Hope to Hear This Next Week

(Image courtesy of BankNotes.com)

I took this last Thursday off to work on applications. Nottingham's is sent. It was an online app, so easy to get done adn sent off. Edinburg's is finished, I'm just waiting on one more recommendation, then I can send it off. Cambridge is the last one and there's still a good bit to do. It's the only school that requires three pictures (or any picture for that matter), a writing sample, and a 500 word essay for potential funding. Needless to say, it's the most involved, so it's going to take a while. Hopefully I can get it out before the 4th.

That's the update on school...

Other than that, I'm starting to dig into Kenyan history some more, particularly the colonial period. It's interesting to look at JBU's collection of resources, they are all dated within 5 or 10 years of Kenya's independence in 1963. Needless to say, I need to keep looking for recent scholarship. I'm hoping that this means that it's a field that still has room for input and scholarship. We'll see. I feel like, in some ways, academia is a gamble - you pick a focus that you feel will be marketable and one you enjoy enough to spend your life focusing on; then hope that there actually is a market out there when you're finished with your university course.

I've started on a book now written in 1968 that focuses primarily on the development of Kenya, or the East African protectorate, from the time the British decided to administer it (1895) until the 1910s. It's focusing mostly on the establishment of British government and the journey of working with the local population to establish an administration. It's really interesting and makes me excited to pursue it in more depth.

I guess that's a good thing...