Some things never change.
I am currently on a 'mid semester break'. I have two essays due in the first week back, and a third due the following week. Right now I should be head down, bum up working on my Mark essay (due on the Monday of the first week back), so that I can then start work on my Theological Issues essay (due on the Friday of that week), and then get stuck into my Ruth essay (due the Wed of the following week, although this deadline is elastic, and could stretch to the following week).
But what am I doing? Sitting here writing in my blog. And what did I spend an hour or so doing yesterday? Cleaning up my front courtyard ... sweeping up all the fallen leaves, twigs, bits of bark and other crap that has fallen from the trees into my yard, making the path to my door rather 'crunchy'. (And of course because last night we had high winds, which have continued throughout today, the yard now looks as if I never did anything to it, as there are heaps more leaves, twigs and crunchy bits everywhere.)
And I haven't really made a lot of progress on my Mark essay.
Tomorrow night, I have some friends coming for dinner, so that will require me to do at least a cursory tidy up of the living room, so that my flat looks presentable for visitors... although I have decided on a roast for dinner, so that will be fairly easy and won't require a huge amount of preparation time.
What is it about things we have to do that create such a mental block to actually doing them? I love to write, and can churn out thousands of reasonably articulate words on just about any topic without a great deal of effort... but when it comes to writing an essay or assignment for my studies, no matter how much I enjoy the subject, or how much I am excited by the essay topic, it is such a hard slog to discipline myself to sit down, and actually write the damn thing.
Of course, once I get over that barrier, I then have trouble limiting myself to the word limit (at this stage most of my essays have a max 2000 word limit). Most of you familiar with my writing will recognise that I'm just starting to warm up after 2000 words... so I find it devillishly difficult to express all I want to say in so few words.
A friend of mine (another ministry candidate, who tends to average High Distinction grades, thus leaving me behind a bit academically) was opining recently that he seems to have the opposite problem to me when it comes to writing essays. He writes very concisely and deliberately, and the words don't flow easily, so he finds it very hard to wring out all the words needed to achieve the word limit. Maybe I need to read some of his past essays (esp the ones that get really high grades) to see how he manages to be so concise, and maybe learn from his strategies and techniques.
But saying that isn't getting my current essay written... I think I need to get back into it... but will just make a quick coffee first :-)
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