Karl Andersson

Anthropologist

PhD week 16, 3-9 January 2022: Convalescing

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Very tired, needed and still need to rest. This post is symbolical.

  • Communicated with my supervisor. We’ll do a later debrief this month and I’ll write a summary of what I’ve read this semester. We’ll also talk about my mid-year review which is due on 31 January.
  • I submitted an abstract for a conference that I should be part of, and registered for a relevant email list.
  • I participated in a Zoom seminar and film watching on the theme of being Black in Japan.

In the weekend I had a visitor and while interesting and good in many ways, it pushed my strengths to their limit.

No schedule this week!

It’s depressing not to be able to work to full capacity, but I try to stay positive.

PhD week 15, 27 December 2021 – 2 January 2022: New year and resting

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I took it easy this week and will have to continue resting for another week probably.

Even so, it was New Year’s Eve and as always I recorded a little summary of the books I read during the past year.

Schedule

S left on Thursday, so I went there several times to pick up stuff and to meet him. A good last week and a good start of something new!

PhD week 15: 27 December 2021 – 2 January 2022. I like how clearly it shows that I rested this week.

Reading

I finished Foucault’s History of Sexuality in the last days of 2021, and when I felt I could read a bit more again, I started with:

  • Illouz, Eva. 2012. Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation.: Introduction, p. 1-17.

I immediately liked this one, which was recommended by my supervisor.

Articles

In the end-of-year closing of browser tabs (gotta make that end-of-work-week instead) I found these sweet posts:

Film

  • Ramen Teh (Eric Khoo, Japan/Singapore, 2018): Uneven start develops into cry fest.

PhD week 14, 20-26 December 2021: Christmas

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I got sick, probably due to overwork, and ended up at the hospital yesterday, back home now with pills. So this week is totally messed up. But hey, it’s Christmas, and my university actually has official Christmas break from 20 December until 16 January.

On Christmas eve I made Christmas lunch with S and had Christmas dinner with A at Life Berlin (didn’t like the vegan miso ramen, I wish I had taken the tantan as usual!).

And my Christmas gift to myself was delivered from Japanese Amazon:

Schedule

On Tuesday I was invited to participate in an informal PhD group. Otherwise mostly read Foucault (when I was reading) but had to abort.

PhD week 14: 20-26 December 2021.

Film & TV

PhD week 13, 13-19 December 2021: Foucault and kanji

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History of Sexuality

I mainly spent this week reading Michel Foucault: History of Sexuality volume 1 and 2.

  • The first one is highly relevant for queer theory, but the second is more of a detailed history of the practices and thoughts of ancient Greece, therefore a fast read.
  • I think Foucault is so redundant in his writing, so it’s okay to read him fast, because everything comes back and gets repeated multiple times.
  • I remembered everything from volume 2 from when I read it in 2009. (Volume 1 I felt I read in another way now than back in 2008.)

Kanji app

I’m so happy with the simple kanji app that I built myself in Javascript. It is based on the official jōyō kanji list and the English keywords from James Heisig’s Remember the kanji. I did some livestreaming during the week:

As I conclude in one of the breaks: I’m really good! And that means it’s time to move on. From keywords to Japanese words and kanji compunds. Of course I’ve done this the whole time, but I mean in a more structured way: to connect every jōyō kanji with at least one word and thereby a reading.

Schedule

Drinks with S and his friends at Südblock on Thursday. I left early. Bars are not as fun since I stopped drinking alcohol. Plus I wanted to go home to my dear Michel!

Today (Sunday) I started drawing again for the first time since this PhD began. Drawing takes time. And it is soooo great to be at it again! I lift the pen and the hours pass by. My fieldwork will include printing and selling a dōjinshi, so that’s what I’m creating.

Some unexpected errands came up.

Daily walks. The snow is completely gone. Cleaned up and threw away old papers mostly in the weekend, with moral support from A.

Headaches yesterday and today. Must rest.

PhD week 13: 13-19 December 2021.

Film & TV

  • På spåret, E04
  • Kvarteret Skatan 20 år, 1-2
  • Nästan inget
Snow in Hasenheide

PhD week 12, 6-12 December 2021: Latex

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The snow came to Berlin! ❄️ ❤️ Unfortunately it will disappear immediately, as next week will be warmer.

Queer autoethnography

This week has been all about writing the course paper for Queer autoethnography, which I submitted tonight! I did not plan to write it all this week, I just began to sketch a bit and then flow happened. So I thought: Let’s be done with it! It’s only a pass/fail (no grade), and it’s not at my own university. So I should not spend too much time and energy on it. But let me tell you: Writing this paper was so fun! I was very engaged in my topic and really feel that I have something to contribute. And then it’s been a while since I wrote an academic essay, so it was also fun to be back in that saddle again.

Latex

I decided to write the essay in the Latex editor Overleaf, as I hinted in the post about reference managers. This demanded fixing some tech issues which I think was part of my procrastination process. I mean, how can you spend more than an hour and contact support because you want the automatic date to display in UK and not US format? But the support is good (I guess I also wanted to test that). Then the connection to Zotero broke, and the support again gave a good answer (it was not my fault) within half an hour or so.

My conclusion is simple: I love Latex! I love the cleanliness of it, the opposite to the clutter and lag of Microsoft Word, which peaked with version 5.1 – a view I’ve held since 1995 or so. Plain text. Just taste those beautiful words.

There’s still a lot I need to figure out, not least regarding templates and packages, but this was a good start.

Kanji app

I spent some hours today (Sunday) building a new version of my random kanji practice app. It’s so lovely to be immersed in code and then get it to work. I’ll demonstrate in another kanji writing livestream sometime soon.

Schedule

I have a routine of studying some Japanese every morning before breakfast – I move directly from my bed to the desk.

On Monday I submitted some needed formalities for the affilation in Japan.

On Tuesday I started with Overleaf and then I spent most of the week writing.

I woke up sick on Wednesday, so skipped the Japanese. Took a Covid test on the street, it was negative.

On Thursday I was good again, but skipped an important meeting anyway – because it was more important to write! The meeting apparently took more than 3 hours. Good choice.

I was contacted by a researcher from the UK who studies similar stuff as I do.

PhD week 12: 6-12 December 2021.

The Foucault Reader

I finished it this week (bar a couple of irrelevant texts in the beginning). Good introduction! J who I had a petit déjeuner with last week suggested we have a little book club about it after he has read it too. I really appreciated this suggestion, since I often feel very alone with my readings.

Article

Film & TV

  • The Fate of the Furious/F8 (2017)
  • F9 (2021)
  • Olof Inc
  • På spåret, E03

PhD week 11, 29 November – 5 December 2021: Supervision

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Back to reading! Foucault this week: I was planning to only read relevant excerpts from The Foucault Reader, but I realised that everything is relevant, since Foucault basically has tracked the emergence of the Individual in France and Europe over the past few centuries.

On Friday I had the second debrief with my supervisor. Not much to talk about, as the past month had not included much reading since there was so much other stuff going on:

Schedule

Look how neatly the mornings line up! I’ve added a cell for the average number of hours per day Monday to Friday, and the total number of hours per week, which should be at least 40. So this week it was 41,75 hours (the cell in the upper right corner), despite I left work after lunch on Friday to spend the rest of the day with S. I demonstrated my timekeeping system to him.

On Saturday I had an improvised coffee and croissant with J, followed by a walk. Turns out he’s reading Foucault too (Madness and Civilisation) but had given up on Bataille’s Eroticism (very understandable). Today (Sunday) I walked and talked with A.

I’m cleaning out my apartment and throwing away lots of stuff. Such a good feeling to get lighter!

PhD week 11: 29 November – 5 December 2021.

Japanese

Anki, kanji, news, and:

  • Try N2 repetition – up to half of chapter 5 (grammar point 55).
  • Shaman King (episodes 41-45).

TV

  • På spåret! E02.