Tuesday, 22 June 2010

Clearing Out

OK. I admit it. I have been somewhat lax in 'putting things away' for some time now. I have frequently explained this by saying that the flat is small and is therefore untidy because I have no where to put things, but, in my recent attempts to make space I have discovered that much of my previously 'necessary' clutter is rubbish. Magazines I have failed to throw away. Smaller bits and pieces that I kept at the time 'just in case' and can't now remember what they relate to.

I'm making some progress clearing out. Slowly but surely surfaces are reappearing in my flat. I intend to keep it that way, but we'll see. Habits that have developed over the last couple of years living by myself might be difficult to break. But, I do have more motivation now the Physio has come to stay with me for the summer. I am more aware of the clutter now that someone else sees it every day than when I was living by myself. I really do think that when your mess affects only you, it is much harder to remember to be tidy than when your mess affects other people. Added to this, the Physio is a very tidy person, and I know that the state of my flat bugs him, even though he doesn't say anything. So, I intend to make the effort. I used to be a tidy person. I can do it again.

Besides, I actually like living in a clean and tidy space.

Tuesday, 15 June 2010

Making (some) progress

Well, the conference paper on 'new stuff' went reasonably well, although there was very little discussion of my paper after the panel. I suppose if the audience had felt strongly that my reading should be challenged they would have done so, either during questions or afterwards, so I'm taking this as positive. Perhaps the audience were all just tired though.

I ran out of time to write some more 'new stuff' for my second conference in May, but managed to find a section on my thesis to present instead, without looking too much like I'd shoe-horned it in. That conference was an extremely interesting day on one topic, with plenty of time for discussion, and I enjoyed very much being back in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss.

Now my plans are to turn the first paper into an article, reasonably quickly. I wanted to carry on with it immediately after the conference, but with exam papers to mark, a further paper to produce and then twelve 4000-word projects to mark, I've sort of lost the momentum. But, my co-organisers have managed to find an avenue for publication of the conference papers as a special edition of a journal, and I'm excited about producing something to publish. Hopefully my writing nerves won't impede me too much.

I might revisit the section taken from my thesis for the second paper to produce an article too, but I might just leave that one in order to develop it when I turn my thesis into a book (book proposal part 2 of summer plan). I also have an article I've been sitting on for nearly twelve months that needs some referencing amendments and that's article no.2 or 3.

So, I feel I'm making progress. Not a lot, but some. And that is better than no progress at all.