Tried and tired

I have always loved to write. Not so much in the artistic sense of writing a novel (although that crossed my mind several times until I was about twenty, an English major, and realized that all the greatest writers were dead before their work was recognized...), but more in terms of committing my thoughts and ideas into words. It's one of the reasons why I devote so much time to this blog- to feed the narcissistic desire in me to inflict my writing- of great import or otherwise- on the unsuspecting world. But lately, the process has just been getting increasingly difficult. Maybe it's got to do with being completely exhausted from writing my mammoth 60-page prelim paper over summer (that I only just recovered from), or having written so many different iterations of my dissertation proposal that I don't think I can be coherent about it anymore, or perhaps just sheer academic fatigue (I've been in school for 20 years, people!). Thinking of the next two years and how much more writing I have ahead of me used to be an almost thrilling prospect, but right now, the idea of it makes me want to just crawl under the blanket and not wake up till 2009.

It's just been one of those weeks...

Calvin: I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog! Want to see my book report?

Hobbes: (Reading Calvin's paper) "The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes."

Calvin: Academia, here I come!

-Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson