Interstitial Time

Interstitial time. Time that's not work time or leisure time. Time that traditionally has not been "productive." Work time increases economic capital, while leisure time increases cultural and social capital, to put it reductively.

What I find though, is that I'm incredibly productive during interstitial times. Especially when I have hours and hours and hours of it. Like at the airport, or on the airplane. Maybe it's because I don't feel like I'm obligated to do work, that I do a ton of it.

On my way to Ottawa, I created my presentation (essentially wrote a 10-page paper based on my paper from last semester on temporal capital). Then, on the way back, I wrote three abstracts and read an entire *academic* book (Granted, it was on Disney World, but it ain't no Twilight, and was in the critical theory/cultural studies realm), made new friends, and had a whole conversation about Don't Ask Don't Tell, as one of my new friends is in the Army Reserve (she was wearing her fatigues).

Then today, I opened my email to the daunting task of translating a canvassing script for Vote for Equality into Chinese. Daunting because they want it by Thursday, and because Chinese isn't my native language. And the previous translation that I was working with was written in simplified Chinese. Which, for me, was like reading Shakespeare with letters missing.

(oooh. my free wifi session just canceled, but all I had to do was log in again...and this time, I took a REALLY quick survey - took literally 20 seconds - talk about temporal capital in exchange for something)

However, because I had nothing else pressing to do, and for some reason can't consume entertainment media during interstitial time because the joy of consuming entertainment media only happens when you're procrastinating on something you're SUPPOSED to be doing (ie: during work time...), I translated half of this document waiting for my flight at LAX (which was delayed), and translated the rest on the plane before watching 2 episodes of Dexter, then conking out for 3 hours.

And now waiting at Logan, I've already written two blog posts and discovered discrepancies in this NCA submission process...

Maybe Spring Break is the interstitial time for me to be really productive. Of course, it could also go horribly in the other direction.