Category Archives: New Orleans

New Orleans

Back to Baltimore and JHU: Avoiding Burnout

My vacation and my trips to New Orleans and Seattle are are over. I arrived back in Baltimore yesterday, and made my way through the cold, wind, and rain to the lab today.

Hopkins has an “intersession” period at the beginning of January, affording me a brief break from classes. Assuming I passed Models of the Neuron (I still don’t have my grade), and that I pass the two classes I’m going to take this semester, this should be my last semester of classes. Finally. Anyway, for the moment I am free, and I have two more weeks free of immediate and pressing deadlines (i.e. homework).

I plan to take full advantage of this time to knock down Next Actions and finish some projects.

The flip side of this plan is that I am going to try to avoid burnout. In the effort to (a) settle in, (b) keep up, and (c) make a good first impression at JHU, I went full-throttle into the fall semester, working many days 08:00 – 22:00. In short order I found myself burned out but without enough free time to properly recover. I had a very good meeting with my advisor toward the end of the year, in which she suggested that I make time for exercise, meditation, etc.

I know those things are important, but it’s interesting how easily I push them aside when things seem “urgent”.

Thanks to my vacation, I am now well-rested and not a bit burnt out. In fact, I am eager to dig in to my work. However, I’m going to set a few priorities. Call them new years’ resolutions if you like:

  • Exercise – in addition to my daily bike rides, I’m going to continue swimming three times a week, and re-introduce weight training at home to my routine
  • Meditation – I’m going to try to give meditation a higher priority. 20 minutes per day. Surely I can spare that, right?
  • Dharma – I’m going to try to crank through some of the Audio Dharma and Zencast podcasts that I’ve accumulated. Listening to these before, during, and shortly after the Katrina debacle helped to keep me (relatively) sane. It also helps to keep me centered and mindful of attachment.
  • @Home projects – my @Home projects have barely moved in half a year. I’m going to devote some more home time to finishing some of those Next Actions.

Also, several people in my life are climbing on to the GTD bandwagon, and this is giving me renewed interest in streamlining and making more effective my own system. On the flight to Baltimore I spent some time with my treo, whacking the stupid out of my system and re-evaluating some of my stubborn Next Actions. I’ve already seen an increase in my ability to knock down the NAs.

Just Visiting (Tulane)

I’m still in New Orleans until the morning of January 7 2007, and Amanda started classes/rotations again today, so I’m working. I rode my bike down St.Charles for the first time in probably two months, parked it under Stern Hall at Tulane, got some coffee from the PJ’s right there, and am now at my old, still-unoccupied desk in 440 Boggs.

Nobody’s here because it’s officially still vacation for the students.

It’s eerie. Five months after we left, my name is still on my file drawers. Our names and phone numbers are still on the marker board. Most of our non-perishable food and dishes are still in the “kitchen” cabinets. I needed a pen, so I went over to the can-o-pens and took a few. To use my desk, I had to clear off boxes and packing foam that the movers left when they packed up our stuff.

It’s just like parts of the city.

There are parts of New Orleans, the parts that really flooded, like where I used to live before Katrina, where time stopped when the flood waters receded. Time has stopped here. Sure, we still have a few undergrads that use one corner of the lab, but they don’t touch the rest. Amanda mentioned the other day that she’s getting sick of being asked, “How’s the recovery going?” It’s nice that people care enough to ask, but it gets harder and harder because the answer is never a great one. More than a year after Katrina, it’s not possible to drive through uptown without encountering broken street lights. The water pressure still sucks. There are still those deserted areas where time stopped.

I’m sorry if I sound depressing. I didn’t mean to be, but it’s the way the lab feels, the way Tulane and the city feel. A lot of things are improving, yes, but some things were damaged and then time stopped.

I wonder when it will start again.

Happy New Year!

An early happy new year to everyone, as I will be out later. I’m quite happy to be able to celebrate it in New Orleans. I’ll be at Igor’s on St.Charles with my wife, so come see us if you’re around! As usual, I’ll be the guy in a black shirt and khakis and a black derby hat.

Show up and mention this ad and get a free drink on me!