...in which I learn to always bring a bottle of water along

So, in the last three weeks I haven't gotten too much knitting done, but I'm only a few rows away from finishing the second sleeve for the shrug, and then I can start the back. Most of the Brown Sheep Nature Spun sport weight for the Dr. Who scarf came in a couple weeks ago, but one colour is backordered, and I've decied to wait for it before I start. It's one of the more common colours in the scarf, and I'd hate to get a few rows in and have to stop and wait anyhow.

School work has been going equally slowly, I have 1/2 of my TWPL submission written, and I've promised it, for sure this time, for tomorrow, Monday. So, I guess it's another all-nighter to get it done, but at least then it will be done. Several days last week (3, to be exact), were taken up preparing for a 10-minute worksop presentation at a neighbouring university. I had heard this was a small little thing they do every year, never too many people... imagine my surprise when the room slowly continues to fill up from 9am to 11am. By the time I gave my presentation at noon, there were nowhere near enough handouts (45+ people in the room for 35 handouts - I always end up taking extras home, and I hate that!). Due to the room setup (small ampitheatre-style), I felt like a gladiator in a ring, staring up at the bloodthirsty masses. My mouth was dry, and there wasn't a bottle of water in sight. I managed to fit 30 minutes of material into 9.5 (I was cutting up until I stood up), then a few intelligent questions were asked and answered as best I could, and I now have something else for the CV. And I finally dusted off the paper I was supposed to have been working on for the last several months, which just can't be a bad thing, no matter how you look at it. Really, the best I can ever ask for out of these conference/workshop things is that I don't make a complete ass of myself in front of my peers and professors, and I think in that I was sucessful. There were only a couple stunned and blank faces in the audience, anyhow, which is better than previous efforts. In other school news, the purging of the four old IMacs in the computer room at school has been going, well... the less said about that, the better. At least all the Sociolinguistics projects are graded.

DH was supposed to take this coming week off, but he decided to move that vacation until mid-January. Just as well, since I have two holiday concerts (with two different bands) and several meetings this week, which means I wouldn't have been able to be home much. But I still feel bad for him, I think he could really use a break right now. But at least we've gotten some time in the last couple weekends on board games with friends: current favourites are Betrayal at House on the Hill and Pirate's Cove. I'm hoping to try Goa soon, since we've picked that up as well, and DH wants to try Samurai.

I've been spending some time with several TV shows on DVD - yes, I'm a total DVD junkie. Right now, I'm revelling in The Land of the Lost. I finished season 1, and just picked up season 2. This show is so much fun, I had forgotten how much I loved it! I finally found a copy of CSI season 4 today (it seemed to be perpetually sold out since October), so we'll start watching that this week. The short-lived Babylon 5 sequel, Crusade just came out, which we've been waiting for, and this week is Star Trek TOS, season 3 to complete the set, and LOTR: Return of the King extended edition. Blah, expensive month! Oh well, merry X-Mas to us.

So this week is going to be data extraction, data extraction and more data extraction, followed by coding, coding, and more coding, while purging IMacs in my spare time (don't laugh!). I have three language variation and change projects on the go right now, two of those are joint projects with others, and I need to have serious progress on all three a week from tomorrow, before I take a couple days off for the holidays.

And boy, do I need a couple days off for the holidays.