I am returned to the countryside

After much jaunting about, I am back in Bishop Auckland, and it is a very well-timed transition indeed, seeing as internet has still not been restored in my flat, and we may be forced to switch providers because man, the customer service has really not been great.

But I have internet here, so huzzah! For me, at least. My poor housemates remain deprived. Hopefully it'll be back online soon.

The inaugural NENC symposium was a great success! We had a good crowd, lots of good papers and questions to go with, and a lovely dinner afterwards. My advisor unexpectedly showed up for the afternoon, which completely frazzled me for a short while, but he seemed to have a good time as well, so I'm glad he was able to stop in. Now all that's left to do is mopping up loose ends and doing lots of reimbursement forms for people.

Other than that, I've now just been settling back into dog-walking and getting up early and trying to get my stupid chapter edits done. The progress at this point is moving at a glacial pace, but I'm determined to be done with everything at least before I start teaching. It may be a struggle. A struggle full of me wailing about how much I have yet to learn because I haven't gotten around to reading ALL THE THINGS, never mind that reading all the things when on a deadline is impossible.

I'm finding that academic writing is, for me, like the Kubler-Ross stages of dying, and right now I'm doing a cross between bargaining and depression--bargaining consists of saying 'If I manage to write 500 words today, I am allowed to relax for the evening' or something of the sort, and depression consists of the aforementioned 'I'M NEVER GOING TO BE ABLE TO KNOW ALL THE THINGS THAT I NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE THIS PERFECT, WHY GOD WHY'. At some point soon, I'm hoping to reach acceptance and then just plunge face first into finishing everything. So there you go, a glimpse into the ridiculousness.

I think that's about it, for now. I have teacher training on the 26th to go over my English department gig--hopefully they've kept the syllabus for Intro to the Novel similar enough that I won't have to buy many more books--and then it's back to the academic year. This summer has gone by monstrously fast!