Saturday, August 23, 2008

MS #2.5 sent off for internal review

Another month has gone by. Things are slowly settling down. TM loves preschool (hers is called a nursery, actually), which is a big relief for me. They have pony rides on Tuesdays, lucky kid, and she takes a van to get there, which she also loves since they ride through villages and sing all kinds of songs as they go. I wish I could go too so I could learn how in the world they keep those kids under control in the car. I’d go crazy!

I just sent a manuscript draft to my committee! I’ve been working on this one for at least 2 years, and intensively for about the last year. Talk about taking the turtle and not the hare philosophy. But when you only have 3-5hrs/day and about 1wk/mo is taken up with TM being sick, and when you’ve moved twice, slow and steady is the only way. Here’s hoping! Only two manuscripts to go, by my count. Can I do that in a year? Sure depends, doesn’t it?

We’re loving our apartment. So far we have furniture, we have a phone, we have internet, we have a car (!!!!) and a driver and a cook who comes and cooks dinner for us, and a 3hr/day cleaning lady, AND a dryer (hooray!). I think all we’re missing is some curtains, dresser-drawers, and time to go through the boxes of old papers in the guest bedroom, and time to organize and update our filing system (heavy sigh).

I’ve offered my services as a collector to various people, since I know how hard it is to get samples of things from overseas. So I’ve been hunting liverworts, which is lots of fun. I considered shipping things under pseudonyms (i.e. “art supplies”), but my conscience is awfully persistent (it’s not loud, but it doesn’t shut up, either), so now I’m going to see how easy it is to ship seeds and liverworts back to the US. The US-side of plant shipments is pretty easy. The real trick will be the cane rat… Hmm… I emailed a fellow in Oregon who’s supposed to do that sort of thing, but I haven’t heard from him, so I’ll have to try to call APHIS sometime during US daytime. And what about the India side of things? No idea. But it’s worth a try, right? If I can’t get anything through going the legal route, then I’ll see what alterations I can make to my plans. Sigh.

What else… one of our neighbors has a 3-yr old daughter who gets along with TM pretty well, which is lovely. They play almost every afternoon, hooray! And the neighbor is really nice to talk to. She’s from Belgium and did a Master’s thesis in business something-or-other, so has a little idea of the headaches of writing. Most other people haven’t a clue, they simply assume I’m unsocial (I think they assume that but they didn’t really TELL me that… heh heh heh). They don’t understand that when Maya goes to school, I hit the books like mad. Do I feel a little guilty for not doing the social thing? Yuppers, especially when it’s such a big thing to do, like it is here. But hey.

It’s late at night, so my brain’s not up to par, but at least I got another post written.