I am in awe of people like Lizzie Ludlow. I met her at the Victorian Memories conference in September (seems so long ago, how strange!) and was impressed by the knowledge she had and her self-assurance. While reading her paper she was admittedly one of the more nervous, stumbling slightly over her words and eye contact was deliberate, rather than natural. But her subject matter was absolutely fascinating (Christina Rossetti and architecture of the soul).

 I’ve gone back to her blog occasionally to see if she’s posted anything new, but am usually sadly disappointed, though there is something there now. It was from there (at the risk of sounding like a stalker!) that I stumbled onto her academic portfolio. it seems to be something Warwick expects of its postgraduates, providing a place for their thesis summary, events attended, papers published etc - a great idea, and far above the pebble pad system that Manchester’s trialling. According to her portfolio, she’s presented about 10 papers and has two forthcoming publications, and is just entering her third year. Talk about intimidating!

My supervision’s tomorrow, having submitted a literature review, and to be honest I’m nervous about it. I have drifted significantly from my original proposal but the area I’m thinking about now is in a similar vein (identity and performance) but instead of looking at cross-dressing, looking at Victorian theatre in fiction. Sounds like a huge change but the theoretical basis is the same and it continues looking at identity, which I have always found interesting - how people present themselves a certain way and why, and how this affects who they start as, and whether there is a ‘true’ self.