Sunday Stuff

• I'm suffering from acute restlessness. This is typical for me at this time of year. I'm tired of spending a lot of time indoors. I'm also bored with Albany. We haven't gone anywhere since the holidays and I'm feeling claustrophobic.

• I'm also suffering from a more persistent sense of restlessnes. I haven't been out of the country in a long time. I was scheming to put together a research trip to Europe this summer, but it's probably not going to pan out. The hardest part of balancing my various work obligations and balancing work and personal life is fitting in long-term travel. It's hard for me to justify spending a couple of months out of the country when (a) I have a ton of writing to do that probably won't get done if I'm traveling and (b) I feel bad about leaving my husband behind. At the same time, I study Europe, so it's also problematic not to go there regularly.

• I'm reading a great inspirational memoir, Three Cups of Tea, about a mountain climber who nearly dies climbing K2 and then dedicates his life to building schools in the inhospitable terrain of northern Pakistan in thanks to the very hospitable people who saved his life. It is contributing to my general sense of restlessness. While I value what I do for a living and the contributions I make to society (particularly educating America's youth), I often feel a calling to a less traditional path of social change.

• To write a book or to not write a book -- that is the current pressing question. Some departments are book departments and some are article departments. I was trained in a book department, but my current place of employment is clearly article driven. It would really be nice if it didn't matter -- they are after all just different forms of scholarship. In reality, it matters a lot and this has become crystal clear in my current position. If I plan to go up for tenure here, it would probably be best to just focus on articles. And yet, I've been brewing a book idea for a while and I can't seem to let it go. I'm leaning toward taking the risk, partly because it's hard to say what kind of department I'll end up in given the fluidity of academia. I'm also stubborn and I don't like catering to institutional constraints that I believe are somewhat arbitrary. If I don't travel this summer, and it looks like I probably won't, then I will likely work on a book prospectus. Come what may.

• On a lighter note, I was eager to test out a new internet quiz that's been popular in the blogosphere since I haven't done one in a while. The What Time of Day Are You? quiz turned out to be a disappointment when it declared that I was "breakfasty" when I most certainly am not.