What to do with oneself?

I handed out bound copies of the dissertation to my committee on Monday.  I guess the countdown to the defense date can start.

It feels weird not having specific emendations to work on.  The diss has largely filled up my days for a long time, and now I have to find something else to do.  I have partly handled this issue by downloading a version of Risk, so that I can attempt to re-establish order throughout the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty.  Naturally, it wasn't until the diss was ready to send out that a colleague alerted me to yet another book that I ought to know, so at least I have the comfort (?) of having one more diss-related thing to do this evening.  The book is on reserve at the library for a course, so I have to power through it in the next 18 hours.

There's the ten-minute talk to prepare for the defense, of course.  That's pretty small potatoes, although I don't want to be careless about it.  Besides, my supervisor observed that such a summation might serve as the core of a book prospectus, which makes it seem worthy of a little of my time.

And there's always cooking, I suppose.  Many new dishes to experiment with.

Oh, and I seriously need to clean my apartment, which has turned into kind of a sty lately.

And, although I know it's foolishly optimistic even to say this, there's still my backlog of books to read.

I'm going to have to work hard at keeping busy for the next few weeks, lest I lose my mind ahead of the defense.