Things This Week Has Taught Me

The last two weeks has been about paring down responsibilities to avoid Heather Overload/Spontaneous Combustion. I would love to be that person who always has a deadline and is just always ON. What I've realized this week, well, this whole semester really, is that I only get excited (and therefore productive) about things I'm passionate about. Creative writing, for instance. Deadlines don't stress me out--a huge amount of work that might need to go into revisions, really digging in--this causes me ZERO stress and ALL excitement. So, to recap this week (with a helpful scale of Awesome Vs. Not Awesome):

• Reading about interesting ideas (aka academic research)= Awesome, life affirming


• Being forced to synthesize those ideas into specific narrow thoughts and write a half-ass paper in a week = NOT Awesome


• Panic attacks = Not Awesome


• Dropping a class and cancelling academic conference paper presentation = AWESOME


• Attending aforementioned class on an Auditing basis just to talk about ideas with no stress= Awesome


• Tattoos = AWESOME


• Oh, and Tax Returns = Awesome

Conclusion: I love ideas. I love creative writing and art. I do not love academic writing, and when I go back to it for my thesis slowly over the next year, I'll do it on my terms, slowly, letting the passion for ideas manifest without hard deadlines. Also awesome this week: husbands, cute 6-yr-olds, and the internet (especially all you Apocalypsies!).