der Weihnachtsbaum ist nude

This week, my excuse for not writing is that I’m busy as all get out. It’s true, actually. Between work and home obligations, I’m swamped. I’ve been productive, though, and we got the Christmas tree up and sent out all of our Christmas cards on Monday night after arriving home at 8:45.

For work, I’ve been involved in the project they actually hired me to do 20 months ago. It’s fantastic, but many of my obligations are kind of new. Like today’s assignment: Write a narrative on the purpose, methods, and findings of the data. See, I’ve never actually written anything like that before. Literally, 99% of what I write consists of self-absorbed navel grazing. The leftover bit is emails for work.

I need to get this to him today. I’m in Eastern Standard Time. That’s three hours. It’s pressing because next week is the academic holiday break, and Mr. Boss Man is leaving for Costa Rica on Friday. It’s pressing because our collaborators in China are being goaded by their superiors to start the publishing process. I’ve had the data since Monday (Monday!), and one of my neuroses is that I’ll do something so horrible that they’ll laugh at me and then fire me. Yet, on I write.