I have been counting.
I know that is a strange way to start
off a blog post or a conversation but it is true. I count many different
things: days, minutes, words and sometimes calories. Some might say that counting is not something
a PhD. Theatre History student should be doing.
“Leave the counting to the mathematicians and statisticians!” they yell
from passing cars. The car yellers
believe that theatre historians should deal in people not numbers. I however bravely disagree with the
loud-spoken vehicular types and believe that numbers and counting are a part of
any academic or any persons life and no matter how hard we try they cannot be
ignored.
For example, 2 days ago in an effort to be more active and
disciplined I began Jillian Michael’s 30 day shred level 1. Tonight’s replay of
the YouTube video will be my 3rd viewing of the video and
approximately the video’s 1,897,548 playback. For the past 2 nights I have
found myself counting every second of the 20-minute video waiting for the end
to come. Time passes as time is wont to
do and through my gasps for breath and occasional dry heaving I realize that 20
minutes really isn’t that long.
Longer than 20 minutes is 12 days. That is how long I have
left until I must submit my conference paper for ASTR. This paper, which looks
at all female vintage dance groups and their performance and negotiation of
nostalgia for profit, is standard conference length. For those of you not in the standard
conference length know (and why should you be?)
it is 10-12 pages. In preparing
to write said paper I wrote 4 of the vintage dance groups I am discussing and
asked if they would mind answering a few questions about their personal and
organizational practices. I got 2 responses saying they would help and to send
the questions and 0 actual answers to my questions. This does not bode well for
my 3500 words.
More than 12 is 23. That is how many days I have until I
turn 26 and frankly that is a whole other post where I freak about being older
than a quarter of a century. However, what I will say as a teaser for what’s to
come is that I have always felt like the youngest in whatever social situation
I am placed into. Whether or not I am
younger being the baby has always been my shtick and this whole getting older
thing is kind of putting a cramp in my style.
In 27 days I will be done with my 30 day bodily challenge.
If you do the math (which yes, even those of us in humanities can do trigonometry
basic algebra) 30 exercise sessions at 20 minutes a session equals 600 minutes
of sweat and cursing. Whether or not 600
minutes also equals inches/pounds lost is not really something I am too
concerned with. Yes it would be nice to
go from a 12/14 to a 10/12 but more important to me at this point is no longer
fearing the number of stairs there are between me and my destination on the 2nd
or 3rd floor.
Finally, for this post anyway, 31 (by the law of numerical
value) is more than 27. For the next 31 days I will be disciplining and
challenging myself mentally. As it is October 1st I am starting my
31 day challenge to write a 600 word blog post everyday for an entire month. As
I mentioned in my first blog post, I am both excited and hesitant about this
exercise of mental endurance. Will I have
something to say every single day for an entire month? At this point I am not worried about whether
or not all of my posts are interesting.
I am just mostly concerned that I have something to write about other
than the weather. Cool, upper 60’s, scattered rain showers throughout the
day. I am sure some thoughts will
come when desperation kicks in.
This
daily blogging challenge is as if I am on a runway and John Fletcher, dressed
as RuPaul is amongst a panel of other fabulously dressed PhD judges. He looks me right in
the eyes and says, “The time has come, for you to blog post, for your life!
Good luck,
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