summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2013-07-11 05:39 pm
summercomfort) wrote2013-07-11 05:39 pm
Grounding
Sigh, there are some tv shows where once I start watching, I can't stop until there's no more. They're never the good ones, but they're insufficiently crappy and predictable to watch while doing something else. So I've spent way too many hours in the last week watching Netflix.
I think it's because I've finished the part of Tisquantum that I was working on, and that came with both a sense of "whelp, that's done" and also "whelp, nobody cares." I'm not saying that in a "let me guilt-trip my friends into caring about a project that is so in its early stages it's hard to say anything about it" way -- I know that art takes a long time between the germination of the idea and the presentation of the completed work. This is compounded by the long, solo work that it takes to make comics before it is quickly consumed in a matter of hours, if not minutes. So on the one hand, it seems to be a very natural mode of expression for me, but on the other hand, I am constantly asking myself if it is worth it -- that maybe the stories that I want to tell are better done in other ways. I know that truly good creative acts are supposed to make the artist feel both vulnerable and proud at the same time. I'm not sure if I feel that way with Tisquantum. A part of me really wants to keep working on it this summer, but I also know there's a ton of other things I need to work on that all need my full attention. But I don't want to work on them. Hence, the procrastination and tv-binging.
There's an episode in West Wing (1st or 2nd season) where the President is on a long flight in the night, and he gets caught up in the romance of the night and starts pursuing a more fanciful and idealistic agenda. But then as the plane lands he reins in all of those ideas and grounds himself back in reality. For the teacher, the summer seems to be that long flight -- full of fanciful ideas, but grounding happens, usually around August. I'm not there yet, but I think I've given myself enough lax, and it's time to refocus.
The good news is that I'm only 60 minutes from finishing this series (Better off Ted on Netflix), so I'll soon have no excuse but to go back to doing work. The thing to do right now is to figure out what work to do next, so that I'd be less inclined to procrastinate.
I want to work on the Mandarin 1 and 2 textbook stuff, but it requires really heavy brainpower, and so I'm procrastinating. (It, like the comics, is also very lonely creative work, so that's another reason.)
I need to do coding for the Chinese School website, but it's both tedious and difficult, which is why I'm procrastinating on that.
I need to do some various work for the Chinese learning game. There's both low-hanging fruit (doing artwork for it), and much harder stuff (discussing and then making large structural changes)
I need to do lesson planning for Asian Studies and World Religions. But I feel bad working on that instead of Mandarin 1, which is why I haven't done it.
So it looks like I just need to power through the Mandarin stuff ASAP so that I can do other work.
I think it's because I've finished the part of Tisquantum that I was working on, and that came with both a sense of "whelp, that's done" and also "whelp, nobody cares." I'm not saying that in a "let me guilt-trip my friends into caring about a project that is so in its early stages it's hard to say anything about it" way -- I know that art takes a long time between the germination of the idea and the presentation of the completed work. This is compounded by the long, solo work that it takes to make comics before it is quickly consumed in a matter of hours, if not minutes. So on the one hand, it seems to be a very natural mode of expression for me, but on the other hand, I am constantly asking myself if it is worth it -- that maybe the stories that I want to tell are better done in other ways. I know that truly good creative acts are supposed to make the artist feel both vulnerable and proud at the same time. I'm not sure if I feel that way with Tisquantum. A part of me really wants to keep working on it this summer, but I also know there's a ton of other things I need to work on that all need my full attention. But I don't want to work on them. Hence, the procrastination and tv-binging.
There's an episode in West Wing (1st or 2nd season) where the President is on a long flight in the night, and he gets caught up in the romance of the night and starts pursuing a more fanciful and idealistic agenda. But then as the plane lands he reins in all of those ideas and grounds himself back in reality. For the teacher, the summer seems to be that long flight -- full of fanciful ideas, but grounding happens, usually around August. I'm not there yet, but I think I've given myself enough lax, and it's time to refocus.
The good news is that I'm only 60 minutes from finishing this series (Better off Ted on Netflix), so I'll soon have no excuse but to go back to doing work. The thing to do right now is to figure out what work to do next, so that I'd be less inclined to procrastinate.
I want to work on the Mandarin 1 and 2 textbook stuff, but it requires really heavy brainpower, and so I'm procrastinating. (It, like the comics, is also very lonely creative work, so that's another reason.)
I need to do coding for the Chinese School website, but it's both tedious and difficult, which is why I'm procrastinating on that.
I need to do some various work for the Chinese learning game. There's both low-hanging fruit (doing artwork for it), and much harder stuff (discussing and then making large structural changes)
I need to do lesson planning for Asian Studies and World Religions. But I feel bad working on that instead of Mandarin 1, which is why I haven't done it.
So it looks like I just need to power through the Mandarin stuff ASAP so that I can do other work.