The last day of summer…

Oh how sad it is. The last day of summer. How it goes so fast – how I didn't meet my goals. At least my academic ones. Ideally, I'd be about ready to propose my dissertation early in the semester. Right now, I'd just like to get my hypotheses settled so I can get on with it. It seems I really want to be done with school, but am not making the strides to do so. Kind of like a student that wants to get an A, but doesn't study. The dissertation isn't going to write itself.

I'm trying to strike a balance between being pushing myself to work harder than I want to and berating myself. I seem to end up doing the latter, and it helps no one. It's that voice that says "I suck", "I'm a bad writer", "I should be done with my proposal right now. I'm so freaking lazy". The fact that I have not done much work impedes me actually doing work. I'm feeling so guilty about not getting things done earlier that it makes me so anxious that I can't do the work now, which makes me feel worse, and things still don't get done. Cycle of negativity – I see it.

I really need to let it go; start fresh. Forget about my lack of progress previously – what matters is right now. I can't do anything about the past, but I can change the direction I'm going. I've not been happy with my academic progress, and I know it's just going to get worse if I don't change something and just do it. Just get the focus and do it! I need to quit apologizing for how little I got done this summer and just get on with it. Ok, perhaps I should apologize once, but leave it at that. My advisor wants me to do well, and expects me to (ok, that's questionable at this point). I should tell him that it is not a reflection of him (it's not). I'm a secondhand advisee – I haven't been molded for this. I've been molded for chasing advisors down the hall, pouting and stomping out of offices, reminding constantly that I exist, etc. This is a bit different…