Disillusionment

The offices where I work on campus are being reorganised. New staff arriving, old staff being called to meetings to talk about the new staff and the reorganisation. New staff getting settled in by the old staff. Old staff being asked to update upstairs staff about new staff. New staff not knowing how things work and asking old staff. Old staff getting frustrated.

I’m glad I’m finishing this thesis. Maybe I’m wrong to feel this way, but I am disillusioned. I think every project has its course and this project has run that course fine and well. If this were to be dragged out any longer, I would go mad. I am glad I am close to finishing, and glad I will be leaving soon. I am politically progressive in every sense of the word but having seen new staff come, old staff go for more than 2 years and being miserably stuck here all along, I’m starting to feel like it’s high time I left. Finished and left. I don’t want to watch new staff come and go and still be stuck here. I don’t want more change in the place I work. I want to change myself.

These last couple of months are probably the hardest. There’s this sense of dread eating away inside me, constantly hurrying me along, telling me there’s no time, no time at all, stop procrastinating and keep writing, writing, writing. But worse than that, I’m starting to feel even more irritated at the people who work around me, especially, and perhaps undeservedly, at the new people, who arrive fresh and bright-eyed and oozing with enthusiasm. I was the same as them when I started; their outlook is natural for their position; I have no place being cynical about them. Yet they have started annoying me to no end.

Sometimes it feels like I am so much part of the furniture that people see right through me; they are indifferent. After all, furniture just sits there silently. Yet inside it’s as if I’m screaming to get out of this place, kicking the doors in, smashing down the windows.

My Birthday.

It’s my birthday tomorrow. If I manage to get this chapter I’m working on done by 5pm today, which I’d really like to, but I’m not quite sure, I’ll see how it goes, well…I’m thinking about having the day off tomorrow.

The day off. It even sounds weird when you say it. Thesis writers don’t take days off.

But hey, whatever. Once this chapter is sent off I just have my conclusion chapter and some editing/rewriting of the lit review, and then the full thesis draft will be done. I’m nearly there. I think I might be able to afford 24 hours away from the grindstone. Maybe.

I’m thinking of doing some baking.

I Never Want To Hear Another Taylor Swift Song. Like Ever.

And, having recently come by a ‘hip’ commercial radio station by accident whilst looking for some decent background tunes while writing my thesis, I also find that I am allergic to Justin Boober and that makes-me-want-to-tear-my-ears-off annoying boyband…One Dimension, or something.

Ok. I’m going to keep calm and write my thesis.

Viva On The Horizon 2

I’m submitting my application for examination arrangements this week. Looking back, it was a hell of a lot of worry negotiating with my now-examiners, plus considering and being knocked back by others, and I’m not even the one who was doing the negotiating!

The bottom line is, I now have both of my examiners confirmed, and all that’s left to do is have them approved by the research committee. Paperwork’s going in on Wednesday, and if all goes well, I should have the final approval by the end of March.

That feels like it’ll be a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, but I’m wary of it coming and passing and me probably still not feeling like I’m out of the woods, because, well, I’m not.

I’m getting through yet another chapter at the moment…and, after I (hopefully) send it off this weekend, I’ll have just the conclusion and editing of my literature review chapter to go before I can proceed to full editing.

It’s crazy. Writing a thesis is crazy. It drives you mad. Lately I’ve been feeling like all I do is wake up, write, eat, write, shower, write, eat again, write, sleep, and then write some more. I know everything will no doubt make sense at the very end, but until then, I have resigned myself to the probability that I will feel this chaos until I finally finish.

Everything right now is centered on my viva. Getting examiner for my viva, doing paperwork for the viva, writing the thesis for the viva, making sure it’s ready in time for the viva, thinking about the viva, catastrophising about the viva. Wondering how all this madness that seems to be going on right now is all going to sort itself out with my, and only my intervention and converge tidily to arrive at my viva’s doorstep. Then, of course, what’s going to happen in my viva? Will the examiners think my thesis has even half a chance of being anywhere near anything that could even potentially be considered to be possibly approaching a standard even remotely near PhD standard?

This madness, this chaos. And through it all, write on I must.

I’m Late.

I know women say that about a number of different things, but I’m referring in this case to my writing.

I was supposed to have a particular chapter typed up and sent off by today, but I know it’s not going to happen. I’m not being pessimistic, I just don’t think I can realistically get done all that needs still to be done in time to meet my deadline, which is just over two hours away. I’ll probably have it finished by the end of tomorrow, but even running a day or two late with my schedule gets me down in the dumps, because I feel like I’m falling behind, and that’s dangerous because I don’t exactly have a great deal of leeway, or ‘procrastinational margin’, in my remaining months of registration.

*SIGH.*

Ok. I’m not going to turn this into a rant. I’m just going to finish this sentence, log out, and get on with my typing.

My New Internal Examiner Is A Wine Expert.

Well, today I’m back in the office trying to type up another chapter. I’ve resolved to have it done and sent off to my supervisors by this Saturday at 12 noon.

There’s been melodrama on the examiner front, to say the least. It’s been stressful knowing that the identity of my internal examiner is still unknown after my previous, provisionally confirmed internal backed out because he wouldn’t be available for a July viva. That did have me feeling down in the dumps for a few days, and I noticed a sharp decrease in my ability to concentrate on my thesis work with that milling around in my head.

Anyway, cut to two days later and I apparently almost have a new internal.

A wine expert.

This just gets better and better.

Apparently, while I was at home for the last two days weeping blood that I would have to delay my viva, give up my confirmed external, or quit my PhD (I know, I really should stop catastrophising), my supervisor had been chatting up a bloke on our DClinPsy programme who, unbeknownst to me, has an interest in my research area. This baffled me, as the guy in question is actually pretty famous for being a wine expert (yes, I know). However, subject to a little reshuffling in his schedule, he’s looking good for accepting my supervisor’s invitation to examine me.

I suppose when one door opens, and all that.

But a week ago, if someone had told me I’d be left without an internal, weep blood over it for two very painful days, then arrive at my desk to find I’d almost had an alternative confirmed, I’d probably have laughed my head off.

No, wait. I’d have laughed my head off if I’d known he would be a wine expert.

Manic Monday 3, I Think

I spent 5 consecutive days at home last week and realised late last night that I was slowly going mad. So here I am, at my office, doing things more like a human being than a writing-crazed zombie, like checking emails and writing this post.

I am 2 chapters down at the moment and am halfway through a third. I have until March 4th, at the latest, to have a full working draft of my thesis done, and I’m feeling upbeat and hopeful about meeting my target.

That said though, it is HARD work. The paradox is that at the time when you need to be churning out words and sentences productively and producing logical, tangible volumes of writing, your mind goes blank. You spend hours just staring at the page, looking over your chapter plan, over the papers you have to cite. You know what you want to say but you can’t put it into words. Or if you can, it sounds cumbersome or illogical.

I’m supposed to be submitting in May and I still can’t write a sentence. Well, I can. I’ve written thousands of them already, and I will keep doing so until the job is done. But exactly how great my writing will convey my ideas, I have no clue.

On top of which I found out over the weekend my internal examiner has declined to examine me due to a clash in his schedule. So that’s great. I’ll be chasing after my supervisor today to see if we can have a chat about moving our viva date around a bit to make this work, because I really, really don’t fancy changing examiners at this late stage.

I just want them to stay alive and safe, not to have heart attacks or schedule clashes.

Everything’s all over the place again. This is supposed to be a peaceful time, I’m supposed to be sitting quietly at a desk in a peaceful room, turning all my research into a sensible narrative, all comfortably in time for my submission deadline. Instead, I am writing madly in the midst of examiner melodrama and trying fruitlessly to hold on to my sanity.

I Have (Almost) Finished Another Chapter.

I’ve dragged myself to my office today to type up what I have of another chapter. Normally I don’t type until I’ve written the whole thing on paper, but today I just felt like I had to get out of the house. I go mad when I’m cooped up in four walls for days on end.

One thing I’ve noticed about my write-up over the last few weeks is that I feel less uncomfortable about it than I ever did about countless drafts I’ve tried to write in years gone by. I would spend evenings pushing myself to write up draft chapters, outlines, papers for my thesis. But they would all make me frustrated. I would feel as if what I was writing wasn’t good enough, like I was trying too hard to make it perfect yet the writing itself was painful to read. It read like it was ‘constipated’ – like it was trying to get a message across smoothly and concisely but nothing worthwhile was coming out. Like beating around the bush and not being able to say what you mean, try as you might. But now, these drafts I’m writing – I feel more at ease about them than I ever have. The things I write don’t stick in my mind and keep me awake at night, or make me wonder if I couldn’t have found a better way to write them. I feel like my writing really reflects what I want to say, and I don’t have the annoying feeling that my work is crap.

Maybe I’m kidding myself.

Or not.  I just don’t know. I have no idea if what I’m writing is any good, if my argument is persuasive enough, if I know my subject area in enough detail, or if my research is substantial enough or even tells an interesting enough story. Enough for what, I don’t know. Maybe enough to persuade my examiners that I’m good enough. But good enough for what? Surely all this isn’t just to be good enough to be awarded a PhD. Surely there  must be something more I’m working towards. But what?

I have no idea what’s going on.

I think I’ll go and keep writing now.

I Feel Fantastic.

I’ve been writing, writing, writing away for days on end. A few weeks ago I was dreading this, thinking I’d never survive through such a massive writing task. Yet here I am, writing away, and I feel great.

At the moment, I have another chapter coming along steadily.

It’s actually progressing.

It feels surreal that the work I’ve been working on all these years is finally culminating into a tangible, touchable thesis. And that, in total contradiction to everything I had imagined might happen (dropping out, failure, ending up homeless and penniless on the streets, going mad), I am actually succeeding. Well, maybe the ‘going mad’ one did come true…

Onwards and upwards, as they say.

Why God Never Received A PhD

Well, I’m taking 5 minutes off my tedious typing today to bring you a thought-provoking comedic list of reasons why my buddy God up there doesn’t have a PhD.

Religious fundamentalists, read at your own risk.

Why God Never Received A PhD