Well, folks, like it or not, I'm going on vacation. Kinda. I'm headed off to Puddletown in an hour to visit family & friends for a week. I love being in Puddletown, and I have fun meetings planned with friends and relations, but with only five weeks to go on my revisions, I wish I would have thought this out a bit more, and planned my trip for later, so that I could relax a bit. But I'll do what I can.
Some of you of a certain age may remember an old "You know you're a grad student when..." list that made the rounds on e-mail (back in the days of Pine -- remember Pine?), and one of the clues went: "...when guilt is an inherent feature of relaxation." I guess that just never really goes away.
6 comments:
Enjoy the trip to Puddletown!
I'm guessing this isn't the Puddletown in Dorset, England, where I used to go to school....
You need to convert "guilt" into an acknowledgement that you have outstanding projects, and you always will. We all do, though, right? A book review that's 2 months overdue, article revisions you've been meaning to get to, another book or chapter of a book to write...
My theory is that when my desk and e-mail in-box are totally cleared, I'll be dead. So, keep saying yes and overbooking yourself--it may be the only thing that's keeping you alive!
Enjoy your vacation--read a few novels on those rainy days, hang out too long at a coffee shop or bar with an old friend. You need your rest and relaxation, too, right?
Sometimes you have to just *make* yourself forget about stuff for a while. Have a good trip home.
"My theory is that when my desk and e-mail in-box are totally cleared, I'll be dead." - Now, that's a good way of looking at things!
Don't let that child run into the traffic!
The work will get done. It always gets done. So, enjoy your time with your family, &c. We all know you can do everything you need to do.
An alternative (not necessarily better, but an alternative) is to reconcile yourself to the fact that you will always feel that guilt, sometimes enriched by meta-guilt for not feeling sufficiently guilty. A revered tradition among us rootless cosmopolitans.
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