The cool kids are posting their to-do lists, some with progress reports. Here's mine from Tuesday:
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Drive colleague to airport.[The new guy—yes, we got him!] Grim conversation on the uselessness of his destination conference. Cheerful conversation on all the local taboos he's planning to violate, ones that really needed to be violated. -
Deposit checks. [Mostly medical savings account reimbursements.]
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Mail in medical savings account receipts.
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Call Dr. Brash's office.[To find out how to get my HSG films.] Called while parked at Departures. When the receptionist said, "Uh, probably you should call radiology, but I don't have their number," I gave up and drove off before security could detonate my car. -
Talk to Annajane's case manager. [To tell him that she didn't get an SSD check this month, and that the Daisyfield manager thus "extorted" a check for the full rent from Annajane directly.] I left him voice mail on Sunday afternoon. We've been playing phone tag since.
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Call radiology department.They were perfect angels, put me on hold and dug up the film right away, and I should have just driven straight there from the airport. Would have saved many miles of driving. -
Reserve hotel in New York.[For upcoming Cornell appointment.] I called too late for the Helmsley Tower, so we'll down by 51st and Lex. -
Reserve B & B in Maui. [Yes, we're leaving in 5 days and haven't fully planned our lodging. Whee!]
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Pick up Granolan admissions flyers.[For Marina's daughter, my Trinidadian step-cousin, who's gunning for the big leagues—like the real Cambridge—but why shouldn't she try applying here? And Marina did ask me.] -
Find books for Nanna.[She's been asking. I didn't send anything for her birthday this year.] Alas, our local bookstore is showing signs of financial problems. Again. Lots of empty shelf space. -
Work on abstract and bio for upcoming talk.[Need to do before we leave on vacation, although the talk's not for months.] I'm kind of trying to Boice myself back into doing work. Sitting still for a few minutes before I start writing, small goals, et cetera. I have very mixed feelings about Boice's approach, mostly because of his stronger-than-just-metaphoric analogy between bipolar disorder and poor work habits. (That's right, take two of my biggest fears and intertwine them for me!) The man got me my dissertation published, though, despite my being too afraid of his book to finish it. Also: my working title for the talk really displays my pathetic MLA envy. I've got to tone it down. -
Assemble box to ship to Weatherwood.[With flyers and books.] I called Ricky to check whether anyone would be there to receive the box, since Nanna's too frail to answer the door now. Listened to 15 minutes of him feeling sorry for himself because of how bad Nanna feels. But he is living there with her, helping her walk to the bathroom, cooking dinner, and listening is really not all that hard.
Notice the poor work/family/working-on-family balance. I can't believe it's August. Mid-August, even.
I'm a big Boice fan too--I've never really finished his books, either, but my big professional goal is to Boiceify myself. I feel that that way sanity lies (metaphorically speaking).
Posted by: bitchphd | Wednesday, August 11, 2004 at 03:04 PM