What ideally happens to your laptop...
This latest PhD comic resonated with me. I wonder if we have all done it before?
It makes me giggle, but I know from personal experience that when I bring my laptop and tonnes of reading on a trip with me, it's because I really, truly, think that I'll get stuff done.
And what IF I hit a lull during the trip, where I -could have- gotten so much done but didn't bring anything? I'd really regret it then, wouldn't I?
Or would I?
Grad school is a haven for masochists like myself who possess an overdeveloped sense of responsibility/guilt. I attribute it to my "Triple C"(tm) upbringing -- Confucianism, Catholic-schooled father, and Confusion. But perhaps you almost need that ability to self-flagellate in order to get long term, big goals accomplished in what is a really isolating, self-directed experience much of the time.
At the very least, the ethnographer in me ends up compulsively documenting everything in the strange land I'm visiting at that point--reflections, ruminations, revelry. The latest example of this is the trip I just did to Harrison Hot Springs (BC's little spa town) where I started snapping photos because of a deep-seated need to 'document' it. Four shots in, Spouse Tom actually said to me, "You don't need to document everything. Just relax and enjoy it."
That just seems so.... unproductive.
What a concept.
Technorati Tags: Laptop, PhD, comics, goals, Confucianism, Catholics, flagellation, ethnography, documentation.
It makes me giggle, but I know from personal experience that when I bring my laptop and tonnes of reading on a trip with me, it's because I really, truly, think that I'll get stuff done.
And what IF I hit a lull during the trip, where I -could have- gotten so much done but didn't bring anything? I'd really regret it then, wouldn't I?
Or would I?
Grad school is a haven for masochists like myself who possess an overdeveloped sense of responsibility/guilt. I attribute it to my "Triple C"(tm) upbringing -- Confucianism, Catholic-schooled father, and Confusion. But perhaps you almost need that ability to self-flagellate in order to get long term, big goals accomplished in what is a really isolating, self-directed experience much of the time.
At the very least, the ethnographer in me ends up compulsively documenting everything in the strange land I'm visiting at that point--reflections, ruminations, revelry. The latest example of this is the trip I just did to Harrison Hot Springs (BC's little spa town) where I started snapping photos because of a deep-seated need to 'document' it. Four shots in, Spouse Tom actually said to me, "You don't need to document everything. Just relax and enjoy it."
That just seems so.... unproductive.
What a concept.
Technorati Tags: Laptop, PhD, comics, goals, Confucianism, Catholics, flagellation, ethnography, documentation.
posted by Florence Chee, PhD at 11:09 AM
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