On Wednesday I submitted a draft of my thesis to the faculty research office, leading up to my final seminar, which will be happening next Friday the 8th of December, 12-2. Producing this draft nearly killed me, but not quite, and I was determined to do my final seminar before the end of the year, so I can (hopefully) submit by the end of January.

It’s more of a speed bump than the end of the journey, but the final seminar is a good opportunity to make an assessment of the thesis and work out what needs to be done to get it ready for examination. I already have a list of things that need to be done as long as my arm, but am really looking forward to hearing from people with much more perspective on it than I can possibly have right now. And the seminar is a great opportunity to attempt to tell the story of the PhD, and articulate what its contribution to knowledge might be, in 40 minutes. Anyway, a few of my Flickr research participants asked to be notified and there were a few other people who said they were interested,
so email me for details if you are outside of QUT and would like to come.

Much more fun news: Mel’s book launch was a great way to celebrate getting rid of my draft, and there’s lots of photos at my Flickr page.

And tonight I have one of the hottest tickets in town–I’m off to the opening of the Gallery of Modern Art, or GOMA for short. I hope I get to say g’day to Wayne Goss–the first (and last) time I met him was when he was doing a speaking tour of the University of Queensland residential colleges in 1989, trying to get the young folks to vote the Labor Party, with him as Premier, into government in Queensland, and usher in an era of massive political reform post-Fitzgerald Inquiry. Which we did, and now we’ve got this kick-arse new gallery as well.