will it be better?

I'm back at my desk after a four week absence. A European summer, it appears, is very good for me. I've embraced the prospect of the next five or so months, at this desk, from a position of calm and determination to ensure that  my agenda becomes the priority. But this doesn't meant that I will relinquish my responsibilities to my employer, just that I will work smarter to ensure that those responsibilities don't overwhelm me with feelings of guilt or sap all my time. A week in and I think it's okay. I'm not sure if my outwardly projections give any indication that I have a new attitude, but it's more my internal talk that has registered the shift. A main priority is to write - to get an article ready for journal submission come the end of the year. Then I have another collaborative writing project that will culminate in a chapter submission in December and three conference presentations between September and December. So it's pretty busy but my aim is to keep my focus, energy and organisational management strategies squarely on ensuring that these my priority tasks take centre-stage, while I also making sure that my routine institutional work also gets done. Can I get sufficiently organised and 'selfish' about integrating my research and writing aspiration with my institutional obligations? Can I become more efficient and not get sucked into the malaise that envelopes me at work? Only time will tell.

sleeping on the job

I'm on a 'summer' holiday in winter. Summer because I'm currently writing this in the Northern Hemisphere, looking out at the green trees and blue skies outside. When thinking about my holiday away from the 'chilly' institutional context down South, I fantasised about writing each morning and making some headway with my plan to use writing to effectively pull me out of the soul sapping downward spiral I found myself in. As I head into the final five days of my Swedish Summer, I've have to acknowledge, yet again, how distant a fantasy is from reality. To date I've spent maybe three mornings doing anything remotely academic or writing inspired. Lots of ideas, sans action. Of course I'm disappointed. An OU friend who came to visit, reminded me of how lucky I am to have 'free' moments for writing during my normal 'working' time. I felt a tinge of guilt at not fully exploiting that time. Free time without motivation or inspiration is thus a sad thing.


I have another friend who is truly connected to what she needs at a very intuitive level, looking at my summer experience through her eyes, I've spent my summer in ways that I needed, even if my brain and rational self might have suggested I needed a whole range of 'other stuff'. So it's all good, and it will all be good. Next week at this time I will probably be sitting in a boring meeting, without a t-shirt and kikoy, but wrapped up warmly in layers upon, upon layers of clothing and insulation (and not only from the cold weather). I suspect I'll be better prepared for whatever comes my way, and that is probably be the value gained from how I've spent this summer holiday.