What a spectaculary unproductive day.
Nov. 15th, 2001 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quislibetIt didn't help that I stayed up far too late trying to make my aging computer and now archaic 56K modem connection (actual connection speed being rather less) cooperate in the playing of online games, so that I got to sleep late and thus woke up later than I should have. It further failed to advance my research when I watched an hour of TV after breakfast, then checked e-mail, then read parts of CNN.com, until it was past noon.
On the plus side, I did make myself go to the Y for a little exercise at that point, and then I came home and made eggplant parmesan for lunch, and then did some dishes and kitchen-cleaning. I finally sat down at my computer again at around 3. Naturally the urge to go online was irresistible. All told, the closest thing to working on my conference paper that happened today was when I cleaned my desk and sorted articles into useful and less-useful piles, and skimmed a couple that I had read already but not recently and took some notes. But all too soon it was time to go to the Athenaeum to help set up for a lecture.
The last two Thursdays have been spent similarly, it being a rather suddenly busy time in the Athenaeum schedule, but for those I at least had the opportunity to study. Thinking that tonight would be the same, I took a book on Boudicca's revolt by Plantagenet Somerset Fry, which, though short and probably not very informative beyond what I already have read, at least has a cool author's name, and is, as I say, short. If I could plow through that while babysitting the circulation desk while the lecturer lectured, I could trick myself into going to bed with a false feeling of accomplishment.
But alas, the place was packed -- the lecturer, a senior editor at the Atlantic Monthly and former terrorism researcher for the Rand Corporation, was discussing current events and ways in which a monthly magazine could cover Important News that changes daily. The building's layout being what it is, no one not already there for the lecture would feel comfortable, or really even be physically able, with all those people and chairs in the way, to browse the stacks. And the lecture was pretty interesting. So no Boudicca for me.
I stayed to help clean up, got home, watched a recording of tonight's Tick episode (a step up from last week's), and read some of the dispatches photocopied from this month's Atlantic Monthly which the lecturer had mentioned. So while I now know how the PLO got rid of its most violent wing - Black September - when the PLO first started gaining some political legitimacy and their terrorists became a liability (they set up a social mixer with eligible girls, married them off, and found them non-violent jobs: no, really), I can't evaluate Plantagenet Somerset Fry's work as useful or -less.
And obviously I am not currently doing anything to change that.
(The real hell of it is that the lecturer pretty much told the whole story already, and I didn't really need to read it...)
But if I try to study late at night, now that I'm all old and stuff, I just fall asleep. (I can, however, muster the energy to try fruitlessly to make java-based games work for hours past the witching hour, apparently.)
On the plus side, I did make myself go to the Y for a little exercise at that point, and then I came home and made eggplant parmesan for lunch, and then did some dishes and kitchen-cleaning. I finally sat down at my computer again at around 3. Naturally the urge to go online was irresistible. All told, the closest thing to working on my conference paper that happened today was when I cleaned my desk and sorted articles into useful and less-useful piles, and skimmed a couple that I had read already but not recently and took some notes. But all too soon it was time to go to the Athenaeum to help set up for a lecture.
The last two Thursdays have been spent similarly, it being a rather suddenly busy time in the Athenaeum schedule, but for those I at least had the opportunity to study. Thinking that tonight would be the same, I took a book on Boudicca's revolt by Plantagenet Somerset Fry, which, though short and probably not very informative beyond what I already have read, at least has a cool author's name, and is, as I say, short. If I could plow through that while babysitting the circulation desk while the lecturer lectured, I could trick myself into going to bed with a false feeling of accomplishment.
But alas, the place was packed -- the lecturer, a senior editor at the Atlantic Monthly and former terrorism researcher for the Rand Corporation, was discussing current events and ways in which a monthly magazine could cover Important News that changes daily. The building's layout being what it is, no one not already there for the lecture would feel comfortable, or really even be physically able, with all those people and chairs in the way, to browse the stacks. And the lecture was pretty interesting. So no Boudicca for me.
I stayed to help clean up, got home, watched a recording of tonight's Tick episode (a step up from last week's), and read some of the dispatches photocopied from this month's Atlantic Monthly which the lecturer had mentioned. So while I now know how the PLO got rid of its most violent wing - Black September - when the PLO first started gaining some political legitimacy and their terrorists became a liability (they set up a social mixer with eligible girls, married them off, and found them non-violent jobs: no, really), I can't evaluate Plantagenet Somerset Fry's work as useful or -less.
And obviously I am not currently doing anything to change that.
(The real hell of it is that the lecturer pretty much told the whole story already, and I didn't really need to read it...)
But if I try to study late at night, now that I'm all old and stuff, I just fall asleep. (I can, however, muster the energy to try fruitlessly to make java-based games work for hours past the witching hour, apparently.)
