Happy new year

I spent last week sorting out a lot of bureaucracy around grad student transitions as the academic year turns, and after masses of pushing and arguing suddenly everything fell into place and my institute decided to help me and my little group instead of obstructing us. For example, having spent months arguing over whether they owe me £1800 they suddenly went, oops, our mistake, we actually owe you slightly over £5K. (Not my personal money, research funding.) I hate to sound ungrateful but the money would have been a lot more use a year ago when we couldn't do the research we wanted to because we didn't have the money, but coming now it does feel like a nice windfall.

Further, a slight mixup meant that I am officially on vacation this week. So I went off to celebrate the new year on a high, looking forward to a few days' break, albeit with the hard work of leading the Rosh haShana service in the middle.

( some religion, some relaxing, brief comments on _Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell_ eps 3 and 4 )

Anyway, all good wishes for the coming year to anyone for whom it's relevant.