This week was dedicated to putting notes and questions in order and reading some foundational material. It was also necessary for me to visit the "mother-ship" in New Jersey as I realized that I don't happen to have a copy of my own dissertation. Given that I'm re-visiting those topics I thought I might want to re-read it, so I had the odd experience of checking my own book out of the library. Remarkably, I wasn't allowed to leave the building with it.
I was really looking forward to scoring an empty study carrel in the library, too, as those enclosed, phone booth-sized work areas were ideal for concentration. Unfortunately, like too many places, including our own diocesan headquarters, they have replaced them and succumbed to the trend in modernism that makes work spaces so public that everything is everybody's business. It's the Facebooking of work, I guess.
Fortunately, the lobby of the Nassau Inn and the smoking room at A Little Taste of Cuba are both quiet in the late morning and late afternoon.
Next week, the first series of interviews begin.