Publishing, Painting and PhD
Three P's that are consuming most waking moments at the moment. And in the heat, I'm spending most of my moments awake.
We now have a working phone line in the new house, which I assume Netspace is responsible for - it's now been a week since I called about setting up a new connection. Unfortunately, the phone connection doesn't actually appear in our Netspace control panel, and so isn't available for me to relocate our broadband connection to...
Publishing:
I have corrections and updates for one and a half study guides (National Politics Units 3 & 4, and International Politics Unit 1). In the next few weeks, the remaining chapters for IntPol Unit 2 will arrive, and then there's an Economics guide due in December. Due to major changes to the course, the Economics book is being completely re-written for 2010. Judging by the number of tables and graphs in the current book, layout for the new version could take quite a bit of work.
I'm going home at lunchtime today to work on the Politics books. I could work from the air-conditioned comfort of my windowless box at RMIT as I'll be using my laptop. Unfortunately I need a proper mouse for InDesign, and mine has just run out of batteries... and I'm loathe to buy more rechargeable ones when there's a box of them at home.
Painting:
Three Ulthwé walkers, currently almost finished. I've been asked to add rare-earth magnets to all the possible weapons, so I still have a handful of weapons to finish painting today. I hope the house isn't too hot to paint in.
Four Imperial Guard tanks, assembled and ready for magnets in all the optional bits. I'd like to buy an airbrush to paint these with, as there are many more of them on the horizon. Unfortunately a decent double-action airbrush and compressor (reserve tank, pressure regulator, inline moisture trap) are likely to cost around $500, so I might have to paint them by hand.
PhD:
Literature review chapter has fallen by the wayside. I've gathered a bunch of articles to read through, but as it's not directly needed for any other tasks it's been put on hold at the moment. I still feel like there are dozens of articles that I need to track down, though I'm not sure if that feeling ever goes away.
There's a student conference for the CRC in December, up in Sydney. I'll be flying up early on the Tuesday morning, going to training workshops during the day, and presenting a poster the following day - and then flying home on the Wednesday evening.
I'm starting to wade through the paperwork for my Ethics Application, as I need approval before going any further with the research part of my project. Most of it should be pretty straightforward (while I'm dealing with people, I'm not trying to exploit them for anything) but there are many, many pages of forms to fill out. Most of it will feed into my Methods and Methodology chapter though, so it's still a useful exercise to do.
In non-work news, Sunday was our first wedding anniversary :) aeliel and I spent most of the day lounging around the house, and cooking or eating lots of good food. We've also started unpacking wedding presents that have been in storage for the last year, so it's like receiving them all over again, and actually getting to enjoy the gifts properly this time.
Some time soon we'll have a housewarming (once we have furniture for people to sit on, and fewer boxes full of stuff). Ye been warned!
We now have a working phone line in the new house, which I assume Netspace is responsible for - it's now been a week since I called about setting up a new connection. Unfortunately, the phone connection doesn't actually appear in our Netspace control panel, and so isn't available for me to relocate our broadband connection to...
Publishing:
I have corrections and updates for one and a half study guides (National Politics Units 3 & 4, and International Politics Unit 1). In the next few weeks, the remaining chapters for IntPol Unit 2 will arrive, and then there's an Economics guide due in December. Due to major changes to the course, the Economics book is being completely re-written for 2010. Judging by the number of tables and graphs in the current book, layout for the new version could take quite a bit of work.
I'm going home at lunchtime today to work on the Politics books. I could work from the air-conditioned comfort of my windowless box at RMIT as I'll be using my laptop. Unfortunately I need a proper mouse for InDesign, and mine has just run out of batteries... and I'm loathe to buy more rechargeable ones when there's a box of them at home.
Painting:
Three Ulthwé walkers, currently almost finished. I've been asked to add rare-earth magnets to all the possible weapons, so I still have a handful of weapons to finish painting today. I hope the house isn't too hot to paint in.
Four Imperial Guard tanks, assembled and ready for magnets in all the optional bits. I'd like to buy an airbrush to paint these with, as there are many more of them on the horizon. Unfortunately a decent double-action airbrush and compressor (reserve tank, pressure regulator, inline moisture trap) are likely to cost around $500, so I might have to paint them by hand.
PhD:
Literature review chapter has fallen by the wayside. I've gathered a bunch of articles to read through, but as it's not directly needed for any other tasks it's been put on hold at the moment. I still feel like there are dozens of articles that I need to track down, though I'm not sure if that feeling ever goes away.
There's a student conference for the CRC in December, up in Sydney. I'll be flying up early on the Tuesday morning, going to training workshops during the day, and presenting a poster the following day - and then flying home on the Wednesday evening.
I'm starting to wade through the paperwork for my Ethics Application, as I need approval before going any further with the research part of my project. Most of it should be pretty straightforward (while I'm dealing with people, I'm not trying to exploit them for anything) but there are many, many pages of forms to fill out. Most of it will feed into my Methods and Methodology chapter though, so it's still a useful exercise to do.
In non-work news, Sunday was our first wedding anniversary :) aeliel and I spent most of the day lounging around the house, and cooking or eating lots of good food. We've also started unpacking wedding presents that have been in storage for the last year, so it's like receiving them all over again, and actually getting to enjoy the gifts properly this time.
Some time soon we'll have a housewarming (once we have furniture for people to sit on, and fewer boxes full of stuff). Ye been warned!