Summertime

The year ended in a blur. My work tapered off as I became absorbed in finals, and I ended up having to finalize the dynamics article from home (as well as a student award article). Once I got those done, I was on break for a while.

And it was odd, not having constant work to do. Even worse was that I don't have set office hours. I don't like keeping my own time. I like having a set schedule, being busy enough that my schedule is set (more often than not) around what I have to do, and then what I want to do just fills in the cracks. Now what I have to do is on a flexible schedule. There are no more cracks. There's just fluid free time, and general responsibilities without deadlines floating on the top like leaves in a stream.

I'm going to go insane.

I mean to wake up early, I do. You can imagine how long that lasted. I mean to go running regularly, to go riding regularly. But time just passes, and then I look back and I've done nothing.

It's probably a product of having such a tightly-packed schedule, non-stop, all year. I've been booked back-to-back since last August (I remember I was having scheduling conflicts even during Welcome Week) and now my schedule is flexible and fluid and it's freaking me the hell out.

I have a new, large project for work. It's a series of articles on MechSE professors whose research is related to biology. I've done one interview, and transcribed it; but have done no work for the article itself. That was three days ago. I just can't sit down and focus, I can't write it. I have no set time in which to write it, so I suppose I've just been waiting until I'm in the mood, but that hasn't occurred yet.

I'm going to volunteer (hopefully) for a middle-school physics program at my high school. It's in the morning, so I'm hoping that'll get me out of bed well-enough to regulate my sleep schedule and get me focused enough to get work done. And the school is close to the library--I might do some work there.

In any case, I need to get my act together before my brains become scrambled eggs.

I can't believe I've turned into one of those people who can't stand vacations.