Oh, it’s been a while since my last post. Things are a bit busier. Here’s the overview:
The manuscript for my revised version of my dissertation is due on 15 May. However, I have friends coming to visit on the 11th. So, I’m working to get things done before the 11th. There are a lot of formatting issues. I need to have endnotes and bibliography for each chapter. Ugh! I’m glad that I used to put format catalogs for Trinity Lutheran College in my Director of Communication days, so I’m not stressed with some aspects–like style palettes. I have yet to tackle the endnotes and bibliography though.
Monday: I picked up one bicycle from the bike shop, after having the tires switched from the winter studded version back to the normal tires. Then, I made an appointment for another repair of Anya’s bike that was vandalized on Saturday evening. Yes, this is a busy time of year for bike shops switching from winter to standard tires, so one needs to make an appointment about 4 days out!
Monday evening was a nice gathering of current and former women staff from Johannedund at my new pastor’s home. It was filled with laughter, and the majority of the evening was in English for my sake. However, at the gathering, the conversation turned to my learning Swedish. I said that I thought about having a Swedish day once a week. They all encouraged me on this. So, Wednesdays are Swedish days for me.
And Wednesday had me speaking quite a bit of basic Swedish. I even gave my announcements in the weekly staff announcement time in Swedish. Yes, it was simple–and far from perfect–but I was told that I was comprehendable.
Some of the day was in English, because there are major changes coming with a library move, and there is much to talk about that is beyond my Swedish capabilities.
However, I did attend 4 hours of lectures in Swedish this week. A research seminar about theories about the secularization of Sweden was given by a PhD candidate who is from the Norwegian school where I did my PhD. My predecessor, Loe, gave 3 hours of lectures on preaching the Old Testament. I wanted to see how he approached this topic.
In the evening, I biked to IKEA to pick up things that will help us host friends, as well as put light blocking curtains on Anya’s windows, as the sun rises before 5:00 am now.
This week included a meeting with my boss’ boss, related to speaking at a conference in June. And I had three great conversations with students, supporting them on their research. Fortunately all are good in English. One is even an English teacher in a Swedish middle school.
I’m making a list of the American TV programs that students have told me that they learned English by watching them: Simpsons, Friends, and Days of Our Lives!
I made another trip to the bike shop today to pick up the bike with a repaired wheel and spring tires. Fortunately it is only about 2 blocks away!
I spent the evening with a break from formatting manuscript stuff to hem and iron curtains.
Back to the manuscript tomorrow!
With blessings,
Beth
Beth–
Best wishes with your dissertation revisions. I know that it is not much fun to revise formatting and styles. A few summers ago I spent a couple of weeks revising an article because the journal editor thought it was her role to ensure uniformity for all articles that appeared in print and did not like my Chicago style footnotes.
I finally finished after what seemed a long season of negotiations. . . and I am sure that you will finish too!
You taught me the power of footnotes as supporting the argumentation! I value have the sources and additional information easily available. Now, I’m required to make end notes for each chapter–and I just read formatted with MS Word’s reference function!?! I hope I don’t have to rebuild 1200 citations!