so what DID I actually do today

Since I spent most of my day yesterday reading blogs and thinking about how to respond to the post-doc discussion without doing any serious post-doc' ing at all I thought I should get my act together today.

I do not teach this week and this fact alone should free up oodles of time for research and writing and serious scholarship. But the thing is that when one is not submerged in teaching, one is submerged in all the other things one doesn't have time for when teaching. Since cramming in a weeks lectures on a grad student course on top of my regular teaching a couple of weeks ago, the list of things undone has grown larger and larger by the hour. So what I do at the moment is - the art of catching up.

I am one of these hyper-organized people who can't commit to anything if it's not written down on a list. Today's list contains: ordering flight tickets for two upcoming meetings, feedback to students on their research projects, application for access to data, upcoming research proposal, budget for upcoming research proposal, reimbursement of travel expenses from meeting last month and private stuff such as book dentist appointment and buy xx for Fiance for Christmas. The list is longer than that, but this is approximately the amount of things I believe in the morning, that I can carry out within a typical day. This turns out not to be true - every single day.

So what did I do today:

Send emails to friends in home country as suggest I come for a visit, when going to see my family anyway.

Deal with annoying situation with department head

Help one student print out an odd-sized map

Coach one student who hasn't started the months-long research project, yet (it is due in two weeks - why do people do this to themselves)

Write a preliminary version of application for data access

Had a long chat with colleague over lunch about the difficulties of being a foreigner here

Figured out how to get rid of horrible website provider (involved finding a bunch of old emails from last year, when this company tricked me into paying for one more year despite not having a website anymore)

Write budget for research proposal

Check traffic on my blog MANY times (it is only one week old - I am still super curious to see who stops by)

Check track and trace number of package containing new laptop in the mail MANY times

Find recipe for dinner on internet

Write all this

And I wonder why I am not being more productive....