This morning, the sun was shining and this was a portent of things to come.
First, the midwife called and was able to reschedule our home visit. In this country, to have a baby in your home, you must be 38 weeks pregnant and have had a home visit by the midwife. We had scheduled this, but it was well into the 38th week and Yoko is a bit concerned that she might pop early. The midwife was able to reschedule, ensuring that we will, from day one, be able to sling this puppy out at home, rather than the hospital. It's hard to re-arrange all your plans for things — an added stress that we were not pleased with, but it seems to have worked out. I, for one, am excited.
Second, I checked my bank account and found that the university had deposited £168.99 for my plane ticket and hotel reservations in Amsterdam in June. So I booked both and am now, barring disaster or a very late birth of Mei, going to be there from June 3rd to the 6th. Very short, but enough time to learn about metaphors, eat some good food, and go to the van Gogh museum.
It was good to have some good things today after yesterday. Oh yesterday. The whole time I was in Japan, I felt challenged, but in a particular way. Culturally challenged, linguistically challenged, but never really intellectually challenged. There was never really a lot of push-back, and I like intellectual push-back. Fast forward to my time here at the OU and my main supervisor has, to put it quite simply, challenged me. She is a giant in her field and wants good work, intellectually rigorous work, all the time. I'm not sure I am capable of it, but I am working for it and I want to be the researcher that she wants me to be, so I think I'm in the right place. Provided, you know, I don't pull all of my hair out before then.
I scribbled some notes on a bit of paper last night. Hopefully they are intellectually rigorous thoughts. We shall see.