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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

No excuses

Sometimes I am just lazy. L-A-Z-Y. Today is one of those days. I just really do not feel like translating French to English even though the article is actually getting exciting.

By exciting I mean that having spent several pages describing fish imagery on several silver plates using increasingly long sentences, he may actually be getting to the part where he links fish and death in second-third century Roman iconography.

I know, how can I HANDLE the excitement?

No, really, I do want to find out what happens and how it's all going to play out. Does he make assumptions that I find untenable? Is he going to send me off on a wild footnote goose chase that leads in ever constricting circles until I find the source of all our hopes and dreams in a German article from 1865 that was obviously written in a haze of Jägermeister?

Here's another good question: will I be so impressed with myself for pulling "untenable" out of my ass that I decide that this was the peak in my creativity for the day and spend the rest of the day watching TV?

The problem is I just don't want to put the effort into finding out the answers to any of these questions. Including the TV one.

Part of the problem may be that last night, after drinking half a bottle of wine, I flew through more French in three hours than I have in three days and it's a far better translation than it has any right to be. This then reinforces the horrible truth:

I need to become a functional alcoholic in order to finish this dissertation.

2 comments:

  1. you are at the juncture, that i fear i will be in a year or so. i just started my phd six months ago and already i find myself overwhelmed. a dissertation written in four years just seems so ...long..

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  2. sigh, i know what u are talking about- the madness is already starting.

    have u thought of visiting the archaelogy dept at aarhus university? it might give you some inspiration. they are located next to the Moesgaard museum- pretty cool little campus and vibe they got going over there.

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Keep it clean, don't be mean....