So, yes, I did fall off the edge of the earth in the last fortnight of December.
I’m of a dither as to what I will recount.
Shall I make you jealous with mouth-watering menus of end-of-the-year feasts at labs in Toulouse and Paris, at home and elsewhere around the country?
Shall I tell you that I devoured a thousand-page novel in the last three days while nursing a virulent cold, after the departure of four of my in-laws? Or that I saw Australia with the female members of said in-laws, and Madagascar 2 with my kids (without recommending either film to my faithful readership over a proper visit to either country)?
Shall I regale you with the politics of certain collaborations underway, and how different they can all be from one another? That “get it in writing” is not enough, and that it is possible to spend two hours writing an e-mail?
Shall I inspire you with the latest victory of my grad student, who will bring glory down on our heads, and how strange but nice it is to be on this side of the fence?
Shall I compose that stupid post I have been meaning to since October, with documentation, images and all at the ready?
Let us draw a modest veil over these and other initiatives, and wipe clean the whiteboard with some ethanol in the form of champagne or armagnac (for no one uses slates anymore, and I will be visiting friends in Bordeaux in fewer than twenty-four hours).
Out with the old, and in with the new! (Hats off to David for the latter.)
Welcome back, Heather – I’ve been missing you! Good luck with the collaborations, may your grad student be even more prolific next year, and may you have even more time with your kids and to read books, and enjoy more scrumptious meals :)
Thanks for the link to the New York Times piece on dealing with old computers. It struck a chord with me since a new laptop entered our household over Christmas and I spent a jolly few hours yesterday trying to migrate my kids’ files from the old PC. What seasonal joy!
Oh, and happy new year! When do we get to hear about the Grad student victory?
oh… the computer thingy made me realise that I really need to transfer my old files from it to my new laptop or/and the external hard drive. Then again, I already lost most of it when th eold one kind of died. Anyway, thanks!
And welcome back! And happy new years! loooking forward seeing what you will write in the new year, pics and all :)
it is possible to spend two hours writing an e-mail
*nods
Yes, and often the ones that take two hours are the ones you end up deleting, because they’re still too vitriolic.
Well, that’s how it is in my world, anyway.
@steffi and Asa: Thank you! As you saw, I dropped off for nearly a week more. That did me some good. Now I’m really back – watch out.
@Stephen – when I’ve written up some sort of beginning draft so we can get our ideas straight, probably. It’s not earth-shaking yet, though, but a foray into a discipline where I usually don’t venture personally.
@Richard – apparently the vitriol was toned down enough that I got a reasonable reply from one of the intended recipients, and a “congratulations” from my boss (in bcc:).
I never did get the computer stuff fully transferred, but I at least engraved an archival-quality DVD with the digital photos from 2002-2007, and sent all 2008 to be developed on paper, to be placed in albums in February, probably.