I spent these past two weeks hibernating. I aspired to maintain some semblance of productivity over the winter holiday, but my favorite person had two weeks off. My work just could not compete with his wit. I did immerse myself in some history, though. I watched The Americans! Now I'm all caught up on Cold War espionage.

It's always difficult to come back from vacation. I sat down at my computer this morning and was stumped by where to start. Where, exactly, had I left off? It took me almost half an hour to look through my task manager, database, and recent Word documents and orient myself back to the projects at hand. The number of loose strings floating around overwhelmed me, so today I've devoted myself to only a few small, manageable tasks. I'm hoping that if I catch just one or two of those strings, I can keep my various projects from unraveling. Or perhaps, more aptly, keep myself from unraveling!

Apropos fresh starts, I did not make any New Years resolutions. I prefer to set resolutions around Rosh Hashanah (the holiday celebrating the beginning of the Jewish calendar) because it coincides with the start of the academic year. I think of January 1 as a time to hit the re-set button. I clean up my workspace, catch up on sleep, delete distractions from my computer, and address any other environmental or emotional factors that have been detrimental to my work habits. Apparently I needed a lot of sleep this year, and I definitely met that need. My goal for this week is to channel the processing power of my well-rested brain towards some necessary revisions to the chapter outline of my dissertation.