the permit and the kitten

So, again, you've probably noticed that I'm horrible about keeping this thing updated.

It's been a busy, busy week. I've just come home from the last session of the class I've been auditing at UB. Professor X (as I've called him) took me and the two other students to dinner at a hallal Chinese restaurant, which was quite lovely.

The big news this week is that my application for research has been approved. I knew that the committee charged with reviewing my application was meant to meet last Thursday. Friday morning, I got up and emailed my contact at the relevant ministry to confirm that the meeting had happened. She emailed back immediately, asking if I could drop by before 10:30am as there was "one small issue" she wanted to discuss.

It was about 8:30am, and I was still in my pyjamas, drinking tea. I replied that I would be there around 10am, and hurridly put myself together and headed out the door.

When I arrived, my contact was in the middle of typing a letter for me. So I sat there, staring around her office and wondering what on earth this "one small issue" could be, and how exactly "small" it was.

She finally finished, turned to me, and explained that the committee wanted me to switch advisors. This, frankly, was nothing that hadn't been suggested to me at least once before. Other than that, she told me, the committee had been satsified with my revisions.

Quite cheered, I walked outside and phoned the one anthropologist at UB. (How I happened to meet her is another story.) I asked her for her advice, and after concluding that there really was no one suitable in the Sociology Department (UB doesn't have an anthro department), I suggested a historian who has written on the medical history of Botswana. The anthropologist, whose work isn't very closely related to mine, nevertheless volunteered herself as a local authority on socio-cultural anthropology. It wasn't even lunchtime, and I already had two new advisors.

The ministry has three weeks to actually get the permit to me, but at least I know it's in the pipeline. This has been an enormous load off my mind. In addition to being the key to getting access to some people and institutions, it's also the key to unlocking my grant money.

The other big news of the week has been the arrival of Methodius. While I have been writing this, he has been attacking my bedskirt, though the bedskirt is apparently scary enough to send him scurrying for the bathroom. He has now taken on the big, bad plastic bag on the end of my bed. Whatever monsters are under the bed, though, have someone new with whom to contend. He is a sweet, purring, sleepy thing one moment, and a vicious little tiger attacking my toes the next. I've never really had a kitten this young of my own, and I'm still learning what to expect. That said, I'm delighted to have the company.