Facing a rather demanding month, I decided I had to grab my deadlines by the scruff of the neck, shake them firmly and get them all neatly sorted. By the 1st November, no less. By dint of a bit of tactical rescheduling, I’ve got things just about organised to my liking.
This week, therefore, the research component of my work entailed:-
- Submitting a grant application (it had gone from idea to submission in eight days flat); and
- Editing a lecture and powerpoint, recording them for use in a month’s time, and updating a bibliography.
Additionally, the extended, dedicated special issue of Brio went off to the printer’s today. Although I’ve been the guest co-editor for this issue, I can’t take any of the credit for the editing or proofing of anything except the bits I authored – I had more to do with commissioning the articles and chasing them up in time for the printing date! Nonetheless, since it’s a major output for last year’s networking project, it is a great relief to know that it is on its way!
Meanwhile, I still had the larger part of my week to fulfil as a librarian, including some more user education – mercifully not quite as much as I’d done last week! And the lecture, although I worked on it in research time, is actually one of those occasions where Librarian-meets-Researcher slap bang in the middle. It concerns historical Scottish sources in the library. They’re all there, and the students need to know about them – but I wouldn’t know any of the books’ history if they hadn’t been the subjects of my own doctoral research.
Moreover, I needed to play my own musical examples and get them recorded, too. Now, I try to avoid EVER playing an instrument at work, because the students and their teachers are so blooming brilliant that I feel worse than overshadowed. However, it was clearly unacceptable to contemplate playing CDs, on a recorded lecture that might end up online, so the only way to be sure there were no copyright issues was to record the examples myself. Oh, the horror! I tried singing to my own accompaniment last night, but I didn’t like the sound I made, so I resorted to playing what I could, and hoping it won’t sound too ragged for the student audience! (At least I won’t be there to hear it!)
It’s a rather strange feeling, on the 1st of the month, to know that – if I’m not actually ahead of myself – then I am, certainly, up to date with everything that should be done.
Now, about that list of church choir contributions that I promised to finalise this weekend …