Friday, January 19, 2007

First draft completed

Whew! I just finished the first draft of my first written exam. I started writing last night, and wrote through today. Believe it or not, the first draft is 32 pages! I've talked to people who finished these things in five pages, but if you read that question, which I posted below, you'll understand that it's just not possible to do it justice in five pages. I expected to spend at least ten pages each on the Enlightenment, Modernity, and the Mass State. So, more or less, that's what I did.

I'm totally exhausted right now, but I won't lie- I had a blast sitting here and writing about cultural and intellectual history for the last 13 hours! It's sick, I know. But, this was a lot of fun. I've been reading these books for months now, and this was my chance to share all of the things that I've noticed about them, all the connections that I've made between them, and all of the ideas that I've developed on my own with a senior scholar who I greatly admire. This is one of the joys of academia.

2 comments:

SecondComingOfBast said...

Just curious. Did you have a smoke afterwards?

Rufus said...

No, but I had a few beers and watched Friday the 13th, so that was my way of celebrating.