Off down to the university tomorrow - virtually 3 hours to get there on the disgustingly smelly CrossCountry train, and another 3 hours to get back! When I first started down there I thought that I'd never, ever get used to the travelling: but one does. Now that I'm embarking on full-time as opposed to part-time study, I'm expecting to ramp up the attendance somewhat. I'll see what my supervisor says. I don't think supervisory meetings would benefit from being any more regular than once a month, with concentrated periods of reading/writing in between. I just hope that my nearest and dearest recognise that, as a full-time, fully-funded student, it'll be the same as me having a 40hr-a-week, full-time job, and that I just won't be up for casual visits, prolonged lunches or trips into town. I always found it to be a considerable problem when we ran our own business and I worked from home. People didn't consider that I was doing real work, and that because I was at home, I was available at the drop of a hat for this or that. I might have to do some straight talking, never mind drop veiled hints! Got to pick up a new ID card, go to the library and check out a new Starbucks on campus, which is in the same block as the new Special Collections facility.
Wallace Chafe's book is very interesting - I'm going to read it and make more notes on the train. He approaches language from a cognitive point of view as a manifestation of consciousness that reflects the individual's capacity to focus on certain events whilst maintaining the context as a semi-active background programme. His division of information as active, semiactive or inactive fits quite nicely with imperfectivity, perfectivity and stativity in verbal aspect though I'll have to have a good, long think about it. Discourse, Time and Consciousness is such an interesting book that it'll be quite difficult not to forget what I'm supposed to be up to, and get swept into digressive backwaters. I must discipline myself to recognise what is actually useful and what is merely fascinating!
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My supervisor likes - or rather, liked, as terrifyingly, I'm almost done - meetings every fortnight, but I preferred once a month, I found I could get more worthwhile stuff done in that time (and there's always a week or two in the month where nothing really gets done!)
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