Saturday, May 10, 2008

Conflict avoidance...




Okay, so I lied. I promised myself (and a number of my children) that I would not spend time on a blog until I finished the seventy-five page thesis that has been the thorn in my side (pain in my butt, fly in my ointment, bee in my bonnet...), for lo these many months.

My thesis is not necessarily an unpleasant task. I am still fascinated with my topic (German POW camps in Georgia) and after spending literally months wading knee deep in the records of the Provost Marshal General's Office and the War Manpower Commission in both Washington, D.C. and just up the road at the regional archives, I have managed to give birth to a thesis statement, I have coughed up an outline, I have even managed to write the first two pages of this masterpiece.

So why am I sitting at my computer at 8:00 on a Saturday night working on a blog that will not contribute to said thesis and has nothing to do with graduation requirements? It's called "conflict avoidance" and I have raised it to an art form. I can hear myself now, telling my middle school students, "If you spent as much time WORKING on your project as you do WHINING about it, you'd be finished already!" Please don't tell them, but I was talking total crap! In reality, whining takes less time and much less brain power than working.

Closely related to whining is rationalizing. "I worked reeeally hard on it yesterday, so I can relax a bit today." "I don't have anything to do on Monday, so I'll work all day Monday on it and make up for not working on it today." Or my personal favorite, "I really do work better under pressure and it's not the last minute yet."

SO, kind family and friends, this constitutes my very first attempt at blogging. Whether I have written well, whether I have made you smile, whether you'll be interested enough to check back later on to see if I've updated my blog remains to be seen. What is absolutely CERTAIN, however, is that I have NOT written my thesis. But it's the day before Mother's Day and I deserve the day off. Right? Riiiight......

7 comments:

Kimberly said...

Perfect. Absolutely perfect. I look forward to more blogging! I love the way you write! We'll be calling you tomorrow.... but Happy Early Mother's Day anyways!

Nikki said...

I love, love, love it!! I can't wait to read more - good job, Oma!!
xoxo, A

Lana Mitzel said...

Oma,

Mumsy,

its you.....Sue!

I knew it would be worth it when I invited myself into your world, THANK YOU!

That was an EXCELLENT first post. Very impressive. I get the feeling I will be able to gleen quite a bit of knowledge from your little blog. I am at the cusp of the same type of search (you know, trying to figure out what the heck I want to be when I grow up) Its SCARY!

Look forward to MANY more posts! (not to pressure you, but don't be one of those lame people that start a blog, and 10 months later, they still have just the one post.) But I can ALREADY tell, your WAY too cool to let that happen!

Hope your having a wonderful Mother's Day!

Oma said...

And Happy Mother's Day to you, too, Lana! Thanks for the encouragement--I'm afraid it's already addictive so yes, there will certainly be future posts! Thanks!

Bryan & Jacey said...

Looking good!

Now finish your thesis!!!!

: - )

Maureen said...

This is awesome! Great use of your time, even though you SHOULD be doing something else ;-) And I'm with ya on the conflict avoidance....

VerHoef 5js said...

You are one of the best writters I know Sue, Thanks for sharing this with us and allowing us in your life. Hope to see you in June....was the the month?

LV