20120129.1429

I have been working on my dissertation, trying to finish it up so that I can defend this semester and at long last get my playa-hatin' degree awarded.  I got a couple of pages written already today, and I am tracking down materials to write more.  It annoys, because I thought I would actually be able to get away with working from home today; and now that I realize that's not going to happen, it's really too late for me to get anywhere from whence I can actually gather the materials I would use.

Blast.

Things have been productive this weekend, though.  In addition to the (insufficient amount of) work I have gotten done so far today, I was able to go get my passport application put in yesterday.  I am planning on taking a trip overseas in the summer, and so I am glad to have gotten at least that one bit of work towards that end done.  And, as ever, my head is bubbling with ideas of other projects for me to undertake.  It is one of the things that tells me I am very much in the right line of work, that I cannot work on one thing without other projects coming to mind from my doing so.  Work on the dissertation points me to other things I might be well-served to do (after the dissing is done, of course).  Contemplation of those things in idle moments when I realize I need to go get more materials but am not in a good position to be able to do so leads me to other ideas for projects.

Scholarship is a vocation, not simply a job, folks.  And I am glad that I have had the luxury and resources to pursue that calling in my lifetime.  More, I am glad to be in a position to be able to earn a living from doing so, rather than having to pursue it as a hobby with an uncertain sustainability.  I know that it is a very middle-class thing to have had working in academia as a major life goal, and my contentment in it is surely a marker of how much among the unmarked population I am.