Back on track?

I've been struggling to get myself into the right head-space for a few days now. Ever since the deadlines passed things have been kind of adrift. Not bad, just floating. I've done a few things which are productive, which makes me feel good (I finished knitting the April Showers scarf!) - but left with time on my hands I just end up thinking to much.

Which does me no good at all.

There is a difference between thinking about a problem constructively and coming to terms with it or solving it - and dwelling needlessly on this that or the other. Also there are times when someone who is emphatically not who I am starts voicing negative opinions in my head. That's when I find myself talking to myself while walking dully along and I think it's a bad sign.

So today I am back in the Keble Library. A book which I ordered for my dissertation work arrived and I dipped into it a little just now (I love the idea of 'dipping' into a book, like slipping toes into the water's edge when sitting on a pier), and it's really well written and stimulating. The book in question is Seven Words You Can't Say on Television (read a review here), by Steven Pinker - published by Penguin 2008 (actually an extract from The Stuff of Thought).

Now I am going to go and take some notes while reading this - and think about our mini in-house conference in week 3 of Trinity term, where all of us MSt students are going to give a short paper on our research.

I look forward to swearing profusely, with impunity.