The Dissertating Life

I can think of a billion other things that I could have posted about - well okay, really I mean 3. Specifically, rants (which are connected to dissertating and being a women who, while dissertating, has an unplanned week-end encounter with family friends who just &*^%&^ don't get it), raves (awesome shoes on sale, Jodhaa Akbar - which, for the uninitiated, is the latest Bollywood flick out this week-end), and *stuff* (perhaps the elections in Pakistan but I'll leave that one for Asad to chime in on).

But right now, at this very moment, all I'm thinking about is this: the everyday life of a dissertator on days when one doesn't have teaching commitments. And it goes something like this.

Wake up. Plan to dissertate. Eat breakfast. Workout. Continue planning to dissertate. Even dissertate! However, all that time keep thinking about other stuff that would be more fun to do. Some of it might even be work-related, perhaps even another writing project (which is really "projects" in my case). Plan all of those things one would rather be doing as reward when X amount of writing is finished. Of course X is an unrealistic estimate but continue to think that it'll serve as motivation to get more done by prompting oneself to officially kick one's butt into gear. Not do what one planned to do - or not enough of it. Feel resentful because the other stuff wasn't done that would have been more fun - but of course it wasn't deserved, well or otherwise - because the dissertation didn't get as much attention as it ought to have. Day ends. Start anew with the (mistaken and surprisingly naive?) commitment for the next day to be different.

And somehow in the midst of many days like this it does eventually get done. Speaking of which, back to 'it'!