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making progress despite myself
Jul. 12th, 2011 07:03 pmYesterday's walk to and from uni was long enough that my legs were feeling it by the time I got home, so I had planned to use the fact that I had a lunch date with a friend serve as an excuse not to go to uni today. Instead I woke up early enough to visit with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
archinonlive for an hour or so before he went to bed. While he chatted he finished filling in the form that the migration office wants from him, and sent it to me to read. I am pleased to report that when reading something like that, where I already know the information presented, I am actually pretty much able to read and understand the Swedish, without calling on GoogleTranslate at all. I would not have understood many of those words out of context, but when I follow the meaning of the paragraph I can make sense of the words, for the most part.
He tells me that the letter from the Migration office actually arrived in Monday's mail, but since we knew of its impending arrival he had the form half done before he received official word that it would be needed. He checked their web page, which says that they are next open on Wednesday, which gives him Tuesday his time to print everything before taking it in to their office (assuming that he doesn't wind up too swamped at work to stop by their office when they are open). After that we should have naught to do but wait for the visa to be approved. (of course it will be approved, who wouldn't want me in their country ;-)
After talking with him that gave me a couple of hours before my friend was expected to pick me up for lunch, so I did some work on the talk I will be doing for the UTAS geology dept on Monday next week (title: 1.5 years as a Marie Curie Research Fellow: my adventures doing experiments in Italy), adding in photos of pretty places I have been and details of how the experiments are actually done as well as the science results (they gave me 40 minutes--I have summarized just the results in other talks in 15 to 20!) If anyone wants to attend this talk, it will be at 12:00 on Monday 18 July in the Codes Conference Room in the Earth Science building at UTAS.
Around the time my friend was expected to arrive I was needing a break anyway, so I closed down all of the windows I had open for that project and got myself ready to go. Since she still wasn't here I fell into email for a bit, and after a while a note from her appeared, with an apology, an explanation, and letting me know that while she had my address, she didn't actually have a phone number for me, which is why she hadn't called. Oops. I wrote back with my number straight away.
Logically, I should have jumped straight back into work--this time on that paper, but since I was already in goof-off mode I instead lost a couple of hours getting food (and running to the local store to buy grocery store organic flour since I didn't have a ride into town to go to Eumerrah to buy really good flour, and the only flour in the house here was a bag of store-brand self-rising flour with a best-by date of 2009) reading more mail and blogs etc. and even listening to Harry Potter in Swedish as I read along in the book.
Eventually though I actually found my focus, and have made some good progress. I have expanded and filled in the sample description section of the results and finished typing up the results from my showcase sample from the Collingwood River area, and gotten the sample description section of the SW coast prettied up to match C. River. Next I need to do the showcase of results from a single sample before moving on to the next section.
Hopefully I will manage to do that tonight or tomorrow, since I have two social engagements: Heading to a museum with a friend (yes, mom, the museum you said I must go to) in the morning, and meeting my apprentice in the evening to see what she has been working on while I have been gone.
PS, can I tell you how good it made me feel that when filling out his form under "other information you think we should know" he wrote what translates to "she is the most compatible person I have ever met" :-)
archinonlive for an hour or so before he went to bed. While he chatted he finished filling in the form that the migration office wants from him, and sent it to me to read. I am pleased to report that when reading something like that, where I already know the information presented, I am actually pretty much able to read and understand the Swedish, without calling on GoogleTranslate at all. I would not have understood many of those words out of context, but when I follow the meaning of the paragraph I can make sense of the words, for the most part. He tells me that the letter from the Migration office actually arrived in Monday's mail, but since we knew of its impending arrival he had the form half done before he received official word that it would be needed. He checked their web page, which says that they are next open on Wednesday, which gives him Tuesday his time to print everything before taking it in to their office (assuming that he doesn't wind up too swamped at work to stop by their office when they are open). After that we should have naught to do but wait for the visa to be approved. (of course it will be approved, who wouldn't want me in their country ;-)
After talking with him that gave me a couple of hours before my friend was expected to pick me up for lunch, so I did some work on the talk I will be doing for the UTAS geology dept on Monday next week (title: 1.5 years as a Marie Curie Research Fellow: my adventures doing experiments in Italy), adding in photos of pretty places I have been and details of how the experiments are actually done as well as the science results (they gave me 40 minutes--I have summarized just the results in other talks in 15 to 20!) If anyone wants to attend this talk, it will be at 12:00 on Monday 18 July in the Codes Conference Room in the Earth Science building at UTAS.
Around the time my friend was expected to arrive I was needing a break anyway, so I closed down all of the windows I had open for that project and got myself ready to go. Since she still wasn't here I fell into email for a bit, and after a while a note from her appeared, with an apology, an explanation, and letting me know that while she had my address, she didn't actually have a phone number for me, which is why she hadn't called. Oops. I wrote back with my number straight away.
Logically, I should have jumped straight back into work--this time on that paper, but since I was already in goof-off mode I instead lost a couple of hours getting food (and running to the local store to buy grocery store organic flour since I didn't have a ride into town to go to Eumerrah to buy really good flour, and the only flour in the house here was a bag of store-brand self-rising flour with a best-by date of 2009) reading more mail and blogs etc. and even listening to Harry Potter in Swedish as I read along in the book.
Eventually though I actually found my focus, and have made some good progress. I have expanded and filled in the sample description section of the results and finished typing up the results from my showcase sample from the Collingwood River area, and gotten the sample description section of the SW coast prettied up to match C. River. Next I need to do the showcase of results from a single sample before moving on to the next section.
Hopefully I will manage to do that tonight or tomorrow, since I have two social engagements: Heading to a museum with a friend (yes, mom, the museum you said I must go to) in the morning, and meeting my apprentice in the evening to see what she has been working on while I have been gone.
PS, can I tell you how good it made me feel that when filling out his form under "other information you think we should know" he wrote what translates to "she is the most compatible person I have ever met" :-)
