I'm getting into my study periods for my PhD. I've got a schedule of online courses that I need to study, but the main thrust of my work at the moment is background research, making sure that I'm familiar with the literature in my topic area, and thinking exactly what I want to research for myself. Actually I want to base my topic on what I do for a living, which is managing an academic school, with some particular issues about the involvement of industry world wide.
I find that I get fascinated by the reading, and can read a book without taking the notes that I need to keep track of who said what and in what context. This is a situation where my lifelong love of reading needs to be tempered by some discipline. Still, I am enjoying myself.
On Friday I wrote about getting organized in order to start my study, and today it's testing time. I am not good at getting up early, but I've decided that I have to do it at least once a week in order to be able to read quietly without being disturbed by the rest of my family, or by work needs.
So this morning I got up at 5.30 and started to do some reading, making notes and comments for my first online course. Actually I enjoyed it - I went to bed a little earlier last night, and found that I woke up naturally and was ready to start. So I put in a good 2 hours and then went for my shower, breakfast and off to work.
I'm feeling enthused enough to think that I can do this tomorrow without too much effort. Hope so, because if I really start to put enough hours in weekly, I will get the chance to make thing happen that much faster.
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