Mirror of my life

[onefixedstar]

I've been kind of quiet lately, mostly because there hasn't been much to say. I'm devoting most of my time these days to my thesis in the increasingly vain hope that I'll be able to defend before the end of the summer. (I've pretty much resigned myself to defending in September, but I'm still hoping that I'll be able to finish writing it by the end of the summer.) I took a couple of hours off this morning to attend a lecture on conducting web-based surveys (interesting stuff if you're into research methodology--and I got a nifty souvenir pen out of it). My afternoon was spent reading Amitai Etzioni's work on communitarianism. I've read about 200 pages with more to come for a subject that will make up no more than 2 or 3 pages of my thesis. My conclusions thus far? Etzioni has too much faith in our ability to come to a rational consensus about values. Now I have to read about what everyone else thinks of him. Maybe tonight I'll read some Marx or Tönnies for variety.

Comments

[semiotic-trader.livejournal.com]

Wow, does that ever sound like pain. I certainly agree with your conclusions, although I'm not a sociologist :)

And I can certainly relate to the lack of proportion between the reading and writing...

[onefixedstar.livejournal.com]

You've been busy on here today. A little bored? Or just chatty? Good to see you either way. :)

I found out today that my supervisor--who insisted that I include this section--actually knows nothing about communitarianism. My new suspicion is that he only suggested it so that I would be forced to summarize their beliefs, thus saving him the trouble of reading the newsletters they keep sending him.

[stillvisions.livejournal.com]

That's more than common. My first supervisor (which didn't last) wanted me to be an expert in a field totally unrelated to his own. That was a little too extreme for me (hence the "ex supervisor" aspect).

Laying down text has become the story of my life, so I more than sympathize. Hang in there...