Nitaenda safari

I started this blog nearly a year ago, with a single, externally-motivated mandate - to practice writing. In one of our first university seminars on writing style, it was suggested that we keep writing throughout the 3-4 years of the PhD programme, be it in personal journals, for publication or leisure. That would purportedly hone our writing skills and keep the momentum going (hopefully) till the final year, for the decisive writing-up phase.

At that time my writing style was in obvious distress, in dire want of more polish and less patchiness. It's not immediately clear how far the situation has progressed since then, but at the very least, blogging has been an enjoyable way of keeping friends and family clued in on my neuroses ... the unexpected (and mostly unwanted) freebies with the doctoral package (buy 1 get 10 free - for life!).

This time tomorrow, my flight will just have landed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I'll be there for six weeks or so, till mid-December, for fieldwork in Dar, Zanzibar ... and possibly the capital city, Dodoma. I'm more excited than anxious about the trip now (it was the reverse until a couple of days ago), so if anything at least we know the Larium's kicking in.

The London chapter of our lives is still very much open while the drafts for Zurich and Dar are concurrently being scribbled in the margins. When I'm next back in Zurich it'll be just in time for Christmas, then New Year's ... and all-too-quickly, January. I am in pre-emptive shock.