I caught myself pacing today...

I've been consistently moving from one critical and time-sensitive activity to the next for over a month now and I've officially reached my "so productive I can't stop" mode. Juggling the demands of convening a seminar, networking with eminent historians, analysing 1,600 pages of parish demographic records (read: marriages, baptisms, and burials), trying to write a thesis chapter, and going through the selection process for my dream student job, has forced me to become super-regimented with my time. In many ways being this organised and productive is rewarding. However, continuing this way for so long has rewired my body/mind and now if I'm not always doing something that demands critical focus things go a bit haywire.

The result of this faulty rewiring seems to be the rather frantic pacing I caught myself doing today. I imagine I resembled a tennis ball bouncing back and forth across my room - perhaps the freakiest part was that I had no idea I was pacing until I had been doing it for quite some time. I tried to sit down and relax, but I would immediately pop out of the chair to go check my email, then to my sink to get a glass of water, then back to the chair, then back to the computer, then back to the sink...over and over, with only a few seconds in between each action. The whole time my mind was trying to figure out what I needed to be doing. I had just finished going through an interview and activity assessment this morning for the dream student job (I think it went really well - I'll know one way or the other by early next week!), and while I do have some writing that needs to be done by the weekend, I had planned a few hours of chill time as a reward if the interview/assessment went well. Unfortunately, my body simply won't let me relax, which is a big bummer when relaxing time is in short supply.

Ah well, at least I'm not pacing anymore. That has to be a step in the right direction.

PS - To all those who I owe emails to, I'm truly sorry for my lag in response. It's been a rather insane work period. I will be in touch soon!