My work today is subject to considerable delays related to our new washing machine. The current business practice is to appear to be caring suppliers by allowing you to ring up and obtain your "four hour slot" to help you with your day's planning. We were allocated 7:00 till 11:00, my core study hours. Needless to say, it didn't arrive during this slot. But needed to be ready did mess up my morning's work which, in the end, consisted mainly in copying bits of books from LSE - no major work.
But at least I was able to plumb it in ok - no idea whether it works yet or not
Tuesday
An unscheduled trip to London to have lunch with Emma who has things to discuss. Despite some recent disappointments, she seems in good spirits and is fired up for the challenges that she now faces
At LSE, I pick up Toomer's translation of Ptolemy's Almagest, and a volume of Lynn Thorndike History of Magic and Experimental Science (vol 6). Not easy works to look at, but perhaps some interesting stuff. It is only when you read Ptolemy directly that you get some appreciation of the immense intellectual achievement that his work is. Main reading on the way to and from London was Sisman's "book about a book" - his book about Boswell's Life of Johnson
Wednesday
To Oxford this morning for a few things - food, a couple of magazines, the framing of my Richard Long poster, and to buy some stationery
Back home I spent several hours on LSE's Moodle system downloading and printing out articles for the Philosophy of Economics course - my likely subject 3 for next year. I was also somewhat surprised to find a PH403 exam paper for 2009 - this is the course I really wanted to do but which I thought wasn't offered. Is this what Ann-Marie was examined in? On the other hand, PH404 (History of science - the one I missed) was a very easy exam I thought
Several hours spent going through boxes in the garage leads to me finding a whole stack of Linda's various Latin course books. I am interested in this as I have tentative plans for a PhD project that would involve some Latin translation and comment. It is possible that this is way too ambitious. However, I have discovered that there are Latin translation computer programmes that might help me. In addition, there is a OUDCE beginners course in Oxford that I could attend. Finally, there are a number of freelance latin translators based in Oxford
I also found all Linda's John Sandford books - apparently she would like to read them all again in the right order
I have a new favourite blog - Tales from the Reading Room. This is written by an ME suffering literature academic and has a lot of interesting stuff about academic writing. I have read the first two months - April and May 2006.
This week also marks the start of my concerted effort to get a bit fitter. So far, I am eating much less (especially snacks such as bisquits and chocolate) and have cut down considerably milk and coke. In three days, I already feel some progress - in particular I have stopped feeling as bloated as I had been. Next step is to actually do some exercise!
Finally, with Linda out teaching in Witney, I watch one of my all-time favourite episodes of Star Trek Voyager - the Kes episode, Warlord. I was always a big fan of Kes and was rather disappointed when she left after series 3. Surprisingly, I think she was actually sacked from the show to make way for 7 of 9. Not a bad swap, but better if they had kept both in my view
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Standard Kes picture
Two pics from the episode "Warlord"
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