Words

I finally opened my document (manuscript 3) to start writing! I wrote 173 words in the introduction, which is a little more than one paragraph. I decided I needed to remind myself of the pertinent literature and along the way came across a really cool taping of legislation discussing EPA's lack of setting a drinking water standard on the contaminant I'm working on. EPA was accused of slacking off and increasing the reference dose due to lobbying from DOD. It was very interesting to listen to. That took about 2 hours of my day.
But really why has EPA taken more than 10 years to take a stand on this contaminant? I understand if you set a standard too low, too soon it can cost a lot of money to clean up the contaminant which may not be necessary, but shouldn't we err on the side of being too cautious for the safety of public health, especially when standards are set to protect infants and pregnant women or sensitive populations?

Yesterday I finished making my presentation for the Dec. conference, which I'm sure will change more as I continue to practice the talk and as I write the corresponding manuscript. I'm also hoping for a few more analysis to include. But these analysis are being performed by others so I just need to cross my fingers.

I have been pretty productive this week but decided to ask the hubby to turn off the internet tomorrow so I will have no distractions. If this goes well maybe I should make all Friday's internet free. Really, if you send any important e-mails on a Friday they really can wait until Monday, right?

And maybe, just maybe, I'm going to sneak ahead on the word count . . . .