Well, haven't I been good! Ever since I set up my 'satellite study' (in the bedroom), I have been putting a good number of hours of work in each day. The stiff neck syndrome seems to have merely a temporary adjustment thing, and although it's not ergonomically perfect, my workspace is pretty tolerable. I've knuckled down to considering the 'big questions' of my thesis and the preparatory Q & A piece that I did last week has really come into its own. I've got a tendency to go of at a tangent, and the slightest distraction can send me on an enthralling (but not generally useful) papergoose chase. You know the sort of thing I mean: you read a book and come across an interesting cross-reference, you Google it and find a host of fascinating stuff, websites off websites, print off a couple of PDFs for later...blah...blah...blah...But I AM getting there, and considering that it's still a few weeks until our summer hol, I'm optimistic about making a fair bit of headway. Talking of PDFs, one of the things I fully intend to buy when my funding comes through is an iReader or similar. I have boxes upon boxes of the damn things that I have to rifle through if want a reference - much nices to have it all to hand. Plus I want a PDF editor so I can cut and paste chunks of text - then I don't have to type big quotations/references out in full.
I've bitten the bullet concerning academic German and the acquiring thereof. I registered for an intermediate German reading course that starts in October at the 'uni. over the hill' (not my own uni) and in preparation I'm going right back to basics with a Pimsleur German course. This is the spoken language but it'll revive the long unused Deutsch circuits in my brain. I am quite surprised at how much I can remember, though. Need to think about what books to take on holiday with me. A lightweight novel for the beach of course and, I think, the Norton Critical Edition of the Writings of St Paul. It's got suitably short chapters, so I can keep my scholarly hand in between times and not feel like too much of a donkey when I get back.