Last post in April 2011...wow. So it's been a while and things have of course changed. I did return in April to Liskwartier and Bergpolder and through the help of friends and family there, I was able to give a short lecture (40 minutes or so) in DUTCH!
I think my previous Dutch instructors would be quite proud but really I have to thank my editing team (one in particular J.O)who did their best to make my thoughts comprehensible in Dutch. Again, I thank you.
I've been working hard since then, getting my first draft of my PhD dissertation ready by September 1st, 2011. While I would love the luxury of thinking over my 500 pages of field notes, 70 + interviews, and reading more of the literature out there, I'm no longer being funded as a PhD student by my institution and so - the race to finish is on.
Luckily for me, my supervisory team (they've expanded) and I have made the deadline to graduate this fall semester. My dissertation is submitted after many hours of grueling work of which I'm sure had the effect of my supervisors having sworn off any new students in the future. I defend on December 8th and give a public lecture on the 7th.
At this point, I haven't started preparing for my defense. Last week I had the pleasure of attending the AAAs in Montreal and gave a paper on urban gardening as a means to identify belonging and non-belonging in Rotterdam North. This was a very small part of my research really but it made a great short presentation. In the coming weeks, I'm going to describe each of my chapters in turn on the blog and of course, provide the link to my dissertation once it's defended and any final changes are made (thinking positively of course!).
Following that, I'm still trying to keep my head above water teaching a class (my first class) in Business Anthropology - the explanation of which is for another blog - and working my part time job on campus, which is not related to the anthropology department at all. Which reminds me, I'm going to be late.
After a long hiatus, well, it's nice to be back.
