To Procrastination and Back Again: A LaTina's Tale

so, here i am again. posting away when i really don't have much to say. but somehow words always seem to pour out once i get started. today, you can join me in my ponderings of the days/weeks ahead. something rather odd has happened to me in the last few days. i went from procrastinating my way to the top to working my ass off amid mucho frustration, all the way back to the familiar act of putting everything off. the thing is, i don't really have much to put off or anything especially exciting to take the place of actual work. today's activites: the inane, boring tasks of laundry and housecleaning. and these everyday chores are only keeping me from putting on paper the research plans that keep invading my thoughts. so, maybe i'm not procrastinating at all right now. i keep thinking about the things i'm supposed to be thinking about. i'm formulating a plan. i have a pretty solid idea of how the research needs to go this summer and what things i need to look for. i just haven't written anything down yet. and i haven't looked up the papers that dr. v. recommended. i did email dr. heck and invite him to next week's meeting. i also (as directed) asked if he could meet with me prior to next week's group meeting so i can get him up to speed. but, i have yet to receive a reply. so, no need to put a whole lot of thought into that meeting yet. anyway, once i write down the lovely little research thoughts that are dancing in my head, i won't have to do anything else to prepare for a meeting w/ dr. heck. all these face-to-face meetings...would an email not accomplish the same thing? oh well. it's not like meetings are keeping me from anything important.

is this what life is going to be like for the next three weeks? i think i'm going to go crazy. really, i should be used to all this down time by now. but i'm not. at this time last year, i was crazy for a different reason. i was super-busy, completely overloaded. at the end of last year's spring semester, i was making final wedding plans, preparing for four fairly intense final exams, finalizing my senior thesis, preparing final grades for the two labs i taught, hyping myself up for graduation, and still working in the lab. practically every minute was scheduled. and now? i have more free time than i know what to do with. so, i have reached the conclusion that i have no choice but to fill my time void by re-reading dr. v.'s comments on my proposal, reading the papers he referred to, and writing down my ideas. otherwise, i'll make myself nuts. there's only so much tv i can watch, so many books i can read, so many household chores i can do, so much time i can spend in the gym before i become certifiably insane. so, it's time to get off my ass (my physical ass as well as my metaphorical ass this time) and actually get things done instead of just writing about it.