I made it through an entire semester with no teaching responsibilities at CUNY! For the first time in 20 years! Oh, and I wrote a book!

I started as a graduate student at the CUNY Graduate Center, as well as an adjunct instructor of philosophy at Brooklyn College, in the Fall of 2003. I came to the Grad Center with an M.A. in philosophy (from the University of Connecticut, where I thought I was going to get my PhD but didn’t), and some teaching experience from SF State (where I was supposed to complete my M.A. but didn’t, it’s a long story!). Brooklyn College was the first time I had been hired to teach philosophy at a college I did not attend (even though it was part of the university I attended). The rest is, as they say, history.

I started thinking I maybe should write a book back in the summer of 2021, when I was preparing for this talk. It seemed like it would be a lot of work, and it was easy to forget about it once the fall of 2021 hit. I was once again plagued by thoughts of writing a book in the summer of 2022, and by that time there seemed like there may even be some interest in such a project. I wrote up a book proposal and started seriously working on a draft in July of 2022.

I worked on it in every spare second I had from August 2022 until early January 2023. This mostly consisted of dashing out thoughts before rushing off to class, or running out in the middle of dinner to implement a change that occurred to me. During that time I felt like I was barely keeping the ship afloat. It was at that point that I knew that I needed to devote more time to writing the book, or wait until I wasn’t teaching to work on it. I put the project on hold in January 2023, when the Spring semester started, and applied for research leave for the fall of 2023. I figured that if I got it, I would devote my full effort to the book. If I didn’t, I was going to put the draft on my website and leave it at that. I did get the research leave and I have been spending 9-10 hours every day since September 2023 to get to where it is now. All in all it has really only been 9 months of writing time (spread over a year and a half), but it feels like an eternity!

It is now in a state that I would consider ‘good enough for government work’ and since I am a government employee, that is good enough for me. I haven’t put anything up here because there is still a small chance that this may be published. However, if anyone wants to see the current draft email me and I’ll send it.

I am still on research leave until March 1st at LaGuardia and I will also be co-teaching the Neuroscience and Philosophy of Consciousness course with Tony Ro at the Graduate Center starting at the end of January. In the meantime, I will be taking a break for some family time until early January. When I get back I am still hoping to get into Consciousness Live! and my YouTube channel more generally. Stay tuned!