working hard

I have to remind myself that I'm working hard. I'm so old school - if I'm home, if I can't see the concrete results of my work right away, it just doesn't feel like work! But here I am slogging through the IRB proposal... I'm sending it out to Santa Barbara today - If I understand the procedure correctly, they only review applications once a month, so this won't be done until mid-late Nov.

I also need to call my dean - who has STILL not responded to my proposal yet!!!! I'm hoping that I can send it out to my second reader and external examiner (yes, that is now resolved... I have an expert!) this week.

Then they have 30 days...

Meanwhile, I'm going to try to start sending out feelers for interviewees.

what a mess! I am so angry at how long this takes. It's just such a disempowering process. You are constantly reminded of how your ability to move forward lies completely in someone else's hands.

If I can stop whining about it - there are several other things I "should" be working on. I need to clean up my home office. I have a guest coming in less than two weeks, and I have been seriously neglecting the space. Between my clutter and inertia, there are just piles of paper everywhere. I need to try to organize things a bit down there so that when she gets here, she will feel welcome and comfortable. I just have so much junk!!!! It's unbelievable. Maybe I can actually schedule some time to do that.

I also have this newsletter (for the non-profit that I volunteer for) to do!

And believe it or not, I still have 5 papers (!!!!) from my summer class. I need to focus and try to get some of these things done. Today, I've been working on the IRB and an essay about taking my grandmother to the met. I'm really trying to practice writing seriously, not just as a free-writing-improvisational- just because kind of thing, but as a disciplined, serious writer who wants her writing taken seriously. If I was going to submit this essay as a story for the New Yorker or something like that - what would it take? What does it need?

I also spent a bit of time last week thinking seriously about and then trying to turn my proposal into articles for professional journals...I'm not really sure how to do it. And while I don't have anything to show for it yet. This is real work and hard work... if only I can only take it serious as hard work, I'll feel less depressed and more solid about the fact that I really am working!

I just wish it didn't feel quite so much like navel-gazing... I recently read the blog of a woman who used to be in our book group but has recently moved to West Virginia, and I was so impressed with its loveliness, and its focus on something other than her own internal neurotic musings - probably because she's a lot less neurotic than I am! it's just more interesting!

ok... something to strive for.