General Exam: Day 1

Today was the first of four days of my general exams. The generals are the exams which allow you to advance to ‘candidacy’ for the PhD in our department. When/if I pass them, I will get to put a PhC after my name! In other departments, I believe this is sometimes called ABD (All But Dissertation). In any case, once I’ve gotten over this hurdle, I will be able to proceed to researching for, and then writing, my dissertation.

The generals process began with my writing a statement. In this statement, I included information about what I had accomplished so far in my academic career. The bulk of the statement is dedicated to outlining three areas of expertise within geography and how these areas inform my dissertation project. My dissertation committee is comprised of four faculty members (three geographer and one anthropologist). During the generals, each committee member provides a question relating to the content of the generals statement and the student is typically given one day per question to write. I have four committee members, which means four questions over four days. Each answer is expected to be about 10-12 pages, fully referenced.

In preparation for this massive exam experience, Eric and I spent the weekend grocery shopping, tidying the house and setting up a well-organized desk (read: kitchen table) with all the most essential books, articles, pens, paper clips, my computer (with extra monitor for easy reading of multiple documents), and of course my animal figurine friends–the armadillo is from Peru, a gift from one of my committee members for good luck and the chicken and the pig are gifts from my dad from a trip he took to Brazil:

Eric has been giving me statues of Ganesh for as long as I’ve known him, and I think we’ve even been given statues from friends and family as well. Ganesh is the ‘remover of obstacles’ and the deity of intellect and wisdom–definitely a good companion for this adventure:

So far, the desk is working out really well, with lots of space for extra books, snacks and feline visitors:

Yesterday, in final preparation for the exam, I spent the afternoon taking care of the most crucial bit–the FOOD! I might have gone a little overboard with snacks and good meal options for the week, but I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t get stressed out about what to eat. So I cut up lots of components for some meals including the Fresh Spring Roll Vermicelli Salad:

My most favorite Kale Salad:

The life-saving Raw Fruit/Nut Trail Snacks that I made this summer for our awesome hike in the Olympic Mountains:

I also stocked up on avocados as a special treat for the week:

And I tried making kale chips for the first time–a made-up recipe for Tamari Sesame Kale Chips:

After cutting up and putting into containers the ingredients for the salads:

 I also have for the week:

grapes, black beans, hummus, tofu, tempeh, celery, carrots, 2 Lara Bars, 2 packs of Vega Whole Foods Meal Optimizer powder (never tried it, but thought it would be good for smoothies this week), frozen bananas in the freezer (for the Just Banana Frozen Dessert), oatmeal fixings, puffed kamut, puffed millet, field roast, bread, peanut butter, homemade blackberry jam, orange juice, plain almond milk yogurt, apples, bananas (not frozen), dried fruit, nuts, and some pumpkin ale, along with some other things which I’m sure I’m forgetting.

Now, what you’ve all been dying for, I know… The question for the day!!

Question 1: Feminist scholarship has emphasized the importance of intersectional analysis to reveal the overlapping workings of race, class, gender, and sexuality. How has intersectional thinking enriched the scholarship on multi-species encounters? In your answer, please discuss additional directions that intersectional animal studies scholarship should pursue.

Today I woke up at 3:30 am and started writing. I wrote for 12 hours, finishing the first question at 3:30 pm. I know it might sound crazy, but I actually had fun!

Now, off to relax and step away from the computer until tomorrow morning when I do it all over again.