Book Progress #44

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Lately it has been difficult to work up the motivation to work on the book. My free time is so fragmented that I rarely have the ability to sit down and concentrate on what I'm doing for more than an hour or so. The fact that it gets dark by about 4:30 does not help, either, as it makes me feel that the day is essentially over even though I have a few hours (depending on the day) to work. I really do hate autumn and the winter here.

My wife does not let me get away with moping around the apartment, though, and at her behest I worked for about two hours last night. I honestly do not think that I would be able to work on this project without her support and encouragement. Knowing myself (and what I have done in the past), I would probably write about about 2 chapters, decide that it was all rubbish, and give up if not for her insitence that I am capable of writing something worthwhile.

Indeed, there is nothing so disrupting for me than a fall college semester. I am constantly running in and out of the apartment, eating meals when I can fit them in at odd hours, working three full days a week, and generally feel run down at the end of the day despite a lack of any real physical effort. The near future is not giving me much reason to hope that things will be better, either. I'm going to have to take a year's worth of physics during the summer to finish my degree, and once I graduate I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't imagine any graduate program that would take me at this point, and should I find a job it will probably be another temporary job that wears me down. There are more closed doors than open ones.

This project is more than a hobby or something I simply enjoy doing during my free time. I have been working at it, even agonizing over it, for so long because it holds some small opportunity to help me do what I want to do with my life. I have not had a conventional education by any means, and it is difficult for me to escape the mistakes I made, but I am desperately trying to overcome my own past. I can't go backward, only forward, and this book has the potential to get me headed in a better direction. The hard part is pushing through the self-doubt and finishing it.

Here is the Wordle for the last iteration of the human evolution chapter;

title="Wordle: Human Evo"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/322868/Human_Evo"
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For previous posts dealing with this project, see the "Books" and "Great Book Project" archives.

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One of my niece's teachers gave her class some practical encouragement: there will be days when you won't finish an assignment because there aren't enough hours in the day.
Sounds like logistics have more dampening effects on writing than self-doubt. We should all be so lucky to have our Brin-like clay clones handling the nitty gritty so that the important work can get a priority.
You're up against a DailyKos sponsored candidate in the scholarship contest, alas. If science in the US is at the start of better times, you're on the right track. Courage.

I think I mentioned this before, but be sure you take the Graduate Record Exam. I received my BS while on scholastic probation and graduated with a low C average. I was provisionally accepted into an MS program on the basis of my GRE schores, and the rest is history, and today I am an Emeritus Professor of Zoology.

If you plan, plot, scheme, work smart, and never give up, they can't stop you.

By Jim Thomerson (not verified) on 18 Nov 2008 #permalink

What's physics doing in a biology degree? I had minimal math in mine, a bit of biochemistry, but no physics. That must be the difference in degree programs in the UK and the US I guess.

Minimal requirements for admission to medical school are something like one or two years of biology, one year of english, one year of physics, one year of calculus,and two years of chemistry, with more science and math recommended. So many (most?) biology BS programs include similar requirements.

By Jim Thomerson (not verified) on 19 Nov 2008 #permalink

You should know that, having shamelessly stolen the name after a previous mention, our new rescue kitten is also called Huxley. he also has a cute.