eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 8hreupping this, his therapist kept dragging their feet and only got him a letter this month, so he needs a few hundred more $ in order to stay in school and not risk homelessness again 001
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 05/10/2026recovering from thesis submission has caused the kind of fatigue and fogginess i last experienced post major surgery 040
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 04/10/2026like why am i seeing handwringing about Zionism as ‘safety’ in the big 2026 030
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 04/10/2026i don’t think you can have a radical and politically coherent analysis wrt the genocide that also holds back from making anyone uncomfortable if they have deep cultural ties to Zionist orgs/institutions. squashing leftist antisemitism doesn’t require that kind of cowardice 130
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 04/10/2026i think there are questions to be asked about the strategic efficacy of the zionism = racism motion but a LOT of the people commenting on it seem fundamentally uncomfortable with any pro-Palestine messaging more complex or divisive than thoughts & prayers 130
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 30/09/2026i did aerial hoop for 6 months last year and loved it! dropped it bc they kept cancelling the beginners classes but hoping to go back now i’m done w the thesis 110
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 30/09/2026easily some of the sharpest writing i’ve ever read on sexual violence and how it circulates culturally; reminds me of reading The Second Rape and thinking ‘damn this would be so good if it wasn’t so terrible’ 000
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 30/09/2026read this book in bed while recovering from thesis submission, really like it / really attached to it. genuinely startling to see a decade-old book this incisive about the carceralism, gender binarization, and foundational shame that shapes narratives of sexual violence 102
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 29/09/2026submitted my PhD thesis :) i spent 4 years talking about all these books (and a few more that I don’t have in physical copy) 6642
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 29/09/2026fwiw i think it is / would be extremely weird to primarily value your work for AuthenticityTM reasons but the whole ‘we like your work but you are disposable’ thing is a really difficult embittering problem. i hope you can experience more of the kind of citation you value 160
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 28/09/2026will physically need a break for ~3 weeks (aside from a couple small projects and the class i teach) but i have other projects in mind 110
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 28/09/202622/23: 50% of the proofreading is done! hoping to submit the thesis tomorrow evening :) 010
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 27/09/202621/23: i finished the thesis draft on friday so i’ve taken the weekend off in advance of the final proofreading stint, except for fixing up a few citations. my wife and i are both going to read through the full thing, i’m going to send one last mini segment to my supervisor, but it’s almost done :) 230
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 26/09/2026i completed my PhD thesis today, barring proofreading / final corrections. also made tofu 1160
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 24/09/202618/23: 2000 more words cut, chapter 3 edited, translations all vetted (thanks to friend with a french degree). i’m now within 750 words of the limit, though i’ll need to add a few hundred words of material to my fourth chapter and conclusion tomorrow before i do the last big chop 110
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 23/09/2026i don’t read norwegian worth shit but norwegian news articles are very, uh, to the point. whereas i do read some french but the french are more inclined to the…figurative 000
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 23/09/2026at least managing at points to go ‘this whips actually’ 120
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 23/09/2026still gonna be doing a bunch of proofreading and checks and little edits from mon-weds but i’d like to close the week knowing that if i had to submit the thesis at gunpoint i could do it 110
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 23/09/202617/23: footnoted all the translations and did a first pass of both remaining chapters. tomorrow i fix chapter 3 and vet the translations, friday i fix chapter 4 and the conclusion. am 2-3 more good work stints away from a viable thesis 201
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 23/09/2026man you wouldn’t believe how good the albatross is for building your lats 020
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 22/09/2026gotta vet 1,000,000 french translations and a couple norwegian translations. And footnote all the original quotes. which a better man than me would have systematically stored with my own translations 3 years ago. But I Didn’t 110
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 22/09/2026also working with texts that aren’t in english is ASS once you get to the citation stage. next article i write is gonna be monolingual as shit apologies 120
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 22/09/202616/23: 2000 more words cut, and in a shockingly good mood, because i think this chapter is my best chapter. however dear God i hate citing marx and engels, why’d they put all their best lines in some random ass essays where i can’t find the correct edition or its translator 140
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 22/09/2026now hitting me that i am finishing my thesis…on campus…During Fresher’s Week 220
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 21/09/202615/23: interview went well. 2000 words cut from the thesis’s first chapter. still needs one more intensive fixup stint - translations, add a couple things, change a couple things, the analysis of one of the books needs a touchup - but then it’ll be done imo 160
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 20/09/2026really not looking forward to monday because i have to do an unavoidable interview that day as well 😭 120
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 20/09/202613/23: bibliography formatted! day off tomorrow and then we’re gonna be in the final editing stage (monday-friday) before the proofreading, finalising, and sendoff stage (saturday-wednesday) 120
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 19/09/2026watching naked acts (1996), which i’d never heard of before but which is a really really fantastic film 000
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 18/09/202612/23: conclusion written (at least drafted, gonna send via supervisor for approval). derangedly happy that we got a new autofiction scandal like 3 weeks before my submission date i love being right 130
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 17/09/2026admin wise i think i basically just have to have a day where i lock in, fix up the full bibliography, find or cut my last 3 lost citations, learn how to cite all the finicky stuff i’ve been avoiding, and switch 3,000 intext citation colons into commas. or the reverse. i forget 140
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 17/09/2026i’m gonna have like 5 days to cut realistically 7500 words out of this thesis and edit it throughout for clarity and relevance to the final title before it gets to proofreading time. but we move 220
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 17/09/202611/23: had a Bad Time again so forgot to update but i have now completed the chapter 4 rewrite and started the conclusion. tomorrow i finish the conclusion and then i do some administrative stuff over the weekend before the BIG EDIT/CUTDOWN next week 120
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 14/09/2026i’ve sent him $50 but i’m low on cash right now. if you can help please do. he’s been so thoroughly bureaucratically fucked over for years i just want him to be ok 020
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 14/09/2026a trans guy i know personally & can vouch for, who’s finally found housing and started a degree after years of homelessness, is at risk of being kicked out if he doesn’t pay off $350 of meal plan debt by 9/20. his therapist etc are dragging their feet www.paypal.com/paypalme/srlj2paypal.comPay Samuel James using PayPal.MeGo to paypal.me/srlj2 and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries. 11010
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 14/09/2026i now have my declarations, my little contents page, things of that nature. and have added some more stuff to my bibliography & my ‘read/skim before submission’ list. hoping that tomorrow i can get pretty close to being done with chapter 4’s rewrite before i get to the conclusion 130
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 14/09/20268/23: had a Bad Time on friday so forgot to update, but i have rewritten 4000 more words of the fourth chapter and spent today going through the PhD presentation of theses handbook which i had been avoiding due to fear but which was fine lol 130
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 14/09/2026ugh hate that the writing and learning degree is keeping me from my favourite hobbies, writing and learning 000
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 14/09/2026i think i feel most worried that i’ll finish it and feel nothing and nobody will really care. i don’t think that’s true but i guess i have to believe in my own accomplishments in a way i don’t yet 120
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 14/09/2026finishing 9 month master’s programme while breaking down from incipient transgenderism was maybe worse but at least i only had to cough up 10,000 words that time 120
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 14/09/2026doing this PhD for the last four years (at realistically 3.5-year pace given how much extra work I’ve been doing the whole time) has been broadly alright most of the time but the last month fucking sucks oh my god. my mental health is up and down but the lows are the lowest they’ve ever been 150
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 10/09/2026local queer media studies scholar just got oneshotted watching withnail & i for the first time 140
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 10/09/20264/23: rewrote the introduction to the fourth chapter and did some bits of rewriting the first section. started rewriting the second section which is tomorrow’s job 130
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 09/09/20263/23: just did some planning today because too burned out after yesterday to do writing, but tomorrow the Lock In begins re redrafting my fourth chapter 140
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 09/09/2026not to get too personal about it but calling the lesbian poly wife of a trans woman a ‘tradwife with extra steps’ is not exactly uh. helping her optics 1180
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 08/09/2026August: CRASH (1996) ROBOCOP (1987) TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA (2026) BLACK NARCISSUS (1947) 021
eel, i @eliacugini.bsky.social · 08/09/20262/23 done. wrote for like 7 hours and now have a functional introduction that is no longer a preface. pleased with myself & also very drained. also found a missing citation. i think i’ll avoid more than nominal writing tomorrow and just focus on bullet pointing what i’m doing w the last chapter 150