Autobiographical Post Because I've Nothing More Interesting To Say

I've gone from being a bad blogger to a downright horrible one, haven't I? I know February is a short month, but five posts in an entire month. Yeesh.

After many aborted attempts, I've finally returned to my thesis in earnest. While I'm really very happy with the progress made, and remain confident that I will finish this summer, the frustration at the degree to which I have to change everything I wrote during my first and second years abroad grows. I'm not talking about mild editing either, which is a given, but wholesale changes because I can no longer stand by positions made. I like to tell people I'm now saying the exact opposite of what I was saying in 2001. Most frustrating, then, that my academic advisors have not paid much attention to the difference, and end up offering critiques based on what I was saying back then. I've somehow not effectively communicated the difference in focus.

Sometime this week also I really need to decide if I'm going to propose a paper at this year's American Academy of Religion National Conference. The deadline is the 7th or 8th, I think, and I've not even bothered to so much as look at the call for papers. The AAR, with its journal and its conference, has rejected me in so many times and ways, I'm not entirely sure I'm up for it this year.