Those first 30 minutes

As we have been planning for the Funnest Summer Ever, over here in our little family, where I plan to travel as much as non-pregnant-humanly possible, I've found a conference to attend. On physics education. In Istanbul. Score.

There will be an international community of physics educators attending, and I think that given my thesis topic, I can actually come up with an interesting talk or poster, even though I have not been doing Science Ed. research in the last 3 years. So I have to come up with an abstract in the next 6 days, that fits the feel of the conference - not too much about physics itself, but not heavy on the educational psychology, either. And I've decided that it might be a good time to force myself to condense my thought on how intelligence is viewed in academic physics and astronomy.

Only one problem - I need to actually start writing the abstract in order to finish it and submit it. Dang. Because, with the internet all available, the increasingly sunny days, the fact that we've finally started watching Battlestar Galactica after A goes to bed, my need to browse the whole Gap and Old Navy online catalog to find the perfect summer dress for our trip to Greece, and a host of other non-life-threatening-yet-completely-engrossing factors, I am having a hard time actually starting this abstract. Which was supposed to be relatively easy.

So I am back to my thesis writing strategies - 45 minutes work at a time. Ok, ok, I'm starting with 30 minutes, at the end of my work day. I can happily download and browse articles for hours, but just try to get me to actually concentrate on one? Sure, just as soon as I go get another coffee, and cookie, and check if there is any new post on Motherlode or BBC News.

I finally did it, though. And I'm going to try to post about this in the next few days, just to force myself to actually write about it. So I did my 30 minutes - I started re-reading a favorite article from a compilation: "The "Inside" Story: A Cultural-Historical Analysis of Being Smart and Motivated, American Style." It is an interesting look at how Western ideas of intelligence and competence tend to attribute to the individual, and not look at learning community or context. And how many Western metaphors for the mind and thinking involve "machine" words - cranking through to find an answer, wheels of the mind turning, the power of the mind, etc.

And then I went to look up some articles referenced therein. Hmm, a bit esoteric. I'm still wanting more tales from the front lines of academic science. So back to searching on Google for things like Genius Myth, Cult of Genius (a good commentary by Julianne Delcanton comes up from 2007), and this time, Weed Out Courses. And it turns out that Science Magazine had something useful, about 5 months ago. Perfect. Good place to stop and let things simmer until tomorrow.