Overnight Research Trip

Yesterday, I took a two-day research trip to a nearby university that has most of the books and databases that I need for my PhD thesis research. My big question is this: Why have I not been going down there, lo, these many years of PhD work? It's not. that. far. Part of why I haven't been going down is that I do have database access (including ECCO and EEBO) through my UK university, but access is somewhat restricted by the UK hosting process. I thought it was an ECCO restriction, but I learned in March that it's a UK restriction. So I realized that if I visiting the nearby uni here in the US, I might be able to download PDFs of rare texts to my heart's content. And yesterday, I did just that. I felt like a cyber thief in a spy movie. But I was legit!

I look forward to trips to that library being part of a regular (perhaps bi-weekly?) routine as I start picking up the pace and pushing towards the finish line.

And why did I post today after over a year of not posting? I have no idea. I have toyed with the idea of starting back up as I dig in deeper to the thesis, but I only want to do it if it helps rather than hinders my progress. What do you think, bloggers who are still blogging and haven't given it up? Is blogging helping your productivity? Or hurting it?