Barnet Bound

In a few hours, I am bound for Barnet once more. This trip it is courtesy of Air New Zealand, which should be fun. I have my iPod, a stack of grading, and some books both academic and non. I actually kind of look forward to these gigantic flights I take every so often. There is something zen about having to sit in one place for eleven hours. Plenty of time to think.

My plans for London?

1. Windsor Castle. Last summer I kept meaning to go, but sundry events like terrorist bombings kept getting in the way. It's going to happen this time. Mary's working, so I'll probably just take the train myself one day.
2. Cooking. I'm going to cook a dinner for all of Mary's rotation-mates, all twelve of them.
3. Rambling. The weather is lovely in London right now, so I plan to spend as much time as I can poking around in meadows and forests.
4. Work. Only mild, mild, amounts. But I do need to start preparing my lectures for this summer.


I never updated my blog this week, so here's another list:

1. Turned in the worst seminar paper of my life. Also my last, so I guess it is a good news/bad news kind of thing.

2. I successfully defended my dissertation proposal, and I am now ABD. Shocking! The best part is that it happened in time for me to teach this summer on a higher pay scale. It's not a gigantic difference, but I'll take what I can get. My goal is to write my Cage chapter this summer. I think that is very do-able, since I've written a forty-page version of it already, much of which I can keep. That way I'll be off to a running start, and will have a completed chapter for fellowship applications this fall.

3. Gave the final for the class I'm TAing. My grand plan was to grade it that night so that I could be completely done with this quarter before leaving. That didn't happen.

I think that's it! ta-ta!