I find myself in a place where I am overwhelmed with good things. My article on A Game at Chess has been accepted by ROMARD for their December 2011 issue. I’ve been asked to submit an essay to the NTRMS volume on REED. I’m chairing three panels at RSA on Digital Pedagogy and Early Modern Studies. I’m chairing the DHSI 2012 colloquium as well as co-teaching a DHSI course on Digital Pedagogy. I continue to work on imageMAT. I’m working on proposals to edit Henry VIII for ISE and reinforce the connections between the Tarlton Project and REED. This on top of teaching three sections of London City Comedy and an independent study course with two students that ties into the AFI database project. Plus all the Brittain Fellow responsibilities. Not to mention trying to prepare for the job market.
All of these are very good things – exciting, challenging, beneficial to my career as a scholar. But they are also causing me significant stress and anxiety. I am prioritizing my priorities and getting to the point where my usual approaches to time management are not working. I’m also entering that place where I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop – if things are good, then they will be bad. So I better take advantage of every opportunity I can while I can. I don’t want to feel this way, but it’s there and I can’t shake it. I must confess: it’s exhausting.
On that note, I’d better get cracking: while my to-do list has well over ten items listed for today, I’m trying to focus on three (course prep, NTRMS essay review, imageMAT bookmarklet analysis) to be sure that at least something gets accomplished.
So why am I taking the time to write this post?