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Interesting Things, June 8th 2015

Hello! How are things in your part of the world? Since I last shared an interesting things post I’ve had a strange series of weeks. First, I was ill – and being ill sucks! I got better after a couple of days, but I realised that I have very little in the way of relaxing strategies. And as I write that I realise how odd it sounds: why would someone need strategies for relaxing? People talk about strategies or systems for time management or planning all of the time, but it feels wrong to think about strategies for relaxing.

I’ve also had a couple of weeks where I’ve been working from home. I’ve missed being out and about delivering workshops, but enjoyed the extra time around family. It’s also meant that I’ve had time to start planning for the next writing project, which I’ll probably be in a position to share something about soon. I’m aiming to publish again by mid-to-late-September I think, but this is contingent on me getting first drafts done by the end of July. I’ll need to use this last week of non-workshop time to really get a good plan together, and also break some ground on chapters……..

…….but I think it’s doable 🙂

Anyway! What have I been reading?

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Catch Up, 26th January 2015

Previously in this sort-of link round-up slot I’ve had some kind of format where I talk about things in certain orders and so on. But after having spent a lot of time writing out to a clear structure lately (he says, conversationally referencing his next book) I thought I would write as things occur in this post.

Work

I spent some time away last week at my first KESS Grad School of the year; it was great to work with a group of MRes scholars, hear about their research and look at some interesting case studies. Very happy that I have some more of these in the coming six months. This week I’m away in Bangor for a couple of days, talking to staff and PhD candidates about vivas, and on Friday morning I’m at LJMU to talk about viva prep there too. Busy times!

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series

Acronym Post Round-Up

When I started blogging regularly back in the autumn I started with a series of posts about my favourite acronyms. Acronyms sometimes get a raw deal, mistaken for being trite or silly – but actually I think they can be really useful in summarising valuable ideas. In working with researchers for the last six years I’ve shared many (hopefully!) helpful techniques using acronyms. The posts I’m collecting here are eight of my favourites.