Night before last I just couldn't sleep...kept waking up every hour on the hour...between an odd stressy-ache in my lower abdomen and nightmares from which I awoke feeling choked...yes sounds a bit bizarre I know...but the combination of these two things translated into not being able to sleep for more than an hour at a stretch. In other words, I was sleepy, aching, and miserable. So I didn't quite face the morning all sunshine-y and pleasant.
On any other day, I would've dragged my butt and gotten some work done. Actually very little work done. More like spent my time whining and stressing about work I should be doing but couldn't get myself to.
However, since I've been disciplined as of late, particularly the two days prior to the Night Of Crappiness, I decided early enough in the morning that I just needed to walk away from The Dissertation and All The Madness. And so I did. Spent the day catching and/or meeting up with people I've been meaning to without considering this whole "day off" deal a guilty pleasure. Those dissertating help sites call it a "mental health day". I sort of like the sound of that but I think I needed more than mental reprieve here...my body just didn't want to sit down and work either. I wouldn't call it playing hookey or a guilty pleasure because that suggests that I should've been working and I really think I should not have been. So po-tay-to, po-tah-to; a rose by any other name...blah blah blah. Whatever it was, it was much needed and I recommend it highly.
To quote Martha Stewart, "it's a good thing". Hmm, actually it's a great thing.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
My Personal Mantra on a Post-It
Maybe because I'm currently in my 6th year of PhDing these panic attacks of sorts are more frequent and definitely stronger. I'm sick of shelving so many of my dreams and things I want to do because I need to focus on the dissertation. Perhaps it'd be easier to just hit pause but then again I actually want to finish as well. Oscillating between these two makes a perfect recipe for anxiety, nervousness, and a whole lot of frustration at the sheer endlessness of it so much of which feels like it is beyond my control but probably isn't - at least with respect to the extent of it.
So The Plan for The Summer (decode "The Summer" - it is what every academic looks forward to because it's the time of year when you supposedly have no other responsibilities other than finishing your current project...true but the desire to go out and play in the sun is overwhelming...also the memory of undergraduate days when summer meant taking it easy makes it worse...still do we must) is to just get done. Or, to use a phrase I coined last week in place of the Nike reference, "just pork and sex it" but that's another post. For now, the post-it below is my personal mantra.
So The Plan for The Summer (decode "The Summer" - it is what every academic looks forward to because it's the time of year when you supposedly have no other responsibilities other than finishing your current project...true but the desire to go out and play in the sun is overwhelming...also the memory of undergraduate days when summer meant taking it easy makes it worse...still do we must) is to just get done. Or, to use a phrase I coined last week in place of the Nike reference, "just pork and sex it" but that's another post. For now, the post-it below is my personal mantra.
Friday, May 18, 2007
And She Returns :-)
Apparently NBC will air a remake of the 1970s "Bionic-Woman" this fall on Wednesdays at 9 pm. I'm not sure how ready I am to see someone other than Wagner play Jaime Sommers but color me excited nonetheless!
Monday, May 14, 2007
Dissertating Tip
A friend who emerged successfully from the PhDing cave last year sent me the following piece of advice upon asking...an excerpt from her e-mail:
"I could not get the energy and focus to complete the !@%#$%@ thing until I stopped responding to my friends' emails (and calls, IMs, etc.). ....Yes, our friends are wonderful people who deserve our attention...--in fact, it SUCKS to have to say no to people....but the final part of the journey is solitary and grim. And you...just...DO IT."
Yup I agree...it's tough as nails and then some to say no to loved ones - whether it's family or friends or whomever. That I find being with others more fun than sitting by myself and writing makes it even more challenging. But I'm at the point where I'll have to do it i.e. say no a whole lot more than I have so far. [Sometimes, my other female friends - who are also from Pakistan and other places in South Asia - and I often complain about how we women are expected to attend and be our lovely gracious selves at all social events and nurture all our social relationships with Martha-Stewart-like-grace but the men somehow seem to get away with it. But that's another rant that deserves its own post/space!]. I don't want to pull a complete disappearing act - that seems like a surefire recipe for depression - although I also recognize that I will have to sort of pull one for extended periods of time in between. Or at least selectively in the sense that I need to make sure I make time for people I'm close to....which really isn't intended to sound horrible but I don't want to feel compelled to "be there", in a sense, for folks who I barely know. It's challenging enough to keep up with relationships that mean the world to me- and I refuse to let those fall off to the wayside even through this last stretch - not because I couldn't be bothered but there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day so adding another one to the mix is going to be a juggling act that I just can't pull off. In other words, that coffee date with a cousin's friend who has been on my back for months is not happening...not because I wouldn't like to get to know this person and I recognize that this person is new to this place so I'd like to be a bit more hospitable but if I am going to step away from dissertating I need to nurture the relationships that already hold a special place in my life. I mean that's a whole solid 5 hours i.e. an entire afternoon off during peak dissertation time....3 hours to go back and forth between The Coffee Place in The City and where I am, 30 minutes to look presentable enough and not like I just rolled away from my laptop [yes I'm vain if you want to call it that], an hour or so of convo over coffee. I wish I had the time but I honestly don't.
So, in that spirit folks, if I'm mostly MIA over the next 6-8 weeks please don't yell at me or wax poetic about how livid you are because I already feel guilty enough about having to say no all the time. I really need to take this time out for myself and just get done. But yes if you're having a meltdown and need to send me an SOS or if you have the most awesome news to share feel free to ping me and, depending on which of the two is happening, my shoulder and I will be there or we'll party like it's 1985!
Wish me luck folks as I try to jump the final hoops.
"I could not get the energy and focus to complete the !@%#$%@ thing until I stopped responding to my friends' emails (and calls, IMs, etc.). ....Yes, our friends are wonderful people who deserve our attention...--in fact, it SUCKS to have to say no to people....but the final part of the journey is solitary and grim. And you...just...DO IT."
Yup I agree...it's tough as nails and then some to say no to loved ones - whether it's family or friends or whomever. That I find being with others more fun than sitting by myself and writing makes it even more challenging. But I'm at the point where I'll have to do it i.e. say no a whole lot more than I have so far. [Sometimes, my other female friends - who are also from Pakistan and other places in South Asia - and I often complain about how we women are expected to attend and be our lovely gracious selves at all social events and nurture all our social relationships with Martha-Stewart-like-grace but the men somehow seem to get away with it. But that's another rant that deserves its own post/space!]. I don't want to pull a complete disappearing act - that seems like a surefire recipe for depression - although I also recognize that I will have to sort of pull one for extended periods of time in between. Or at least selectively in the sense that I need to make sure I make time for people I'm close to....which really isn't intended to sound horrible but I don't want to feel compelled to "be there", in a sense, for folks who I barely know. It's challenging enough to keep up with relationships that mean the world to me- and I refuse to let those fall off to the wayside even through this last stretch - not because I couldn't be bothered but there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day so adding another one to the mix is going to be a juggling act that I just can't pull off. In other words, that coffee date with a cousin's friend who has been on my back for months is not happening...not because I wouldn't like to get to know this person and I recognize that this person is new to this place so I'd like to be a bit more hospitable but if I am going to step away from dissertating I need to nurture the relationships that already hold a special place in my life. I mean that's a whole solid 5 hours i.e. an entire afternoon off during peak dissertation time....3 hours to go back and forth between The Coffee Place in The City and where I am, 30 minutes to look presentable enough and not like I just rolled away from my laptop [yes I'm vain if you want to call it that], an hour or so of convo over coffee. I wish I had the time but I honestly don't.
So, in that spirit folks, if I'm mostly MIA over the next 6-8 weeks please don't yell at me or wax poetic about how livid you are because I already feel guilty enough about having to say no all the time. I really need to take this time out for myself and just get done. But yes if you're having a meltdown and need to send me an SOS or if you have the most awesome news to share feel free to ping me and, depending on which of the two is happening, my shoulder and I will be there or we'll party like it's 1985!
Wish me luck folks as I try to jump the final hoops.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Happy Mothers Day :-)
Nothing elaborate, just wanted to wish all the mothers out there a very happy mothers day. And to my own I'd like to say nine simple words: I love you with every fibre of my being.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Johari Window Experiment: Bionic-Woman
I had to take a small procrastination break from revising. Here's what I came across while lurking around in blogistan. Please feel free to click the title of this post above which will take you to another site if you're interested in adding to the list.
Why I Loathe Revisions
I'm currently working on producing a more coherent, finished chapter based on a previous draft. In other words, I'm in "revision hell". Did I mention I hate this entire process? Nopes not dissertating, but revising for sure.
Yes, I know what "they" say. In fact, I know it all and I know it all too well. Yes I know once you get it done or down on paper (screen really) you can always revise and out of that emerges a chapter and eventually a dissertation. I'll be honest. That's the part I can't seem to get done primarily because I get so tired of wading around that I have to write from scratch pretty much. That I pulled that stunt 4 days prior to submitting my M.A. thesis and rewrote the first 2 chapters plus tacked on a conclusion does mean that it's doable - at least in the universe that I inhabit - but not the best idea. I agree that when I can revise the stuff turns out much better. But there's something about it that turns me off to the point where it's a Herculean task to bring myself to that point. [Special nod here to our Ph.D. Director who said on Day 1, probably Hour 1, of a week-long orientation not to expect any instant gratification in this process. I think he was putting it mildly. Not only is there none of that and only the long haul to look forward to but one has to pretty much force oneself to write, think, read when it feels humanly impossible to do more. No wonder some describe it as having a baby. But, like I might have blogged before, babies smell much nicer, are cuddly, and lead to a lifetime of love. The Dissertation - well not so much. But I digress...]
Why do I loathe revising? Three main reasons:
1. It often feels like fumbling around without ever getting anything done despite spending enormous amounts of time on it. When you're simply writing unplugged (which is also challenging sometimes in terms of reigning in The Perfectionist), the pages add up. At the end of the day you feel like you did something - guaranteed. With revising, well yes things become cleaner and crisper but the lack of "building more" can be a bit depressing. And on days when revising a paragraph consumes your entire existence...well let's just say it can induce self-doubt of epic proportions. After all, if I can edit a paragraph in one day am I ever really going to get done? [Yes I know I will and it's a bad day but that's rarely how it feels.]
2. Equally often, there are huge chunks of text that sound so darn good but they are, at best, redundant. At worst you ask? Don't...makes me shudder! So those paragraphs, pages even, need to be edited out. But taking that cursor over that entire text, highlighting it, and clicking 'cut' or hitting 'delete' is too heart-wrenching to come easily. Of course the longer that stuff remains in there, the longer this whole dissertating process is drawn out. Hmm the whole experience is kind of like The Ex whom you broke up with but keep breaking down and getting together with. In other words, that text has to be deleted and not saved in a separate folder to refer to later or else I know I'll keep coming back to it and trying to fit it in just because I'm so used to it and was in love with it once.
3. Migraines aren't fun; revising can, and often does, induce that. Need I say more?
But I guess it still needs to be done. Speaking of which, back to work.
Yes, I know what "they" say. In fact, I know it all and I know it all too well. Yes I know once you get it done or down on paper (screen really) you can always revise and out of that emerges a chapter and eventually a dissertation. I'll be honest. That's the part I can't seem to get done primarily because I get so tired of wading around that I have to write from scratch pretty much. That I pulled that stunt 4 days prior to submitting my M.A. thesis and rewrote the first 2 chapters plus tacked on a conclusion does mean that it's doable - at least in the universe that I inhabit - but not the best idea. I agree that when I can revise the stuff turns out much better. But there's something about it that turns me off to the point where it's a Herculean task to bring myself to that point. [Special nod here to our Ph.D. Director who said on Day 1, probably Hour 1, of a week-long orientation not to expect any instant gratification in this process. I think he was putting it mildly. Not only is there none of that and only the long haul to look forward to but one has to pretty much force oneself to write, think, read when it feels humanly impossible to do more. No wonder some describe it as having a baby. But, like I might have blogged before, babies smell much nicer, are cuddly, and lead to a lifetime of love. The Dissertation - well not so much. But I digress...]
Why do I loathe revising? Three main reasons:
1. It often feels like fumbling around without ever getting anything done despite spending enormous amounts of time on it. When you're simply writing unplugged (which is also challenging sometimes in terms of reigning in The Perfectionist), the pages add up. At the end of the day you feel like you did something - guaranteed. With revising, well yes things become cleaner and crisper but the lack of "building more" can be a bit depressing. And on days when revising a paragraph consumes your entire existence...well let's just say it can induce self-doubt of epic proportions. After all, if I can edit a paragraph in one day am I ever really going to get done? [Yes I know I will and it's a bad day but that's rarely how it feels.]
2. Equally often, there are huge chunks of text that sound so darn good but they are, at best, redundant. At worst you ask? Don't...makes me shudder! So those paragraphs, pages even, need to be edited out. But taking that cursor over that entire text, highlighting it, and clicking 'cut' or hitting 'delete' is too heart-wrenching to come easily. Of course the longer that stuff remains in there, the longer this whole dissertating process is drawn out. Hmm the whole experience is kind of like The Ex whom you broke up with but keep breaking down and getting together with. In other words, that text has to be deleted and not saved in a separate folder to refer to later or else I know I'll keep coming back to it and trying to fit it in just because I'm so used to it and was in love with it once.
3. Migraines aren't fun; revising can, and often does, induce that. Need I say more?
But I guess it still needs to be done. Speaking of which, back to work.
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