The Afternoon When I Was an Academic

On Wednesday before my 5:30 p.m. class, I hiked back to the Library of Congress to attend a 12 p.m. lecture called " --> Covering America: A Narrative History of a Nation’s Journalism." It was perfect because it pertained to my thesis topic and my interests in general. The entire week before, I was nerding out in excitement that the most relevant lecture that I could find so far in DC was also on my day off from work.

It was really interesting, as it identified the history of journalism and the evolution of how it has become what it is today. I was also able to ask a question during the Q&A session to get an "interview" to use for my final thesis.

The Madison Building of the Library of Congress - The building where my lecture was held

While I was there, I took the liberty of trying to find books and articles to research, too. Surprisingly, however, it was relatively inconvenient to do so because it is a closed library and there is a waiting period to actually get the books. Plus, there are just so many security measures that it really is not worth it. I am just waiting for my Georgetown library card, which apparently should be arriving soon!

Update: My thesis is going really well so far! I am still in the research phase, but I have been developing a lot of insights on rhetorical trends and peeling out a lot of new, unforeseen angles to my research. I am really looking forward to it all coming together! I have a "prospectus" due in a couple of weeks, so I have been steadily working on that in addition to research.

My work schedule looks like this --- I work from Monday to Tuesday and Thursday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. with the commute being an hour each way. I come home at 7 p.m., eat my dinner, and then go to the "business center" for 2-3 hours to work on my thesis or work for my class. Although it is tiring to do work when I get home from well, work, I have been finding it to be a really helpful system for me with a lot less pressure to do constantly be working on my days off. It leaves me some convenience to do other things if plans come up. Plus, I think I'd be bored/feel unproductive if I just did nothing after work each night.

Something that I did not expect is that I would be going to bed pretty early for me. I usually go to bed around 11:30 p.m., which is very atypical to my usual sleeping times. At school, I would go to bed around 3 a.m. on average and usually 5 a.m. at least once a week when I would have a paper due the next day. Then, I'd wake up around 8:30 a.m. I thought that I would stay up until at least 1 a.m. here doing work, too, but it is really different when you actually have a job I now realize. Although I was extremely busy at school the next day and would always run into people, I need to consistently be refreshed and look professional each morning at work. I know that appears to be like common sense, but it is definitely a factor that I did not expect.

The class is going really well, too. It makes me wonder to be honest if I should have double majored in English and political science. I had my first paper due this week, so that little hypothesis might change if I do badly!