experience!