Hopefully the changes done

Daffodils bought by a colleague Sue to mark the fact I had permission to submit

This weekend has actually gone pretty well despite the kettle dying on me. Kettle dying is a major calamity as it makes it hard to make the copious amounts of tea, herbal teas and coffee I drink while working on my thesis. So yesterday I had an unexpected trip down to Waitrose to buy a new one. I know that at times both of the small local supermarkets sell them but I could not recall any recently and it is not quite the time of year for them.

Friday I did the bit I could not do last weekend because I did not have the books. It was quite fun and as always the nuanced take in the book had been vastly simplified by the literature around. So while I did not need to alter my argument I did need to alter precisely what I said about this author.  I also think I made other corrections to the worship chapter than my supervisor wanted.

So yesterday and today were making changes to the next but last chapter. I found today I have lost an article I read, it was definitely by Fredrik Barth, it was fairly recent 1989-2005 I would guess, and it dealt with boundaries and the negotiated nature with boundaries. What makes it stand out from other work from him is that it included an account of the renegotiation of a boundary by a woman who had struggled. I remember her story and the way she was able to define herself in a different way particularly vis-a -vis her mother-in-law. However it is not in any of the four books/articles I have to hand that are clearly by Fredrik Barth.  I have a possible place of one but that is £70 and while if I knew it was the right one I might pay that, for something so chancy I am not.So I have altered the text.

Any way the major work was making explicit when I was using ideas from the flows chapter to work later in my thesis. This can be done a number of ways. I have opted at the moment for putting references back to the chapter and using the language deliberately when I am using the ideas. However my supervisor may want me to do a section on flows. Other than that it was making the corrections my supervisor wanted and generally tidying up. One funny story, I had to put a page reference in for a "Religion since 1945: Believing but not Belonging" by Grace Davie, I started hunting for it and found a section that would do. Then realised the book I was looking at was "Religion in Modern Europe: A Memory Mutates" also by Grace Davie. So I got out the right book and found the section which was a lot easier to find.

I have also this evening have emailed my volunteer proof-editors (James, Ruth and Margo) checking where they are up to, sending a copy of the belonging chapter as it had lots of small changes to it and hopefully Ruth has not started it yet. Also I emailed them the form that has to be signed by them and handed in with my thesis. As I know their character I also sent in a copy of the regulations that requires it.

So next weekend I take pedantry to the next level when I set about creating the submission version of my thesis.