writing writing writing

It's taking way longer than I thought it would, but I'm making progress with the work that I'm writing up, and it's making me feel good. Sometimes I feel as though I'm in over my head, but my supervisor's been great. He's saying that he wants to send my paper in to JACS. It'll probably get rejected, but that still feels like a very nice compliment from him, particularly for my first paper.

The language remains ugly, but I'm starting to see the prettiness in the practicality of the words. The direct thought processes that seem to dominate this line of work may all be hard and rational, but I do still get a buzz from feeling as though I'm creating something that I can personally regard to be of quality. I feel as though I'm creating neat little structures of internal space that other people can recreate in their own minds, and that when these other people weave these little structures for themselves, the accumulated knowledge that is present in their own minds can act as points of dynamic stimulus. Maybe this structural framework that I've created will be jarred by something in somebody else's head, and as a result, new, neat litte structures will crystallize out in these other minds. I think that I'm coming to see that the focus of the research isn't of all that much interest to me, it's this internalized drive towards quality that makes me feel good.