Well,
today was my birthday--and a great day it was. For the last ten days or
so, I've been working a lot not only in the archives, but also on an
article that's been a part of my life for too long. Today, like most
days, I spent the morning working on the article before heading off to
the archive. I came home again at around four in the afternoon, sat
down and started working again on the article. I didn't get up again
until after eleven.
And
now, the article is pretty much finished! I'm going to send it off to
some friends of mine, see what they think about it, then look at it
again myself in a week or so. Hopefully I'll be able to submit it
before too long.
Another
special thing about today was that it was my last day in the archive,
which closed this afternoon. The archive here is a good place to work.
Other than the fact that readers are limited to ordering five documents
a day, it's all right. They let people use digital cameras, which is
nice.
On
Monday, I'm supposed to start work at the History Institute, where they
have a personal archive of Rizaeddin Fahreddin, the second mufti of the
Soviet Union and an individual who figures rather prominently in my
current work. The archive is closed now, but opens on Monday. The folks
at the History Institute say they'll let me in on Monday, so hopefully
things will work out.
All
in all, I'm really happy with the way things have been going in Ufa. I
haven't felt this productive since I was living in Turkey, back before
graduate school. In particular it's been really great not having
internet at home. Instead of wasting my time online, I've been working
8-10 hours a day, working about 5-6 hours per day on the article and a
few hours each day in the archive and at home reading the archival
material. The rest of the time, I'm mostly just going into town and
back, or at home watching TV or messing around with this site.
Anyway,
I guess I could be having a more exciting time, but I'd basically been
on vacation for a month before coming out here and I was ready to get
back to work. Moreover, I finally looked at a map and realized that
there are beaches in Georgia that are still under government
control--maybe if I can get a lot done between now and the beginning of
September, I'll be able to take a small vacation again then.
No comments:
Post a Comment