Returning to form.

One of the great disappointments of doing the Phud is my belief that it has in fact made me dumber. No really! By concentrating so hard on accumulating as much information one can on specific topics, you lose the time and brain effort required to do reading on other topics that cause you interest, resulting in the loss of polymath tendencies. This was noted by Spuey. In addition, a great limitation of biomedical science research is that your findings have to be placed in the context of the current body. Your findings don't conform to what others may believe? You could critically argue a point of view but without concrete evidence to support you, good luck getting it published. And you really do need to publish, and publish quickly, in order to even be able to try and make a career of this game. In my opinion, this speed and 'how do I fit in with everyone' aspect results in the loss of pure critical and argumentative thought processes. Long story short, I miss the person I used to be during my Arts degree with my random knowledge brain and arguing that the end of the Napoleonic Wars resulted in the upsurge of the depiction of prostitution in late 19th century art. *sniff*


Anyway, enough whining. Now that I've finished my PhD several months ago, I find myself slowly moving back to who I used to be. The first step was finding that romance books, while still having a place in my heart (hehehe), no longer hold my attention as well as they used to. Maybe it's the plot repetition, maybe it's genre fatigue, maybe I'm just tired of the bodice-ripping covers. Anyway, I think it's no accident that I chose to take To Kill a Mockingbird and Solar with me to Europe rather than a favoured Julia Quinn, although I knew a Quinn and Eloisa James (who happens to be an English Professor) were waiting for me in Rundon. 

Believe it or not, the book that I'm currently reading before I go to bed is not fiction at all! It is Nineteenth Century British Premiers - From Pitt to Rosebery. It's really interesting! Just think of all the things that are covered in the 19th century - the fallout from the French Revolution, the decline in power of the King and Aristocracy, abolition of slavery...so much change and how did the politicians act and react?! It's all nicely summarised in this book! I'm only up to George Canning but such amazing figures I've come across already! And to follow it up, I'll move onto a book about where I'm going, Twentieth Century Germany: Politics, Culture and Society 1918- 1990 edited by Mary Fulbrook. And okay, I got both these books on special but sometimes a discount is all you need to get back to who you used to be!


Oh yeah, and I'm learning another language. Returning to doing homework by doing textbook exercises, joy!