The most exciting day

I've just made the electronic submission of the dissertation.

I have also printed out the copy which I will be taking for binding and hand-over in person in a few days time.

I had a lot of trouble with the 10 Appendices, which are in a mixture of formats, including Word and Excel. I got them to print nicely but then found that I am only allowed to submit 5 files electronically. Copying them into the main dissertation didn't really work because the formatting went all wrong. So eventually I batched them into four groups of roughly similar format so that I could submit just 5 files. This is the sort of logistics that brings down a dissertation. Microsoft Office was supposed to make Word and Excel totally compatible but they are not.

So that's pretty much it ...... except it isn't because I need to firm up the forward plan. My supervisor has suggested I should try to publish a version of my work in a journal. I would like to make it into a book. And then there is my partly-planned novel to pick up again. And that is a complicated one, so might take a few years. And might need a creative writing course.

Meanwhile ... we have another holiday soon. And a family party to make for Sunday.

And I've ditched Old Faithful and have a new hairdresser - Creative. She talked a good talk and it looks good now but we shall have to see how it looks in a few days time.

So watch this space -  there will be another project soon.

Its all about Style

I had an awful day yesterday. I started to create the dissertation from all the bits I have everywhere. And the numbering in Word proved challenging and then didn't work at all. So I asked Google and discovered that only really stupid people do the numbering the way I have been doing it since Word was invented. There is a thing called 'styles' which I remember dimly from a training course, except it seemed too complicated and there were always experts like secretaries to help with all that stuff. I never thought I would need to know. But now I do. Yesterday's searching just confused me more and more. And I thought 'Well, if I don't get an MA, then so what? I'm too old and my mind has gone.' But I really want an MA. I'm a 'completer-finisher' in management parlance.

This morning I decided on one last try and found this: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-use-styles-in-microsoft-word-to-save-a-lot-of-work/ And the scales dropped from my eyes and I 'got it'. TSH says he doesn't mind if Jim Henderson, who wrote it, is my new hero. And I showed it to TSH and he's already changed his normal style so that it comes up in the right font. We are a changed household.

Best novel I've read in ages: 'The Distant Hours' Kate Morton.