diss diary #11

living and finding routine (again) in the city of love and lights

Dear Weed-ers,

I have missed you. <3

The holiday season feels officially over. I’m back in France now, after over a month visiting family and loved ones in North America. The change of scenery was much needed. The day after I arrived back in the EU, I then got to play host and tour guide to a dear friend visiting Europe for the first time!

Twas a gift to see parts of the city I had never seen before (like the Catacombs) and to see familiar faves (like the Eiffel Tower) through fresh eyes. We ended up doing a lot of site-seeing in the early evening, mostly because of how my working and running schedule takes up the morning hours —

and oh my god this city is even more magical when the night lights twinkle. The crispy coldness and brisk Seine wind really made me appreciate the fact that I get to be here during the touristy off-season, that I get to live in a place where I can stare out at the architecture for hours and walk into any number of cozy artisan shops and warming candlelit cafes.

I am already thinking about how I can bring more of that glittery energy into my Boston life. And lemme tell ya, I will need it when I get back to a U.S. with chaotic conservatism at the governmental helm and with post-doc apps and job apps waiting for me.

the updates

The couch bed is folded away, and the towels are drying on the clothesline, which means I am now taking stock of what I accomplished in January. To my surprise, it is an impressive list.

I officially emailed my edited volume chapter to the editors, but not without a mild panic. After writing a very tight and beautiful 8000 words (which themselves were cut down from 10k words in the dissertation version of the chapter), I checked the contract again and found horrifying news: it needed to be 5000 WORDS!!!

The upside is that I now have a polished version (the 8000-worder, as opposed to the 10,000-worder) that feels strong enough to maybe send to my committee this month? Some departments at Harvard are encouraging students to meet more regularly with the full committee, rather than having one-off 1:1 meetings. A meeting to discuss a chapter is a good reason for such an occasion, and I’m fortunate that my committee members vibe well together in a shared space. So when that happens, you’ll hear about it.

the Montmartre Cemetery is one of my new favorites spots! vibes were appropriately spooky with the moss-covered tombstones and drizzly skies.

I submitted two abstracts for virtual conferences. They are both French-related musicology conferences/symposia, and I’m confirmed for one and waiting to hear about the other.

Those papers will be the first times I share this side of my scholarly identity as a grad student. Until this point, I have mainly presented on my more contemporary topics related to popular music or 20th-century American-ish stuff, and I have an identity in that space. But my musicology roots are in late nineteenth-century French art song and poetry. Diving into that secondary scholarship again is making me feel all kinds of things. I’m remembering how I thought being a “historical musicologist” meant only studying western classical music, and am proud of how I have expanded that definition for myself. I’m remembering why I needed space from that topic, and am grateful to come to it with a fresh POV. And I’m remembering how nice it is to hear the luscious sounds of Fauré and early Debussy again.

I am already starting to flesh out possible directions based on my abstracts, since they will require a couple long-awaited (i.e., long-procrastinated😬) trips to the archives. Excited to see how those presentations turn out!

leading a workshop at Tufts back in 2022, using what my sister calls my “linguine hands” as we discuss soundscapes

Lastly, I stepped in as a research assistant for my friend editing a volume on antiracist approaches to music theory. Technically, I’m working *for* her by doing some light editing and making the bibliographies. But it more feels like working with her because of our similar commitments to equitable and “good” scholarship, and I’m able to be a voice of confidence in whatever publication decisions she as one of the editors wants to make.

But also, as those close to me know, I’m a little nosy and love to get behind-the-scenes inside scoops on things. And maybe that’s because I’m a type 5 enneagram or maybe it’s a toxic trait, but that kind of instinct has taken me to cool places so far, right?

the reflection

I can already sense the hollow sense of confusion that will come once I submit the last fellowship applications for the year. Without spending my Writing Time putting together project proposals and tweaking my CV, it will be time to get in the weeds of a new dissertation chapter. Days feel scarily empty when the goal of “start Chapter 2” hangs over my head instead of smaller discreet tasks.

These moments of transition, moving on from project to another one, are hard. I don’t really know what this chapter will need from me, and I don’t have a great idea as to what I want from it either.

But I have learned that it is helpful to have a project queued up so that the energy of finishing something can motivate the starting of a new one. I’m not nervous to open a new blank document, partially because the document is never truly blank: I’m always iterating on older language to find new threads and directions. And I have never really dealt with blank page anxiety.

The nerves instead come from not knowing what I will find as I root around in sheet music, create literature reviews of secondary sources, or log notes into my research journals, and not knowing how all of those things will shift the big picture around.

On their podcast, Amie and James recently talked about multidisciplinary artists and maintaining consistency when you have many crafts or many projects in the works.

The main advice that Amie shared was knowing what the various buckets of priorities are. For her, they’re things like writing her fiction, writing her nonfiction, prepping for content creation, and admin things like book proposals. As her practice has developed, she has gained a bit of an intuitive sense of what needs her energy each day based on either deadlines or what calls out to her. And she manages to do so without burning out and by trusting that everything will eventually get some love as long as the small steps are.

And this morning, I rewatched an Inspired Collective recording where Amie foregrounded the importance of patience. She had folks respond to a journaling prompt, asking the extent to which we are patient with our art and ourselves. Here’s what came up for me:

FEB 02: i have so many long term projects that take a long time to complete and that receive feedback and little crumbs of validation sporadically throughout the process, and even if i have an idea of how i want it to all be put together, i still feel like i just have to wait and see (hear) how things will turn out. is it possible to be too patient, or is that just procrastination?… why couldn’t i just be a painter? no wait. i don’t want to be a painter, i just want to have short term projects that can tide me over and give me energy to sustain a patient and slow and deliberate life…

I think I actually don’t mind fellowship applications because they are a short-term goal that allow me to check in with my work and my ideas and my confidence, too, honestly. In grad school, I have never minded them, even when I gripe about not having anything to say in a conclusion sometimes.

did this beautiful 2000-piece puzzle during my friend’s visit. I mostly did the top half, and she did the bottom section. good times all around.

So as I sit with my calendar and my documents this week, I will be looking for places to set aside small slices of the pie rather than eating it all in one or two sittings. This will probably consist of things like: compile notes on XYZ sub-topic, write up FGH words on such-and-such art song, read ABC article. Might even make an outline??? It’s not usually part of my routine. But I can see how they are useful for giving yourself a plan to follow on days when you just want to do something without thinking too hard about the what or the how.

I am ready for routine again. If anyone out there has tips for chunking out the big picture, especially in the early phases of a project, I am all ears! Once I get going, that’s when I can set word count, time, or page goals, but I’m after something a little different right now. And February is about finding out what that is again. ✨

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the farewell

If you enjoyed this installment of in the weeds, share with a friend, drop me a comment, or feel free to to leave a one-time tip!! Next week will be a post that features some books that I’m reading and that are on the TBR.

And in case you missed the last one, here are some intentions I’m bringing into 2025.

🌳🌳🌳

It’s a joy to have you here with me. Stay muddy, friends. <3