The hint yesterday that I might be developing a cold was correct. The usual things this morning - headache, blocked nose, etc. The day is being spent drinking hot ribena and taking various cold remedies.
I had intended that I would be spending most of today writing notes and essay ideas. But I rather ground to a halt after barely an hour and have spent most of the day on "easy" work - journal reviews, preparation of bibliographical entries, photocopying some bits from the books I brought home for Christmas from LSE, some reading (mainly journal articles - finished Westman's article on Kuhn's Copernican Revolution, started an article on Jesuit mathematical science in the early 17th Century, read some of a book on historiography that I acquired the other day), etc.
I am feeling depressed again about things going forward. Is this just caused by the cold? The main problem is that I keep coming across fantastic articles that are well beyond my own level of skill and I don't really feel that I will ever get to these levels - though some of this was caused by reading about Alexandre Koyre who was rather an extreme example of the "perfect scholar". As I was saying to Vicenzo the other day at LSE, there is always the feeling of being swamped by the material that is already out there - how can one really make a mark? Yet good new work keeps appearing, so there are still good problems to be working on. I just don't seem to see them so easily - or perhaps once I have looked at them I just see them as obvious - another point that Vicenzo and I discussed the other day.
Perhaps it is also just a little hangover from the funeral yesterday. I would like to feel that it is still possible to make a mark academically, but I am feeling old!
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