Finally, an introduction

Okay, I need to use this blog for more than keeping track of the podcasts I listen to (though I need to do a better job about that, as well).

I keep not-writing because It's been so long since I've written anything in any serious(/ish) capacity, and I know I'm horribly rusty. And, I feel like my thoughts aren't yet particularly coherent on any of it.

So, of course, writing a whole bunch is exactly what I NEED to do to for both of those issues. So, I'm going to start trying to write regularly, even if only a bit, even if it's not great writing or entirely coherent.

It also strikes me that I haven't made any kind of intro post yet either. So, I suppose I should start with that!

I'm Ameya. My educational background is complicated enough to warrant it's own post sometime, but in super-short, I have my B.Sc. in City & Regional Planning from The Ohio State University (2013), and I'm planning on going back to school for a PhD in History (my life-long love) when I can afford it, but that will take at least a few years.

I'm not waiting for school to dive right in, though. This #homegradschooling project comes out of the fact that I "homeschooled myself" (no input from any adult whatsoever) after I left high school at age 15 (I bounced in and out of both HS and college for years), and this is just a far more rigorous and academic-y version of that.

I haven't managed to articulate my research interests very well yet, and they are still developing anyway. But, my current focus of interest started from a love of Imperial-Era British Women's Travel Writing (Especially Isabella Bird), but a significant discomfort in how very very problematic the works always are. I realized how little vocabulary and conceptual frameworks I had to make sense of and explain these issues, so I started digging into papers and books related to the topic.

While I'm still studying that, I have expanded my scope to learn what I can about issues such as scientific racism, social darwinism, discourses of feminity, imperialist discourses, intersections of race-class-gender, female intellectualism, social theory, social control, critical theory, etc.

Everything I read leads me to more new concepts which I then feel a pressing need to dive into. It's both heaven and hell for a legitimately ADD researcher for myself. There is so much to learn, and I love it, but there is very little focus in my studies right now, as I bounce around from idea to idea.

But, it's alright. I really do have so much to learn, and, what I see as one advantage of my particular brain, is how very interdisciplinary it is, and good at synthesizing information from various different fields. The time will come where I will focus myself more intently on certain things, but for now I'm just getting a broad overview of all the various topics that are related to the 19th century/early 20th century British and American women writers, thinkers, and travelers and their brilliant and extremely problematic works.

In fact, I need to go work on this blog and organize my reading lists and other bloggy things. Note to self: I really need to learn how to end blog posts....