[Earlier episode The Messenger]

Altan carefully selected a charcoal pencil from his calligraphy box, which was ornately embedded with jewels.

Batu and the small circle of chieftains went quiet.

Sensing their rapt attention, Altan made a show of crunching his features and frowned in great thought. He brought his pencil to the tiny piece of rough Chinese paper, laid flat and neat on the low table.

The men leaned in. Waited with unblinking eyes. Somewhere in the sprawling encampment outside, a dog barked and received a rebuke from its master. It whined and fell silent.

Their khan hesitated and the men expressed mild disappointment.

Altan studied the point of the charcoal with his undivided interest. From his calligraphy box, he produced a thin blade, no broader than the width of a child’s small finger, and proceeded to sharpen the charcoal.

His men looked at one another and nodded…

This is a conversation I’ve had twice in the last two days with doctoral candidates, so I thought it might be useful to talk about here.

Graduate researchers often feel the need to produce a long, detailed defence of the theory or methodology they plan to use in their thesis. Usually, this is not necessary.

What you do need is to show what the method/theory enables you to do with your data, and how that helps you produce the kind of conclusions you are aiming for. 

As with all advice, there are exceptions. For my thesis: My methodology is to do a social historical study of the period (focusing on the economic transactions and social networks of artists and patrons), and then do close analysis of the art work. If I were only doing literary study, or musicology, that sentence would be sufficient. However, in order to do an interdisciplinary thesis I had…

Some dread Monday mornings, need until Wednesday to crank up. Others embrace the start of the week and can’t wait to get going. Most, probably fell somewhere between these two extremes.

For me, every week is strewn with opportunities – crying out to be mined! Patience my friend, while I ready my shovel and pan 🙂

He who plods, a step a day

Towards his goals, moves faster

Than he who zooms past and gives up

Rabbit — ?

Tortoise — ?

Torbbit — ?

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Fear seized the gathering. It did not ripple pass or cause any swaying in the crowd. The fear simply froze everyone.

Lily, Jasmine and Rose were all part of that harvest, all robust, brilliant and bright. All damned, all wished they were wrinkled and withered, or at least bruised. However, not many lived to be that old, not among their kind.

It made no difference what colour or even smell, they exuded. Of course, the sweet smelling among them were favoured and felled first.

The man moved down the row, pointing them out, so casually, so callously.

“This, that.”

“How about this one?” Another asked.

“Yes, that whole lot over there,” said the man with a sweep of his finger, with that same indifferent and even bored expression. “She loves colour.” He added as an after thought.

Jasmine and her group shrieked, as the second man came for them, literally…