I’m on social ban until i catch up on academic work or until Halloween (whichever comes first). Halloween is my favorite holiday – costumes, candy, absurdity. It’s the one time per year when everyone is free to be creative and embody something from their imagination. Given this, i’m ecstatic to be spending it at False Profit’s “Scary Party 2: Escape from the Castro” (watch the trailer). [Translation: crazy breaks party and haunted house with some of my closest friends]
Does social ban work for you, Danah? I just go crazy with loneliness after a couple of days and then I don’t get any work done anyway.
I have sometimes thought that if I improved upon the social ban idea by actually taking my laptop to a beautiful cabin in Provence, or perhaps to a mountain cabin in summer or a beach in Greece, the idea of writing in isolation might work better.
I’d need to get to go to cafes with delicious food, too, I think.
Jill – i actually live with 4 other people so social ban doesn’t really remove people from the equation, just socialization.
But actually, when i was working on my master’s thesis, i found that going to a cabin was PERFECT. I wrote most of my master’s far away from the internet, cell towers and friends and got sooo much done! I saw people if i went into town to get supplies, or when i took my lunch to the lake (i was in the woods). I also saw lots of deer and other critters. It was soooo nice.