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.