Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Accountability on Wednesday

I work at home Wednesday mornings. I wrote up some notes for an article I'm responsible for regarding tonight's class and wrote an outline for my stratification paper. Then I went to Costco to pick up some new contact lenses. (I really wanted to go to Cost Plus and DSW, but I was disciplined. Also, I didn't have time.) At noon we had a PPI meeting and then lunch at the Commons. I spent some more time working on Project Snowball. I'm on the fence about whether that one is "my stuff" or "advisor stuff," because my advisor is the first author, but I'm responsible for getting this particular article out. So I guess it's both. I also had a brief meeting with my officemate about a paper we're writing. Basically, we agreed to put it aside until May, since we're buried under end of the semester stuff and I have to get ASHE proposals out.

Then at 4 we had class, except today we took a field trip to Fisk. When I got home a friend called and we chatted for a while. I've spent the rest of the evening reading. After a certain hour, I can't do anything else - I can't write at night, and I do Stata better during the day. So, reading for this paper. Woot. And laundry. Double woot.

Interesting point about outlining this paper: My original idea was promising, I think, but when I turned in my formal proposal, it had gotten vague and unfocused. So I've been thinking and reading, and when I wrote up the outline, I had a realization: "Oh - so THIS is what my paper is about." It's not that I discovered that instead of being about dairy cows it was about goats, but that my angle on dairy cows was that Jerseys in particular produce delicious cheddar cheese. (Metaphorically, of course.) That's one of the mysteries of the human brain - stuff rattling around in the subconscious is sometimes just ready to come out.

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