I have just completed my first job as a self-employed research assistant and realised that I should have been offering this service to my fellow academics for the past year with all our crazy lockdown, no travel for you, #CoronaChaos. My sincerest apologies, first of all.
My only excuse is that I have been so busy trying not to meltdown with the sudden relevance of my long-awaited, long-avoided PhD thesis. From about November 2019, I had been plotting and planning to make 2020 my year of thesis completion, returning to comfortable underemployment and leaving myself a few days a week to get my flow on and finish the blasted thing / Magnificent Octopus. I stockpiled toilet paper (I’ll come back to that!), laundry liquid, girly essentials (I’m in my 40s, which requires a lot of serums and potions), chocolate, gin and foodstuffs a grown-up is supposed to have. And into Officeworks to print all the chapters written, half-written, Shirley-Planned, and the study cleaned and organised in readiness for the writing and screaming.
20 March 2020 – #WTF2020 Began
That is the date I set for my returning to comfortable underemployment for Thesis Completion 2020, but by which time most of the world went into lockdown and working/schooling from home, Zooming and staying in PJs all day (not much of a change for me on that front to be honest) became a global reality.
So my loo roll stockpile; while the world went crazy buying up toilet paper, I was sitting in My Little Flat (MLF) watching the news and, on this topic only, feeling very smug as my Thesis Writing Isolation preparation meant I had lots and LOTS. I did intend for my 320 rolls to last me until well into the mid-year, but once Canberrans were allowed to visit each other, in small numbers, I was bribing my way into my siblings’ homes for what I called an ‘Eight Rolls Roast’.
While I’m on my #SparklingIsolationToInsanity, an honourable mention and thank you to The Canberra Distillery and their medicinal Blood Orange Gin, which I consumed rather a lot of over the course of #WTF2020. And thank you to the Canberra & Region Visitors Centre for stocking it commensurate with my imbibing. (No W & C, I wasn’t drinking it all myself! I did share.) Cheers and gin-gin!
The ‘Suddenly Relevant Thesis’ Meltdown
Despite what my blog suggests, my thesis is not about Canberra, the Commonwealth of Australia or our Federation history. Back in 2006, I began work with my long-suffering supervisor, Professor Susan Broomhall, on the history of poverty and poor relief in sixteenth-century France, with my PhD to be Paris-focussed.
Over the years, as I have delved intermittently into all my lovely primary sources gathered during Indiana Jonesing* research trips to Paris (in those days when international travel was possible), my thesis has come to focus on the reform of the largest charity hospital in Europe, the Paris Hôtel-Dieu. (I will write about it once I’ve conquered the technological nightmare that is Appendix G and have my Appendix A chronology of VIP events and “stuff” completed; aka the appendices that will help me remember what the flippin’ heck my thesis is all about and, what was the original and groundbreaking point I was trying to make?)
So. One cannot write about the reform of a charity hospital for the poor in the sixteenth century without mentioning the prevalent horror of plague, pox and pestilences; hence my almost-meltdown last year as I experienced first-hand what my Parisian poor went through; albeit in the comfort of MLF, and with Zoom and my Aged Aunt #1’s streaming services to keep me connected, entertained and distracted, and with the certain hope that the world’s genius scientists would come up with a vaccine to make us safer and prevent year after year of death counts beyond comprehension.
Now nearly the end of July 2021 (how??!!) and the thesis is still a work in avoidance/progress, but progress was made last year (and slowly but surely still is) thanks to my Study Buddies Shanan and The Favourite Niece, who forced me from MLF into the lovely Main Reading Room of the National Library of Australia to suffer, I mean, work in companionable silence. Completion for 2021, not sure, as I have an iron in the fire, but I turn 50 in 581 days, so I can guarantee it will be completed and submitted before then!
Research Assistant Extraordinaire Available for Hire
The point of this blog post was to let my fellow academics know that, in what will no doubt be a never-ending saga of lockdowns and travel restrictions, if you need the services of a Canberra-based researcher, I’m here and available for hire. I can’t do “love jobs”, but I can / will / do negotiate “mates rates”.
The Plodding Historian is here for you. You can reach me here or email me at lke73historian@gmail.com. My bona fides can be assessed via or my Academia.edu or LinkedIn profiles.
Please note that I have managed to get thesis-related papers published across the course of the 5,623 days that has been my PhD Journey to date. I just keep getting distracted. If you want to avoid a similar never-ending journey, I advise you read my 6 February 2020 blog post or let me take you to the Hotel Kurrajong or the Tipsy Bull for a little Auntie Lisa Chat over a G&T or two.
In the mean time, stay safe, stay home (if you’re NSW!), watch your loo roll stocks and if you’re hitch-hiking on your Aged Aunt’s streaming services, logout and get on with your research!
* Indiana Jonesing is Lisa-speak for my, what I call, raiding of the archives! Order up, photograph, repeat.
The Plodding Historian 
