Update

First, a bit of an update: The summer plans did work out. Writing all summer paid off. That article is now published! And almost as soon as it was out, it got me an invitation to an exclusive symposium at an Ivy, which I am really looking forward to attending. 

Another major milestone is the submission of my Third Year Review File. The process of putting together the file was nothing short of excruciating, especially by the end of it. I'm a perfectionist, and we have a manual that is 20 pages long describing how to put the file together! The combination of those two meant that I was in my office up until the last second, trying to get everything to look fabulous.I still have doubts about the file - have I done enough?- but, I'm just so glad that it is out of my hands.

For the next two weeks, I'm working on an article that I put down at the end of the semester, to tackle grant submissions and then put together the third year review file. Now, I can finally get back to what I really want to work on. Unfortunately, these are some very grading-intensive weeks for the courses I'm teaching. I am staring down a giant stack of essays that need grading. And we have a conference in my department this weekend. 

Time management continues to be a challenge. I want to re-calibrate my sleep patterns and get to bed earlier, to extract more time from my mornings, when I am most productive. Maybe I can start setting up the coffee maker the night before, and get into campus by 7.30am. Hopefully this will give me a boost to generate some writing in the next two weeks.