kareina

 today I finished the serious proofreading and checking the references that are cited in the thesis to make certain they are in the list of references cited

Then I started through the list of references that I had cited when I submitted the thesis, and checking them off as I confirm they are in the thesis, and if they aren't I figure out which appendix that citation got moved to, and that it is in the reference list there, and if none of the above, figure out where I meant to cite it, and do so.

I got to the S's on that part before deciding I am much too tired to finish, and this means that it likely won't happen till next week, as tomorrow is busy, and Friday we leave for Glötta Gillet.

I worked 212.2 hours in December in order to get my thesis done on time to submit on the 30th. The last week was especially intense (ramping up: 9:44 hours on Thursday, 15:11 hours on Saturday, and 16:47 hours on Sunday), as my supervisor didn't have time to start reading it and making suggestions for improvements till after Christmas. However, she is very good with her suggestions, and kept adding them for several days, during which time I was doing the work to make the changes as fast as I could, while she kept reading and making suggestions... which meant that I wasn't able to complete the full list of suggestions, which means that my examiners are very likely to ask for corrections before I pass. I can cope with that. Done enough is beautiful for now.

This has been an interesting document to write the whole "your funding is up, you failed to bring in new funding, so now it is write the thesis this term or you start paying tuition out of your own pocket" thing meant that everything got really compressed. In terms of Durham regulations, I still have a couple of years half-time left to do the work. I don't have that kind of budget though, so nope. Done.

So to write it, I came up with a document structure, wrote the outline, and started writing sections. Saw how little time was left, went back to other sections and stuck in a little rough skelton-level text to seperate the some of the headings from one another a bit, then went back to work on the hard science parts that are the meat of the thesis. Got one section more or less done, and fleshed out a little of the skeleton bits. Then went and worked properly on another hard-science sections. Then tossed a little more meat towards the exposed bones in the archaeology sections, before working on the final hard science bit and getting it properly done, intending to go back and do a read-through and figure out what more needs doing to properly round out the barely fleshed over (and in some places bare bones) parts, but... that was when my supervisor started making suggestions, starting with the archaeology chapters, so the suggestions were very much along the lines of "you need more analysis here", and "why have you cited so few of the important papers here--add the rest" kind of level. This made deciding where to start easy, I started from the beginning and worked through the suggestions as fast as I could. Then, when she sent me the "done" note, I jumped to the discussion and conclusions sections, and did all of those changes before jumping back to the middle and continuing working, right up to the point where I really, really needed to just compile out of Scrivner and check the Word document for issues with headings and figure numbers. At that point I check my word count totals for the sections, and I was at 62K words for the thesis itself, not counting figures and tables, references, or appendix.  The web page I had last consulted had said that the MPhil is max 60,000 words, so I decided to move the research paper draft from Chapter 9 to the appendix, which brought the total to 54k words. Then I did the compile and check for issues with headings and figure numbers.

Solved those issues, and finally got a good copy.  Then it was just formatting and sticking in the appendixes, which had already been compiled to a good version weeks ago, and adjust the page numbers so that before the introduction they are i, ii, iii, etc., and then it goes from page 1 at the Introduction, and keeps counting across the borders to the appendices.  I managed to get it to a clean pdf and submitted around 20:00, and sent my supervisors an email, with a link to the pdf for their records, letting them know I had moved the paper, and why.

The next morning I woke to an email from my main supervisor saying that it was a shame I had moved the paper draft, as it had important and well developed discussions, and the examiners don't have to read the appendix, and the paper is a better length with it, as it should be "around 60 k words, and without it, it is a little short". That was a Sunday, so no human would have seen it yet, so I decided to make a new pdf, with the paper back in place as Chapter 9 and upload it as well, along with a note about my supervisor preferring the version with it as chapter 9, and I would leave it to the admin office which version is given to the examiners.

Having spent a couple of hours doing the clean up of the compiled document to fix the formatting and make a nice pdf I wasn't looking forward to doing it again, and was feeling tired, kinda brain-dead, and rushed to get to the part of spending time with my houseguests, who had arrived the day before, while I was still working. This probably explains why I didn't think of the easy solution right away, and tried to just power through the ordeal of a new compile. I powered too hard.  I opened Scrivener, and the second the program looked open I grabbed the paper, and dragged it to the correct location in the binder. And things froze up.  Tired, frustrated, and totally lacking in patience (see above list for hours worked, and understand that sleep hadn't much happened all week), rather than waiting for whatever process was happening in the background to finish, I opened the windows task manager and closed the program. I Do Not recommend doing this. When I reopened Scrivener it gave me an error message about problems with the search index and suggested I try rebuilding the search index. I did this, after which the program happily presented me with the complete list of all of the documents, sub documents, and research sections that should be there, but said that there are zero words in any of them.

For the past months I have been backing up my data every evening when I was done.  Scrivner makes a backup file automatically each time I shut down, and the next day overwrites it with the next day's backup file, so, in addition to synchronizing all of the folders I use with their copies on the external hard drive,  I have also been copying those backups over, into alternate day folders. Right up to Friday night. Saturday, when I submitted the thesis I didn't have the attention span left to wait for that backup to finish being created, and walked away from the computer, and didn't remember to copy it to D drive before I opened Scrivner to make the change to the position of that paper, and it somehow also got corrupted in the process of breaking the file. Oops.

In my panic I decided that I needed to take the backup of the day before, which is nearly complete, but lacks more than 16 hours of work, and start copying in the revised text from the thesis. So saved a copy of the broken version, in case it becomes possible to fix later, and moved Friday's backup into the active folder, and started copying over the changes from the Word document. It didn't take long to realize that this was going to take ages to do, and I wasn't going to be able to enjoy the company of my house guests during the day, before the New Year's party started. So I went out and asked for suggestions as to what to do, and Sofie came in, got me to explain the problem, what I had done, and that while the Scrivener file has problems, both the Word doc and the pdf have all of the data.

At this point I realized that I don't actually have to do anything in Scrivner to move that Chapter. It is a simple copy-paste job in Word, and then I need to change the chapter title by hand for three chapters, only one of which has a single sub heading that also needed a new number. It took no more than five minutes.  If I had had the brain to do that in the first place, I wouldn't have broken the Scrivener file, nor had an extra hour of stress and misery on Sunday morning.

So, the revised file got submitted, along with a note saying:


Yesterday I got a note from the admin office that recieved it saying they would pass on the second version to the examiners, and that the max word count for the MPhil is 70K, so I am good.  Today I have sent Scrivener support an email asking if they might be able to fix the corrupt files, if so please let me know how best to share them. If they can't (or won't) I will have some hours work to get Scrivener files up to date again, but it is doable. In that case, I think my best bet will be to import the Word document into Scrivener in a new section, labeled "as submitted--archive", and then open each section of the document with the original and as submitted side by side to see what is different and update the original (which has lots of links to the cards for the things cited, and for other sections, etc, which are worth retaining, which is why I am not going to just completely replace the text using the Word version--those links don't exist in the complied to Word version).

Luckily, it will be some weeks before the examiners will have had time to read it, and I only need these files working by the time they come back with a "make these corrections" suggestions.

Weeks ago, at my supervisor's suggestion, the thesis got re-arranged into a part one and a part two, with chapters in a different order. It took several days to get the headings set to the right levels for their new places  so that when compiled the automatically generated hierarchal number system for the chapter sections worked as they should.  Sunday evening my supervisor looked at it for the first time since then, and said that I shouldn't have incorporated the part number into the numbering scheme, and I shouldn't have let part two start over with a new chapter 2.  Sigh. It took all day yesterday to get everything switched over to the correct heading levels so that the new numbering system works properly. I agree with her--by letting the part numbers be part of the hierarchical number scheme they did gett to many levels in the number.  But it meant that yesterday was all about fixing that, and not writing what needs to be written...

 It is my birthday today.  The sixth time I turn seven (by my unusual prefered method of counting age, wherein one ages "normally" till 12, then starts over again with a new childhood at 3, and ages up to 12 again before starting over for the next childhood).

Normally I love birthdays, but this year it is more about trying to finish the thesis.  Today I was up at 05:30 an did half an hour work before my fortnightly zoom call with my sisters, which was a shorter one than normal, then back to work for nearly two hours before my tummy demanded breakfast. Now that I have eaten I will resume work as soon as this posts, and see how much I can accomplish before we head in to town for the shire crafts day, Lucia celebration, and business meeting. Then it will be grocery shopping (since we are in town), and home again, where I hope to make a little more thesis progress before bed.

Yesterday I baked an apple cake in my silicone castle cake pan to take with us and share today. The batter was yummy, and I also baked a tiny test cake in my mini pan, so we could test it. A dense, moist cake, and not sweet (because I have no sweet tooth, so other than the apples, there was only a half cup sugar to the 5 cups of flour in that batter.

This week I have been writing up the comparison of  the laser result for my project, which included making an overview image of which minerals are in which sample. I am quite happy with how it came out.  That part of the project is nearly done, and it will be a relief when it is.

Oh--I got a letter yesterday!  A real letter (emailed, but a real letter nonetheless, with paragraphs and everything, not just a "happy birthday" message) from an old friend (madbaker 's fuzzy upstairs neighbour) I haven't heard from in ages. It made me very happy to hear how he's doing and that he was thinking of me, and I need to make certain I reply soon and let him know how happy it made me to get it, but first I will try to finish this section of the thesis. (So madbaker, if you see him before I reply, feel free to tell him so!)

 I just heard back from my thesis supervisor, and she and our department Postgraduate Research Co-ordinator have worked things out with Admissions and the Business office, and they will be able to turn in new paperwork, to change my enrollment to the MPhil.  They have done the math to count how many months I have been enrolled vs on suspension since starting in 2018, and I am good in my timing for this degree. So long as I turn in my thesis before 31 December it is all good, and I won't need to pay any more fees.  She said that if the examiners don't think my work is good enough for the MPhil, they can recommend downgrading further to the Masters by Research (in theory, the could also recommend upgrading to a PhD, but I am not going to hold my breath on that, and she didn't suggest it as a possibility, implying that she wouldn't were she the examiner for this).

So it looks like I don't get a holiday this winter, but will be working right up till the new year and time to start job hunting. But, if I do it well, I get another cool degree.

I have just uploaded the first of my thesis videos to Zenodo. This gives it a unique DOI, which means I can put that in my thesis, and the readers will be able to access it. Note: that link gives you the document info, and a button to download the video to your machine. If you prefer to just look, without downloading, it is also still available on my google drive.

Thesis work progress has been moving at glacial speeds this week-- the task of changing all of the chapter and section number and figure numbers to code so that they will automatically number themselves appears to come with some sort of deflection spell, so that I don't manage very long per session, and then I suddenly find myself in the other room painting a banner, or ironing garb, or packing for this weekend's event, or cooking, or other "quick task" that feels terribly important just then, and, as a bonus is NOT carefully inserting the correct code for each level of heading or figure reference. Somehow it is terribly easy not to return to the computer for the next session.  Hopefully I will manage to get through that part of the project soon despite my productivity on other things as I avoid doing it, and can resume actual forward progress on the project. It would be nice to actually be done this term as planned, and then decide what to do next.
edited to add: One of the distraction cooking tasks was to recreate the yummy baked rice cups I made for the last road trip. This time I used the amounts recorded in the blogg, and can report that while I only guessed at how much of each thing I had used when writing it up before, following those amounts results in a Really yummy food, and it is taking restraint to not eat them all up, so that I will have some for this weekend's event road trip. 100% recommend. Will do again.

I stayed up late Thursday last week working on the thesis. One of my last tasks of the day was to compile the document from Scrivener to Word format, and then upload it to the University's OneDrive so my supervisors can see it there, and the comments that the other makes, rather than emailing them each a copy of the document and not being able to see what the other said.  I didn't know the uni had this option available till fairly recently, when I emailed someone something, and the email program suggested uploading it to onedrive instead, so I thought I would give it a try. I will be still doing my writing in Scrivener, but I will echo changes to that document, hopefully daily, right before I do my daily backup to David's server in Luleå. That upload happened just before midnight, and, because I had done so much during the day, running the synchronisation/backup took long enough to not only do yoga, but do a bit of tidying up around the house, and I didn't get to bed till 01:30.

Got up as usual at 05:20 so I could kiss Keldor goodbye and talk with him on the phone as he drives 35 minutes to work (and make progress on sewing, mending, or other easy to do task whilst talking). Then I settled into the computer to see what I could accomplish before my 10:00 meeting with my supervisor, and was surprised to see that she'd made comments on the thesis document between when I uploaded it and midnight her time!  During the meeting she said that she's trying to find better work life balance and not work evenings and weekends because her family needs her, but not only was she out of office all summer with field work and conferences, and then sick for a week, but she returned to the office last week to learn of the death of a student, and many books destroyed by flooding in the building, so that was the only time she had a chance to look at what I have been up to (and I am not the only one of her students in thesis write up mode and giving her chapters regularly).  I wish there was something I could do to help her, but there really isn't.

As soon as that zoom call ended I went to the kitchen and baked some road food. I wanted something that would be easy to eat in the car, and I felt like experimenting, and oh, my! Was that experiment a winning success!!!!  So Yummy!

Baked rice cups

I started with a 500 g package of pre-cooked rice porridge and stirred in something like (I didn't actually measure, so these are rough guesses):

• 3 eggs
• 0.25 c almond meal
• 0.5 c sunflower seeds
• 0.5 c pumpkin seeds
• 1 T flax seeds
• 1 T sesame seeds
• 1 T home-dried mushroom powder
• 1 T nettle powder
• 0.5 c frozen chopped kale, thawed
• 0.5 c frozen chopped spinach, thawed
• 1 T nutritional yeast
• garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, nutmeg, soy sauce

Then I scooped it into 20 silicone muffin cups and baked them at 200° C till they were cooked through, solid, and had lightly browned bottoms (not that one could see that the bottoms were brown till removing them from the cups)

They are amazing, and taste good both cold and warm, which made them great food to take with me this weekend (I ate a couple right out of the oven, took 8, and left 9 for me to eat yesterday and today after we returned).

Keldor got home from work (earlier than normal, because it is a road trip day) around the time they came out of the oven, and we then started packing. Ideally we would have packed earlier in the week and loaded the van on Thursday evening, but thesis work...

While packing I needed to take a bit of a break and put some ice on my poor toe, which was in the wrong place when I dropped the lid of one of my tourney chests, which, of course, landed, corner, first on the toe. Once it felt a little better I resumed packing.



We still managed to get everything together and were in the car around 16:30. We stopped at the store on the corner for him to get an ice cream for the road (I had my rice cups, and wasn't interested in anything else), and were driving by 16:47. The drive was long enough that I was able to type up notes from my meeting before I forgot, and catch up on several days worth of email (I had accidently disabled notifications earlier in the week, and was so busy working on my thesis I hadn't noticed till then).

We arrived on site at 22:00, which meant that gate was still open, so we checked in, set up our bed and stuff in the corner, changed into costume, and set out the door with a small group of others, to walk from the crash space hall to the other hall where the main event would be.  I was feeling tired (see above time schedule and the lack of an afternoon nap), but wanted to see people. Then I noticed that my toe was hurting. It hadn't bothered me the whole drive, and wasn't a problem walking with my sandals on, as that supported the toe and kept it from bending enough to put pressure on the bruise, but when I had changed into costume I put on my Viking shoes, which have soft leather soles, and now each step bent my foot just enough to hurt.

So I kissed Keldor and said good night, and I returned to the crash space hall, did my yoga, and was in bed just after 23:30.  The next morning breakfast was served at the other hall, and the event announcement had said that most activities would be outdoors, so I put on some wool (and my sandals instead of my Viking shoes, as I didn't want my toe to hurt again) and we started walking.  At which point I discovered that the other hall is at the top of a hill, so my wool was rather warmer than I needed for the walk. Oops!

After breakfast I hurried back down the hill, as the event schedule had said there would be a trailer going from there to take armour up the hill for people "around 10:00", and while I had no intentions of fighting in the war (I like fighting in tourneys, I can't pay attention to enough directions at once to be interested in war fighting), I did have my rock carving stuff that I wanted to work on, and wanted to get it on the trailer. However, when I got there there was no one there, at all. No trailer. No people. Nothing.  I looked at my phone, it was 09:40.  "Around 10:00".  Was I early? Or had I missed it?  Hmmm.  Waited a bit. Tried calling the autocrat. No answer.  Sent her a text message, so she would know who the strange number was. by then it was 10:00.  I must have missed it. 

So I walked back up the hill, feeling pretty sad and unhappy that I had missed my chance to get my rock carving stuff up the hill (the event announcement had asked us not to drive to that part of the site unless we really needed to, and please don't park there). On the way up (I took the steep forest track) I found a few lonely blueberries, long abandoned by their comrades. The berries looked like they needed someone to love them, so I did, and made them one with me, and I was a little comforted. But I was still feeling down enough that when I got back to the event site and found Keldor, happily playing a game of Kub with bow and padded arrows (try to knock over wooden blocks with the arrow) for War Points, I wound up crying on his shoulder.  He comforted me, and sent me to Fardäng to ask about the trailer, who sent me to Mirya, who explained that the trailer never made the trip at all, as all the fighters decided to just put on their armour and walk up the hill. However, she said I could just drive my stuff up the hill myself, and showed me on the map how to go around by the highway to get to this area by car.

This I did, driving past the fighting field to get to the main area at the top of the hill. I unloaded my stuff under some trees, next to a bench (on the off chance that anyone might like to sit near me as I work and keep me company), and then I drove my car back to the fighting area just beyond the fighting field (a MUCH closer walk than all the way back to the hall, and only a slight change in elevation).

Then ate a jumme second breakfast (rice cups!) and then spent an hour and a half happily carviving my soapstone--the pot is starting to look like it really will be a pot someday:



Then it was time for lunch. The person serving asked everyone if they wanted Pannkakor or Plattar, which seemed weird to me, as I would have happily have eaten pannkakor (which, as everyone in northern Sweden knows, are baked in the oven), but they had only plattar available (which, as everyone in northern Sweden knows, are fried on the stove top).  So I ate plattar, with raspberry jam and whipped cream, and they were good (but not as good as pannkakor would have been, but, apparently, the war is about the correct term for plattar (which the southerners mistakenly call pannkakor), and not about which is better, pannkakor or plattar (the answer to which is, of course, pannkakor)).

Then I happily carved for another hour on my pot. Now and then as I carved people stopped by to look and say hello. One man walked past with to small children, who looked very interested, so I called them over, and let them try carving (read: let them hold the hammer and hit the chisel, which I held in the correct place, on the off chance they should hit hard enough to make a mark in the soft stone, which isn't very hard, but they weren't very big). Then I gave them each a small chunk of stone that had broken off from the pot earlier, and they went happily on their way. That evening their adult thanked me, and said that was the highlight of their war, and they are still talking about it.

Just when I was only a couple more spirals away from having finished this round of chiseling in the curving ridges and would have been able to start the hammaring smooth the surface again before starting the next layer down, the rain started gently falling.  So I covered my work with the ground cloth and hurried to get the car, getting back in good time to get everything into the car before it seriously started raining, which is good, as I really don't want the trough full of stone powder and rock chips (in which I cradle the pot as I carve) to fill with water and become mud. It is quite heavy enough as it is!

About then the tournament was over, so a couple of fighters tossed some of their armour in the car, and Keldor took off all of his armour so that he could drive back down the hill. (Having managed to turn the van around in that small space earlier, I didn't want to have to do it again--I don't care to back up a car even with good visibility, and our van lacks good visibility, and we haven't gotten around to buying a backup camera for it--perhaps when I finish the degree and get a job).

The crash space building also contains the local swimming pool, so the event team had wisely booked the pool, saunas and showers for the event's use from 15:00 to 17:00, so I joined the fighters in the after fighting sauna and swim before dressing in wool and walking back up the hill.  Fika had been on the schedule for 16:00, and I had assumed that we would be too late for that, but it was still out when we arrived, and what a display it was--lots of fresh fruit (including strawberries), spring rolls, cheese and crackers, cookies, and more. I ate some fruit and cheese and crackers, and called it dinner.

Around this time Jacquelyna, Drachenwald's Posthorn herald found us, and gave us her phone to fill in the special form giving consent for our modern names to appear on the new, improved, Kingdom OP, now compatible with mobile devices. The web page team has done a wonderful job "giving it a new paint job" (their words for the changes). In the process they decided to make it possible, for those of us who wish to do so, to have both our modern names and SCA names searchable. However, to ensure that it is all GDPR compliant, the only way to do this is to fill in the google form in the presence of Posthorn or a designated deputy, usually at an event.

Then there was a bit of time to chat with people before court. Court was nice, as always, other than I had no sewing to work on, since I knew we would be either outdoors, or under the open sided roof, and it would likely be dark, so I didn't bother to carry any up the hill (but I cuddled with Keldor instead, so that was a win).  Lots of well deserved awards.  After court it was time for me to report to the kitchen to serve the feast, which went smoothly.

During the banquette Fardäng announced the distribution of all of the war points (there being more southerners at the event than norrlanders, the people who think that plattar are called pannkakor seriously outnumbered us), but, once the totals were proclaimed, Princess Anna announced that it isn't seemly to fight over food, and from here on out we would call them vafflår (waffles).  There were many surprised (and indignant) noises at that, at which point Nordmark's seneschal stood and let us know that if we weren't satisfied with the result we should join her in Styringheim in December, when the time would be ripe to overthrow and replace the Prince and Princess. (or something to that effect, it was late and I was tired, but I think it was a call to rebellion, which would be easy to do in Styringheim--the people on the island of Visby are still miffed about that time Valdemar, king of Denmark, attacked and burned their town in the 1300's, so they would be keen to off-set a Prince Valdemar, who originally comes from Denmark).

Being tired, I went back down the hill early on Saturday, did my yoga, and was asleep before 22:00.  

Sunday morning I woke with some inspiration for how to provide that "narrative arc" to bind my thesis together, and took notes on that before we got up. We packed up and got on the road directly, not even going up the hill for breakfast, as we had plenty of food with us for the day. I drove, as he wanted to write up the story of the War (which he participated in every possible War point), as the chronicler had asked him to provide an entertaining write up. I drove us as far at Skuleberget, where we stopped for a hike up the mountain (of course), and then he took the wheel from there. We stopped also to do some grocery shopping for the week, at the big store in Örnsköldsvik, and again in Umeå at the aquarium store for him to get a few more fish for his tank, and were home by 17:30, giving time to put away things that needed to be dealt with directly, relax a fair bit, and do yoga before bed.

Yesterday was all thesis work, and today will be, now that I have taken the time to type this up before I forget. Hope all is well with you!

The other day my mouse was causing enough frustration to cry out to social media about the issue, and then spend the rest of the re-arranging furniture. I wound up taking enough out of the room to move stuff around and then put most of it back. Gone is the big desk--most of its space hasn't been utilized since we got the recliner to use as a computer chair. Instead we found in a second hand store an old wooden CD tower, which we bought, took home, and while I moved furniture and prepared the space, he took out the old plastic sliders for the CDs, re-glued the join on the back wall, and sanded it back to bare wood. Then he took a leg from a narrow trestle table/tall bench thing that had been in his dad's office and attached it to one end of the wooden box.

We took the top part of that table/bench and mounted it on the wall next to my recliner for holding water bottles and other things that I want in reach when working, and made a computer station out of the former CD tower, which is now oriented horizontally, one end attached to the wall, the other supported by the trestle leg. We have attached the monitor on top, and my laptop sits in the inner area when not in use, and on my lap when it is in use. This means that I am once again able to type on the computer itself, instead of a normal keyboard, and I like it better (I have small hands). Since I sit in a recliner my legs are under the desk/monitor, and I am comfortable.

The only issue was getting in and out, but we knew that would be temporary. Now we have obtained some large hinges, and some wheels, so the box supporting the monitor is now attached by hinges, and the leg sits on two wheels, so when I want to get up from the computer I close the laptop, slide it into the shelf, and simply rotate the whole works station out of the way. I am pleased.

I have also ordered a computer tray on sliders that we can mount into the shelf, so that the computer can be supported on that, instead of sitting on my lap (well, on the little bean bag bottomed table top thingie, which is directly on my lap). If we can get that set up as I envision it, it will be possible to then leave the laptop open when I rotate my workstation, which is good for things like telling it to run backups, and then leaving, or for doing yoga during a zoom call and being able to see the call.

In thesis work progress on the lit review means that I have finally obtained sources that I either didn't look for, or didn't find back when I first saw mention of them. One of these I have already blogged about--the one where it mentioned artefacts that wound up in the Gothenburg museum, but the museum web page artefact database didn't have any of that information, so I told them, and now it does.

The down side is that I hadn't previously had that museum in my chapter of artefacts in Swedish museums, so I am now adding another section to that chapter, and, since they have a fair bit of steatite, it is taking time. Keldor suggested just ignoring that museum, but there is enough there that the collection seems significant, so here I am, adding more artefacts to the thesis chapter, as you do.

It looks like I will be submitting an abstract to a conference in Gothenburg in January, which runs the Wednesday-Friday before 12th Night Coronation in Germany, so, if that happens, as I will already be half way to the event, I may as well attend it...

Today during my yoga session I learned that while I am strong enough to get my legs off the ground for pendulum pose when they are crossed in a full lotus position, if my cat places only her two front paws on my thigh, that is enough additional weight that I am promptly sitting on the ground again!

I am still writing in chapter 3, with some detours in to parts of chapter 5 that hadn't been done yet, now that I have come to artefacts that were found very near source quarries. I really need to wrap this up and get on to chapter 2 and the discussion and conclusion chapter as soon as possible. But I am enjoying it--engaging with the artefacts, even virtually, is fun, and learning the geography of random corners of the country where they were found is also fun. So is making the figures. It is only the looming sense of overdue deadline I am not so fond of.

I am not doing much else right now. Well, on Monday when Keldor got home from work he suggested I take a break and join him in the forest, there being plenty of chanterelles to pick just now. I went along, but while he walked here, there, and everywhere picking lots of mushrooms, I stayed surprisingly near the car picking blueberries. 1.5 hours of squats later and I had more than 1.5 yogurt buckets worth of berries picked, and he'd filled his huge waist pack with mushrooms. We dried the berries (about 0.5 liters dried) to add to muesli later, and he cooked up the chanterelles straight away in butter, most of which to freeze for future meals, though he's eaten some already (I am not a huge fan, so I save them for those who are).

My Swedish is noticeably better these days. Funny how much it improves when one actually uses it. Nowadays when I write to museums for more information, I just do it automatically in Swedish, without even thinking about it and do most of the editing and grammar fixing myself, before I toss it into google translate to see if I missed any typoes that happen to be some other word.

Heard today that one of my friends in Tasmania has died. She is one who was at least as old as my mother, and didn't look at all young when we met, in 2003, so it isn't so surprising that only 20 years later she's gone, but it is sad. She had a facebook account but literally never posted anything on it, and I don't think she ever saw the chat messages I tried sending to her (she never replied), but she was delighted to see me when I was down there for a conference in 2015 or so, and she often pressed like on my FB posts, so I know she hadn't forgotten me. I hope my adventures brought her some amusement, and that her friends and loved ones are comforted with happy memories of time spent with her.