Thank you to Blue on TooMush for the invite to LiveJournal and to Littleowl for introducing me to LiveJournal in the first place. My goal in keeping a blog is to give me more carrots and sticks towards working on my dissertation. If the state of my work is publically accessible, then hopefully I'll feel more responsible for day-to-day work on it.

I've been in academia for years, but this is the first time I've been in a situation where I set my own deadlines and if I don't, the work won't get done. I'm worried about this, since I work too well to deadlines. But my dissertation proposal was approved about a month ago (hurrray!) and I now have all my exams and coursework and even a week's vacation out of the way.

I'm currently reading a vaguely related b ook: Christopher Dyer's Everyday Life in the Middle Ages. I'm sure it'll come in handy along the way. My new computer should arrive in the next few days and I'll be building my research database on that. Meanwhile, tomorrow's goal: put together a list on and notes about medieval inventions.