some delays result in improved overall quality, others are just delays

On Monday evening I received an e-mail from Italy asking for copies of my Bachelor and Master's degrees, and asking me to sign a "Procura Speciale", have it witnessed at the local Italian Consulate, and send to official copies back to her. Fortunately, the box in which the degrees were located was not to terribly difficult to access, so I was able to scan and e-mail those within an hour of receiving the e-mail. The Procura, on the other hand, is taking longer. I took it in on Tuesday morning (yesterday), and signed it there, but the woman needed me to leave it with her to get the official stamps affixed, at a charge of $30/copy, and three business days before I can have it back. So I said "Thursday?", she thought about it and said, "Friday". Sigh.

However, since I was in town, I also spent some time at Uni, where my advisor gave me back chapter three (southwest coast). He thinks the figures are excellent, and that the chapter is nearly done. He had some suggestions for things to add to further discuss the samples which give unexpected results. I also spoke to A. who collected the samples I've been using for that chapter when he did his Honour's thesis back in 1985. He let me look at his field areas, and gave me his copy of his thesis to look at, which will be helpful when I sit down to add that discussion (yes, there is a copy in the department thesis library, but that one isn't to leave the room, and he let me take his copy home). Talking to him, I am very glad that I started my project when I did. Back then one got one's results from the microprobe in the form of a paper printout, which then needed to be typed into a computer to do anything with them. ick. Talk about potential for adding errors!

Unfortunately, as often happens with days I head into town, by the time I got home, my energy levels where shot, and I needed to take some time off to just relax (read e-mail/LJ/etc. for a bit) and go for a walk (that is what *really* helped--such a lovely thin sliver of a crescent moon out, and a surprising number of stars given that it had been raining much of the day) before settling back in to uni work. While I'd wanted to have chapter five completely done and turned into my adviser it simply didn't happen. I'd worked my way through all of the individual sample results, and had gotten to the summary of the combined results, and started fixing/re-writing that part (since I wasn't happy with my first approach, and neither would my advisor have been), but didn't finish it before needing to do my yoga, meditation, and go to sleep.

This morning I woke up inspired with a major fix to what was bothering me about the chapter. Now, instead of introducing the topic (monazite dating), presenting the results for each sample, and then summarizing them all, I am going to present the overall trends in the data, and then give the results for each sample, and how it relates to the pattern already described. I am much happier with this approach, and have completely written the first half of the revised introduction (thereby increasing the length of the chapter by 828 words) and have perfected the three figures needed to illustrate that text. Next I will need to edit the second half of the introduction bit, where I'd discussed regional trends in the composition of the grains--mostly to consolidate the part which had been in the first version of the introduction with that which had been in the summary section at the end of the chapter, and delete any redundant bits. Then I've got the fun of re-arranging the list of figures so that the figure numbers are, once again, sequential, and then check the remaning portion of the chapter (talking of the other sorts of dating I did) and send it off. This needs to be done yesterday. I'm hoping for tonight or tomorrow. But, right now, I'm going for a walk, because I need exercise too!

some delays result in improved overall quality, others are just delays

On Monday evening I received an e-mail from Italy asking for copies of my Bachelor and Master's degrees, and asking me to sign a "Procura Speciale", have it witnessed at the local Italian Consulate, and send to official copies back to her. Fortunately, the box in which the degrees were located was not to terribly difficult to access, so I was able to scan and e-mail those within an hour of receiving the e-mail. The Procura, on the other hand, is taking longer. I took it in on Tuesday morning (yesterday), and signed it there, but the woman needed me to leave it with her to get the official stamps affixed, at a charge of $30/copy, and three business days before I can have it back. So I said "Thursday?", she thought about it and said, "Friday". Sigh.

However, since I was in town, I also spent some time at Uni, where my advisor gave me back chapter three (southwest coast). He thinks the figures are excellent, and that the chapter is nearly done. He had some suggestions for things to add to further discuss the samples which give unexpected results. I also spoke to A. who collected the samples I've been using for that chapter when he did his Honour's thesis back in 1985. He let me look at his field areas, and gave me his copy of his thesis to look at, which will be helpful when I sit down to add that discussion (yes, there is a copy in the department thesis library, but that one isn't to leave the room, and he let me take his copy home). Talking to him, I am very glad that I started my project when I did. Back then one got one's results from the microprobe in the form of a paper printout, which then needed to be typed into a computer to do anything with them. ick. Talk about potential for adding errors!

Unfortunately, as often happens with days I head into town, by the time I got home, my energy levels where shot, and I needed to take some time off to just relax (read e-mail/LJ/etc. for a bit) and go for a walk (that is what *really* helped--such a lovely thin sliver of a crescent moon out, and a surprising number of stars given that it had been raining much of the day) before settling back in to uni work. While I'd wanted to have chapter five completely done and turned into my adviser it simply didn't happen. I'd worked my way through all of the individual sample results, and had gotten to the summary of the combined results, and started fixing/re-writing that part (since I wasn't happy with my first approach, and neither would my advisor have been), but didn't finish it before needing to do my yoga, meditation, and go to sleep.

This morning I woke up inspired with a major fix to what was bothering me about the chapter. Now, instead of introducing the topic (monazite dating), presenting the results for each sample, and then summarizing them all, I am going to present the overall trends in the data, and then give the results for each sample, and how it relates to the pattern already described. I am much happier with this approach, and have completely written the first half of the revised introduction (thereby increasing the length of the chapter by 828 words) and have perfected the three figures needed to illustrate that text. Next I will need to edit the second half of the introduction bit, where I'd discussed regional trends in the composition of the grains--mostly to consolidate the part which had been in the first version of the introduction with that which had been in the summary section at the end of the chapter, and delete any redundant bits. Then I've got the fun of re-arranging the list of figures so that the figure numbers are, once again, sequential, and then check the remaning portion of the chapter (talking of the other sorts of dating I did) and send it off. This needs to be done yesterday. I'm hoping for tonight or tomorrow. But, right now, I'm going for a walk, because I need exercise too!