Above: Summit of Rocky Ridge Mt, Adirondacks
9.13.23
It’s that time of year again, another semester starting back up. Hard to believe this is already my 3rd year of the PhD program, and I’ll soon be done with classes and receiving a class of my own to teach. I was inspired to write an academic life update in part because I am taking a Publishing 101 class this semester, which is my motivation for finishing a project on trans athletes that I started last year. Anyways, this semester is nothing remarkable, although I am co-teaching and did my first lecture a couple weeks ago on gender categories, and I am also taking a class outside of the department for the first time! It’s a Spanish class called Language & Ideology, and I find it fascinating; I only wish I had planned better and did not take it after a 3hr class…
I think I have all but settled into a good routine, and it is both good and bad that my classes this semester are from 9:00-1:20 on Tues-Thurs: I focus much better and learn more, but it takes away my own self-directed reading and writing time. I have been pushing myself to get stuff done on Mon & Weds, and next semester I will have more spare time as I take reading credits. I should also be done the Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies MA degree, for which I have already completed the core requirements, I am just short credits as I am a dual PhD student. Interest-wise, I have made a big switch and am no longer interested in studying trans athletes as my primary project; frankly, it is quite exhausting, and I would like to leave that chapter behind me. However, as I’ve moved my way up the ranks of summer camp and made my way into professional development, I am all but set on studying summer camps for the dissertation. This semester I am taking a class on children & youth, so I should hopefully have a more concrete plan on what I would like to do for a project by the end of it.
Sometimes I do wonder what it would be like to have fun years in your 20s, full of freedom, traveling, and working hard to pocket money for important life investments like a house, but then I remind myself that I am hoping to be done at age 27, and have the rest of my life ahead of me. For now, I am content with getting the heck out of Albany every single weekend, and making the most of the great outdoors.
-AZP
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