Goals for the summer.

I've been continuing to collect data.  I'm quite behind on transcribing, but I've got a long plane ride and an empty weekend between me and my next meeting with Ailsa, so that shouldn't be an insurmountable problem.  My ninth and final interview is tomorrow.

I went to the beach this past weekend.  I swam, boogie-boarded, and got satisfactorily less pale than I was when I arrived in NC.  My cousin Jennifer, her sister-in-law Tammy, Tammy's daughter Brittany, and Brittany's friend Juliana were all there as well.  We spend Saturday afternoon drinking alcohol on the beach.  My back is extremely red.  These two items may or may not be related.  Before driving back to Durham, I bought two magnets for my classmate George.  One is tasteful, the other slightly less so.  I also finished The Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon and made significant progress on Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick.  I'm determined to finish the latter before I leave on Thursday, so that I can leave it here.  While decent, it's not Ms. Chadwick's finest and I'm not going to be eager to read it again.

I only arrived at the beach after driving to Greensboro and then Indian Trail (a suburb of Charlotte), the first to conduct an interview, the second to visit my brother.  As Greensboro and Indian Trail are both in the opposite direction from the beach, this made for a very long driving day.  However, I had the pleasure(?) of driving through Scotland County, NC on my way from Indian Trail to the beach on US-74.

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Goals for the summer:

- Write at least 300 words per day, including weekends, starting June 12.
- Have my thesis basically on its feet by July 31.
- Travel to Stromeferry, Shetland, and Uist. Also Kendal Calling, if the chief planners are still interested.

Tentative daily schedule:
- Get up at 9:30am. Eat breakfast. Write 300 words. Do various internet nonsense, to get it out of my system.
- Lunch.
- Go to the library no later than 1pm. Analyze data and/or read literature until 7pm (5pm on Fridays and weekends). Dinner.
- Read, cross-stitch, or socialize until bedtime.

I may be excused from data analysis and reading papers on the weekends, but not writing. If I am going to be computer-less (i.e. traveling) over the weekend, I must have a surplus word-count before I go.

Tentative travel dates:
- June 22-24: Stromeferry
- Mid-July: Shetland
- July 27-29: Kendal Calling
- Third or fourth week of August: Uist

Mull/Iona/Staffa are tentatively on for September, as are Islay/Jura for October. I figure I can do the Great Glen Way anytime I have a spare week.

All these travel plans mean that I absolutely cannot spend any frivolous money. I'm taking a bunch of books back to Scotland with me, and I'll go ahead and buy the next three Outlander books when I get back, and then it's NO MORE BUYING BOOKS. I also need to rein in my food spending.

And, break!

Cheers, y'all.