(no subject)

I want to tell myself over and over that it is not midwinter, that it is not even nearly midwinter and that I shall be away for midwinter and shall miss the cold. Right now, though, it's autumn and being away for midwinter is pretty much cold comfort, since it was almost -7 last night. This explains my brain being disordered.

With that disordered brain, I've worked out a lot of small technical issues. I know more about heritage sheep and goats in France, for instance, and also somewhat more about wolves. I've decided that the wolves do not need to meet the sheep and the goats, although one may meet a time traveller, if I feel generous.

All this was work I was going to do in June (it's the prepliminary checking so that when I travel, I know what's already out there), so I'm not as behind as I could be. I just haven't checked quite as much off my lists as I would have liked. It may be swings and roundabouts, since it all has to be done in the next few weeks, but I like crossing things off lists and feeling consciously virtuous.

This means that today I shall do my tumost to finish with eight big items from my list. This means reading sixty reviews and one and a half book plus writing about two thousand words, so I may not succeed, but I shall try.

I need to reward myself if I succeed and my reward shall be Eurovision. I get to see four songs for each and every item I cross off.

This all looks a bit silly, but it's going to make a *big* difference in a month, in terms of work done and work to do and making the most of my research overseas. It will also make the difference between the trip being a great deal of fun, and me having to sneak in extra other work in every spare moment. I'd rather overwork today than in Paris.


ETA: I'm doing nicely so far. I can watch 12 songs tonight, at the very least. I rather desperately need some coffee, however.

ETA: Now I can watch 20 songs! Mind you, I've done all the straightforward stuff. It will take a lot more work to earn myself the last bit of Eurovision.

(no subject)

The most interesting insight to appear in the first batch of reviews I've checked is that the Christians in mixed religion communities in the Middle Ages may have used violence to reinforce separations between themselves and other religious groups, but that they were not ncessarily unhappy to have those other religious groups around. As long as they were at the top of the heirarchy, they weren't unhappy, at least. This so fits other situations I have seen (it's OK to be a woman or a minority of any kind, as long as we know our place) that I want to explore the idea and find out the eveidence. Except I can't. It doesn't relate to my current work except peripherally and it will have to wait.

Still, it makes me suspect that this may be one reason why majority culture people writing about minority get the essence wrong - there's often an underlying assumption that the pecking order cannot be changed. I'm thinking of 1960s SF here, I suspect, but also some more modern work that intends to be PC. If a character takes on the main culture, they can achieve stuff, but at the expense of maintaining the division between what they were and what they're depicted as becoming in order to succeed. And yes, I need evidence for this, too (I can't just vaguely assume it from past reading), and I can't look for it because I have no time!