Freedom and Responsibility

I'm back from judo tonight, sipping a nice cold Coke Zero and meditating on the fact that my right forearm will soon consist of more bruise-colored skin than skin-colored skin.

I should have gotten work done today, but I didn't. I went clothes shopping instead for the first time in probably 8 or 9 months and scored some great stuff for summer. Now my credit card is curled up in my sock drawer, weeping and pleading for mercy and threatening to set itself on fire. But whatever, because now I have shorts and more than one pair of jeans.

It's a little difficult to be consistent about getting work done. I work best in the library, especially in the afternoons and evenings, but the library closes at 10pm Monday - Thursday, and 6 (!)pm on Fridays and weekends. I can usually get some stuff done during the day, but between the fact that my desk is in my bedroom with all of its lovely distractions, and the beautiful weather that I can see out my window when I'm in the apartment, it's difficult to make myself do more than about 45 minutes at a time. Then there's also the issue that I've now made myself move on to the primary documents (read: seventeenth-century printed texts with weird spelling, weirder grammar, and all on the computer, like this) which just makes it harder to sit down and do stuff for large chunks of time.

But I'm getting through it. The subject is interesting even though the sources can be challenging to work with, and since it's a thesis I have the freedom to mold it however I want. It's daunting to think of it that way, but also nice to have so much flexibility going into the project. My supervisor (who is awesome, just saying) has basically told me that I've surpassed his area of expertise in terms of Irish context, so he can give me general pointers but as far as the actual content goes it's really my own project; I'm the only person in the department even coming close to this area of research. Pretty exciting, and it kind of makes me the go-to person for Reformation/early-modern stuff in Ireland, which has already landed me one guest lecture back in March and hopefully more to come. Maybe after I come back from Ireland I'll be able to wow the undergrads by lecturing in a fake Irish accent. Or something.

I'm going to go ice the hematoma which has been developing on my forearm since Wednesday night. I can't say I've ever had one there before.

Good night, everyone.