Reading and Ranting

The presentation is done and despite panicking prior it was helpful to be forced to put my 'kinda, something, sortas' into a slightly more coherent structure. Unfortunately it didn't seem as coherent when vocalised as I thought it did on paper but I'm going somewhere, I think. I was happy with my feedback and it was helpful to see the direction my fellow students are taking also. I have just sat down to fill in my written proposal and am finding it hard to pin down objectives as they seem to change day by day as I read more or get stuck on another tangent. I suppose this is the natural progression of research however I'm almost feeling a little overloaded with possibilities and fear a good lot of time could be sacrificed exploring a path which I will later decide I don't want to include - I never was a particularly decisive person. 

I know I'm in the early stages at the moment, but it's fast becoming apparent how much research immerses you. I've caught myself a few times recently in the midst of normal conversation with friends that I manage to turn into some sort of topic investigation, or in one case, an argument. A close friend of mine looking to buy a flat in the near future told me how he would never buy a flat in a 'new-build' because local housing policy states that 50% of the flats must be filled with local residents... which he doesn't want to share his halls with... but he doesn't want to live in any other postcode... what!? A subsequent rant by me ensued about social integration, community development and gentrification where before I knew it I was spitting out all sorts of academic babble at him. I'm not quite sure when I will next be invited to dinner there but the passion with which I started my little tirade did demonstrate how involved I'm becoming with what I'm reading. I do genuinely care about it and I don't believe I'll be able to write 15,000 words on something I don't about so that's good to know I guess.... now I just have to figure out how to squeeze events into all that somehow.