On procrastination and travels
My recent life is so unusual to the pattern it had in the last few
years: work, hack, sleep, work, hack, sleep, hack, work, sleep...
ad nauseam. 2007 has obviously something special, I didn't envision
my life changing so much when I turn 27, but it happened. I'm
traveling much more than usual, and it shows on the way I'm looking
at the world. It seems smaller than I thought. I guess the trip to
Hawaii had something to do with it, it was really different than
the places I got before, it's such a mix of cultures. Really, I
think I enjoyed it more for the
[interesting cultures](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bishop_Museum_front-600px.jpg)
and the
[wild nature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:D50_007609.jpg),
than for the stereotyped beaches most people have in mind when you
talk about Hawaii.
So after being back at home, I had no time for working on KDE and
no time for
[procrastination](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination)
either. You probably wonder why I focus that much on
procrastination... That's simply because it's an important part of
the PhD student life (well, at least that's what most people say).
And, I got a nice gift from my friends here, some of them being
also PhD students. I got probably the
[best resource about procrastination and the academic world](http://www.phdcomics.com/book.htm).
For those who don't know
[Piled Higher & Deeper](http://www.phdcomics.com/) it's the best
[webcomic about grad students life](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php).
When you're preparing a PhD you have to read it, it makes you laugh
a lot... and cry a lot because it pictures really well your current
life.
So, what was the reason for not procrastinating, and not working on
the
[changes I planned for yesterday](http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=118021590631281&w=2)?
Basically, because I had only two weeks to prepare the second draft
of my PhD thesis, and that consumed most of my time. Why two weeks?
why so much time pressure? Well, you probably got it already, I'm
travelling again. Tomorrow, I'm leaving for
[Calgary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calgary) and visit
[Aaron](http://aseigo.blogspot.com/)... Furious hacking, hiking and
working on the final draft of my PhD thesis are on the schedule for
this trip.
2007 has obviously something special, I didn't envision my life
changing so much when I turn 27, but I learned something
earthshaking (which will justify the title of this post):
*Travelling has a direct influence on procrastination. If you travel more, procrastination is inhibited.*
Unfortunately, it seems it also has a direct impact on your Free
Software contributions... But I'm looking forward to the coming
trip to confirm or not this point. I hope to prove it wrong.


