Things are changing and shifting quite a bit in my life, so I thought I would do an update on what that means for the blog. I will be back in the office full-time again (sorry to see you go, WFH!), I have a lot of work to do on my academic projects, and I am trying to make sure that I am leaving some time to not do anything. However, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be new posts for you to enjoy! Onto the An Historian About Town Spring 2022 update…
What I’m Up To…
I’ve currently got quite a lot on the go, history-wise. I will have a couple of rounds of peer review edits to do on my journal article on the late Duke of Edinburgh, and I am guessing they will be coming in soon! And I’m in the depths of research and starting to write my conference paper on the role of the Queen of Canada for the end of June.
I haven’t heard yet about my PhD and funding applications, but I am assuming I will need to apply again for Autumn 2023. I had always planned on needing to apply at least twice, and my goal is to be stuck back into applications by Victoria Day weekend (23 May). Hopefully I won’t need to do a full revamp, but I have several ideas on changes and tweaks I can make, they just need some time to work through.
Better Balance
If you aren’t following my social media, you might have missed that my dog, Agnes, had a bit of an accident last weekend. She is okay from the accident itself, but the tests showed an unrelated issue that may be quite serious. (I will update when I have more information!) While I already spend quite a bit of time with Agnes, I want to be able to give her more undivided attention. (And probably do quite a few more walks and exploring.) A massive thank you for all of the good thoughts and love sent our way, it is more than appreciated!
As I said above, I also will no longer be able to work from home, so I’ve lost 60-90 minutes a day to commuting again. (It’s not the worst commute by a long stretch, but it is time I no longer have.) My job is always stressful, but May to September is 250% stress, and I’m going to have to work twice as hard at managing my stress so that it doesn’t take over everything. (I really don’t want to end up on stress leave again.) Putting this out there now to hopefully stay accountable for better work-life balance!
What to Expect on An Historian About Town
I am aiming to keep my schedule so far: Sunday (Culture/Book Lists), Monday (History), Wednesday (Book Bite), and Friday (Style File Friday). However, I may be shifting to a lot more Bite posts, as full length posts can take 10+ hours to research, write, edit, and coded. I would rather do more interesting but shorter posts than put up partially researched or hastily written full length posts. If this changes, I will share that information, but for now, expect 4 posts a week as normal! (I also have several full length posts written and scheduled for now until the end of June, those will still go up.)
In terms of my newsletter, I may be shutting that down. I find that MailChimp is really clunky and takes ages to format, and recently has started not saving (apologies for the missing sections for the April newsletter). I don’t know that I want to put the energy into finding another provider. If you have strong thoughts on the newsletter (good or bad, I’m not offended either way), please send me an email at AnHistorianAboutTown@gmail.com or a DM on Instagram or Twitter! My aim is to decide for good by June/July.
Other Places to Find Me…
I joined Hazel on the London History Podcast to discuss ballet in London- you can find the episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4OQiJfEBdYP4sl9eFMVXiD!
If you are interested in Mary, Queen of Scots, I wrote a gust post for Team Queens on Mary’s representation in media: https://teamqueens.org/2022/04/14/no-reign-mary-queen-of-scots-on-screen/!
I hope that you and yours are doing well and have had a lovely Easter weekend!
Cheers,
The Historian
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