Wordsmithing

I don't know what to tell you. It looks like working on one's dissertation is deadly to the blogging life.

I went to Philly again last weekend, for another writing retreat. I don't know what I'll do when my writing partner finishes, as she is sure to do in the next few months. I like to think that I'm quite an efficient worker. I get more done when I work at home than when I go to school, which shows some amount of discipline. But it just doesn't compare to having someone else in the room, working every minute you do. If I goof off, she'll catch me. I always feel exhausted at the end of two days of heavy-duty writing, but the results are worth it.

I've also been working on my Very Last Class paper. Ever. As I think I've already mentioned, this semester I've been taking my last required class, and now all that is left is the final paper. Writing it has been excruciating, as it makes me realize how little I understand about the subject. (Which is to be expected, of course, as this is the only class I've ever taken in philosophy.) But I must say that I'm starting to have sympathy for the physicists and philosophers who argue that we shouldn't try to make sense of quantum mechanics, because it just can't be done. I don't think my professor will accept that as the thesis of my paper, but the quantum world is just so different than the regular (classical) world that it's frightfully hard to come to terms with it.