It was, I am sure no one will be surprised to hear, an excessively busy week again this week. I really, truly, will be posting about the Folger soon. In meanwhile, here’s why you haven’t yet gotten that post…….
Research
Honestly, this might have been my worst week, ever, in terms of research. I read another chapter in Enright’s Lady With a Mead Cup for my dissertation, and spent a day in the Folger stacks and Hamnet hunting down possible titles for my presentation in March.
Writing
I finished and sent in the fellowship application I was working on, and wrote the lecture and put together the Prezi on “Early Modern Sonnets and Sonneteers” for my Introduction to Poetry class this week.
Teaching
This week we worked on Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls and Legend of Good Women. Our focus was on Chaucer’s poetics, human, animal, and avian rights in POF, and whether or not Chaucer can be considered a proto-feminist based on how he writes his women. I am still really, really impressed with my students and the level of interest and critical thinking they are bringing to bear on some very tricky topics!
Service
I attended the Faculty Senate meeting in my capacity as the GSA VP of Finance.
Other Scholarly Activity
I successfully defended my dissertation prospectus on Tuesday! That’s the really big news this week. I also attended the second session of our Folger seminar on “The Scale of Catastrophe.”
Nurturing My Self
I ran on Monday, and then again today. Beyond that, I went out with some wonderful old friends of mine on Friday night after my Folger research stint–they took me to Medieval Times to celebrate my achieving ABD. I had never been to MT before, so this was really quite the evening! I enjoyed every, kitschy moment.
It might not sound like this was a particularly busy week, but between defending the dissertation prospectus, teaching and office hours, and the three-day trip to DC for the seminar and researching, it went by like the wind. I am going to need to come up with a better strategy to handle juggling my responsibilities with writing my dissertation than my current one of “work on it when you have time”–so far, I haven’t had any time to work on it since the defense!
Melissa Ridley Elmes 
Congrats on defending your prospectus! With mine, it was huge, but the bigger hurdle for me was getting my IRB approved so I could do the proposed project. Paperwork and bureaucracy make me crazy.
Thank you! If you don’t mind, I’d love it if you would share a little bit about that IRB process–I am not familiar with this, since I don’t work in a field that requires it, and it might be helpful for others reading this blog to read about it as well.