Yesterday was quite an eventful day. Amongst other things I got my MA dissertation mark back and my overall result. I know some of my fellow MA people from last year did well and well done to them! I did as well as I expected to really. It’s quite a relief to finally put that to bed now and I can think purely in terms of being a PhD student without that in the back of my mind. Having said that, I need to make good use of my MA dissertation for developing my PhD thesis, theories, questions etc.
Also yesterday I went to one of the staff seminars. So far I can boast 100% attendance of these so far this year and they are really useful things to go to. The latest in the very diverse range of topics discussed was Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Really interesting talk given by our own Matt Davies. Now, having never ever watched a single episode of it, I have to say I learnt quite a bit. But, more importantly the connections he made to work, global capitalism etc, were all very well articulated. This promises to be a very interesting paper and eventually maybe a book. I guess the lesson to be learned here is that any topic is fine for a politics PhD so long as you can locate into current theoretical debates! So if you are thinking of doing a Buffy PhD apply to Newcastle and you would have a few members of staff happy to supervise you!!!!!
The other main event yesterday was the meeting between me and my supervisors. I sent them a very rough set of research questions and a rough chapter outline for them to discuss. It was useful and I think my Europeanisation literature review will make me leave some of the earlier Europeanisation framework ideas behind as I realise that the ‘goodness of fit’ isn’t as good in the Portuguese case. But I do need to decide quite where I fit into all this and where I want to be at the end of it should I go into an academic career.
Oh and my main supervisor did some work on my behalf when she went to a defence conference in Marseille last week. There was a Portuguese official who was laying into the Portuguese having to conform to the European defence policy in typical sovereign sea-going Portuguese fashion!
After the staff seminar we all retired to the GPS office for a (few) glasses of wine! Those of us with something to celebrate in particular! We were also toasted by the staff for our success. It was good to let off steam in this way, but it also felt as if I had nothing to celebrate! The PhD is a long way off from being completed so, although I deserve to celebrate, it doesn’t mark a clear moment of finishing the MA when I am already nearly 2 months into doing the PhD. Shit 2 months, only 34 left!!!! That’s nothing! But I feel I have made progress nonetheless.
The most eventful thing of course was waking up to the news that Obama was elected President!!! The Republicans are getting kicked out of office and we were spared President Palin (because let’s face it McCain wouldn’t have stayed alive for the whole term so would leave it to his eminently capable *coughs* vice President)!!!
Next update will include my trips to London and Hull