Editing

A quick note to explain my absence.

Last week I was "dubbed" to edit Aj. Apichai's book on Buddhist Economics for its English publication. It is a huge task and needs to be done very quickly at an inopportune time (the new semester starts on the 3rd and the book needs to be done no later than the 7th. I only found out my teaching schedule for next semester yesterday and it is 20 contact hours a week of course I have never taught before!).

I am about 20% done and have found this particular job to be exhilarating. It is a challenge of my English, my knowledge of economics, philosophy, history, Christianity and Buddhism. I finished the long introductory first chapter that overviews and summarizes each chapter in the book yesterday and as I was reviewing it for print, I sat back knowing that I was the only person who could have done what I did in 5 days. It felt good.

OK...its 4:53 am here and I promised myself I would be editing by 5...tata

Last comment added: Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:53:57 PST

Comment 1 on Editing

:-)

I sat back knowing that I was the only person who could have done what I did in 5 days.

As a teacher when a student achieves this sort of knowledge, that's when it's all worthwhile. Achievement is something to celebrate all around.

It's hard work, but so important. Good work!

Comment 2 on Editing

50% done....

By the time I am done, I will have a larger (though less useful) vocabulary in Pali than Thai! hahahha

Comment 3 on Editing

All of the English is edited.
I have built a Pali glossary and I have to proof the entire document yet to make sure that all of the Pali is consistent since some of the words have differing diacritical marks on them.
I have to re-make 9 diagrams that were built in the original word doc and blew apart when some one added something early on.
I WILL be done by 2 on Friday.
I WILL kick back and relax for 2 days after that.

Whew..............

Comment 4 on Editing

Somehow the Word doc that blew apart helps me to get a feel for how challenging this whole project has been. I know it's just a small part of it, but have some little experience pulling my hair out trying to edit documents where the formating seems to have gone absolutely bonkers.

Great work!

Comment 5 on Editing

The diagrams are done - as jpgs so that they can not blow up again.
The Glossary is out of excel and into presentation form in the book.
The book is proofed for Pali.
The book has been printed out in two copies - one for the author and one for the publisher.
I will write the disc with the whole thing on it as soon as a store opens for me to buy the CD.
Then I will take it all to the post office and EMS it to Bangkok so that when Aj. Apichai's office opens on Monday morning, the box will be there and he can go to the publisher in the afternoon.

This project has been stimulating and frustrating. The main frustration being the technology. When I put the book together to make a whole from the chapters, the formatting blew up. I lost fonts, and paragraphing. I lost words - mainly the Pali words with their odd letters. I have slept maybe 4 hours in the last two nights. The publisher has said it will be ready for the conference which is less than a month away now. Aj. Apichai has purchased and donated 250 copies to the conference to be able to give a copy to each participant.

The registration for the conference is over 50 now and still many of the speakers have not even registered. Only 1 Thai outside of the participants has identified themselves yet.

Right after I get the mailing done the order of business is 1) sleep, 2) clean my apartment which has been neglected for 3 + weeks (well, I mean I figured out that I have over 300 hours in this project over the last 19 days) 3) scheduling out the course I am teaching and 4) focusing on the conference.

Relief....