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 and the wild nature, 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 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. For those who don’t know Piled Higher & Deeper it’s the best webcomic about grad students life. 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? 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 and visit Aaron… 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.
