vivdunstan

Continuing revising (pre peer review) an academic journal paper. And today** has felt like 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, another step forward. So overall progress! Though much yet to do. But happy with progress. Even if it at times feels like an old style dance, with the forward/back moves!

** Well after 3pm when I'd finally woken up properly!

Heads up for fellow academics as well as other authors. I'm not a prolific published academic, but at least two of my academic journal papers (on Scottish book history and library history) have been pilfered for AI training purposes. All done without my permission. You can search for these at https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/search-libgen-data-set/682094/

Lots of academic papers (co-authored) from Martin on there as well. And loads by my historian and computer scientist friends. It's also amusing seeing author namesakes. I now know which academic with a similar name (my maiden name - I have some early published academic work under my maiden name) is publishing prolifically about healthcare and medical matters! That Academia.edu keeps emailing me unhelpfully about, referring to "Vivienne Dunstan"!

As usual the Urban Crow deck, and my loose 3-card past/present/future spread.

Scavenge / Freedom / Battle. Again some new to me cards this week.

This random draw does feel close to what I've been going through lately, and will be going through in the coming weeks and months. I very recently had my 10th Covid vaccine, which I expected to cause my 10th post Covid vaccine neurological auto immune illness flare. Which is really tough, and happens a week after each vaccine, and lasts for 3 long months. I'd spent the last few weeks before the vaccine trying desperately to sort things out that needed doing, including finishing (or nearly finishing) a couple of academic journal papers before I got too sick to work on them. At the same time I knew I was in as good a position as I was going to be for a long time, and wanted to grab the opportunities. Then when I had my vaccine it was a very strange feeling of limbo for the next week, feeling good - apart from flu like vaccine side effects (I had both flu and Covid vaccines together) - but knowing it was just a brief period. It almost felt psychologically like floating on air. And then this last weekend things crashed back down, with clear signs of my latest flare starting. Which is still currently relatively mild, but should get much more scary and difficult to deal with over the coming weeks.

So yes, a bit of desperate scrabbling around, and then a strange feeling of limbo, and tough times looming. I will cope though. At least I was forewarned, and have been able to prepare for it. That almost sounds like a Doctor Who quote!

Back to more work on the Scottish black servants academic journal paper. Now typing up the story of John Ogilvie Glasgow, a servant just outside Dundee. Whose baptism was - like so many others - missing from the ScotlandsPeople indexes. Though in this case it was not so much a case of systemic racism among those compiling the original indexes, but rather the GRO for Scotland and ScotlandsPeople had missed out an entire register of Strathmartine parish baptisms from their computer indexes! Luckily they had the original paper records, and I had traced this one through a separate baptisms index on FindMyPast. ScotlandsPeople were able to email me a digital image.

I'm trying to remember to make time for this each week. To randomly draw a simple past/present/future 3-card spread of the Urban Crow oracle cards which I got recently. And find very easy to work with/interpret.

As usual, I'm using them as a tool to reflect on my situation and circumstances. And think about where I am and what I want to do. I am not using them in a predictive kind of way.

Here is today's spread. With thoughts/comments after the picture.



The middle card, Freedom, was lovely to see. I am currently newly in a better patch in between my recurring rollercoaster of post Covid vaccine neurological autoimmune disease flares. I've had these flares 9 times now, after every Covid vaccine (I get, and need, a lot of Covid vaccines because I am severely immunosuppressed). Each time I am even more ill for up to 3 months, with phenomenally increased sedation, headaches, arm and leg loss of control, and increased bladder incontinence. Many people wouldn't put up with this. But I'm not willing to sacrifice my much needed Covid vaccine protection. And I know I am generating good antibodies from each one.

So I'm in a better patch, for the next couple of months. After that I will get my 10th Covid vaccine, and be iller again for another 3 months. I will just cope. Plus my neurological disease is still progressing, and leaves me severely disabled, even in the better patches. But that progression is slow. And that's partly why I'm still here 30 years into living with this illness!

So yes, this is a time of relative freedom for me, and I want to make the most of it. Maybe get more things done, including the academic journal papers and research projects I am working on sporadically. And maybe get out more with Martin, to have fun.

The left card, reflecting the past, is Anomaly, which can be a problem, or something out of the ordinary, or other interpretations. It's making me think of my latest Covid vaccine flare more than my long-term neurological disease. A devastating neurological flare which has run from early May to early August. And it does tie in with Freedom.

The rightmost card, reflecting looking ahead, is Caching. Which again fits nicely with where I am. I want, in this short better patch, to make new valuable memories, and get things done I can look back on in future. So I want to make the most of this time, in a way I can look back on happily when I'm much iller again.

An interesting draw anyway, and some nice things to think about.

Meanwhile re Freedom, today is the start of the Glasgow Worldcon, and I have digital streaming access thanks to my attending ticket. I won't be watching much live, but hope to see one talk later today. And catch up on even more in the coming weeks and months. I also have Oxonmoot to look forward to in a few weeks. Again with a digital ticket. And ditto for the Edinburgh Book Festival. Streaming has been transformational for me.

I'm finishing off a book review I'm writing for an academic journal. The book is a new collection of Scottish poems in the long 18th century. Each poet's section includes a short biography before one or more poems from them. And I can't help myself constantly researching the poets and their lives more. My big success last night was confirming one poet being baptised in my home town Hawick in 1764. Far more precise than "born in one of the border counties washed by the Tweed" in DNB etc. He had many siblings baptised in Hawick or Wilton, then younger ones in Gala and Edinburgh before the parents moved to Kilmarnock and more baptised there. I should probably write this up as an academic journal paper too, not least to show the possibilities of easily accessed digitised Scottish parish registers to expand on these life stories.

Goals for this coming week: get some chromatic button accordion practice in, listen to more SHARP book history conference talks, and work on some academic papers. Fingers crossed, in between inevitably much sleep.