Sunday, September 5, 2010

Procrastination Station, What's Your ---- Elation? Vacation?

Ok, so maybe not everything fits into a Schoolhouse Rocks song. Eh.

I have grading already, and how hard am I procrastinating? Well, I've looked up the hotel information for the next MLA convention and am planning out whether or not I can finagle a family visit. I have family 390 miles from the hotel, 415 miles from the hotel (and 412), 116 miles, 137 miles, and 15 miles. How many hours playing with google maps were wasted discovering this information? Oh do not ask. This is after hunting down some t-giving plane tickets, although I haven't gotten winter break tickets yet (I still have to send some emails or calls out to figure the various Christmas/New Year's plans and where I will be staying considering that MLA is later this year.)

I have also made a rubric and checked it twice. Well, ok, I haven't checked it twice. And I spent all morning fiddling with the formatting instead of actually reading these assignments. I feel like I should be whaling away on this pile to chop it down to size while I have a long weekend (btw, when you bash somebody, are you waling on them? whaling on them? wailing on them? I have no clue where that phrase comes from.) but the spirit is weak and the flesh is weak too. If I'm going to blow it off I should at least go do something interesting instead of sit around inside and reorganize my laptop files (oh yes, there have been multiple entire campaigns of procrastination), but, again, I am lazy and not fully committed to either plan.

I need to get groceries at some point too. Meh.

If I were really smart I would be procrastinating grading by doing Useful and Important Work on my publishing and job-hunting fronts, instead of just futzing around with the scheduling for MLA. I haven't looked at my article attempt in so long. And my schedule during the week makes it hard to get to, as I'm gonna be going straight from class to prep to grading to class again. Don't get me wrong, I could handle that pace; it's throwing in a research agenda and job search and trying to have a (actually create a new) social life on top of it that just seems overwhelming. I'm sure I will figure out something eventually but complaining, besides procrastination, is the only other varsity sport I play in. (I'm cross-training, heh!)

Speaking of cross-training, I haven't worked out since before I moved and I need to get something new set up. And I need to get some new closed shoes that are not too nice and are up to the local ground cover of leaves and sticky berry thingies and dog poop everywhere. And I still need to get my car looked at (and cleaned!) since the cross-country trip as it doesn't quite sound right. And that reminds me that I guess I need to get a local driver's license and new registration, too. See what I mean? All this moving and getting settled gives me a zillion and two not-very-important little things I need to deal with, which makes me feel overwhelmed and not up to doing anything, or, makes me fill my days with petty little errands that distract me from both my grading and my writing.

Ah well. You know what my solution to that problem is? Lunch. I'm off to cook up something.

3 comments:

Fie upon this quiet life! said...

All of this is very familiar. I can't for the life of me muster up energy to grade papers, but I can check my email obsessively as people from near and far read my novel this weekend. I can't get enough of the positive feedback, but when I look at my stack of papers, all I want to do is put a big X through the effort. This is just one more bit of evidence that I need to get out of academia and become a world-famous novelist.

the unknown said...

wat r u up to these days?

the unknown said...

dang, u should be doin ur phd part time like everyone else.

sacrificing ur finance progression for phd aint worth it if u ask me.

sorry, this comment is meant for another post of urs :P