My life = errands.

Sometimes I feel like I spend much more time doing necessary life things than other people. I probably don't, or maybe I do I am just really inefficient at them. Take today, for example. I got up and was out the door fairly quickly and on my way to York. Between 1 and 3pm I was busy there and then came home. By 4pm I was working again. But this means I ran errands like doing the dishes, filing, shredding, cleaning, backing up files, etc. All necessary things, but it took hours! And then it was time to check on the hockey game and help FN make dinner. Now it's time to read (for my dissertation) and go to sleep. I didn't actually do anything dissertation-related today, then. But I wasn't slacking off. I suppose I could have checked my e-mail fewer times, but still. I didn't manage to cross anything big off my to-do list either. Sigh. Hopefully I'll feel more accomplished tomorrow.

The mock dissertation defence at York went well. The Yorkies are an interesting bunch, and they are doing some cool research topics. Maybe it's just that there is a clump of people doing modern Canadian or American topics that in some way speak to each other over there. I don't feel I have that kind of community in the history department at U of T. There are of course people doing fascinating research, but I don't really know very much about what my colleagues are doing. Are any of them doing things that relate to my own work? I'm not even sure. This is unfortunate. Perhaps I should think about rectifying this situation. Maybe I should become a full-out Americanist and get in on their reading groups. But first perhaps I should start producing work of my own . . . .