Sunday, October 29, 2006

What I did today

Today I found another two scholastic books that cite me. My verified citation index is now up to 66 separate books and articles. When it gets to 75 I will write a special diamond jubilee post about it. I honestly do not believe that anybody with fewer citations than me should be allowed to work at a university. The citation index is one of the few semi-objective measures of the worth of research in the humanities. How is it that people who are cited once or twice have tenure track jobs and people like myself cited dozens of times are unemployed?

I also sent out a reminder to all of the people who expressed an interest in my Conference on International Borders and Migration that their abstracts are due 1 November 2006. So far I have only gotten one abstract. If I do not get some more by the middle of next week it might just be the two of us. Even I think that might be an awful long and agonizing eight hours.

The rest of the day was less productive. I walked into town, checked my e-mail, drank some coffee and otherwise wasted time. It is days like this I wish I could go someplace else other than Arivaca for a few hours. But, since I do not know how to drive even going to Tucson (36 miles) is an impossible dream. It has now been over two months since I have been out of Arivaca. It will probably be many more months before I leave again.

2 comments:

KRISTIN said...

Hey,
You are like me :D
I'm trapped in Tallinn and also don't know how to drive, unlike you I do yearn for some nice quiet places in the countryside.... Ahh, woods, fields, ... even a desert!? :P

J. Otto Pohl said...

Kristin: I have been to Tallinn three times. I know that you are not trapped. It is easy to get out of the city. The bus takes you right to Tartu and back. Along the way there are lots of woods. :-)Where I live there are not even paved roads.