It's August

And you know what that means. Time to get back to work. I have spent July reading, playing World of Warcraft, and watching lots of Stargate and other shows on Hulu and Netflix, and I spent a few days in Maui. It has been a very nice (and well-deserved) vacation. I only worked twice--once when a student needed a letter of recommendation and once when I needed to do some minor revisions on an article. Oh, and once when I needed to fill out some publicity forms for the book I edited.

I don't start back to classes until September, so August will be making syllabi and prepping for classes (including getting a lot of material online so I use less paper in class), putting together my reappointment portfolio (shouldn't this only be required for people who want a promotion? I just want to keep my job), reorganizing my office at school, and making a dissertation workspace at home. I'll meet with my diss advisor at the end of August to make it official and start my prospectus, but I don't intend to really start it until the other stuff is cleared away. I plan to present/defend my prospectus at the end of the semester. Oh, I also have to prep a uni-version of my conference paper from April (they gave me money so I have to do a presentation--how do you turn a 20 min scholarly paper into a 60 min workshop-ish session?).

I haven't really made any progress on the exercising thing. Any suggestions? If given the choice, I'd rather be reading a book--if that helps you see my dilemma. I know I need to get more physical activity and get my weight down. I really want to be healthier. I just seem to be stuck. This is a hard habit to start.