Index-Linked

One of the most difficult things about doing a PhD, I think, is marshalling information. There is just so much of it. I was becoming slightly concerned about becoming lost in a sea of words and wondering why it was like wrestling a jelly, when it occurred to me that my first chapter (now nearly complete) is, even as it stands, more words than my entire undergraduate dissertation and a third of the length of my MA thesis. Then I didn't feel quite so bad about it! There is a lot of info to handle and I think it behoves one to get a grip of it in the early stages. As my supervisor said to me "It's rather difficult to organise oneself retrospectively".
One of my main problems is the uniformity of digital information. I am a big fan of notebooks and my most important vade mecum is my large Moleskine soft-back academic diary. It's a wonderful, familiar, tactile object. In here I write all my meetings, references, quotes and ideas. Listening to the radio the other day, I was intrigued to hear my views backed up completely: a woman talking of her devotion to writing stuff down long-hand echoed my sentiment that she could picture in a jotter where she'd committed stuff to writing, visualising the side of the page used, the colour of pen and even the position on the page. Me too, I thought!

And that is the problem I have with digital information: it all looks the same!

When I download a PDF and mark it up or highlight text, I have an image in my head of both the marking up and content. This simply doesn't happen, even when using Adobe's finest editing tools. True, the computer stuff is neater, but it is so anodyne and I haven't had any physical interaction with the text, which appears to be necessary in my case if I am to remember it.

I am also a somewhat creeped out by the fact that digital words no longer 'exist' once they're gone from the screen. Why that should worry me, I just don't know.
I had a bit of an epiphany when I read an article (in the Times, I think) about a guy who was learning Russian and had, at the behest of his tutor, started to use index cards as aides memoires for conjugations and vocabulary, and carried them about with him. I largely abandoned the idea of index cards after my undergrad years, when my work became more diverse than just language, but I am seriously thinking of reviving their use in my studies. There's something about the act of writing that opens pathways in the brain, certainly in my brain, that is not replicated by using a keyboard or mouse.

Sure, I would not even attempt writing my thesis out long-hand - thank God for cut and paste!

I love my computer for being a portal to the world, and I think my smart phone is great, but give me a pen and paper for the stuff that I really want to remember.

The Days Thou Gavest....

Well.....that's the summer hols over for another year, and needless to say I am riven with guilt about not appreciating it more at the time blah blah blah. As per usual. Actually it was great: I loved every moment of our foreign sojourn. The fact that we've been to the same mediterranean island for the past six years (...I know - how predictable) lent the strange illusion that the total weeks spent on vacation had consolidated into one six-week long visit, and by the end of our second day we could not believe that we'd only been there a mere 48 hours. So we ate and drank and sunbathed far more than would be deemed good for our bodies, but it was immensely healing and nourishing to the soul - and that's what holidays are all about. But back to this grey and bickering small island with its cold drizzle and unappetising diet......We are already planning our next escape.

At the moment, I feel quite tired out and unenthused about rejoining the fray: the Bright-Eyed Boy returns to school later this week, leaving daughter #3 and myself to make a few desultory trips for new school uniform before she goes back next week. Then I am on my own again, facing the HUGE responsibility of becoming a full-time, fully-funded PhD student at the beginning of October. Ulp! (That, and daughter #2's wedding which is scheduled for a fortnight's time) No doubt I'll perk up once relieved of my quotidien maternal resposibility. Perhaps I should buy some new stationery goods to symbolise my new 'start'. I remember from my schooldays that a new pencil-case and jotter always seemed to promise a new, improved term-time identity, a new commitment to study and enthusiasm. I was always baffled by those who chose to cling on to their scruffy old pencil-cases and eschewed new goods: were they deliberately embracing asceticism as a style-choice or simply unable to appreciate the frisson generated by minor self-indulgence? Probably neither - they just weren't as neurotic as me, and no doubt their lives have gone on to be models of rectitude and fiscal commonsense.

I was mesmerised in the outbound airport by a rack of Moleskine goods of every size. Had I not been going on my holidays (rather than returning from them) I would no doubt have plundered the display for another large floppy-back 18-month diary (week per page). I've been using one of these for over a year now and am very conscious that it runs out at Christmas and I haven't seen one locally. I love it: it's now covered in my erratic handwriting in various different inks and is full of useful website addresses, quotes, references and bibliographic essentials. My supervisor expressed a modicum of surprise that I 'did everything longhand'. I don't - at least not 'proper' work -but I've never mastered the art of cyber-notes - where do they all go? Everything that has caught my imagination or attention is there to see and, most usefully, I can usually visualise a particular item's whereabouts on the page or pen-colour which makes its retrieval much easier than snatching it back out of the ether. It is a real vade mecum, a commonplace, a forum, a repository of knowledge, ideas and the springboard of thought. And much as I love the functionality and range of my laptop, it will never replace my diary.