It is almost 1am. And I am up stirring up anxiety for myself. Comparing my work to the work of others. Damning my own as without vision, and without direction. I simply survey what others have done, but to no point, to no end. Why do I need to trend through case studies? Why do I need to reiterate every point everyone has made about the flaws of this theory or that? I don’t. In fact it is counter productive and detracts from time that might be spent cultivating a broader perspective.
I have no sense of the level of detail I am ever supposed to go into. No issue is fully examined. I drown in the details. I see no big picture from down here. This has been a problem for all of my academic career— even before graduate school and specializing. I have always had trouble focusing on a topic I wanted to do. I have spent all my time trying to anticipate what I think my professor or advisor would want to hear.
Must forge ahead.
I now have day care for my daughter 4 days a week. 1 full day, plus a few hours on the others, is spent in my part-time teaching assistantship. I may have to go full time with day care. That being said, I have started to get some things done. I am focusing on the technical chapter for now and stepping temporarily away from the theoretical chapters. I am trying to regain sanity, perspective, and a sense of where all this can go. Maybe my theoretical chapter can literally wait until the end. When I am done figuring out how I plan to pull all my interpretations together. Maybe I can just put it off…
There will be more putting off. I have applied for a job and although I probably won’t even hear so much as an email rejecting me, the excitement I feel about the job has motivated me to research how to get it. Interview questions are available readily on the internet and these demand not only the dissertation, but a vision for the future, and syllabi and evidence of professional development (running small conferences and the like…). And all of this must come from the heart or it will come very slowly indeed and it will hurt coming out. And it will be ugly.
So I have come to realize that I must forge ahead, not only in the dissertation, but in molding myself for after the dissertation. While this is the point of graduate school on some level, one becomes lazy in the non-research pursuits. One shuts out the outside world. Dreads the gab at conferences outside the close friends with which you drink. When in reality the reason we should have been going to conferences was for the ‘corridor talk’ — a term I overheard this year at a conference. ‘Isn’t this why we go to conferences? It certainly isn’t for the talks.’
Seeing old friends, meeting new people. Getting advice, interviewing. Giving your talk, but more importantly, talking with people about talks afterwards.
I digress. I need to grow up. I need to start thinking for myself and wanting things a certain way. The fredom my advisor has given me has seemed, until now, as an obstacle. But I will learn to embrace it.
It is 1am. Time to sleep already…
