The Future of this Blog

Personally, I kinda like blogging academically. It can be an easy way to just blurt something out and bounce it around, or keep those who are interested informed on my work. Plus, I've been looking for a better foothold in the blogging world. I think I'll keep updating this thing as I continue to do more research. I've got a couple of projects to finish in the spring and, of course, hope to keep developing this theory of institutions. I'm sure there'll be some random rants about current events too. Stay tuned?

Almost Over (or is it?)

I have been writing almost non-stop for a month and a half. My life has been institutions this, institutions that everyday for a month. It just keeps going. But, it's almost over. Then I graduate!

Despite the fact that I've been saying the same things over and over, the past couple of days seem to have come with a kinda breakthrough in my thought. It's nothing really grandiose, just another angle that I like. I'm not sure if any of it will make it into the final draft, but we'll just have to see. It's basically taking the theory of institutions apart and making each component a factor of its own through which we can arrange social influence in general.

What will this research become? Since I'll be doing this kinda stuff for the rest of my career, I think it'll become a lot. And I haven't really gotten tired of it, just tired of writing much of the same stuff over and over. I had most of my paper sitting around in my thoughts for most of the semester and now I'm writing it all down. That's what really makes it seem repetitive. BUT, I think I can take this notion of institutions to more arenas and use the new breakthrough to develop a more general theory. It's making the old new again.

At this point, once the theses are done and what not, I would like to get some of this research published. Before I can do that, I would like to go to a sociology conference and get some discipline-specific feedback to get a sense of how it would be received. Unfortunately, there really aren't any sociology conferences in the near future. So, I think I'll wait on it.

Time Crunch

Time is getting short and assignments are piling up. Technically, I haven't missed a deadline yet; but, I'm not getting as far ahead with each assignment as I want to be. A big part of this is trying to manage the random and not so random outside tasks I'm having to. For example, I'm in a dispute with my ex-landlord over move-out charges and having to write letters, meet with legal and university council etc. The one that bothers me the most is the portfolio. It feels like I have so much to do for it because most of the stuff in there is from sophomore (?) year and some of it is specific to my previous self-design major. Fortunately, I do have most of the documents I need for it. I just have to print it all out or copy it to disk and write a short summary. The big projects are the matrices of meaning, two reviews of said matrices, and the transdisciplarities. It's not all going to get done by the end of this week, but it's definitely at the top of my agenda, right below writing the next portion of my thesis. Like graduate school applications, it'll be done (first version) before Thanksgiving.