Pro cras!
I alternate, not unexpectedly, between days of panic and feverish activity on my dissertation — “due” in roughly 2 weeks now — and days of procrastination. Today was a day of procrastination: Went to a nice but largely useless seminar on how to avoid procrastination and be more effective. Lunch with a friend from church that I’d sort of lost touch with. And back to the lab to do two experiments, neither one of which probably worked. (Yep, still doing labwork, a month before the defense.)
The seminar was led by Mary McKinney, an “academic success” coach from Chapel Hill. Apparently she charges outrageous fees ($125/hour) for a combination of organizational advice, psychological support, and timely wisdom about the perils and pitfalls of graduate school (and pre-tenure professors). I can’t really see this is a recommendation, because I’d certainly be outraged to pay her $125 to hear her be exceptionally disorganized. She had two hours; every five minutes she’d mention how far behind she was and how “normally I get through at least half my talk, today it’s more like a quarter! I’m so sorry!” Hard to be too mad at her, though, since what she said seemed to be useful to some people in the audience. Or perhaps she subtly defused potential anger using her psychological expertise. I’d really rather have spent at least part of the time on stuff more appropriate to the sciences; most of the funding and advisor issues she covered are non-issues for us compared to humanities.
Besides, I think I picked up liberal-arts cooties again.
Actually no, that was from browsing Wikipedia late yesterday afternoon. From the history of the atomic bomb to the Elder Futhark! I wonder if anyone’s done “Six Degrees of WP” yet.
2 Responses to “Pro cras!”
Dad on 18 Mar 2006 at 11:37 pm #
motd: procrastination prevents boredom: It leaves you with the feeling that something very important is about to happen. Your mother noticed this one.
And I hope you had a happy St Patrick’s Day. I was happy to be out of Hartford, Ct, for it, expecting few sober people in town by the evening. (Quote of a guard at P&W gate, to a person he knew to be Irish: “I don’t want to hear that you were still sober by nightfall!”) I shall have to look up the Elder Furthark, even at risk of liberal arts cooties. I did also procrastinate, to look up Elder Furthark, and am none the wiser…
I say, Write! Write right! Write right, right now!
And fun it was.
Wallaby on 21 Mar 2006 at 10:14 am #
As far as procrastination/boredom goes — Remember that kid who used to happily sit there reading the encyclopedia (dictionary, medical reference book) for hours? It’s online now, no need to worry about carelessly tearing a page