Feeling: floundering
Listening to: windchimes
Reading/Watching: old teaching notes from last year. I once had a lot to say.

Now it's down to business.

I've put off working on my thesis for multiple reasons, the main one being "if I don't think about it, soon it will become too late and thereby perhaps go away."

I've actually done that, before. Avoided a problem/question/opportunity until suddenly it's out of my hands because so much time has passed, there's nothing to do about it anymore. I never get a favorable outcome from this, but at least it's an outcome that required no effort on my part.

So here I am, no longer working, done with my philosophy of "hey, this is my weekend, I'm allowed to have a good time," no longer able to dodge people's questions of "How's that thesis coming?" because technically it IS supposed to be coming. Or going. Somewhere.

But yesterday was so lovely/expensive, and I've just checked my bank balance and can no longer afford to have weekends like this past one without pulling on the savings I swore to leave alone, and if I wanted to stall for a few more hours there are several calls I could return, social visits I could make, and I spent an hour or so chatting with my roommate and catching up (because she's much more fun than homework), and now I've read my LJ-friendslist and checked my e-mail and there is nothing left to "get out of the way first." There's just. This big yawning-gaping-hole-of-a-project thing.

I'm getting that old sense of panic just before starting a long paper that I initially think I could never write. I got it before several music history papers. I panicked over the 20-page theology paper, as well as its 10-page predecessor. I dragged my feet and waited until 3 in the morning to write my world history final exam.

But this is my thesis. It is not something I can knock out in an evening. It requires forethought and research (which I've done), and it requires time budgeting and self-control (which I suck at).

Right now I want to clean my room, go exercise, read a book, watch TV, basically do anything else. And I know I can't make excuses for why that's okay, because if I start doing that today, it will never get done. The days and hours will slip sweetly away and school will start and I will have nothing to show for the past three months except for a bigger savings account, a still-happy boyfriend (it's especially difficult with him there, because mon coeur makes life a constant vacation, and nobody likes to work while on vacation), and perhaps a little extra muscle mass from my attempts at keeping a workout schedule. Even this journal entry is another mode of busyness-without-accomplishment.

For the moment I think I'll go exercise, just to get things started, and bring along one of my vocal pedagogy books to read on the bicycle. Perhaps I can forestall the panic by getting something accomplished.

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