Why do I do this to myself.

Check list of my life right now:

1. Finish editing intro chapter.
2. Finish editing Marx chapter.
3. Write and hand in my Annual Review, in which I attempt to convince my department that I haven't been wasting my time.
4. Re-read Marx chapter.
5. Decide the last section of said Marx chapter is completely irrelevant.
6. Scrap section entirely. Panic.
7. Decide that I simply don't have time to fix it right now, even though I know exactly how to, because it will involve lots of research I haven't done yet because it's material I wasn't planning on covering until my third year. Oops. 
8. Cope by writing a cover letter and applying for a second teaching position.
9. Panic again.
10. Fill out forms, and then go to meet people in finance so I can get paid for teaching.
11. Apply for conference funding.
12. Finish editing Carlyle chapter.
13. Celebrate! 
14. Hand everything in with profuse apologies to my advisor, including a) how long this has all taken, and b) how I am scrapping that section in the Marx chapter even though it's all shiny and new while c) promising that I'm going to totally fix that as soon as I'm back from vacation, really.
15. Photoshop therapy all weekend. Plus a manicure. And maybe a massage.
16. VACATION. COME HERE, I NEED YOU.

So far I'm on step 9. Yeah. Although the panic is probably being exacerbated by the three million cups of tea I had this morning.

Stupid step 7. I totally did come up with an awesome way of fixing my Marx chapter today, except that it requires analyzing two texts that are each 400 pages long and then lots of articles about them. Oh brain, why so slow to realize these things? We could have fixed it if you came up with this solution two weeks ago! As it is, that will be the next step in this madness, after I come back from Scotland. 

I suppose it's good that at least I have a next step. Still, I so wanted to be done with these chapters, but now they're just going to haunt me until Christmas or something. Bah.

Employment!

I have been offered a teaching placement for the year, hooray!

I'll be teaching a module of Introduction to the Novel, which is what I had hoped to get. I am very excited, and very nervous. And feeling slightly underqualified for my life, but that's okay, I'll get over it.

So.

I'm being entrusted with undergrads!

...Oh god.

Another post of procrastination, ack.

I have not updated in ages. And since I'm freaking out over all of the editing I still have to do because my work ethic has been horrendous these past few weeks, I'm going to use this as a coping mechanism. Huzzah, or something!

The summer has been relatively boring, although I've managed to see a lot of movies, and as a result I'm now really excited for The Avengers to come out next year.

I also went on an excursion out to Alnwick Castle, which was extremely beautiful, but it was far too rainy to stay for the gardens, so I'll have to go again some time. The building itself though was Parisian in its opulence, which was rather unexpected in a random Northumbrian estate, but very impressive nonetheless. Apparently the same family has kept it for something like 700 years, which is an awesome track record, honestly. And on a far more silly note, they also had an extra area designated for children and there was a giant dragon there, which obviously I had to fight:

Punching out dragons. Like you do.

As you can tell, I am totally a mature adult.

The rest of the month has been spent trying to edit, which has been sort of like pulling teeth because as usual I get distracted by big ideas and big possibilities when really I just need to suck it up and read more primary sources and then actually use them to expand and alter all of my arguments. Then again, though, I've been dipping my toes into the visual culture aspect of the Industrial Revolution, and as a result, I found this (edited to be linked instead of posted for language), which I really, really want to include in my thesis. It's totally relevant. I can make an awesome argument to include it. Also it makes me laugh.

And this is why I never get anything done.