April 27, 2020

This is getting old. I thought about getting in my car and driving to California. Fuck it.

Coffee from Dunkin' Donuts. Pretty day so I took a 20-minute walk this morning and a 40-minute walk this evening. Lunch was a hamburger I made here, with AR's pickled carrots.

I spent most of the day reviewing the papers that will be discussed at the P&S board meeting next month and working on my presentation for the writing workshop I'm giving on Thursday. The topic of the workshop is keeping the reader's attention during the body of the paper. I'll have a mix of do-this advice and don't-do-this advice. What can slow a reader down? Length, excessive quotations, the writing itself, unmet expectations. Watch how you begin and end sections: begin by setting an expectation; end by leaning forward to what comes next. Use more and shorter sections.

Studied French. Continued memorizing Wyatt's "They Flee from Me." Watched two episodes of Homeland. Talked to AR.

I wrote a post on a P&S paper on provincial governance in China for my Professorspeak blog.

Listened to OK Computer by Radiohead (great) and Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije Suite, which I dearly love.

Dinner was leftover red beans and rice. And later a bowl of oatmeal. Too much eating out of boredom.

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