A long and somewhat tedious morning, doing a final pass copyedit of the book. Thank god for Saturday morning cartoons -- they make terrific background to adding and removing commas, which I did entirely too much of. My grasp of 'which/that' and the correct usage of 'whom' is also apparently a bit weak. I was pleased that there really were only about ten actual typos left in the book (and no chronological errors!) after David's and my multiple passes. The copyedit was really quite smooth, and I'm left with only one question that I need to check with Marjorie/Bob before I send back the copyedit -- whether we really want to italicize foreign terms (like biryani or sambol or rasathi). Aside from that, it's done, yippee! And I've typed the changes back into the new final draft of the book, so that I'll have a clean copy to send out for my thesis committee. Still some formatting to finalize on that, but I'm hopeful that I can send it out next week, giving them a full month to read it before my defense in mid-November.
I also was diligent on another academic area, downloading a mass of job listings (almost 60 I should apply for) and revising my cover letter. I've sent that to Katie for comment; once she gets back to me, I start actually sending the letters out. I'm hoping to do that in a week and a half, after I get back from the Philly trip and before I leave for World Fantasy. I'm starting to feel time pressure again (after a nice long stretch without it). Not to the stress stage yet -- just an awareness that there are deadlines that will eventually loom.
In a few minutes I'm going to swing by Borders and pick up another S. Asian book; I finished Cracking India which was more than a little emotionally wrenching -- unsurprising, given its subject matter of Partition and the brutalities committed, especially against women, in the process of dividing one country into two. Authors I'd like to read in the next week: Meena Alexander, Samina Ali, Shona Ramaya, Indu Sundaresan, Shashi Tharoor. We'll see what the bookstore has. After that, go home, squeeze in a half-hour workout, and then Kev and I have a departmental party; one of his colleagues has a wife who's having a birthday party. Fun, hopefully. :-)