27 Sep 2009
Posted in Personal
It’s a windy Sunday afternoon, too windy to be outside, so I have no excuse to not be finishing my ProGen assignment. So what am I doing? I’m playing with the Society of Australian Genealogists website. My assignment is a proof argument – an article, or essay if you like, arguing a case for the solution of a genealogical question that is not straightforward. I have chosen the question of the first Riley in Fiji, and as I started writing it I saw how much work I still have to do before I can say I’ve performed a reasonably exhaustive search of all the relevant records.
The relevant records, unfortunately, are ships’ logs and books published by castaways that all have to be found and deciphered and searched for clues. I’ve got two, so far, that talk about my Riley and I may never find any more, so I’m writing about them. The extended deadline is the 30th September, which is getting closer! So much for the reason for the procrastination.
What I’m doing instead (besides writing this) is looking at the website for the SAG. It was developed using Joomla, the old version, by people who are no longer with the Society and so I have to learn enough of Joomla to be able to make fundamental changes to the website without breaking it.
To do that safely I need a copy I can work on, and I’ve always put off doing that until today, when I have something more urgent to do! I guess that’s how procrastination works, and at least I will have done something constructive.
I’ll add progress reports through the afternoon.
[4 or 5 hours later] I’ve given up on copying the website. Joomla 1.0 is no longer supported and I can’t find any way to just copy the whole thing. I can copy the content but it left out the front page (oops!) and all the menus, and the forms were created using a component that hasn’t been supported since 2006. So then I tried copying everything, including the Joomla installation, and I can’t get the 74MB up on the other server.
I’m over it.
I watered the garden in frustration. I’ll stick with Twitter, I reckon!
9 Sep 2009
Posted in Personal
It’s the ninth of the ninth oh-nine. I don’t remember doing anything special on 8/8/88, but on 7/7/77 I was in high school, and we had a little ceremony in the grounds and danced around a tree.
My obstacles today are my extreme tiredness from a headcold and a wailing cat recovering from knee reconstruction surgery who thinks he should be allowed outside.
I had an all-day Australian history symposium today that I booked for but decided not to go as I had too many other things to do, and I’d already had yesterday afternoon on an English research lecture by Michael Gandy, an excellent speaker, and there’ll be another one tomorrow.
Today I’d like to get these things done:
- organise for a quick trip out to Kingswood tomorrow – nearly done – I’ve preordered a probate file but haven’t yet organised what I can do while waiting for other records I have to order out there
- tweek the formatting on my essay – to put borders around the table and remove the page number from the title page – stuff like that. I’ve given a draft to my supervisor and don’t want to do anything major to it until He gets back to me. Also if I do anything stupid in Word 2007 due to tiredness it maight take me hours to recover from it.
- I could work on my ProGen assignment, that was due at the end of August but is now really due at the end of September. This is looking hopeful, as there is not a lot of invention to do, just putting the facts down. I can edit the writing later – it’s always easier to fix something than to start something.
- work on a list of talk topics
Or I could take my cat out in the sun for half-an-hour.
I’d just like to point out, to any new or returning readers, that I’m not making these announcements because I think you might really be interested in what I have to do today. The theory is that if I make a public announcement about it I am more likely to get it done; that I will feel more accountable to you somehow.
It may sound silly but it works.
I’d also like to point out the principle behind point 3 – Getting started on an essay or a piece of writing is nealry always the hardest part for me. I get around it, usually, by reminind myself that it’s a DRAFT and it can be fixed later, and will be. There is much less pressure to be perfect when you know you will have to change it.
The important thing is to START WRITING.
7 Sep 2009
Posted in Personal
This essay is really getting me down, but I’m on the last stretch. It’s finished, proofread (first proofread, more to come) and formatted to the required standard. I just need to proofread it again and make the table in the appendix fit into the Word format now that it has 4cm margins. 4 cm all around.
And decide whether the diagrams should be the cutdown versions of the full ones, with all the Colonial Office document classes that I cut out of the essay because it was too long and they are not directly relevant to family history research anyway. I am hoping that my supervisor can advise me here.
Today I’m sorting out some client research from last Friday, reconciling my bank account and PayPal account, and planning the rest of the week.
There, I feel better already!
31 Aug 2009
Posted in Personal
Today I’m making a last dash to finish this essay. Why is it taking so long? Well, partly it’s the need to get client work done first, and volunteer work with its deadlines, partly it’s pure procrastination. And it’s a complex thing I’ve taken on. I spent most of late yesterday afternoon and evening redrawing diagrams with my shiny new flowcharting software, and checking their accuracy.
Today I’m taking the day off from work and I’m determined to finish it, or as near as dammit. This means I have to:
- finish writing the part of the essay that explains what use the Colonial Office records are to family historians DONE
- finish writing the part of the essay that explains the document-handling process at the Colonial Office (backed up by the diagrams) DONE, with extra diagram drawn
- finish writing the part of the essay that explains how to find a document in the Colonial Office records filmed by the AJCP – nearly DONE (I may cut most of it out)
- finish the diagrams to explain the process of handling correspondence at the Colonial Office and how all the classes of documents fit together – DONE
- create a cutdown version of my spreadsheet to use as another appendix – nearly DONE
- write a synopsis – STARTED
- check all the citations – STARTED
- reformat to conform to the style-sheet (double-spacing and all that)
- general tidy-up (incorporating editing down to the maximum number of words allowed) – STARTED
Hmmm. I’d better get on with it then!
[12:53 pm] My 4000-word essay is currently 6024 words and counting, not including footnotes and bibliograpy. Something’s got to go!
[4:04 pm] I’ve started update my list (above) when items are completed. It gives me encouragement to know that I am getting somewhere!
[10:50 pm] still going. I took out the comprehensive overview bit and so removed a thousand words on records that are actually not that much use to family historians. A painful process it was, too!
27 Aug 2009
Posted in Personal
I think this progressive update thing works. Today is my biggest challenge yet:
- I have a blocked-up headache and a sore back
- My cat, Zac, came home yesterday from the vet after a knee reconstruction, and is following me around and moaning at me.
- I need to get some client reports done but can’t get into it
- I could work on my Diploma essay – that seems more feasible given challenges 1 & 2.
I’ve resorted to working at the dining table so he (the cat) can see me wherever he is. The stairs are blocked so he can’t fall down them. He really wants to be outside, and we tried that because I thought he’d need to do what a cat needs to do, but he just wanted to sit and look around. Either that or asleep on my lap will do.
I’ve organised my work in the city for tomorrow. So that’s one for me!
Zac has found the sunny spot in the spare bedroom, so there’s hope for me yet!
[hours later] I did manage to work out the final structure of the essay and fix som citations, but not much else.
I also visited my sister’s place and talked to two of my nieces. Wonderful girls, both of them!
25 Aug 2009
Posted in Personal
I seem to have gotten stalled today after my internet connection went down, and now that it’s fixed I can’t seem to get back on track so I’m trying something new – a progressive update.
I don’t know if it will work, but I’m willing to try it.
I have the land research results of three clients to sort out and write reports or varying comprehensiveness:
1. Images I took of Conditional Purchase correspondence for two clients taken on the same day need to be separated and processed. I did the separation yesterday (on the train!) and the images for client one are ready to be written to a CD and mailed, which is all she requires.
2. The images for Client 2 (and these numbers have no particular significance) must be sorted into separate folders for the specific portion of land referred to and written up in the report that I started last week.
3. The searches of the purchasers indexes at the Lands Department for the stepfather for Client 3 have to be consolidated in a single spreadsheet and analysed to determine which should be followed up to answer the initial question “what happened to the mother’s land after the father died?” The spreadsheet was done, or mostly done, before I got sick again last week, so there is just the analysis to do, I hope. Then I’ll write to the client to see what she wants to do next.
So, on to task 2….
[5 hours later]
I did task 3, and it took me over 3 hours. I didn’t find anything in common between the two lists, which is not surprising. I mapped the portions on Google Maps and saved it as a Map for the client. It’s so helpful to be able to mark them all out together. NSW parish maps are available on line, and Google Maps has the portion boundaries marked, so it’s actually a lot of fun!
Coming back to this post has reminded me about task 2, so I’ll do that now…
[nearly bedtime] I’m writing up some research in the report for Client 2 but haven’t sorted the images yet…
[a bit later] Images mostly sorted, going to bed. A good day after all!
21 Aug 2009
Posted in Personal
Today I’m quite pleased with myself, and I don’t see anything wrong with announcing it!
- I attending my niece’s cooking demonstration at her school. It was called ‘Cafe for a Day’, and the girls got into pairs and cooked lunch with dessert for the parent that could make it, or parent-substitute (that was me). Spaghetti with a tomato and basil sauce, parmesan crisps and coffee tiramisu, at a bench set with table cloth and all. Very nice!
- I then paid a visit to the President of the Ku-Ring-Gai Orchid Society to show him how to update the website I set up for them a couple of years ago. Have a look in a few days and see how he’s going – www.kuringaiorchidsociety.org.au. It’s the best time to visit such an exceptional orchid grower, with so many orchids in flower!
- I then finished, yes finished, the client research and report that has been hanging around for months. My illness and lack of knowledge of, and access to, Queensland records, got in the way, and I sat down yesterday and systematically went through all the digitised records that are now available on Ancestry, World Vital Records, the Queensland State Archives, the State Library of Queensland, and Judy Webster’s website and wrote a list. Actually more of a worksheet. As a result of all this research I had a breakthrough.
A good day.
Tomorrow, back to the essay.
14 Aug 2009
Posted in Personal, Writing
Very productive day today. My blog comes up on my blog reader, so I read it this morning to see what I’d said I was going to do today, and I was further inspired. Or perhaps determined is a better word for it.
- I finished editing the article for Descent and sent it off.
- I made a serious start on my essay, so that it seems possible that I will be able to finish it.
- I learned enough about Word 2007 and the way it handles footnotes and the bibliography (separately, unfortunately) to be useful
- I learned enough about Word 2007′s so-called SmartArt (diagram drawing) to start on the diagrams for the essay
- I didn’t start on the client report but I’d done that the night before and decided that was enough.
- I did a load of washing (unplanned bonus!)
I think it works, you know, this making public announcements of what I’m going to do!
Tomorrow, instead of going into the city for the bi-monthly TMG User Group meeting I’m going to stay at home and work on my essay all day, with occasional breaks to go outside and enjoy the forecasted warm weather. I may even sit in the sun for half an hour and read a book about the colonial administration of the colonies of Australia between 1831 and 1855. It doesn’t get any better than that!
Word 2007 is a bit of a struggle but I’m getting there. The last essays I wrote were written using Office XP (is that what it was called?) and I had to put references in manually and I didn’t need to draw diagrams. Come to think of it, I started using OneNote. It was the version we were allowed to download as students of the University of Sydney, and it’s an ugly, cumbersome thing. It did work with Word, though. I can’t afford to upgrade it, and I haven’t found anything that has similar functionality. I wonder how it handles footnotes? Might be worth another look.
Does anyone use OneNote, or Word 2007, for genealogical writing?
By the way, I’m trying to keep the title on these posts consistent so that those of you you aren’t remotely interested in my daily tasks can ignore them.
