It’s amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it… not that I’m entirely sure what I’ve done is very good, but I have a lit review chapter where before I had nothing, and I’ve spent most of the weekend struggling with the analysis chapter I’d done the least amount work on—which will have a lengthy lit review of its own that I think I’m close to being able to write.

It turns out nothing concentrates the mind like a quiet corner of the second floor stacks in the John D. Williams Library—just me, an ethernet cable, a waist-high stack of photocopied articles and books, and my laptop. I’m beginning to really believe I can get this thing done. Would that everything else in life were so simple…

In other news, I’ll be TAing a four-week course in July and August at ICPSR. So it would be nice to finish this stuff before I have to head to Michigan, because I know I’ll never accomplish any dissertation stuff there.