elanya

So I haven't actually e-mailed Dr/ Flatman back yet. i am looking over the e-mails and thinking and then I went and found a paper I read in landscape by the Port of London guy and ILL'd his book (which we should have in the library. It is funny. Dr. Flatman was all like "You can get that at the library, for sure." I looked and sighed. "Oh, you underestimate the patheticness of our library, dear sir!" Ahh well.

The point is that most of the things that he is suggesting are landscape things. And well, I do like landscape, and it does interest me... I think I need to sleep on it and think about it a bit, but i don't have a lot of time, really :p

Anyway, I will send Drs Flatman and Milne a note saying thanks, for now :p

So far anyway...

I am up to page ten in looking over the Barcadares chapter. I will send it to Dr. Ewen tonight regardless, because my problems with it are mostly structural, and not content. I want content comments from him :p My main structural problem is that like my shore life chapter, it doesn't present a coherent argument of any kind. I think I can fix this in both cases. i just really hate writing introductions :p And that is exactly what I will need to start working on next - still waiting on data from Meniketti. However I also need to start working on my Cog crap. *Sigh*

Anyway I am going in to school now, and will finish this later tonight. I could work on it at school if I run out of other crap to do, but that seems unlikely :p Watch this space for updates! :p

ETA:
I finished editing my chapters, and have sent them off to Dr. E. Wheee!

Tomorrow, I will see if I can finish up the History chapter, with the stuff carl wants, and figure out what to do with the Shore Life chapter. I will also e-mail various PHD program people with ideas. now, I have to pee! ^-^

Joel was kind enough to remind me that today is pancake day! So I hope everyone has a chance to enjoy some fluffy deliciousness at some point today. personally, I'm aiming for pancake dinner, maybe apple pancaked with a little pork cutlet on the side, and some maple syrup over everything. Yum! The only thing that might foil me is that i don't know if I have enough margarine :o

Ahh well. In other news, I managed to get most of the things done today that I'd intended to, and I talked to Dr Stewart about my options. I also heard back from Dr. Crisman this afternoon, who said that he thinks I have a good shot at an INA scholarship (which would give me instate + $1000, which would cover tuition).... So, yeah, that's where I stand. However Dr. S also mentioned that he has often seen part time postings to work in various parts of the National maritime Museum, and I bet I could get somethig like that if I was at UCL and that it would make me absolutely *delighted*. And then Dr. Dudley would come and sleep on my couch for sure, hee! And probably other people...

Man, I am so nervous about all of this. I am such a libra in some ways, and it is hard for me to make decisions like this. It seems like there are just always more and more factors influencing me... What do I dooo? :o

Anyway, I'm still in a cheery mood, and there are peppy dance tunes playin' and I'm gonna go make me some pancakes!

Having my work edited by other people makes me more aware of some of my consistent grammatical errors. I often abuse the terms 'which' and 'due'. I am inconsistent about using commas after all elements of a short list (before the 'and'). I sometimes have difficulty avoiding using the passive voice. I have a thing for prepositional phrases, and use them often to avoid using possessives for inanimate objects. I would much rather say, for example " The tines of the fork' than 'the fork's tines'. And it really is a matter of animate versus inanimate. How bizarre o_O. I also really like using colons: they are just nifty. I have checked a number of different writing references and they are ambivalent as to whether or not you need to capitalize the second phrase. I think it looks dumb, so I'm not doin' it! If you're going to capitalize, you may as well not bother with the colon. I just have to try to use them more sparingly, as overuse can undermine their impact. Oh and finally, I have a penchant for abusing commas, mostly putting them in places where they aren't strictly necessary, or marking superfluous verbal pauses. Rar!

Well, I am hoping that my awareness of these idiosyncrasies will not pass, and I can actually use this experience to improve my writing, There isn't always going to be a Carl around to viciously edit my works and beat me over the head with The Chicago Manual of Style and The Elements of Style