making progress

I never did hear from my supervisor on Friday. In hindsight when she replied to my message earlier in the week saying that she could meet me on Friday, but would need time to read the paper draft before then, rather than just working frantically on the draft as fast as I could, and sending it as soon as it was "done enough", I should have replied saying that I was and I would, and enquiring what time on Friday. oops.

I also haven't heard back from the university billing or records departments, so I still have no idea if that invoice they sent was in error or not.

In the absence of information I am operating under the assumption that I have to finish everything by the end of the term, on 17 March. This is probably an unrealistic goal, but if I give up most things between now and then and focus, I have a chance. Yesterday morning I woke thinking about what I should start doing for paper #2, but then decided I should add that last bit of info for the discussion section to paper #1, and give the whole thing a read through. This turned into a 7 hour work day, on a Saturday, when Keldor was home and I could have been doing stuff with him. This is the first time I have chosen to work on a day he was home (I would be much further along if I had done that on the days he was home sick from work, but I value time with him too much, and we get interesting things done on the house, or spend time reading aloud together, or play games, or just talk.)

While I was working he did laundry and mopped the floors that are moppable. Have I mentioned how much I love this man? He really is wonderful. (Note: he decided to do those things himself, I didn't suggest them.)

I am glad I decided to do that readthrough. When I did that total re-write before Christmas, restructuring the introduction especially, somehow the old version of the introduction stayed, meaning that there was lots of redundant text (I guess that I must have accidently pressed the "reject" button instead of the "accept" button for that deletion in Track Changes Mode.) So Now I have double checked to see confirm which bits really belong, and have deleted those that don't. Keldor was nice enough to let me read much of the paper aloud to him, which let me find lots of little changes that needed to be made for clarity. He drew the line at listening to the results section though, as it is skit tråkigt (he has a point, but it isn't easy to make chemical results interesting when one types about them--the figures, however, he enjoyed looking at.

a wonderful evening out

On Friday evening we went out for a concert. My first in many years. Sometime before Christmas we got an email from Guldstalaget, the folk dance group we danced with last winter (we haven't managed a single Tuesday evening dance this autumn or winter because life is so busy), saying that as members of the group we could get a discount to a Folk Music concert happening at Sara Kulturhus, the really, really big, all wooden, building at the city center. So we bought tickets.

They were willing to accept cancellations and give refunds up to the day before, but, as luck would have it, it was the afternoon of that concert that I started to feel a bladder infection coming on, and wasn't willing to do the half hour drive in to town for it.

So I emailed the organiser with apologies for missing it, and getting sick too late to cancel, and assuring them that I was ok with them keeping the money. He replied saying that they had two concerts coming up after the first of the year, and did we want to attend either of them instead? One of them was the Barcelona Gipsy Balkan Orchestra, which we had never heard of before, but only a short time listening to their offers on youtube convinced us that yes, we would like to attend that one.

I am glad that our past selves and fate conspired to get us there, since it was a really good concert. It begun with just the musicians stage for the first number, and it was clear from the first few seconds that they all really love what they are doing, do it well, with great energy and enthusiasm, but Ivan Kovačević, playing Double Bass, really puts his entire heart, soul, and body into playing, with an energy that is really infectious and fun to see. for the second number Margherita Abita joined them on stage, and begun to sing, and pretty much as soon as she opened her mouth and a chorus of angels poured out into the room, I turned to Keldor and said "I just fell in love!"

They played straight through in one long set, with songs from many (all?) of the Balkan countries, tossing the musical emphasis back and forth among them all, each one taking it in turn to carry the focus and energy, all of them smiling and happy and interacting with one another, and with the audience. I, of course, had a sewing project with me, and started the evening sitting and sewing, but I was glad that we had a seat on the end of the row, because I soon stood and danced, and kept sewing, the fabric fluttering behind me as I sewed for the rest of the evening. After the concert we bought one of their records (yes, in vinyl, as Keldor has a record player), and we got them to sign the album cover.

PS, if you play an instrument, check out their web page--they have music scores for much of the music they play!