Friday, August 19, 2005

Serious Emotional Blockage

1.

I have nine folders on my hard drive with the label "Job Search" followed by a date. I have made some effort to search for academic work on the national market every year since 1997. One of the things I am supposed to do today is create the document where I list all the jobs I want to apply for, their addresses and deadlines. I just can't bear to even hit "create document." The whole thing just makes me feel sad and queasy.

2.

Like many people, I use my email inbox as a sort of to-do list. I keep messages there from people who expect things from me as reminders that they are out there, expecting things from me. Right now I only have five messages in my inbox, which is quite low. I could clear the whole thing out today, were it not for one message, from Fred Adams, saying I need to put my essay "The Other Value in the GMO Debate" in final form for publication. The task is fairly routine, but I'm finding it weirdly daunting. I cited a bunch of government documents in the essay, and the federal government has this habit of rearranging its websites every six months, so that you can't find any of the official documents you used to link to. Oh, and also, I need to update information on soy subsidies. I don't want to do any of this.

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