mid-February update

I don't have too much report for the past week or two.  I am still plugging away--little by little, research hour by research hour--on my current essay's revisions.  I have divided my remaining tasks into two big categories: (1) read a bunch of sources and add in some additional support for what I have already written, and (2) re-listen to eight albums of music that is the subject of the essay.  (The second task is the one that is more fun, so I am saving that one to do until the first is finished.)

So this morning I read and took notes on 50 pages of a relevant book.  I wish I could get this stuff done faster, but working three hours a week is better than no hours a week I suppose. . . .

At some point I want to reassess my long-term goals.  I haven't been composing any music for awhile.  I have just re-started The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.  I worked through this book in the summer of 2003--nearly nine years ago.  It was a gift I had received from a student I had in Chicago a few years back, and his intent was to help me reconnect with composition after a period of being blocked.  I am hopeful that working through Cameron's book again will help me to get back in touch with my CREATIVE self, infusing all that I do--teaching, research, and composition--with greater creativity.

  

the ever-dwindling research hour, or better 50 minutes than no minutes at all

So I got a slightly later start than I would have liked this morning--at 8:10 rather than 8:00.  So my research hour became a 50-minute research session.  But better 50 minutes than no minutes at all I suppose.

I kept working on revisions for my current essay, which I hope to submit somewhere for publication by the end of this month.  I have a list of things to tackle so the process is simple (but not easy).  It feels good to check things off a list.  And today I checked off six items that needed some sort of revision so that's good.

Back to it on Friday. . . .