Sunday, March 27, 2011

On procrastination

I should have fallen out of bed this morning, donned cold-weather running garb and headed straight out the door for my long run, but in truth it just seemed too gray and chilly to bear! I know I warm up quickly once I'm out there, but temperatures in the 20s do give me a problem with asthma, so it was not wholly rationalization that I decided coffee and breakfast and work would be preferable, and that I would run once it had warmed up a bit...

The crucial thing for me to have a productive morning is not to while away the hours on the internet, so I withstood the temptation to turn on the computer and instead had a morning of massive and useful productivity while lying flat on my belly in bed (I find the horizontal position more conducive to thinking than any other): I finished marking the assignments from my drama students (good thing too, as I also have a full set of papers from my other class to comment on for tomorrow), I finished reading a very good book (I have a 1600-word review of it and one other - finished that one earlier in the week - due on Friday), I finished rereading Dryden's All for Love and wrote my lecture for tomorrow.

Still have to reread The Sorrows of Young Werther and deal with that other set of essays, but I will have no time later for grading later as I am meeting my Texas brother and his family at a Brooklyn beer garden mid-afternoon. I can read Goethe on the subway, but an early morning of frenetic work will be in order tomorrow, I think, because the most important thing now is to get out the door for that run before any more minutes spill through my fingers...

3 comments:

  1. You sound like a fellow (fellowette?) putterer. I can easily kill several hours when I enter my putter zone, which is very easy to do.

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  2. I just got back from a run that I had to convince myself into, for similarly weather-related reasons. (Though we at least have bright sun!) It was worth it: five minutes of irritation followed by thirty-five minutes of good running.

    I'm going to have to try the Montaigne book again. I started it months ago and found myself setting it aside again and again, but you're far from the only person I trust who liked it, and I do love Montaigne.

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  3. There is something very bizarre about reading Goethe on the subway; something vaguely fantastical about it. A DWJ moment?

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