Sigh. My old laptop is chugging away at something, God knows what. And so I wait, conditioned by the "I want it NOW" mentality of our age. I am spoiled: I have two laptops, set up a 90-degree angles on my desk, so that I can work on documents on one, and surf for information on the other. It's quite decadent, really.
I've written quite a bit of my tourism chapter today. Some of it is boring, workman-like description - but some of it, I hope, is more analytical and insightful. I have done so much less than I wanted to with this winter break. Yet I have worked steadily at times, and have kept at it, even when it was tempting to go do something else.
I am not sure what sort of sustained effort at writing is really possible in completely unstructured days, anyways. I can write quite easily in short bursts, and can produce about 800 words an hour if I focus. But I can only do that for 2-3 hours a day. The rest of the day, even if I'm sitting at the computer, is "worthless." Surfing, checking the blogs, playing games. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't be wiser to quit the office and go do something else. Yet perhaps the act of sitting here is worthwhile too - and I should recognize its worth and stop beating up on myself?
Yeah, like that'll happen. I have about a week left. I would like to finish this chapter, and at least one other.
I listened to a podcast from my undergrad college today. The topic was relevant to my teaching, at least on the face - and I was thinking it would be a nice change of medium to assign it to my World Regional Geography class. But the lecture wasn't very good - tentative, inconclusive, methodologically weak, unclear on any sort of hypothesis - and so I am not sure it's worth it. (I am always amazed at the dreck that passes for research in the academy: are my standards really so much higher than everyone else's??)
Posted by otto0114 at January 15, 2008 08:30 PM