Still a long way to go...

Printed first draft, sans conclusion (figured it would be easier to write once I'd gone through the paper as a whole). My tummy feels funny. And proud. :-)

Also, Behar is my hero for writing some beautiful statements regarding his statelessness, nationality, and being a Kosovar. It also made writing his section really hard, because I struggled to find a way to incorporate his thoughts, do justice to them and make it work within the framework of the paper as a whole.

Off to edit now.... Also, the text looks really big after how small it's been on my computer for ages!

I'm also nearly a thousand words over, despite not even having a conclusion. On the other hand, some careful editing will be a good thing, I'm sure.

And I still need a title. :-)

I'm not dead. Just busy.

So much to do! Will finish draft today. So, in order to break the radio silence, here's a narcessistic blog update, mostly comprised of photos of me and Edinburgh (in overlapping subsets).


Birthday Joyce. With the crown that Duchie sent...along with a factory's worth of glitter!


Me, atop Arthur's Seat, which is in the middle of Edinburgh.


Poster hanging on the Fringe.


TARDIS!!!OMG!!1!

Happy Birthday, me! Happy Birthday, Fidel! Happy Birthday, Madhur Jaffrey, author of my beloved World Vegetarian (fate, it was fate)!

Yay!

So many things have happened lately, almost all of them related to my dissertation, so they aren't particularly interesting.

I just wanted to let everyone know that I've got a serious tuna problem (that's not a euphamism of any sort) along with my current carrot and nectarine obsessions. Ana gave me a jar of her dad's tuna back in the winter sometime. He apparently buys the fresh tuna from the fishermen, cuts it up, cooks it and jars it in oil himself. And this is seriously the best stuff EVER. I had two things sitting next to me during dinner and reading about the Roma Holocaust (see first sentence, re: dissertation), ice cream and the jar of tuna. Guess which one I had seconds from? And thirds? And am tempted to raid again now? Hint: not the ice cream.

SO, fresh, home tinned tuna = love. Unless your boy's a veggie. More for me. :-)

"I <3 the IRS," she says, ironically.

A couple of weeks ago I was really confused to get a refund check from the IRS, because I hadn't qualified for one and had actually paid them a chunk. So, I'd been walking around with a check in my bag, too afraid to do anything with it because I was convinced that they'd made some mistake and would be demanding it's return. Well, I finally got another letter from them yesterday and was heartened to learn that I'd misfigured my taxes and they were nice enough to send back the extra money. Yay! If only I could be bothered to go to the bank....

The dissertation is proceeding at a reasonable, if not ambitious pace, which is worrisome when my goal is to have the first draft done a week from tomorrow- the day before my birthday and two days before we go to the Edinburgh Festival. I think that totals about 1,000 words a day, which will be frantic now that I've realized that I've spent the vast majority of my time on the general theory of my statelessness ideas and very little time on my examples which will show that theory in action. Ack. I played with some very complicated ideas yesterday and I think was able to put them on paper. I haven't reread it and don't think I will for a few days, but I was glad to have overcome that hurdle, at least.

Nevertheless, it has been a good couple of weeks, as I've made it a point to be doing social stuff with friends in the evenings, as a girl can't be cooped up at school or home alone every day and still function properly. We went to The Life of Galileo at the National, which was fantastic, and Kat's dragged me to Brighton and, last night, Antony & Cleopatra at Shakespeare's Globe. Three hours is a long time to stand, but I think you don't realize how far drawn in to the play you become because of it. I was strangely moved by Cleo's suicide...far more than I had expected. Tonight is her next to last show with the band, so I'll be supporting The Outside Royalty tonight and tomorrow night. Yay! Might post some of those Brighton photos at some point, but need to write just a bit about nationality and allegiance at the moment before heading to the eeeevil library.