First things first — it has come to my attention that I never posted here about how it went with my ear when I flew down to Uppsala last week, and I suppose the reason for my neglecting to mention it is that it was entirely uneventful. Yay! Weirdly, about ten minutes into the flight, my ears were popping like a couple of times a minute, but it didn’t hurt and it stopped after a while. So, while that was a little annoying, it was nothing near the agony I feared.

In other news, it felt so good to be back at the university, meeting up with my friends and cohorts and talking history with people whose eyes don’t glaze over with a lack of interest when I bring up my 18th-century priest. I was there only overnight, but it was enough to recharge my academic batteries and get me thinking more seriously about my project again.

This is going to be a busy term, with more travel that I had initially anticipated, and lots and lots of hours spent in front of a computer, getting down on paper (so to speak) the seventy pages that up to now have mostly just been swirling around in my head. I have no doubts about my ability to get done before my deadline, but I’m also under no illusion about how demanding and time-consuming it’s going to be. Even just a week-and-a-half into the term, I’m patting myself on the back for having the foresight to extend the little girls’ hours and pre-school and send Petra to an after-school program for a couple of hours after school. I confess that thus far I’ve been catching up on sleep as much as working during those kid-free hours, but anybody who didn’t see that coming doesn’t know me very well. Such a long period of peace and quiet is too precious not to dedicate at least a portion of to napping.