I don’t know who all has been praying for me, but thank you.
The transition to the new semester has gone better than I had really dared to
hope. Several months ago, I could not have imagined that I would be able to get
through an eight-hour work day, much less have energy to make dinner afterward,
or turn around and work on my dissertation the next morning. My energy levels
have improved pretty dramatically (helped somewhat by the discovery that coffee is powerful). The loosely structured, lengthy summer was
exactly what I needed (and no doubt a big part of what’s helped me feel better
and more ready to tackle things), and the more regimented schedule is exactly
what I need now.
It is worth saying that, unless I were truly under the gun to finish a chapter, I still don’t think I could get
through a full day of working solely on my dissertation (at least not without plenty of existential angst and pitiful whimpering). The partitioning of
energies seems to be the only thing that makes this work. And that is useful information
to have as I think about what might come after I graduate.
I’m in awe of people who can work demanding jobs while
carrying a full course load. I don’t think I could have handled that. But for
whatever reason, my current 20-hour-a-week job seems—so far—to lend itself
pretty well to the way I approach the dissertation stage. I like having a
totally distinct set of responsibilities that I don’t have to carry with me
into the other set, and vice versa. And I like getting up early in the morning (!)
and being able to do several different kinds of things over the course of the
day. Again, these are things I would never have learned about myself if not for
the struggles of the past two years!
For the time being, the dissertation progresses somewhat
slowly, since I haven’t yet managed to balance writing and work as equitably as
I will probably need to. Between full days at work, then making and cleaning up
from dinner, and getting some time with my husband, there really isn’t space
for writing during the first half of the week. But the good thing is that it’s
progressing, even though it feels like it’s inching along more days than not. I
am going on 70 pages at this point, and once adrenaline kicks in, I shouldn’t
have trouble hitting my goal of 100 pages by Christmas. As long as I set goals
focused on tangible output rather than time spent, and don’t worry too much
about comparing my process to anyone else’s, I seem to do pretty well. As soon
as I start comparing myself to other students, or trying to adhere to a certain
pattern for what dissertation work should look like, I start to falter.
I had hoped and expected to teach in my fifth year, but
since that didn’t work out, I was offered the opportunity to work as a graduate
research assistant in my library’s Special Collections department. I hope to
explain this in more detail in a later post.
I have to say, I was a little bit crushed when teaching
didn’t work out. Not even so much because of the teaching itself, but because
it threw my career expectations into yet more of a muddle. I’m not sure what
this will mean for my future career in academics.
However, it must also be said that I’m happier than I’ve
been for a long time. There are plenty of struggles, certainly; but I no longer
feel trapped in a routine that wasn’t serving me well at all, no matter how
hard I tried to convince myself it was right. Thank you, again, for praying.
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