Sunday, August 21, 2011

Call Me Ishmael. Call Me Floyd?

I spent a good chunk of yesterday trying to figure out the opening sentence of my article. Openers are tough, because you want to be attention-grabbing and also clear and informative. Today I wrote up part of an intro and I am going back and forth on whether my opening sentence is grabbing in the right way or not. And then, suddenly, I decided it was time to stop writing. I hope that means I am "stopping on the downhill slope" as Boice or one of those other writing coaching books advises, and not simply stopping because it is hard. I do have a couple pages of writing, though. Oh, that's handwritten, so don't be too impressed --- it will shrink down to a paragraph, maybe, once it is typed up.

So now I am trying to figure out what to do. I kinda want to either go out somewhere or take a nap. But probably I should work on my assignments and finish off the syllabi instead. Eh. Any advice for getting me to do all my work? I want to have everything for school prepped by the end of this week (unless you count Sunday as the previous week, in which case it is "next week") and I also want to rewrite the entire first section of my article by the end of this (next?) week. Clearly a nap is not in my options here, although I had lots of trouble sleeping last night. And that just means that I need to not nap in order to reset my internal clock.

Did I mention that I not only have, but requested, 8 am classes? That'll be a fun one to adjust to. But this way I will have my classes back to back instead of a mid-morning class and a nighttime class, which sounded extra hellish. I'd rather get the teaching over with and then collapse, with the possibility of a nap, than fumble my way through the afternoon in a fog and have to re-energize for an evening appearance. I know from experience that I end up waiting out the clock instead of getting a lot of work done when I am sitting there waiting for the next class to start.

Hmm. Since I'm feeling a bit stir-crazy, I just might drive out to the *$ in the next town and get coffee and work on my class stuff. That would cover a lot of requirements at once.

Am I the most boring blogger in the world? Well, I hope I am the best at something, so I will take what I can get. Remind me to take some more cute cat pictures, at least, and I will have something to post.

4 comments:

Dr. Koshary said...

You're Ishmael. You're Floyd. You're Ishmael. You're Floyd. You're Ishmael. You're Floyd.
You're Ishmael. You're Floyd.

*slaps Faye Dunaway*

That's about all I've got on this, I'm afraid.

undine said...

Asking for 8 a.m. classes is a great idea. Only the people who are morning people or really want to take the class will be there.

Anonymous said...

If you figure out how to commit to doing it all, let me know the secret! I need to stop being such a flake.

Go you with the work! You can do it!

Earnest English said...

I'm with you, Sis. Tomorrow I have the luxury of a day I don't have to go to campus -- and I'm worried about wasting it. I'm also worried about driving myself crazy with it. I don't know what to do. Tomorrow, I'm going to imagine that you're out there trying to work on a zillion things too. Just for the company. (Yes, I am sad.)