oh, my, has it really been that long?

According to my archives here, I haven't posted anything since the 17th, and it is now the 23rd (or, technically, the 24th, since midnight has been and gone). Oops. I've been busy! Trying to finish up all of my research here (or, at least enough that we can do the final write up and editing via long-distance e-mail), and packing my stuff into boxes for storage, and spending hours on skype talking to a friend (often while doing uni work, often while learning new songs in Swedish, and often while just hanging out and getting to know one another). I may be busy, but I'm really, really happy. (Which is saying something, since my normal state is generally fairly happy).

My progress report: I've analysed the most recent experiment (two long days on the microprobe on Monday and Tuesday), and there are phases in it that do not appear in any of the other experiments we've run. This will require a bit of thought. I've updated all of the various text files from which we make the various graphs illustrating my data (using Mathmatica) to include the data generated on my birthday and this week. I've made a start on the paper itself.

I've packed all of the books I inherited from my step-dad 7 or 8 years ago that I've not yet read, and labelled them as "optional", in case it turns out that I don't have room to get everything I own to Scotland I'm willing to leave behind the books with which I have not yet bonded, if something has to go. I've found a couple of huge boxes (that were originally used to ship wheel chairs), and removed the staples there from so that I can put them together to make a box large enough to protect my trike so that next time it gets shipped it isn't damaged.

My plans have solidified a bit since last I posted, and since I'm getting questions about where I'm moving next, I should record them here. clovis_t will be driving over from Edinburgh this coming week--he picks up the rental van tomorrow, but will first head south to where one of our friends from Tasmania is spending the holidays with family somewhere in England, and on boxing day they will start driving to Italy. H

Once they arrive we will pack all of my boxes (which had better be packed by then--I've been making good progress on the few-a-day technique, but it is about time to pick up the pace a bit). Depending on when we've got stuff together and loaded up and the apartment clean enough to leave we will drive together as far as Geneva on either the 30th or the morning of the 31st to visit another friend from Australia, who lives there. They they will take my stuff to Edinburgh, and I will fly to Sweden.

I will meet up with archinonlive there and do some traveling in the south of Sweden visiting some of his friends and family and also zoezebra (whom I first met when I lived in Canada) who is currently staying in Gotland on her way back to Canada after a few years in South Africa. After all of those visits we will head Drachenwald Coronation the weekend of the 7th. Then we will drive to Luleå in north Sweden, where I will stay for some as-yet-to-be-determined number of weeks while I do the writing up of my current research (last of the new data collection was yesterday), my PhD research (which really should have been published before now, but I've been busy enough that somehow it hasn't been), and keep applying for jobs.

I'm booked to attend an SCA dance event in Edinburgh at the end of January, but I haven't yet booked travel, and won't make time to even look for flights till after I get to Sweden, so if I can't find a decent price I may well cancel those plans in favour of something more affordable. Then again, it is often possible to get cheap flights, so perhaps I will make it.

I'm not really in a position to be making plans further into the future than that though. If I don't get a job offer from one of the applications that have recently been submitted or will be submitted in the next few weeks I've enough savings to enjoy several months of holiday (and writing!) before I need to decide on a plan B, which would need to involve picking a place to settle and look for work not in my field (as well as continuing to look in my field). However, between my two passports there are many, many places I could do that, and there also exist possibilities of applying for visas that would permit me to work in other places too, so I'm putting off making any decisions as to details for plan B until sometime after the new year. Whatever I wind up doing, I suspect that I will enjoy it.