I got my first review back yesterday. For those who don’t know about academic publishing (and hell I had no idea like a year half ago), when you submit an article it gets reviewed by two anonymous people, they can either reject it outright, suggest it should be re-drafted or accepted for publication as it is (with the third highly unlikely). Then of course the editor decides whether to accept their views or not.

Well yesterday I heard from the article I submitted recently, it was the middle of those options, revise and re-submit, which in and of itself is good, it’s not rejection which of course you want to avoid and as long as I do respond to the reviewer’s comments it should be okay for publication.

But, it’s the review comments themselves, one of them was very negative and it was really frustrating. I know I shouldn’t really get frustrated by it, after all this is what the field of academia brings but it is hard dealing with it after you spent so long on this piece of work this anonymous person is now criticising. In reality this reviewer had some decent things to say, but some that seem a bit harsh or vague.

As today has gone past however I’ve become less frustrated and realised that both a, I was very fortunate to make it the stage of revise and re-submit and b, I can answer most of the reviewer’s criticisms and then, hopefully, get it published.

This is really hard and challenging work, but then it should be this hard to get published and I know when it does get out there eventually it will make it feel better

I’ve certainly been enjoying the weather we’ve been lucky to have visit us this week. In fact in a fitting manner for the start of summer it’s felt like the last week or so has seen the start of some possibly very exciting things. My PhD has definitely taken a wonderful turn where I now turn to the second ‘section’ of it, so the weeks in front of me means lots of reading on wonderful new texts, it’s quite exciting.

Also there maybe an opportunity for moving in with someone from my department later this year, which would be nice a smaller place (in this case only sharing with one person) and living in town or Hove would be a nice change, at this point it’s a matter of sitting down and seeing if I can afford it.

Also, God Help The Girl, she needs all the help she can get. Yes this is a truly wonderful album. With the big gap between Belle & Sebastian albums I forgot how good a songwriter Stuart Murdoch is and he’s really outdone himself this time.

Finally - I’ve decided to go for it

Before I moved to Brighton the fact it was by the sea wasn’t really a big thing to me, I thought occasionally I might wander down to the beach or that there might be the odd barbecue on there come summer.

Nevertheless really this year I’ve developed the habit of going down to the beach quite a bit and just walking along. I’ve discovered the incredibly calming nature of the sea and the beach itself. It’s strange that in between the two piers you’ll see Brighton beach is just packed but once you get beyond that, especially to Hove greens it gets strangely peaceful (well except at the weekend of course) and incredibly calm. I’d spent this week finishing the draft of my second chapter and I’d got a bit stir crazy towards the end of it, so come Friday once it was safely with my supervisors I did one of my beach visits.

I’m a year and a half through my PhD now and considering how quick this time period has gone I’m beginning to realise the two years or so until I leave this city for the next stop will soon be over and I want to enjoy it while I can. Surprisingly, judging by what’s happened thus far far it may be the beach I miss as much as anything.

I’ve been spending a bit of time thinking about past times recently. Specifically people from the past.  I guess now come 25 and moving to a different part of the country I’ve come to be in a position where certain people have both come and gone from my life. There are some of those whose memories will probably be with me for the rest of my life and I guess my thoughts have been to what extent those memories should impact my life right now. Granted many people you meet in your life will change you, or your life,in some way but when you move beyond that initial impact to what extent does the memories of them impact you, holding you back, or driving you forward? To some extent I sort of think that when you reach these new parts of life you sort of have to approach them afresh, aware of what you learnt, but not trying to imagine what a previous friend would say or think.

But then on the other hand I think that perhaps some people have that impact on you that the memories you hold of them you hold for a particular reason and it would be foolish to just neglect those memories.

I guess the key is whether these thoughts are hindrance or an impetus. I guess overall I’m just a bit confused about the whole thing and probably this update doesn’t make much sense. I guess at the base of it I wonder to what extent previous circumstances should impact your choices now

So I’ve been a bit quiet on here again, every time I came to write something I decided against it. In reality the last week and a half has been one of constant marking of exams, not fun, but it is done now and my ‘summer’ starts.

Something that has brightened up my last couple of weeks has been this…

Yes after years of waiting the Neil Young archives were released last week and it has been amazing, like a treasure trove of wonderful music. It has reinvigorated my love of Neil Young, I could listen to him for days on end, and also it turns out Buffalo Springfield could really play!

Apart from listening to Neil Young, marking exams and making a brief sojourn back to Essex (went to a part of the county which was beautiful, a really nice surprise) I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what’s next this year. The end of this academic year has really opened up what I went to do with the rest of the year. There’s a few things I’d like to do and some new possibilities have opened in the last month, at the half way point this has been a great year, hopefully the next half will be as well.

On that note, it also turns out Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young could rip it up…

1, We now have a second housemate moving out in August, I’m getting a bit sick of this, the temptation to live alone is become ever more stronger, if only my bank account agreed…

2, Watching the cabinet reshuffle today was like watching the sinking of the Titanic in real time. I’m beginning to become a bit sickened by Gordon Brown, a man I did once have quite a bit of respect for, 3 unelected peers as secretaries of state with one the new ‘first’ secretary of state, come on! What is this, 1954?

3, My book review on Zygmunt Bauman got accepted, I’m now officially ‘in press’ and the book review will be published towards the end of next year. I had fish and chips to celebrate

It has been a lovely week or so in Brighton, living in this town is always worthwhile in the spring and summer, random Japanese festivals with good beer, wonderful rice salad on the beach in the evening, reading outside on a university campus that can actually pass as ‘beautiful’, barbecues with great food and you can never beat a walk through town with a cup of coffee on such a day.

With teaching now over until October and just exams (100 of them!?!) to mark next week I sort of find myself shifting my thoughts to ‘summer’. In many ways it won’t be much different for me from the rest of the year. Edit my second chapter, write my second book review, edit then submit (then edit again) an article, starting reading for my third chapter and doing reading for next year’s teaching. In the midst of all this any kind of ‘holiday’ seems difficult and is anyway, financially impossible. In some ways I ways I would like the opportunity to go away, tomorrow two of my housemates leave to go to conferences, one to Berlin, the other to Helsinki. I am jealous of both of them in so many ways (especially since, being in departments that actually have money, they get to go for free!). But yet I am in many ways looking forward to my busy summer.

Plus, it’s not very often you get to watch a government self-destruct in real time (that ‘senior minister’ currently attacking Gordon Brown I suspect is David Milliband). More of this to come, but just for now: I could not be happier to know that Hazel Blears is no longer a cabinet minister in my country…

Recently I was told one of our housemates is moving out, this is the 4th person to move out in the year and half I’ve been here (one was only on a 6 month contract and thus was always going to move out). This latest one is a bit different, she’d happy here, but she’d moving in with a friend where it’s cheaper and it’s just the two of them.

In all honesty when I was told, yes I was sad to hear her go but my first thought was ‘not this again!’; I do like where I live and my housemates, but more than anything right now I want to live alone. Much like I did in Colchester, or at least to not share with so many people I miss it for so many reasons. Partly I’m jealous of my friend for being able to move somewhere where she’d only sharing with one other person.

But yet I know that despite saying all this there is no chance of me being able to afford as part of a duo let alone on my own, in Brighton at least, so I guess in some ways I’m a bit bitter I can’t do it, one day very soon hopefully

A new Manics album is one of those things I do quite look forward to, they come along relatively irregularly and there’s always a lot to take in. Well there’s a new Manics album knocking about at the moment and I’ve become a bit addicted to the album finale ‘William’s Last Words’, with the Nicky Wire singing and everything

‘Goodnight my sweetheart, Until we leave tonight, Hold me in your arms, Wish me some luck as you wave goodbye to me’

Now that is how you write a good song

I had a bit of a panic today, I decided to be good and sit down and construct a rough timetable of things I need to do between now and October (chosen because it is the start of the new academic year) and when doing it I got that sudden feeling that there was simply too much to do, a second chapter and starting some extra reading for the third, a book review for a book I have yet to read, changes to another book review already submitted, the submitting and then subsequent changes to an article, reading for the globalisation course, marking exams and a couple of other things including classes and lectures.

I guess it is a lot, when I first wrote it seemed daunting and impossible, but as with most of these things if you take a step back and look at it objectively it is possible, it will mean a lot of work yeah, but that’s not a problem, that is partly the purpose of summer, I have in mind how much work I did last summer and don’t see why it can’t be done again

That being said I may find myself having a similar experience to the one I had today at various points over the next few months

So I’m yet to update this blog since getting back from Cardiff, I guess to some extent I’ve been in a bit of ‘suspended animation’ since then. Term started again the day after my return, this is in reality a quiet term though, I don’t have to teach the second years just mark their presentations (some are astoundingly good after 9 thus far) and then I only have the first years for 5 weeks, it’s coming close to the end, with all the mixed emotions that brings…

It’s only really today I’ve sat down and began to think about turning the paper from Cardiff into something ‘publishable’, with last week taken up with reading. This is a real challenge, but it’s something I’m enjoying, I submitted the book review I wrote about on here a while ago last week, how the hell did all this stuff happen?

Apart from that I’ve been enjoying the sun we’ve been lucky enough to have here in Brighton (well, until today). This city really does take on a new life when the sun comes out, also today saw the release of this;

Even after all these years, he knows how to make me pay attention. Today was a good day

So the conference…Well as 3 days it was great, you only realise how much of a geek you are when you go to something like that, there was a lot of really interesting papers and I learnt quite a bit. In terms of my own paper? Well that was less certain, I ran out of time which I’m convinced was more a result of poor timekeeping by the chair rather than me (although I was able to sum up okay) and then there were really no questions, so it was a bit deflating. On the other hand once I’d finished I had a few people come up to me and say they’d enjoyed it and one person worked for a journal and said they’d be interested in publishing it, since this was the next step I envisioned for the paper that was a nice thing to hear. So now after some re-drafting publication is the plan. Although it was a nerve wracking experience I did find myself when finishing thinking that next year I would like to apply to go to the Political Studies Association conference which a couple of people actually suggested this week, so I guess under the nerves I realise this is for me?

There are some really strange things though, meeting people whose papers/books you’ve met, talking to lecturers who taught you during your BA and supposedly being ‘equal’ with them, its all a bit of a shock to the system and like the title of this update suggests, I guess I’m a ‘real’ sociologist now?

Tomorrow morning I’m off to Cardiff for the BSA conference and to give my paper on Friday morning. Ignoring the fact that this is the time my body has decided to develop a cold I do have a strange feeling towards it, I’m looking forward to visiting the city and the whole conference which will be new for me. But on the other hand I’m nervous about my paper on Friday and I suspect that will be the main thing on my mind for the next couple of days.

On the other hand I do hear Cardiff is a beautiful city and it has a road named after Lloyd George and a statue of Nye Bevan so I’m sure I’ll enjoy my visit

I visited Lewes today, every time I visit this place I tend to also leave a little bit of my heart there.

I’m on holiday! I decided to take a week off from work (with the conference next week it sort of qualifies as a week and a half). Basically it was September when I last took two or more days in a row off and that had been fine, but really the last few weeks I’d been feeling a bit drained so thought it was probably time to remove myself from my work for a little while, I usually find when doing this that when I come back more to my work sharper, let’s hope that happens here. It’s strange before starting the PhD I thought I would need to take periodic breaks to retain interest and keep it fresh, but I’ve found the opposite, I don’t want to stop working on it, even now I didn’t ‘want’ to have a holiday as such (seriously try to nail the critique of Giddens’ work on historical materialism? That’s fun stuff) but more a feeling that I should and needed it. So now a week and half away from my office. I’m going to read Sartre’s Roads to Freedom trilogy because I rarely read fiction and I’ve always been tempted by this one.

However before leaving I did get next year’s teaching sorted, and its another new course for next year (one of the two courses I did this year doesn’t run next year), the sociology of globalisation. I’m really looking forward to this, its 3rd years, 2 hour seminars and material that I’m comfortable with and very much interested in (we even do a week on Zygmunt Bauman, which for anyone who knows me will know this is pretty much my idea of a heavenly week). I got some books for background reading and when they turned up today I actually got quite excited, really am a geek! I am lucky though in that for another academic year (which will amazingly run into my third year of my PhD) I’ll be able to support myself - just about - teaching

A year or so ago on here I heard from someone I’d met a couple of years ago, she was doing her MA when she commented and I was wondering today how it turned out, so if you still read this, why not drop me an e-mail, mattpdawson @ googlemail.com

I’m becoming aware how dangerously easy it is to lose touch with people…

I wrote on here a while ago about going to see Frost/Nixon, a movie which both entertained and fascinated me, the fascination being the man above, Nixon himself. So a few days after I went to the library and got out a three volume biography of Nixon, after reading a chapter or two almost every night since I finished it this evening, so I can now say I’ve read about 1,900 pages about Nixon and I found everyone of them to be interesting. Maybe this makes me a ‘Nixon buff’?

What kept my attention? Well I guess Nixon is one of those characters of history, you learn about Nixon early on, but what do you learn ‘Watergate’. You know Nixon resigned because of Watergate, what was Watergate? Well you might have a rough idea, you know it was a robbery and cover-up perhaps. But of course Nixon was a huge figure in American (and thus, world) history of the Twentieth Century and part of me felt guilty for knowing so little about him, but then I know less about people like Eisenhower, FDR or DeGaulle who could be said to be Nixon’s equal or better in historical terms, so why Nixon?

I mentioned in the Frost/Nixon update that I identified with him at the end of the movie, I think now my identification was misplaced, what I took for shyness was more distrust and an insular nature. Nixon was shy yes, but it was more to do with the fact he never trusted anyone, this was a man who lived a long life and openly admitted he had never had any friends…and was pleased of that fact. But yet at the same time along with Reagan in 84 this was the only President of the 20th Century to win 49 of 50 states. I guess in a time where so much effort is made on making our candidates ‘likeable’ (think of Blair and his hopelessly pathetic attempt to portray himself as ‘a straight kinda guy’ and Bush and his ‘who would you want to have a beer with’). Nixon was the opposite of all that, people may have admired him, perhaps liked him a bit, known him? Never. Nevertheless on the other hand Nixon was your classic modern politician, concerned with PR above all else (Blair would have been proud) and despite claims of ‘leading opinion’, more often than not was just trying to get one step beyond it.

But it would be trite to say Nixon’s appeal to me is that he’s half classic and half modern politician, its also partly the events he was part of, not only Watergate but China, the ‘Kitchen Debate’, Vietnam, the birth of modern Republicanism, all of this in some ways was tied up with Nixon and his fascinating character.

I realise whilst writing this I’ve come no close to why I’m so interested in Nixon, in so many ways his person and his views appal me, but yet as soon as I’d finished I went on Wikipedia to find out what happened after the book ended and then came on here to write about it, I guess some of the hold for these sort of things is that you don’t know where it comes from…

So if you happen to live in Britain you’ll know that in the last few days we’re survived from the brink of revolution which depending upon your view was either caused by some street artists dressed as the Grim Reaper, a car even Batman would be envious of or perhaps just the Earth-shattering idea of Sarkozy and Merkel getting along. But don’t worry it’s over now, back to normal, Gordon can go back to not answering any questions in parliament and avoiding discussing the government’s role in torture, safe in the knowledge that this time he truly has saved the world.

But yet there was one thing about the G20 and its presence in Britain that really disturbed me and it had to do with Michelle Obama (pictured above with our own ‘first lady’, Sarah Brown) and particularly the coverage of her. Obama’s day was different from her husbands in so many ways, he sat at a table next to the Chancellor of Germany, the president of South Korea and opposite the president of Argentina, they probably discussed the economic downturn and other pressing issues. She had dinner with J.K. Rowling and Kelly Holmes (in literally a separate room, I could not fucking believe that), what they discussed is unknown, whilst her husband was holding his first meetings with the Presidents of China and Russia she was being asked about her make-up (no, seriously she was). Whilst he was feted around town for his new sense of diplomacy or his economic ideas, the coverage of Michelle Obama seemed to revolve mostly around what she was wearing.

I’ve got to admit, more than reading about the police treatment of protesters this morning, this made me angry. From what I know about Michelle Obama she’s seemingly more capable than many of the heads of state who spent the last two days trying to save the world (I’m looking at you Silvio…) and yet she’s treated by ‘us’ basically as being summed up by her gender, ask her about her make-up, comment on her clothes, compare her to Jackie Kennedy, have her take tea. It left me wondering about what if by a fate of history Hilary Clinton had become president would Bill have been made to forced through all this? Or would it have been seen for it is, insulting, condescending and beneath the way we should be hoping to treat official guests to our country in 2009.

So, on behalf on all Brits who don’t reside in the FCO, Number 10, the media or the palace, I’m sorry Michelle, we treated you purely based on gender which is inexcusable no matter who you are; but, not only that, remiss of us when you are immensely talented to speak on the important matters the G20 summit was supposed to answer, so what is your view on quantitative easing and a further economic stimulus package Michelle? Something tells me it might be more informed and interesting than the comments we had from the Czech prime minister…or anything Silvio ever says