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DC reporting in, #19: Halftime | Sibyllogy.com


Wednesday, June 17th, 2015

DC reporting in, #19: Halftime

I can’t believe that half my time in the US and at the Library of Congress and the Kluge Center is already over, but there you have it, and so it is. It feels both much longer … have I not been doing this for months upon months, years even? … and not long at all … did I not just get here two or three weeks ago?

I do not feel like I am half-way done with my research, and yet I also know a lot more about the field I am investigating than I did when I got here, and have gotten a fair amount of research done. It’s easy to forget how much that is, until I look at the size that the “Kluge fellowship” folder has grown to, or realize that I ordered the last batch of the Grushnikov Children’s Book Collection boxes that are relevant for my research just today, or … .My “Kluge Fellowship” folder stands at 11.5 GB as of right now, containing 2.973 files in 161 folders. I don’t have a precise record of what it contained when I got here, but as there was nothing in there except admin files (application, PDF of flight details, … ), even if we give it a very generous 100 files that still means that I have generated … rather a lot of files in the last 3.5 months. The Earth from Space, let me show you it … and it, and it, and it, and it, and it, and … . Or – according to Citavi – read you one of my 762 descriptions of it (or of Mars, Venus, or …tbf). (And no, this folder does not include photographs I have taken with my camera or iphone that aren’t work related … those are in an entirely separate folder).

So, I guess I did get some work done, even if it doesn’t always feel as if I am working fast enough or being focused enough or getting enough enough enough DONE!

Still, it is strange to think that the tipping point of more-days-ahead-than-behind has been reached. It doesn’t feel like it’s June, either, partially because the weather here is so different from what I am used to that it seems kind of timeless, and partially because night falls so early here in DC. It’s dark by 9pm, without fail, whereas darkness falls some time around midnight in Flensburg, this time of year. It’s also been hotter here than it ever is in Flensburg for days upon days, also without fail, so there is that … :-). It’s different, and interesting, and, as I said, makes the internal seasonal clock rather useless.

So, things are good, more work needs to be done, there’s a TON of grading on the horizon/arriving (yep, it’s BA thesis season…), and I ought to go to bed as I have an early morning coming up. Here’s to the next 3.5 months in DC, and the months upon months upon months upon months, years upon years upon years, and decades upon decades in other places after. :-)

One Response to “DC reporting in, #19: Halftime”

  1. CC Says:

    Time flies when you’re having fun. Work fun and play fun. :-)

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