True to my word, I am back with another blog post. The first dozen or so days of January have been cold, snowy, and full of preparation.
For those of you who do not know, I am currently preparing for my comprehensive exams in my Ph.D. program. I have five committee members and each of them has assigned me a list of roughly 25-45 books that they feel are important for me to know. Each professor will ask me a pedagogical or historiographical (the history of history) question and I will be expected to respond in four hours with a written answer. After four written exams, all of my committee members will meet in one room and will commence with an oral examination. The oral exam will focus on my "outside" field with my fifth committee member. The other four members will also follow up with questions from my written exams.
To say the least, it is an intense process. I will be quite relieved on January 30th at 3:45pm when the exams are finished. You know the feeling after a big meal when someone has offered you another dish or dessert and you feel you cannot possibly eat any more? That is how I currently feel, but with words, names, and information. Thanks to my examination prep, the "arctic freeze", and the "bomb cyclone", I have spent most of my days inside pouring over books and notes. It has been so cold that even Freckles has wanted to just lay in bed.
Christopher is currently on the other side of the country right now attending the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas for hothardware.com. He will get to spend about two days with our families and then will be back here (when another cold front hits) Sunday morning.
Thankfully, my new snowshoes have been getting me outdoors. The pictures you see in this blog are from my snowshoeing excursions. I am still exercising and eating well even though I am in the middle of my exam prep.
Let's hope that I can remember to keep updating this blog and that more interesting adventures are in the future. I am very much looking forward to February!
