I am in London today, going to a Linguistic Ethnography thing at Birbeck College. I’m looking forward to getting away from writing for a half a day, with an excuse none-the-less. This week has been cut pretty short: Tuesday I had Yoko’s doctor appointment and today and tomorrow, I am in London. Still, in the midst of the busyness, I was able to get a great deal of writing done around the edges. The Language@Internet article is now ‘done’, but I have to go back and make sure that it is cohesive and what I took out and added in haven’t left any holes. It took a good 15 hours though of reading and rewriting. I think the finished project is something I can actually be proud of though. We’ll see what the editor has to say.
I also have some writing that I am doing for my supervisors, the same bit on the Evangelical hermeneutic activity that I have been talking about for the last month. It’s now completely drafted and I just have to proof it and send it to them. I am cautiously optimistic about it.
Two good things have happened as I have been busy this week.
First, I’m not nearly as worried as I was the last couple of weeks about my work situation in the future. Not sure why I was so concerned about it or why I am less concerned today, but I am. I am actually feeling optimistic about staying here, thinking that something may work out. To be clear, though, nothing has changed: just my outlook. My cubicle-mate from China just had a job interview for her dream job at the University of Reading. I’m hoping it went well, but it has me excited for her. I talked with a professor at the OU who has spent some time teaching in Japan. We talked about going and coming back. Point number one, whatever I do, is keeping my research profile up. As I am working on this article and feeling a bit more confident, I am less worried about being able to do this independent of my supervisors.
Second, I am in London today and going to a seminar, two of my favourite things in the world. I especially like being here when I don’t have to get any work done. I took an earlier train and have camped out in Starbucks (75p! for the filter coffee! Every time!) and also brought out my old EEEPC that I forget about from time to time, but is really quite nice. It’s faster than my laptop and now that I am doing lots of stuff on Google docs, it doesn’t matter that it has almost no hard disk. I’m thinking about making the leap to open source software for my thesis: Google docs and Zotero instead of Word and EndNote. Not sure I am going to be able to, but it excites me, especially if I can use this smaller computer instead. I was talking to my famed older brother about getting an iPad and although that would be nice, this EEEPC is actually able to do whatever I would use the iPad for. At least at this point in my life, where I am procreating like a rabbit and have no money, I think I need to focus on using the resources I already have instead of trying to get new ones. Now, if only Google docs would work offline.
I should say that, so far, number three has been much easier than number two. Well, from what I can tell. Yoko is holding up remarkably well. With Naomi, at this point, she was hardly able to move. I’m not sure if it’s that she feels much better or is just really working hard to make it easier for all of us, but it’s been good so far. I will write more about comparing these experiences one of these days. Yoko, among her many, many good qualities, is remarkably resilient. Amazing, really: I am quite lucky.