Dear my subconscious

If you don’t mind, I’d really rather not dream about work clients tonight. Work is more than enough during working hours, I could really do without it invading my sleep, thankyouverymuch [Several nights running, sigh. I'm beginning to wish the thesis anxiety dreams would come back, even they would be an improvement].

23 days to go

I’m hoping that the technical woes of the past couple of days means that I won’t have any when there are just 2 days to go, as I’m not sure my nerves will cope! Our BT line developed a fault on Sunday evening which meant no phone or internet, which we only got back this evening. I was meant to be emailing chapters to my supervisors on Sunday evening, but didn’t panic as I thought I could put them on a memory stick and email them from work yesterday morning. Except that I forgot to factor in that my work PC is not only a wonder of ancient archeology, but is also useless. It accepted the memory stick and the light on the stick lit up, but when I came to attach it to the email there was no sign of the drive. So in the evening HD bought a top up for the mobile dongle, but that (obviously) is reliant on a mobile signal, something which is something of a rarity in the Stately Pile apart from a couple of square feet in random spots in the flat. We found a signal in the bedroom, but then my laptop didn’t recognise the dongle installation files, so we tried to use his computer, but although it recognised the dongle, it was only when it was logged in as him and disappeared every time he switched it to me. So we thought we’d just have to use his computer, logged in as himself, except that then his computer didn’t seem to recognise my memory stick! In the end he had to plug it into our server (yes, we have a server. Of course I have no idea how to use it, but then it’s not my toy) and copy files from there. So by the time he emailed my supervisors with the chapters it was gone midnight and I was turning into a pumpkin.

I think in the circumstances an evening off is called for, which is what I’m having tonight. So far I have had a snooze and eaten Nutella from the jar. And not much else.

25 days to go

… and I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere with it. Hooray! (nothing much else to add, hope my supervisors agree, not much time to do something about it if not!).

I forgot to mention yesterday that as well as the preparation for the job interview, I received an email asking me to contribute a paper based on my Stockholm conference paper for an edited volume based on the conference (similar to the chapter from the Helsinki conference that I’ve been going on about for ages which will hopefully be published soon). Unfortunately the deadline for the first draft* of the chapter is in a week and a half’s time, so although this is a bit cheeky I have written back and asked for an extension! I will totally understand if they can’t include me, I can always rework the paper into a journal article for publication elsewhere at a less fraught time, but it would be nice if I can be included if possible in the book. That would though mean more work work work for a couple more weeks after submission – I wonder, maybe I can stop working by Christmas?

* I initially typed that as “daft”. Which made me smile

For the win

This is so so so so minor in the scheme of things, but was such a rare event I wanted to preserve it for posterity. When I update my antivirus or am waiting for something to download on my computer then quite often I will play Hearts. I’m not a gamer at all, Hearts and Minesweeper do me fine and I wouldn’t bother to buy any, this is fine for the odd minute here and there. But in all my years of playing Hearts (my lodger taught me it in London, so probably 7 or 8 years), this is the only time I’ve ever managed to win with a score of 0 (my previous best was 3, and I’d only done that once, a couple of years ago). So you’ll forgive me for being very happy about it!

Here it is in closeup!

26 days to go

Thanks to everyone for their lovely and supportive comments. It really is fantastic to know people are rooting for me round the world.

I’m really really looking forward to writing my acknowledgements

You may remember ages ago I had a dilemma about applying for a job. I applied, and then didn’t hear anything for ages. But I heard this morning. I have an interview in a month’s time – 4 days after submission day! So there won’t be much in the way of relaxing immediately after submission as I will have a 15 minute presentation to prepare, but I guess thinking about that will be a more productive form of procrastination in the meantime.

Yesterday I spent a fair bit of time chopping up the Chapter of Doom and working out which bits could go elsewhere. I’m actually amazed, given how much I hated writing it, given how much as a chapter it just doesn’t work, given how compared to other chapters I (and my supervisors) could tell it was the wrong way to end the thesis, given how much a dent in my confidence all this gave me, just how much of it works absolutely fine in the existing chapters and how much of it can be just copied and pasted with minimal editing. Which, at this late stage in the day, is something of a relief! I should get all that done tomorrow, and hopefully a good start on the final draft of the megachapter, then it’s just the introduction and conclusion to go. Which hopefully will be straightforward and not requiring any drama queen histrionics. Though I can’t guarantee that

29 days to go

Last night I was reading a book by a proper academic, and hallelujah something she wrote chimed with the mystery sentence (mentioned a few posts ago), and now I think I know what I was talking about! This is a relief, I had worried I had had an attack of Pseuds’ Corner, but it turns out I wasn’t being as pretentious as I thought! Yay!

Gallery week 25: One day in August

I’ve not taken part in the Gallery (hosted as ever by Tara at Sticky Fingers) for a few weeks, but thesis boredom and the consequent procrastination requirements means I’m in for this week The theme this week, inspired by the blipfoto project where people post a photo a day for a year, is One Day in August, and all the photos taking part in the Gallery were taken last Sunday, 29th August.

I did think about taking a picture of my various books and piles of paper and laptop to show the hard work I was doing on my thesis (*ahem*), or of the washing drying beautifully on the line (when you live in the west of Scotland, being able to hang out the washing is a real treat due to our tendency for, well, Scottish weather!). Instead I’ve taken a bit of a boring photo, but one with a story.

You see, on Sunday we said goodbye to our telly as we lost our freecycle virginity. We hardly ever use the TV now – if there’s something we want to watch we use iPlayer (or the various alternatives for the other channels) and watch online, and in our not exactly enormous flat you can see it was taking up a fair chunk of space. I joined freecycle a while ago intending to put the TV on it, but never got round to it until this weekend. For those who don’t know, freecycle is a great service where you can give stuff you don’t want any more to someone who wants it, all for free, the aim being to increase recyling and reduce stuff going to landfill. We have a number of other things in storage which I think we could also get rid of this way, it feels so much more rewarding than just dumping things (we do still give stuff to our local charity shops, but they don’t take electrical items so dumping would be the only alternative for items like this).

I also think the photo is noteworthy for the absence of crap and detritus on the floor! I sorted out the shelves on Saturday as I am gradually bringing my thesis books and stuff back from my uni office to home as the office needs cleared by the time I submit. Up till then the floor was home for all that stuff as there wasn’t anywhere else for it. I don’t suppose the clear floor will last long, but at least there is photographic evidence that for a day at least tidiness reigned!

One month to go

Meep.

Missing Greenbelt

We are not at Greenbelt this year – I suspect as I write many people are either heading home or just waiting for the headliner on Main Stage. We didn’t go last year as I really felt like I needed a year off and was a bit addled and thought I wouldn’t be able to cope with hippy earnestness, and this year I couldn’t go due to the imminence of my thesis deadline (which is why I’m here, of course!) plus the timing not working out for holidays at work. I’ve caught photos and status updates and comments about the festival in various places (facebook, twitter, flickr) and it looks amazing, and unlike last year where the break did me good, this year I’m finding I’m really missing it. I know over the year there have been various conversations, on the wibsite and elsewhere, on the politics and issues around GB, but to be honest I’m not really very interested in that. I don’t go to Greenbelt (or any other festival) to prove my Christian credentials or anything like that, or look down on others who don’t go (not that I’m suggesting anyone here does that!) – I just find it a place where I can chill, breathe, relax, meet amazing friends I don’t get to see at any (or many) other time, and more often than not get surprised by God in the midst of it all.

So I’m looking forward to reading people’s accounts once they’re back home. But I’ll be reading with a little twinge of sadness too that I wasn’t able to go this time.

“Black Earth: Russia after the Fall” by Andrew Meier

This is a book I finished a while ago, but now I’m in procrastinatory mood it’s time to review it Journalist Andrew Meier, for some time the Time magazine Moscow correspondent, writes in depth accounts from all corners of Russia. As well as Moscow and Petersburg, there are chapters on Chechnya, Norilsk (in the Siberian Arctic – home of a notorious former gulag), and Sakhalin (the large island off the east coast, above Japan). I loved this book – it’s everything I was hoping the Jonathan Dimbleby book I reviewed here would be but wasn’t. The difference I think is that Meier had lived in Russia for several years, understood and spoke the language fluently and understood the people and the way of life much better. I agreed absolutely with one of the reviews which described it as “the best sort of love letter; mournful, obsessive and exquisitely readable”. It certainly wasn’t a laugh a minute – quite the contrary, particularly the chapter on Chechnya – but it really is beautifully written, and is as insightful as some of the best academic work I’ve read on Russia.