Hi folks, it’s Katharine (aka Kat, Kate, Katie). Here’s a small introductory post, because I'm now in a very different place from when I wrote my first one, which I wrote at the start of my MA. So here’s a new one, four years into this blog and an honest to god decade since I first made a studyblr.

I figured now that I am, to quote my supervisor, "at a new stage" I'd reintroduce myself here.

I’m a political science phd candidate in Canada who studies political geography.

I don't have a preferred first name (see the four listed above); I’m always trying to cut down on my caffeine and increase my water intake, and my nails are always painted. I am a recovering theatre kid, a brutalist architecture stan, and some variation of a disaster bisexual. Thanks for hanging around.

One day I'll learn and remember that I can do fuck all on days my mum is at the oncologist.

25/07/23

You know the code chunk takes a while when you finish the book and can catch the light changes.

Good morning!

On Monday morning I was out on my balcony – drinking coffee and chatting with the lover over a video call – when I got distracted by two birds chasing each other. There are a lot of pigeons near our apartment, but the pigeon doing the chasing was nearly pure white, chasing the darkest pigeon I have ever seen. I marked it down as an omen and continued on with my day.

There is a little market on campus every Wednesday morning, which includes a tumblr-favourite; a stall that sells both books and tea. The fruit seller there just gave us the last of his mangoes (8 of them!) for $5, which is substantially less money per mango than he charged us last week.

Two weird omens. What a week.

Today I need to fix some code, and run it while I do some more syllabus tinkering for the class I am teaching (!) this fall. What are you up to for the middle of the week?

Good morning good morning!

I am at the office, with a fun puzzle in front of me. The setup is this: I am doing a method that is new to me. I have (theoretically) done it correctly. I have results! However I have no idea how to interpret or present them.

My supervisor on the other hand, is not a methodologist. She has trusted me to do this strange approach, that I am theoretically enthusiastic about. I have a meeting with her in 90 minutes to go over the results. Until them I have to figure out how to make this into something that is interpret-able to me, and then something I can explain to her.

I have the first attempt, and it is hilariously bad:

Wish me luck!

Good morning!

Yesterday I devoured The Bell Jar in three sittings. I was struck by two things. The first is that it is a really good book. No one is surprised by that, but I found the prose gripping and the book – which I had meant to read over the course of this week – held me in a chokehold mostly on the grounds of how it was written. I definitely read it too fast. I would like to re-read it, but slower next time. Maybe I'll read it again next year.

The second thing that struck me is how grateful I am to have read it at the age of 27, rather than anytime earlier. Frankly, all that I knew about the book going into it was that it is the book angsty, bookish teenage girls are obsessed with. Now that I have read it I know that I would have been the same. I think it is good for me to have read now that I have a much better understanding of my own suicidality. To be clear, I don't believe Plath was glamourizing suicide; but I do think that I would have found Esther to be aspirational all the same. Particularly from the ages of 15-19 when I had goals to get an English degree and be a writer.

Anyway, this morning the week is stretching out in front of me full of opportunity. To illustrate the point of how far I have ended from the English degree I aspired to, I have some code to run to get a probabilistic model to compliment the fuzzy model I ran on Friday. I also have some reading, and some syllabus work I need to tinker with this morning.

How was your weekend?

25/07/18

It was a week of coffee and coding and frankly it went pretty well 😁

Why the fuck is this function called fanny()

Good morning good morning!

This tiny piece of code ran for 23 hours with no warnings before I called it off. I'm sure I messed something up and I can find a faster way to do it. That is the task for this morning. Nearest neighbour imputation is going to end me.

Ah well. It is the end of the week; I am safely in my office with a coffee by my side and a playlist in my ears. It was finally cool and sunny, rather than too hot to function. I remember back in 2021, my mum came to visit me during a heat wave. We went out on her second last day there, and the 23 degree weather felt downright cool.

This morning has a very similar feeling. Something that would have been far too hot in April is now blessedly cool. Despite growing up in this area, the summers have always been so hard for me. The weather for today and again tomorrow are going to be a lovely and cool. I am planning on doing a long outdoor run tomorrow morning to celebrate.

How is your week wrapping up?

Good morning good morning!

Today has had the first cool(ish) and grey morning in a while. It's made for a pleasant, if sleepy, start to the day.

We got a small gardening cabinet to house all of our plant accoutrements, since we're setting up the balcony into something more pleasant. The wood is cheap (untreated) and so we are going to go to a hardware store today to pick up some weatherproof staining and some silicon so it doesn't immediately rot on us.

The idea of this project has been taking up most of my brain this morning. I am now trying somewhat desperately to shift gears into something work related, but my sleepy brain doesn't want to. On the plus side, we leave soon for the cafe and hardware store

Lynne Truss

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

Lynne Truss

Eats, Shoots & Leaves