Passivity in Disguise

I never intended to create a blog.

Okay, that's patently untrue. More accurately, I never intended to maintain a blog. The blog was a placeholder. The real reason I bought the domain name was to create an online portfolio for my photography, but I was writing my thesis at the time and couldn't justify the hours I'd need to build a website from scratch. And so, with a gentle click, this blog charmingly wiggled its way into the world. I would caress it during those late nights in my windowless office, affectionately referring to it as my means of procrastinating productively. My blog, I'd coo, how much lovelier you are than that fat pile of reading on my desk. Oh yes you are, oh yes you are. 

The thing is, I completed my thesis in February. Three months on and it's wearing the early signs of neglect. A cobweb lazily hanging from the search box; a messy scrape under its header from when it tried to climb the length of the guttering behind the house and no one was around to see it fall.

My excuse is that I've been too busy, and I have. And it's been great! Last week I gave a lab on the science and ethics of targeted memory erasure, which, as some of you know, is one of my most favourite topics. Ever. Earlier this week I taught on stereotyping and ambivalent sexism (another pet topic) and tomorrow we're discussing the debate surrounding whether homosexuality is innate, which totally gets me riled up. And next week I'm teaching on the social construction of gender. I love teaching at Epsom as well. Everyone out here is so friendly and the classes always have a really positive vibe.

But being busy isn't a valid excuse. In fact, it's recently struck me that being busy - in the way that I've been busy - is on par with being incredibly fucking lazy. It's passivity in disguise. This year was meant to be my break from academia, but somehow I've committed to more than a full-time load and once again I've left no time for anything else. It's a habit I need to break. It bugs me.

I'm picking up a fat wad of essays (like cash but with less value) this afternoon, so the next ten days are sliding into a single sigh of frustration. And then: the finish line, when time will come flooding into my life like a rush of fresh air. Right? Right.

Right.

So, ah, yeah. That's why I haven't posted much recently. Not sure being busy holds up in a court of, you know, blog-rearing law. In fact, I'm pretty sure if we stick to my vague analogy of the blog being my child, then I'm the worst kind of parent - "I'm not a bad parent, I just have better things to do with my time. I never even wanted the blog in the first place! Leave me alone!"

Anyway, here are some photos from Lina Scheynius's flickr: