Some progress

I have started to develop spreadsheets for the lyrics in 'Songs from a Room' - Cohen's second album, from 1969. I suppose that seems like ancient history to some people. I am looking at the pronouns - who is speaking? who is he speaking to? who is he speaking about? Cohen often mixes up these roles - he speaks as if about a third party and then it becomes apparent he means himself.

Yesterday we went to a party at Dinosaur's other grand-parents. He was very well behaved and charmed everybody. And I got sunburnt. On a cool day in Yorkshire. Probably no-one else present had this issue - I really do have very sensitive skin. So today its Aftersun every few hours.

The book

Back from a good holiday in Portugal blogged at http://fromthesilversea.blogspot.co.uk/ . And now its time to get back to work. The dissertation is in but I have no serious intention of just sitting back and retiring, even though it is occasionally tempting. But that would be the beginning of the end!  So I've started to look in detail at Cohen songs other than the ones I analysed for the dissertation. The general idea is that I'll write about the student experience, the overall statistical analysis of the whole set of lyrics and then a set of detailed analyses of the more interesting songs.

I am not a student anymore but this 62-year-old is not retiring!!

Holiday time

We are about to take a river cruise in Portugal - blogged as usual here: http://fromthesilversea.blogspot.co.uk/

I sill have not firmed up the forward plan, but the chances are that I will be expanding my Cohen dissertation into a book. But in the meantime, there's a holiday wardrobe to plan. Toes are already purple with sparkles! And hair is still looking good.

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.

Scary

Its a scary thought that in just over a week I will be going to the campus with a printed copy for binding. So very soon, I need to accept that no further tweaks are possible and I have to freeze it and start printing. I've reduced the word count to just under the required 12,500 and checked and rechecked the references and citations.
We are only just a week returned from our Norwegian fjords cruise and in about two weeks we cruise the Duoro. So its all a bit of a flurry. A river cruise is different in dress code from an ocean cruise so it will take a bit of thinking through.

Holiday reading

Books I read on holiday - all these are recommended:
Sophie Hannah - Hurting Distance
John Le Carre - A Delicate Truth (this one is for Le Carre fans, but he has not lost his touch after all this time)
Belinda Bauer - Finders Keepers (this is the third novel, after Blacklands and Darkside - chilling thrillers)
Elizabeth Moon - Speed of Dark (told from the point of view of an autistic character but more nuanced than Curious Incident)
Emma Donoghue - Room (stunning original novel, perhaps the best of the bunch for me)

It really is nearly finished

S likes my discussion section and says it reads well and contains some good ideas. I am so thrilled because its the first praise I've had. So I just need to add in a conclusion (which he says I can merge with the discussion), adjust the word count and do lots and lots of proof-reading. I am so relieved and it feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I loved the analysis part but absolutely hated every minute of the writing up. And normally I love writing but the style of this has felt so strange to me.

I've cancelled my next appointment with Old Faithful, but I don't think he's fully got the message that I'm not going back. He was very defensive about how short he had cut it and said 'it was lovely when I left the salon'. Well, he always makes it look lovely at that stage but that's no good to me the next morning.

We've been away for a few days - blogged here http://fromthesilversea.blogspot.co.uk/ and will be going on another cruise soon. TSH and I will both spend a sea day sanity checking the dissertation.