The consequences of binging

I have been pushing really hard to finish up a couple of papers.

I occasionally read new faculty advice, and the general consensus is you shouldn't binge on your research writing. That is, you shouldn't write on one project for multiple hours and multiple days at a time. It wears you out and makes you depressed.

Well, I've been binging, trying to get these two papers done before all the other things I need to do come crashing down. And as of last night I'm done, except for one more read through of the long one (ugh). And those new faculty advice people? They're right. I'm depressed.

So research is fun, and I love my job, but sometimes I wonder, what should I be when I really grow up?

Dear Reader,

When I grow up, I'm going to be a fairy princess. I will be beautiful and tiny and have magic powers and get to wear a tiara in real life. And when I wave my wand, you will want to read my research papers. And then when I wave my wand again, the results will matter in real life. And then by wave number three, purple sprinkles will be falling from the sky and we will all ride away on the backs of golden unicorns.

But really, I bet that tiara gets poky after a while, and starts to dig into the skull. And shopping for tiny is probably at least as bad as shopping for huge. So maybe not a fairy princess.

And then I realize, I pretty much write this blog for just two people: me and occasionally my enemy Bob. So if I'm not bothered by just me and Bob reading here, why do I care about low impact of my writing elsewhere?

Because I don't spend weeks binge writing on a blog post, that's why.