Thursday, May 12, 2005
(2:57 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
On not working
I have temped a few days, this month, but I haven't worked at all this week. I have several possibilities for work lined up, so it's not going to be a matter of whether I'm living on the streets or not, but it is still nerve-wracking. I have a lot of difficulty concentrating on the tasks I've set myself. For instance, I probably could have mastered the whole of Quine this week with as much free time as I had, but instead I've walked around waiting for the phone to ring, or pouncing on the computer every time I get a notification for new e-mail (even though it's just comment 90% of the time), or chatting with people online about how I could possibly get an income stream going here.Still, at least one of my summer routines has begun this week, officially: teaching myself to read German in an hour a day. I've had this book (German Quickly by April Wilson) for quite some time now, having tried to teach myself German before. Having taken the Hyde Park French reading course, though, I realize that I was missing a crucial step the previous times I tried to teach myself languages: I absolutely have to write out the exercises. That slows me down to the point where I actually work through difficulties rather than assuring myself that I'll catch on eventually. I am also laboriously copying out verb conjugation charts and charts of the declination of the definite article, for instance. In a certain respect, that increases the amount I am doing compared to my previous method of simply reading and studying the text book; on the other hand, it gives a definite boundary to my work, such that I know when it's time to move on to the next chapter.
My other proposed routine of spending an hour a day in the early church fathers has proven more difficult to get going. I'm sure once I've finally pressed through Justin Martyr, it will be a lot better, but his Dialogue with Trypho is beyond boring. I also finally broke down and ordered the Nancy book after being told that the French don't really "do" review copies, so that will help me to keep up on the French, if I don't end up doing the Breton translation this summer. But once again, this post is an example of me killing time because I'm nervous about how I'm going to feed my paycheck addiction -- or else it's a way of focussing my thoughts so that I can salvage this day somewhat.
