Looking back, when this month was just beginning...

I was in a hotel somewhere down south of the country, about to begin fieldwork for a project that I am currently eyeball-deep in and trying to craft a report for.

N Hotel, Kauswagan, Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines

Even then I was already a bit behind with organizing my data. What with my disk drive dying on me and respondents suddenly deciding to be difficult.

Yesterday, in an almost desperate effort to improve the pace of my work I tried out something new. I tried using Scrivener, an app that I use for writing my books, to write my report and to organize my data.

And guess what, it seems to be working! Nothing as dramatic as getting the report done by end of the week but at the very least I can hope for a finished rough draft that I can polish next week (simultaneous with the start of fieldwork for another project). I will write a full separate post on the wonders of Scrivener after it has taken me through the Finish Line for both projects (that would mean a bit of a wait though, like, around July).

Meanwhile I bear the pain of not being able to read the books I got on sale from Cagayan de Oro City -- Less than Php500 for all of these:

 
Doctor Who keeps me company on the very late nights that I force myself to stay up. But it gets more difficult each day, trying to trick myself to do the same amount of crazy work I used to do when I was in my early twenties. There are more important things for me to do now than work. My body knows it. My heart knows it. My spirit knows it. They have all gotten wiser to the tricks I make to make them work too hard or too long.

I bear it all for a chance to be in London.