Block Plan Attitude

So recently, I've been mostly collecting sources on Marti, just getting my hands on as many as I can, as quickly as I can. I've located nearly everything on my initial 10 pg bibliography, which is a pretty exciting accomplishment. Most of it I could easily find at SLU or through Mobius, so I just highlighted those as "ignore for now," downloaded the ones I could easily get online (I've got a great big folder full of pdfs now!), requested a bunch of weird stuff through ILL (we'll see if they can find any of this stuff to send me), and have been focused on finding the ones I can't get at home. A lot of these not-in-the-USA texts are right here at the BNE, which is very lucky for me.

 Another day at the BNE

Recently I've been getting off at the Colon station, rather than the Serrano station - they're about equidistant to the library but this one provides a better view upon approach I think. :-)

 I'm glad that I finally feel very comfortable requesting books that I need to see through their crazy colored card system. It's easier to get and use books here than it used to seem, and they arrive for pickup SO much faster than I expect, so it's pretty nice. While it may seem like a bit of a pain, there are a few benefits to having to be AT the library to use books -
(1) I'm forced to change out of pajamas and leave the house (which is not always the case at home, causing my hermetic behavior in recent months),
(2) I don't have to haul books home or back and forth from the library, meaning my luggage can remain stored out of sight,
(3) having work time relegated to the library and relaxing time at home separated so physically helps keep me from feeling guilty about not working when I'm relaxing - brainstorming aside, I just can't be working while I'm relaxing if all the books are kept here!
Anyway, while it seemed annoying at first not to have borrowing privileges  it's actually been nice in these respects.

 

I've mostly got these request cards, or "fichas" figured out. I'm still confused by the forms used to reserve books for viewing the next day. But seeing that red light that means "your book is here!" come on at my desk is still super exciting to me. 

Woohoo! Research!

Also, I've finally figured out all the rules for photocopying and learned how to make copies, which are thankfully relatively inexpensive! I got a copy card and the librarian manning the copy room was super nice and showed me how the machines worked. (Everybody's so helpful and friendly at the BNE!) I'm officially a zealous convert to the longer European paper size. It is SO much easier to copy both pages of a book at once when you have that extra bit of length. You've won me over, A4.

YAY! Research I can take home with me!!!

Now that February is at an end, I'm switching gears. I spent the first few weeks here working on aspects of my prospectus and collecting Marti research for my dissertation, and I'm sure I'll come back to that again soon, but now I need to turn my attention to my conference paper for awhile. I'm slated to give a talk entitled "The Friars and the Three Faiths" on some aspect of medieval mendicant missionary history. The intimidating problem is that Robin Vose and Tom Burman, two scholars that have very much impacted my understanding of this history through their numerous erudite publications on missionizing matters, will be at this conference. I'm very concerned that anything I would have to say, as such a young scholar, will sound lame to them. I feel like so many of my "AHA!" moments and connections in this field would be "Duh, *Yawn..." moments for them. Because their works have been so informative in my coursework and research, I also have to be careful that I'm not just repeating concepts they've stated, because they'll be right there, thinking "yeah, I know, I said that already." It's all very intimidating, honestly.

So what can I possibly say that will be news to them? Maybe nothing, but if I just sit around worrying about it and not working, I'll never know for sure. So I read, and think, and brainstorm on paper, trying to find a conceptual niche. Damian wants me to present something broad, so it's unlikely that I'll be debuting some new discovery in the sources come April. But I'm hoping I can present at least a different way to think about this. Polemic can be so polarizing for professors, so it's unsurprising that there's a lot of radically different, religiously charged opinions on the issue. Spanish religious historiography is a crazy mess in many ways. There's always a need for examining/explaining the related issues more clearly or in a different light. I must remember it's only a 20 minute presentation, too. So I can't throw myself into research that would better lend itself to a book than to a talk.

So anyway, I'm reading and turning over different ideas in my mind right now. If nothing comes of it, I can always chat with Damian or meet with Dr. Garcia-Serrano here at SLU Madrid for some guidance. I am still a student after all.

I was talking about this with Casey and said "plus you only have one 'class,' much like the block schedule." I was so glad he put it that way, because I loved the idea of thinking about it it that way. I'm just focused on the paper right now, so it's SO MUCH like doing a block at Cornell - one course at a time! And if I learned anything at Cornell on the block plan, it's that I CAN DO ANYTHING IN 18 DAYS. That's exactly the attitude I need this month here. Let's do this OCCAT style. I've missed the block plan so much while juggling things in grad school and it makes me so happy to think of my time in Madrid as a return to that work style. :-)