(no subject)

I overslept this morning, bigtime. I feel better for it, too. I woke up to my new column on BiblioBuffet, which is all about different ways of approaching books. I had a class of readers (one of my Tuesday classes) and they only ever read books from beginning to end. I found this unaccountably sad and so I wrote a column about other ways of looking at books. It's not the deepest or most thoughtful column I've ever written, but it's made me much happier. I'm reading a lot of books word for word and from beginning to end right now, but that's because they need to be compared with each other and the same approach helps, not because I think it's the only way of reading a book.

I'd better make some tea and do more catching up on work. I didn't actually lose much time to sleeping in, but for a few weeks the less I fall behind the easier my life will be. I have a list of things that must be accomplished by 5 pm (for I have a meeting more or less around 5) and it's not long, but they're all substantial, and it might be derailed at any point (as my lists were yesterday) by an email from my supervisor. PhD takes precedence, of course, over everything. We're advancing with it steadily and are on schedule. And I need that tea and to complete my next listthing. 'Conscious virtue' is my motto for this week.


ETA: I didn't give you a URL for my column. How remiss of me. Also, a significant failing of my conscious virtue. http://www.bibliobuffet.com/bookish-dreaming/1854-the-fine-art-of-reading-101412

(no subject)

This evening is all about finishing things. It's a bit of a mystery how I can do one thing after another after another after another and my piles of paper diminish, but my list of what must be done continues to grow. They're all items with long deadlines, too. If I'm lucky it will only be weeks before I see the results, but it's more likely to be months, and some of the deadlines are being met with no expectation of results.

My big tasks for the week (apart from the obvious) are the Beast, to apply for jobs, and to redraft an article (with a bit of extra reading, for I discovered I'd read most of the material I needed to have read for this redraft, but not quite all). I meant to tackle the article today, in fact, but instead I've been playing skittles with my deadlines.

I have an added incentive to play skittles with deadlines and get promised articles done, for I have the lure of an article I really, really want to write and it has its own deadline and I can't begin work on it until the decks are just a little less impossible to navigate. I get to re-read Game of Thrones as my first step for this article, which is such a good way to begin something.

And my supervisor has just emailed and I have work to do!