Bad Idea

I know a project is a bad idea when I come up with it when I have other things I'm supposed to be doing. In my younger life, these projects were entirely and obviously inconsequential. If I had an essay to write, it suddenly became necessary for me to organize my CDs. But at least then I knew I was wasting time. As I've grown older, my "procrastination projects" have developed a patina of professional justification, which makes the illusion of their significance much harder to see through. When I have an article or conference paper deadline, this always seems like the best time to start work on a book on the epic poem from Homer to Pound. If I have a mountain of grading to do, this is clearly the moment for me to collect and collate data on the job listings at the academic jobs wiki.

Or, when it's the end of the semester and I have final papers to grade, final grades to calculate and submit, and enough committee work to choke a bureaucrat, this is obviously the best time to start a blog.

This is a bad idea. My rational brain knows that I am spending the time playing with blog templates and color schemes and imagining topics for future posts simply because I'm tired of looking at essays and grade books and applications and proposals and everything else I've been staring at for the last several months. And my rational brain knows that projects begun under such circumstances tend to get dropped as quickly as they are taken up (see, e.g., my last attempt at blogging). But my rationalizing brain says that it will be summer shortly, and having an outlet for some structured-but-not-entirely-formal writing could prove useful; and, besides, says the rationalizing brain, I have lots to say about teaching, about research, and about academic life in general. My rational brain is either too exhausted or too apathetic to win this fight, and so shrugs, hands the keys to the rationalizing brain, and wanders off to find a glass a scotch.

So this is a bad idea I'm running with for now, against my better judgment and without a clear sense of direction beyond what the title of this blog, "Reflections on an Academic Life," suggests.