Made out of people

A sculptor with three tasks

I feel, right now, like a sculptor who has been comissioned for a grand project: a sculpture, formed out of soft clay. Of course, to go with the sculpture must be a lithograph of the top-end of the sculpture. And last, we need a limited-edition plushytoy. Every time he makes progress on the plush toy, it reminds him of the fact that the hands of the clay version need work. Work on the lithograph requires a redesign of the plush toy. And so on...

That's pretty much the sensation of writing my dissertation (which is, in turn, assembed of various past presentations and papers), writing a book chapter (which will be chapter 7, it will be chapter 7), and putting together the hour-long presentation for job talks.

And the annoying bit is that a lot of my time is spent perfecting the color of the nail polish on the sculpture's left hand. Crucial, sometimes, but not giving me a good sense of progress.