Many of my readers will be taking a break from computers over the next few days as they depart back to visit families, or generally attempt to prove to themselves that there is life and enjoyment outside of the Internet! In this knowledge I wanted to take this opportunity to wish them all, and anyone who comes across this page, a very Merry Christmas!

Eguberri On!
God Jul!
Feliz Navidad!
Zalige Kerstdagen!
Hyvaeae Joulu!
Joyeux Noël!
Nollaig Chridheil!
Froehliche Weihnachten!
Kellemes Karácsonyi ünnepeket!
Gledilig Jol!
Nollaig Shona!
Feliz Natal!
Een Plesierige Kerfees!
Vesele Vanoce!
Nedeleg laouen!
Boas Festas!
Sretan Bozic!
Gajan Kristnaskon!
Mele Kalikimaka!
Buone Feste Natalizie!
Merry Keshmish!
Nadolig Llawen!
Merry Christmas!

Best wishes and God bless to all from Dragon Mama x

I can only apologise... I've not been able to post for several days.

What's a sheep's favourite Christmas carol?
We wish ewe a merry Christmas.

I've just finished drafting the final chapter of my thesis. It's not even ready to show to my supervisor yet as I've got to read it through and tidy it up, but the bulk of it is in place. It's a long chapter, as I've amalgamated two chapters into one, and I'm amusing myself at perusing the statistics, which I thought I'd share with you.

At the moment, there are 15553 words. There are 79753 characters, which means that my average word is five characters long.

There are 366 paragraphs, which means that my average paragraph is 42 (and a half) words long.

I've written 81 pages (double spaced).

Oh, and the 132 footnotes total another 6606 words, another 33187 characters, still with an average word-length of five letters.

The bibliography is four pages long (double-spaced) and has 52 items on it.

All of this means? Absolutely nothing yet because I might have written utter drivel, in which case it just means it's an awful lot of drivel! I won't know until I read through and make the changes. But I thought I'd share anyway.

What did the guest sing at the snowman's Christmas party?
Freeze a jolly fellow!

This one goes out to my Uncle Frank:

What did the big angel say to the little angel?
Halo there!

I'm currently writing about some texts that I studied some time ago - during my Masters degree (or earlier). Because time is short, I am relying to a large extent upon the notes that I took at that time, but of course using the perspective and broader knowledge that I have gained in the intervening years to interpret them in a way that is relevant to my current research.

It's interesting, though, doing this. It's almost as if I'm working beside my younger self. When I was doing my Masters Degree, I knew for certain that I was a stepping stone to the PhD. I further knew broadly what area my PhD was going to be in, so I made sure that I took notes on anything that might fall into that spectrum (the relationship between sacred and secular in medieval literature). Now that my ideas are a lot more refined, I can reject a lot of the information that I collected as peripheral to my current study, but there are times when I come across a heavily highlighted passage that is exactly what I need; or when I find that in perusing an article, I thought it might be relevant to note down a couple of quotes from, and a summary of, another article in the same book - a quote and summary that prove absolutely invaluable because the article in question is a key moment in the development of criticism of a particular text so I need to show that I've read it, even if I don't agree with it fully.

At times like that I feel like my younger self is my research assistant, and a very competent and hard-working one too. I couldn't have got as far through this PhD without her, that's for certain! Of course, she didn't have two Dragonets to look after, so she had a lot more time. It's useful to have her around. I just wish I could leave her a message to tell her how appreciated she is and to keep up the good work!

For those of you who haven't got a copy of Troika to get you in the mood for Christmas:

What did Adam say on the day before Christmas?
It's Christmas, Eve!

Who beats his chest and swings from Christmas cake to Christmas cake?
Tarzipan!

If athletes get athletes foot, what do rocket scientists get?
Missile-toe!

Walking home from dropping my elder Dragonet at school this morning, I was still struggling with my emotions concerning the news of the death of Augusto Pinochet, which I heard last night. I've blogged about him in the past and I feel I ought to express my feelings at his passing, but it's difficult to reconcile my emotions with what my conscience tells me I should feel as a Christian.

I am trying to accept the fact that Augusto Pinochet is now facing the Judgement that none of us can avoid, and this is the ultimate Judgement by the fairest of all Judges, so I must now leave this in God's hands and try not to anticipate that judgement as I am fighting hard to learn the lesson that I must not judge others' spiritual worth. And yet (because I am still deeply human in this respect)...

I find myself wondering whether the Russians felt cheated when they found Hitler's body.

And I am still spitting with fury at the quoted comments from Margaret Thatcher regarding the former Chilean dictator. I never liked the woman but now I have even more reason to dislike her. I wouldn't even care if he won the bl**dy Falklands war single-handedly on our behalf, that could never balance out the fact that he was responsible for the torture of so many people, among whom my friend, who is the sweetest, most gentle man I have ever met.

OK, so he can't stand trial on this Earth, but let us not ever whitewash his part in history, and let's continue to investigate the crimes he committed, and the part played by others so that we can stand up and say, "this was wrong. This should never have happened. These people suffered injustice. These people were murdered. These people were tortured. These people disappeared. We will not stand by and let this happen again. We will not forget."