As I drove a friend to the airport this morning, a former grad school colleague, I asked him if he thinks I can finish by this spring based on how much I've written."Depends how long your next chapters are," he replied. Code for: Don't get your hopes up.
After we parted, I found myself strangely itching to get some work done -- I can't imagine why...
By now, I'd estimate that Mr. A and I have been to about 80 percent of the viable cafes in central San Diego, laptops in tow, I writing and he reading.
Today we stopped at a new Starbucks in Mission Hills (new to us, that is), but were thwarted by a horde of preteens in soccer uniforms -- boys? girls? no idea, I just noticed they came up to my shoulders and were very noisy. So we walked a block due west, to The Gathering, a restaurant that's been a neighborhood institution for ages and recently survived a scary fire.
The plan: spread out at a table and work-o-rama until dinner time.
The question: would they mind? We weren't exactly a high-net-worth table, and it was close to dinner time, and it's a nice restaurant (not technically a diner or cafe). Would a couple of coffees and dessert, at best, cut it?
I walked in, candidly stated our intentions and asked the bartender if we could set up camp somewhere out of the way -- if it wasn't conflicting with their dinner schedule or whatever. He zoomed to the back area, looked for plugs, and welcomed us to the biggest table there. A waitress brought us endless cups of coffee and two oversized bread puddings with gooey tequila sauce. And... I made major headway on my chapter! In fact, in about two hours I finished this section. The same section that's been killing me since September.
And at a certain point during this cramfest, I turned to Mr. A with this revelation: "Once I'm done with this dissertation, I'll be able to come home after work, open a book and read for hours and... not feel guilty!!!!"So
a) I feel the end getting closer
and
b) apparently, I'm looking forward to doing the exact same thing as I do in grad school -- reading around the clock -- only without the deadlines. Way to think outside the box, Rox.
Gained: A comfy, welcoming restauroffice. And a dash of hope. (And, just now, a new word! Restauroffice? Only one "valid" usage when I Googled it. Would you use it?)
Restauroffice is fabulunderful!
ReplyDeleteGood job, La Roxy! It it during those last few months that most theses are written, after all those ideas have fermented in your head and are ready to tap into.
ReplyDeleteI have an office that looks like a student bedsit (thanks to the non-paper-based work we do, and the scruffy building it's in). So all my meetings are held in a restaurant/bar round the corner. It's light and airy, has a river view, and I don't have to wash up the coffee cups afterwards. The restaurant/bar gets to look like it's popular, in quiet periods. What's not to like?
ReplyDelete