My paper, now with added brevity

This time, a random Lisbon photo, from the Cidade Universitária metro station. As a six-word story, it reads 'Not Athenian, not Greek. World citizen.'
There's a meme inspired by this project going around where you get to write a story in exactly six words. As I'm editing my paper at the moment (no, it's not taking me longer to edit the thing than it took to write it, I've just been taking more breaks), I've decided to rewrite my efforts into six words. Here goes...

Blogs communicate community. Corporate blogs inform.

Yes, there you have it. The other 7000 or so words, that's just detail. Although actually, this would make for much more concise and elegant abstract than the one I've got currently.* Any comments? Hopefully, it wasn't too boring.

*Here's the real abstract, at somewhat more than 6 words. Feel free to skip this section. (Update: To those who have e-mailed me asking to see the paper, I'm not so sure. Although I did offer, I find that I'm a bit squeamish about sending out my baby to people whom I've never before heard of in any way. If I know you as a reader of/commenter on my blog, then your chances are somewhat higher.)

The discourse of the corporate blog is examined, using Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory as a theoretical base. Through a preliminary review of discourses of communication and an analysis of selected blog review/critique sites, it is shown that personal and corporate blogs operate under different discourses, which lead to antagonism when the borders overlapping the two blog styles arise. These findings can have practical implications for corporate blogs and corporations which utilize or are considering utilizing the blog medium for communicating with the public.

Does this mean I need to give back my crown?

Well, it's almost that time of the school term, to start the long procrastination process towards the last project paper before my thesis in the Spring. It will be great, filled with post after post of angst and off-putting. I know you all have been eagerly looking forward. And it will all begin as soon as...oops, wait, I almost forgot. I'm done with my paper.

It's not my fault. I had a week of almost no work (this past week has been the Danish autumn holiday week/reading week, so I had no classes as a student, and all but one of my classes as a teacher were cancelled) and a fairly solid idea for a topic, I made a plan...and actually stuck with it and finished the whole thing. Well, I have a couple theoretical points that I'd like to add, a book or two and maybe some articles that I'd still like to read and incorporate, but really, if I had to, I could print it out and turn it in right now. From nothing but an idea to a fully formed 7,000 words plus appendix of data in 8 days. Like an academic Ferrari. O.K, maybe an academic Porsche. Just to give an idea of the magnitude of this achievement, the official due date is the 4th of January. I am planning to turn it in by the 8th of December before my Christmas trip. I should have the editing done by the end of the month.

I'm convincing myself to be proud - I'm not good at feeling proud...it's that perfectionist perennial feeling that I could have done more getting in the way - but I'm a bit nervous for my status as patron goddess of procrastination. Can I get things done in an orderly way, in advance or even well in advance, and still retain my title? More importantly, will everyone around me be dreadfully disappointed in this small disruption of the cosmic order?

When I finish the reveling (which should last until I go back to working all the time, which happens tomorrow), I'll write about the paper itself. Be prepared to snooze at the computer screen.

*obligatory China photo, and my sincerest wish, taken in a small auditorium along the banks of the Yangtze*

Where, oh where does the time go?

It's getting harder to find the time to blog. Is it the endless teaching hours? Is it all the studying, books and articles to read, papers to write? Is it that I, too, must eat, sleep, socialize, and all those other things in the bottom levels of Maslow's hierarchy?

Go ahead and believe that it is; it'll make me sound more together. And it is true some, or even a lot of the time. If you believe it, then feel free to not read any further. Just admire the panda photo some more (from the Giant Panda Research Center just outside of Chengdu, my random photo from China for this post). Otherwise, here are some of the things which are really keeping me from my blogosphere home. You may wish to try some of them, but only if you don't have any work of your own, or pressing deadlines, for the next several weeks.

1) The Archers. This is the most pathetic one...let me justify it. See, I used to live in London, right? Where I was at one point in an, erm, relationship (I use that term lovingly, but loosely) with an older gentleman who listened a lot to Radio 4 (which in American terms, is, maybe NPR?) Soon, I started listening to Radio 4, too. All the time. And part of the Radio 4 experience is listening to the Archers, a very long-running radio soap opera. That isn't the sad part. The sad part is that I have only bothered to listen to one episode of the show in the going on three years that I've been in Denmark. Yet, I still get and read an e-mail synopsis every day, and read message boards to find out people's reactions to all the things I haven't actually heard. Which can take time...those people are opinionated!

2) Conceptis Puzzles. Probably my single biggest timewaster. Ingenious puzzles, which when done yield a not-normally ingenious picture of...whatever, the fact that it's a picture is much more important than the subject, or for that matter the quality of the picture. I can't help it, really. I've managed to wean myself off of the LAPs, which were just tedious, but I rarely can make it through a week without doing all the PAPs and FAPs. Worse, on the larger ones, I often will start one, do a bunch, and then have to go somewhere or do something...and so I end the puzzle and have to start over later. I even have a list on my computer so I can keep track of which ones I've done in any given week. And please don't tell me to print them out...it's all about the on-line final sound effect, and the pop-up version of whatever image I've done.

3) Neil Gaiman. It started with Anansi Boys from a Helsinki airport bookshop, enroute to China. Now it's American Gods (yes, I know, it's the wrong way round, yeah, yeah, whatever...), with Neverwhere waiting patiently in the wings. I hadn't read him before, but I find him inventive, clever, and much more interesting than organizational learning theory.

4) Lovecraft. The birthday present-savvy James sent me a copy of H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life for my birthday. One of the single greatest books I've ever received, not least because it's an in back to Lovecraft. And as anyone knows who has read Lovecraft, he's not a quick read. Worthwhile, to be sure, but not quick.

5) Planning my next trips. Not taking any trips, just planning them. All trips to California, for Christmas, and in the Spring. Planning is fun, especially when you can use it as an excuse to not get anything done.

And 6) please don't ask me to explain Text Twist, as I hope the words alone will say it all.