Before:
This morning I have to follow up on the PFF document. There are a lot of feelings wrapped up in this process--especially given that a colleague just got a position that I envy--which can be both productive and counter-productive given that I have to explain my own position to the graduate school. But the graduate school doesn't need me to pour out my heart; they want to see that I can benefit from the specific mentorship that I can offer.
... I just caught myself drifting off and looking at another site! It started as an excusable violation, but in the end it yielded procrastination.
My immediate task is to tell the narrative of my teaching experience. As the name implies, I'll just string together my experiences in narrative form. I'll be tempted to measure my progress by my comprehensiveness, but I have to think rhetorically: the audience wants to see that I'm committed to improving my teaching. The challenge will be modelling that audience--do they want to see overachievers or needy cases. Instead I'll describe my development and then highlight a few areas for further progress, which is a tactic I've developed and employed in the past. Right now the trick will be to deny myself the internet, which is a boundless distraction machine.
After:
I got some sentences down, but I got distracted by a combination of the internet and the wife. I can't blame anyone but myself. I'm probably too tired to completely focus. I'm also not doing a very good job of translating my transient thoughts into writing--that is, I could be using my distraction to break from the functional fixedness of this document, but instead I'm simply breaking from the task before me.
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