Quick Break from Writing & Research

Even after nearly 15 years, this track still hits. "Love Somebody Else" by Maceo Plex and Jon Dasilva (feat. Joi Cardwell) pulls you out of your head and back into your body. A perfect reset when the writing starts to drag, a reminder of what music can do that language can’t.

I’ve never been one to procrastinate, often starting my papers for courses as soon as classes begin.

I’m not one to procrastinate, usually starting my papers as soon as classes begin.

I’m not one to procrastinate, typically starting my papers as soon as classes begin.

I’m a slow writer. Worse, I obsessively go down research rabbit holes, getting so lost that I forget why I started the search in the first place. My papers tend to be too ambitious, to the point of near drowning and dark fantasies of total deletion. You know, Armageddon-level overwhelm, where all you can do is either freeze or faint.

I tend to get hung up on how sentences can be structured.

I find myself getting stuck on the many ways a sentence can be put together.

I fixate on how sentences might be reworded.

That’s when music saves the day. It’s a real somatic reset. It gets you out of your head and into your body, especially toward the end of a writing assignment, when proofreading becomes an exercise in madness. Is that clause actually subordinate, or leaning dom? Did that phrase modify the noun, or just dive off the edge of the syntax? Bad grammar jokes aside, I’m so ready for the end of the semester.

Words behave more like abstractions, passages of hieroglyphics... Does any of this make sense?

Writing sucks  

Writing blows 

Writing...

plop.

Currently proofreading this 26-page paper, part two of my proposal draft for my dissertation proposal next semester. Part one was 16 pages and due earlier this semester. This one is due tomorrow.

This paper is for the Psychology of Death & Dying course, a fitting close, on so many levels, to my coursework before entering the dissertation phase next semester. The title for the paper is just a placeholder for ideas. It isn’t due until mid-May, so I still have some time. With references, it’s already at 29 pages.