Just after Twelfth Night

Entrance below Old Joe

Well, these posts seem to have become like buses. That is there are long spells where there are none and then you get several all at once. Anyway today I had a supervision and that meant a trip to Brum. l had sent a couple of chapters to my supervisor; one was sent just before Christmas and the other last weekend.

The trip down was good for birding with a flock of fieldfares in the bushes as I walked through the estate, a flock of geese flying along beside the train at one point and a flock of swans feeding in a field. Although I suspect the geese were Canada, the swans I suspect were not Mute. This is simply  I have not seen flocks of Mute swans which contained over a dozen swans feeding in a field. Otherwise, the journey was uneventful and I arrived at the University Railway Station without incident. The temperature was a degree or two warmer than Sheffield. I do not know whether this is due to longitude or height.

Key fob

The university was in pre-exam mode.There were students around but not as many as in full term mode. Also, those that were there, were quietly studious. This gave a quiet feel to the campus without it being too clattery and echoey. With my supervision being an hour later than usual at 3pm, I had time to prepare and to have lunch despite being slightly later than usual.  On going to the ladies to get ready for supervision I noticed the following key fob on the shelf below the mirror.

The supervision took the form of working through the chapters and looking at changes. Most of the changes I need to make are minor: one or two times when I have lost the thread or edited out too much, some correction of detail and the occasional reordering of paragraphs. There is one section which needs adding which will require more work on self, going native and emotion.I need to think if I need to pull a section which I wrote later on Foucault and put it in the introduction. If I do I need  to write something on Amelie Rorty and her analysis of person.

The supervision took an hour and a half and it was dark by the time I left irth a decided chill in the air. I was hungry so called in at the fruit stall and bought a banana before I made my way back to the train station.

The aim this weekend is to get through the revisions of these two chapters. I then need to code up the interviews and get on revising the three data chapters. At present, I am skipping the tradition chapter. It really needs a change of tone but as it is a change in style rather than substance, I can decide not to make it. 

Supervision coming up and another chapter off

I know a long time and no posts! I did finish my introduction before Christmas and get it off to my supervisor about the 20th but it was late that evening and there is a restlessness with little bits I want to add and correct but we shall see when I talk to my supervisor this week.

Christmas was a break from thesis although not without its own stresses. Not sure I have properly recovered from it quite yet. However, I have got down to the Methodology chapter and made quite a few changes on that.  I would have been finished mid-day but I lost all yesterday's corrections at 10pm last night! I am using Grammarly and it shuts down if I save a document. So I tend to save less often and yesterday I was on a role and really sorting things out. The result was I forgot to save at all. Then Word crashed and I had forgotten Word does not save interim versions if you are using Grammarly. Needless to say, I have been saving regularly today, but I do think I have lost some really good writing.

Anyway needs must, so today I sat down and just worked solidly through editing. It was helped by the fact that last night I discovered how to stop it telling me every time I used a passive verb and a personal pronoun. I know passive verbs are not good writing style and that in academic writing the personal pronoun is frowned upon but put the two injunctions together and it is nigh impossible to write anything. Indeed historically scientific writing has always used passive verbs for this reason.  Annoying is that I can only turn off both. I would like to turn off personal pronouns and not passive verbs.

Anyway tomorrow is largely a day off. I have got an appointment on the morning, will then go swimming and attend my writers group on the evening.