Summer Writing

This summer session is the first extended period of time I've had free from teaching or taking classes since the summer of 2007. During that summer, I graduated from my masters program, moved my family from California to Arizona, and had a three-week teacher training session to attend. Realistically, this is the first extended period of time I have had in better than three years to simply focus on my own research and writing, and it has been eye opening.

The major problem, a not uncommon one for most people faced with unending "free time," is that I have been having real trouble motivating myself to work. It's not that my time has been unproductive, exactly, but my production has been otherwise directed. I read a novel for two days straight, then wrote a 4-page, single-spaced review of it. I've completely rebuilt my website. I have establish a new blog (thank you very much). I also set up profiles at LinkedIn, Flickr, Twitter, WordPress, and some other ones I can't think of right now. I've been reading every day, so that's a check in the positive column, but I haven't been reading the books on my comprehensives list. So, reading academic literature? Yes. Reading academic literature I'm going to be tested on in the next 6 months? Not so much.

Of course, I know that the main reason I can't focus is a distinct lack of responsibility. That is, no one is expecting me to be to work every morning. No one is expecting work from me. That's kind of the idea behind self-directed time, right? But without the structure of classes to teach, meetings to attend, and coursework to complete, I'm finding it's much easier to take the intellectual break I've convinced myself I really need to get my batteries recharged (actually I'm not really convinced, but as when my wife overlooks some mindless indiscretion on my part because she loves me, I'm pretending to buy my own line out of pity and love).

Now that I've managed to waste yet another small chunk of my day writing this post, back to some other mundane, unproductive task that I'll scold myself for later when I rise from my desk and wonder where the day went.