Saturday, December 18, 2010

Holidays? What Holidays?

A testament to the life of many graduate students is that they never really get a break from academic pursuits like they did in halcyon days of being an undergrad.  Although some lucky few manage to eke out a week or so without reading or writing, most of us continue to work year-round, whether summer teaching and research, trying to get ahead on reading for the next semester, preparing to teach, or studying for exams.

In my case, I have a little of all of it.  Not only do I get to spend time studying for comprehensive exams (I brought forty books on France just for that reason), but I need to finish my article on American Military Culture (it is past due), edit two journal articles to send out for publication (one of William Calley and another on George Armstrong Custer), and finish two short papers for a directed reading I've yet to finish (procrastination is the frenemy of the graduate student).  For my sins, I also have to continue working to organize the department's third annual graduate student conference (we need 3 more commentators), and edit more than sixty book reviews since I was also gullible enough to agree to be the book review editor for the Southern Historian.

For the next couple of days, I'll be working on those short papers and the encyclopedia article.  Here's the reading list: