the last time i felt productive was sometime last weekend, possibly monday. i thought i had overcome some obstacle of proof and was deducing corollaries and generalisations .. in short, doing a mental victory dance.
the last time i felt like i was doing something worthwhile was on tuesday morning, between 9 and 11:30 am. but it wasn't productive per se; i realised that my proof didn't work after all, and sought to find adjustments to sort it out.
this worthy time came to a halt, since i promised to meet my first-year mentoring student for lunch .. and it was a good lunch, after all.
since then, it's felt like damage control.
teaching prep is a headache, with the handouts for the first day and whatnot, and i've caught the bad turn of the rotation for our student analysis reading group; tomorrow it's my turn to talk as well as my meeting with the advisor, and guess what?
my proof still doesn't work: not enough peace-&-quiet time to ponder it properly.
the first floor of east hall may as well be the first floor of shapiro undergrad library, where no work is actually done and where students gab and gab and walk around and gab with other people .. i'm beginning to like working at home, more and more.
next week is another talk to give, the consistent obligation of teaching prep, and down the road, pursuing this little thing called research and a thesis ..
.. right? remember those?
i've been making a few vows, lately, and here is a new one:
from mid-september to mid-october, i'm committing to nothing but teaching and research and writing. i refuse to give any more talks or volunteer for anything superfluous until late october; i've been too busy for too long and it's time to take control of matters.
No comments:
Post a Comment