There is such a strong pull not to study. W. B. Yeats said, "The intellect of man is forced to choose / Perfection of the life, or of the work" (quoted by Robert Giroux in his introduction to Elizabeth Bishop's collected letters, One Art, p. viii). Now I make no claim to perfection, but it seems that I must choose either graduate studies or life, and, having chosen to study, I now want life. But the reason I chose school in the first place was that I thought it would lead to the kind of life and work I wanted. And maybe it will, but the goal seems so far away, and I am impatient. So I push the goal even further away by not studying, i.e., WRITING.

While I was composing the above, I thawed out my homemade vegetable stock, which I then used to make a fantastic Risotto with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Smoked Mozzarella (I used Smoked Gouda). Score another one for my pressure cooker (and for Life)! The recipe is from Cooking Under Pressure by Lorna J. Sass.

Now it's time for Work. Life activities this morning included: grocery shopping at Trader Joe's; taking my computer to the place where I bought it three years ago to see if they could install a USB port so I can hook up my scanner so I can post some pictures on this site, only to find a "For Lease" sign on the storefront (This activity could also be categorized as Work, because I will need a scanner for teaching someday.); reading a few entries at First Person Particular; making risotto for lunch; and, finally, writing a post for my weblog.