This past week has been quite busy for me. I started my research in 2012 and was (thankfully) assigned a research desk within my university’s research office. I had what I considered luxury. It was a large corner cubicle with plenty of shelves and drawers where I could spread out my papers when I was working on an idea and it also afforded me a lot of privacy. After 3.5 years in the same space, our research office has been moved to a different floor and I now have a smaller desk in a much more open space. This too is fine for me. As someone who is used to sharing spaces – I have never had my own bedroom, I did not even have my own chair (let alone a desk) at my first, second and third jobs, and though I have had jobs where I have had my own office, I still consider a desk of any sort to be an absolutely delightful bonus.

A corner of my old desk

This move has necessitated me to go through all the paperwork that I had amassed in all this time. I can happily say that there was very little duplication and very little that needed to be discarded. I did have to sort through a lot of my paperwork as it was all mixed in. I have now ordered my work into boxes, files and trays which represent, to me, how I hope some of my chapters will come together. I also have had to sort through many post-it notes. There were many that had ideas that have continued to grow into more fruitful writing, some whose ideas are still relevant and others whose content perplexes me. Continue reading →