BAYESIAN UPDATING: I tend to think of myself as a slacker, since that was my personality back at the point where my personality was formed. My grades in the second half of high school were nothing to crow about (if not bad), and in college I perfected the art of the A-.

As I sorted through the stacks of recyclable paper in my office, though, I found a lot of earlier drafts of my dissertation, including my first 20 or so pages of handwritten notes about Grotius, through many different iterations of chapters and arguments. I produced (I'm guessing) three pages of draft for every one of dissertation, and there's nothing--not even the last-minute conclusion--that didn't get multiple reads and at least one overhaul. All of which means, I guess, that I'm not a slacker anymore.