Tuesday, April 26, 2011

what's wrong with this picture?


Yes, I know.   That's what happens when one thinks that one's being efficient, on a boiling hot afternoon, when frat parties are developing in the houses round about, and when the squirrels have started to jump around with incredible energy inside my office walls (presumably the fleas have started to bite harder, given the sudden summer weather?).   For I have decided to file all my notes and paper properly (or throw them away) - yes, all - starting with the very solemn essay that I wrote when preparing for Oxford entrance on a very solemn George Eliot pronouncement: that "if art does not enlarge men's sympathies, it does nothing morally."    Since I have to prepare some remarks for a roundtable on Friday down at Duke on "What Can Reading Do?", it's very tempting to start there ...  But this is all going to take a very long time - even when I recklessly throw out - for example - some very unpromising looking Shakespeare teaching notes from the late 70s.   I keep getting distracted by things that it would have been very useful to know that I possess - like an inspired seven sheet set of notes on She that would have come in handy two weeks ago, if I'd known that they (a) existed (b) had been able to find them.   And that, of course, is the kind of motivation that's pushing me forwards, because at this rate, I could float right through to retirement without ever properly getting this stuff in order ...

2 comments:

  1. Scan them, Kate! I highly recommend the portable Fujitsu ScanSnap for Mac. One of the best purchases I've ever made. (I'm trying, slowly, to subject my paperwork to scan or scram alternatives. . .. )

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  2. SCAN THEM? We are talking - oh, I don't know, maybe fifteen or twenty feet of notes and print outs, going through high school, undergrad, grad, and four academic jobs ... BUT - I take your point, when I've culled this lot. When. Argggghhhh. No wonder I've just packed stuff up in despair and moved it on, every time .... But I have a Jutted Jaw and am Determined ...

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