2nd work-related post of the day
My first post about work was too painfully boring to share, so I'm leaving it private. This one probably won't be much better.
I sat down in front of my computer and began my writing process today. Mostly that involved a lot of anxious expostulating, opening and closing of my laptop, and the browsing of the Annual Review of Anthropology where I redownloaded articles I forgot I had already saved and not read. But, in the midst of all my angina-goaded attempts at productivity I also managed to finally write my prof - who I probably have assigned a nickname to previously, but will now call Yogi Einstein - a memo describing the paper I planned. Whew, I thought to myself, at least that's out of the way. Now I can get down to the really important work of stressing myself out not writing it.
But Yogi Einstein responded almost immediately. I saw him on gchat. We could have just talked there. He took the paper that was basically the first part of my thesis and asked me to write something more like a synthesis of the literature instead. The synthesis of a LOT of literature. On a LOT of topics (although all related to pregnant teens). I had been imagining writing something fairly specific and grounded in my research, but his suggestion took me all the way out to cross-cultural conceptions of the right age to start bearing children. So I sat there and freaked out for a minute until my working partner, code name: Aloysius, calmed me down.
I started writing down stuff that I thought I needed to revisit or draw on and then started getting really antsy so I decided to switch to reading one of the books I got out of the library. It was AWFUL. And now that I see he's also written another book about "the enormous waste of human and economic resources that results from incompetent parents who spawn our society's criminal and welfare dependency problems" I am less surprised. I wrote a review of the thing here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/133655649
I was able to do a little bit more after that, but not much. That book made me miserable and made me pretty hopeless for any applications of awesomeness being possible from what's published by academics on my topic.
Tomorrow, after my morning breakfast date with my partner in crime, I will try to get back to it and leave all memories of today behind.
I sat down in front of my computer and began my writing process today. Mostly that involved a lot of anxious expostulating, opening and closing of my laptop, and the browsing of the Annual Review of Anthropology where I redownloaded articles I forgot I had already saved and not read. But, in the midst of all my angina-goaded attempts at productivity I also managed to finally write my prof - who I probably have assigned a nickname to previously, but will now call Yogi Einstein - a memo describing the paper I planned. Whew, I thought to myself, at least that's out of the way. Now I can get down to the really important work of stressing myself out not writing it.
But Yogi Einstein responded almost immediately. I saw him on gchat. We could have just talked there. He took the paper that was basically the first part of my thesis and asked me to write something more like a synthesis of the literature instead. The synthesis of a LOT of literature. On a LOT of topics (although all related to pregnant teens). I had been imagining writing something fairly specific and grounded in my research, but his suggestion took me all the way out to cross-cultural conceptions of the right age to start bearing children. So I sat there and freaked out for a minute until my working partner, code name: Aloysius, calmed me down.
I started writing down stuff that I thought I needed to revisit or draw on and then started getting really antsy so I decided to switch to reading one of the books I got out of the library. It was AWFUL. And now that I see he's also written another book about "the enormous waste of human and economic resources that results from incompetent parents who spawn our society's criminal and welfare dependency problems" I am less surprised. I wrote a review of the thing here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/133655649
I was able to do a little bit more after that, but not much. That book made me miserable and made me pretty hopeless for any applications of awesomeness being possible from what's published by academics on my topic.
Tomorrow, after my morning breakfast date with my partner in crime, I will try to get back to it and leave all memories of today behind.