Unfinished business
I worked on many different things, but it feels like nothing got finished.
- I tried to clear out my email inbox, but it’s not done yet. I got down to 42 = one page. Not too bad, I guess.
- I tried to figure out what my summer looks like, so I sent off a few emails about deadlines and access to materials. During the semester I travel regularly to Princeton, and use part of the day to trawl through the digital library. As a visitor, that’s the way the cookie crumbles for access, and I don’t mind. But now’s not normal and now I am stalled in some aspects of my research where I need to trawl through a few databases and download articles from East Asian language journals. I hope the summer isn’t spent begging friends in various locations to transfer files to me.
- I tried to get a few things up on the site for Pressbooks, since I am using that platform for two courses this semester. The page is still in draft as of this writing.
- I had aimed to give feedback to students but didn’t even get anywhere near starting. (Sorry, students!)
- I cobbled together a three-course dinner: two leftovers that weren’t enough for a full meal, and some pan-fried toufu. Never got round to eating the millet I cooked to go with it, but I’ll take care of that tomorrow.
- I wanted to tidy up the kitchen. I was most of the way through, then noticed the overripe bananas and decided they needed to be dealt with. The kitchen now looks like a battlefield and I’m not in the mood to do much about it.
- Flute practice was minimalistic, and I definitely did not feel I finished anything over the two weeks since my previous lesson.
One of the reasons is that I had two social Zooms today. But it was important to be with people and talk, about what summer and beyond looks like, and how we are all dwelling in uncertainty about the Fall. Sometimes I start to wonder if it’s only in my head that all the problems and complications live, but these conversations show I’m far from alone.
And I’m about to have banana bread, I did two loads of laundry, and I did my manuscript productivity pomodoro and am now at 666 consecutive days. So some things got done. Just not quite the ones I thought I would, and sometimes a to-do list is simply no match for what happens on the ground. Tomorrow is another day for another list, hopefully a bit more on target because I have a ton of stuff to get through yet. With banana bread in hand, of course.