03 January, 2010

new beginnings

October to January is only four months, right? That beats 7! Maybe I can actually do this this year... or something more resembling a blog than a sporadic mind-dump.

2010... a year of potential and possibility... a year that's starting off just like grad school all over again. I am starting a new job right now (yes, it IS Sunday, but when your first deadline is the 10th and you have 30 pages of content to create, every day counts), and my new job has me working from home in my bedroom at the same desk I have been finishing my homework since I was in junior high school. The bedroom has changed, the furniture has not. I love this desk, but I don't like being an adult and working in my bedroom in the same general living configuration as being an adolescent in a family home.

There might be perks to working at home, but I assure you most of the people who espouse these perks are either living some alternate utopian lifestyle OR they have already made enough money (or their spouse/partner has) to allow them to not be share-renting a house with three other people and living such that the only available work space is the same room they sleep in. I have literally returned to my adolescence. What I wouldn't give for employment stability, steady income, respect and enough wage to afford rent in my own space, or at least a slightly less-shared space. If I could share this sort of space with two other people instead of three, or a smaller space with only one other person, I would have room to spread out, and we wouldn't all be bumping elbows.

Sunday work, although potentially joyfully productive, is mired in the difficulties of everyone staying at the house. Everyone staying at home means the couches, coffee and kitchen tables are NOT work spaces, and that there more than likely is some form of raucousness going on... which is not in itself a bad thing. But it is a completely other thing when attempts to work are interrupted by roommate mating habits. AND Sunday means that the best I can hope to achieve outside of the house is a bustling coffee shop; the libraries just aren't open, particularly immediately after the holidays. I'm not prepared for that just yet. My new laptop is still too new (protective plastic coating still on the external cover), I don't want to spill a latte on it (EVER!) and I just can't figure out the logistics of working on a paper, with supplementary resources all around me while working in a public space with small, cute, round cafe tables.

At this pace, I shall find myself back in the cavernous arts library at the University starting tomorrow. The heating works better, the hushed din of academic conspiracy drowns out random thought, and it is much easier to dive into productivity than it is in my bedroom with the stacks of laundry, unread books and dusty windowsill begging for a good cleaning. I still cannot understand how my motivation for completing this project on time (in addition to earning money) includes the perk of "I can clean once I'm finished!" Obviously I am desperate to do just about anything besides my work. ... like blogging.

Anyway, roommate resentment aside, I ought to get back to work. I just need to find myself some appropriate white noise with which to drown out the moans and giggles (yes, seriously). The work I am doing is really compelling. It's about all the things I like to discuss and learn about: ecosystems, wildlife, biodiversity, conservation, climate change, human development etc. ... and the potential impact of this particular document is much greater than anything else I have ever worked on or contributed to, even the godawful paper I've published in the Forestry Chronicle industry journal.

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