It has been a while since I felt inundated by work. I'm currently grading student papers, applying for grants, processing archival photos from August and entering them in my database, transcribing oral history interviews, and taking an online class to learn more about corpus linguistics. The past few days, I've fallen into the trap of trying to finish up my to-do list before sitting down to work on my dissertation. I'm utterly seduced by the prospect of completing these tasks and clearing off my desk. It's borne from a nostalgia for the summer, when I only had my dissertation to focus on. Alas, that is no longer the case, and I do not want to make the naive mistake of thinking that this summer was the norm--it was very much the exception to the rule. So tomorrow I'm making a point of starting my day with 2 hours of work on the dissertation before turning to my myriad other tasks and responsibilities. I will unbury myself, but it will not be at the expense of the work I love.