Excuse or explanation?

I haven't gotten a chance to work on my dissertation at all this week. I've been sick, and then I had outlines to grade. My great aunt passed away. I cancelled my meeting with my advisor because I hadn't gotten a chance to work on it. He responded by telling me to set some concrete goals to share with him. Not sure what to tell my advisor; just that I'm doing what I can do right now? That I've been trying to work on it every day and that's the best I can do? I've not made much measurable progress (not that I could show anyone anyway – random scribbles, lit review outlinish thing) but I feel like I can actually work on it. Not much, but I can.

I feel like everything is an excuse. That my concentration sucks, my great-aunt died (not especially close to her, but still made me sad), I had outlines to grade, that I'm not sleeping/eating well, that dissertation scares me, that I don't believe that I'll ever finish it. It is hard to admit to myself that I'm not doing as well as I should be. Telling other is even harder.

It sounds like I've got a lot of issues – which I do. I don't think this is what he had in mind when taking me on as an advisee. I know this is not what I had in mind.

can you guess which kitten i would be?

more animals

I, uh…um…can’t explain that

That's not something a teacher should say whilst teaching. Not for something that is in the book, that is on the freaking exam review, that I know and prepared for. I ended up letting my second class out 25 minutes early because I simply couldn't do my job. Yeah, I can have a bad day. This was much more than a bad day. Considering my students work full-time and go to school, have families, etc. I at the very least could do my job well.

The culprit? Probably lack of food. I woke up late and scurried to school and worked all day, then taught. It wasn't until one of my students asked me what I ate earlier until I realized that I hadn't had anything but a couple of chocolate heart left over for valentines day. That's it. I forgot to eat. All day. I didn't feel hungry at all. Didn't even have brain fatigue…it just stopped working.

Geez.

So, so tired

My sleep schedule has been quite messed up lately. Like going to bed at 5:30am one night and get up at 4:30am another (not consecutive days, obviously). I've not been waking up early by choice, either. And today was no exception. It blows to get up at 5:45am while having gone to bed at 3:30am. And I didn't have to get up until 8:30-9am. I didn't really even sleep; I think with anxiety about the dissertation kept me up. Barely slept the night before either.

I've done some work already today. I think I am a good work-in-the-morning person, but not actually a morning person. This would be a fantastically wonderful thing that I've gotten stuff done already, but I'm going to be getting stuff done (or at least working on) until at least 9:30pm. That's what sucks about teaching at night and waking up early. The day is too long. Mondays aren't bad because I usually stroll in about 2 or 3pm. But Wednesdays I have an 11am meeting. Not so early really, but I usually will get there at 10am to prep and don't leave until at least 10pm, after I've taught and organized my things for the next day. So 12hrs of work in store for me. On no sleep. This should be fun.

Been trying to quell the anxiety I have about the dissertation. When I look at how well I've been sticking to my schedule the last couple of days, and making progress every day, I feel like I'm doing well. I just don't feel that I have that much to show for it. So on my terms, my evaluation, I'm doing quite well making progress, however slow. Slow is better than none, right? I still feel like a slacker during meetings though. It's not usually that I haven't worked on stuff, but that I don't really have much to explain. I often feel like the meetings are fairly unnecessary if all I'm going to say is that I've been reading, thinking and writing the lit review. I don't really have many questions to ask at this point that I shouldn't be able to figure out by reading more. And makes me kinda pissed to go in early just to say that. If I had to be there that early already, I wouldn't mind. But this gets me to school about 4 hours before I usually would.

I need to focus on the things that I am doing right, however slowly. I don't like meetings because I don't feel like I have much to show for the work I've done. It makes me feel a little ashamed. It's weird that I actually feel good about my dissertation in relation to my plans and goals. I feel that more is expected of me than that. I'd really like to stick to my own expectations right now, until I gain some confidence in my work and abilities.

Tea, meetings, and anxiety. Have I learned anything in the past 5.5 years of grad school?

So it is very early Wednesday morning…and we all know what Wednesday morning's bring. The weekly meeting. The meeting that I attempt to explain what I'm thinking/doing, generally without much success.

So here it is 12:30am and I'm binge-drinking herbal tea. First was country peach passion, but that is all gone now. Onto lemon zinger. I'm sitting at my dining room table with a whole bunch of articles spread before me. I have done several hours of work today (followed my new color-coded calendar somewhat) but I haven't gotten as much done as I would have liked. I think I work much slower than the average student; it seems to take forever for me to get stuff done, even when I'm not procrastinating.

Also, I get to the point where I'm almost done…and stop. Anxiety kicks in big time. So I can't seem to finish my ideas/thoughts/paragraphs completely. I hate that I do this; if I were running a 5k (3.1 miles), I wouldn't stop after mile 3. I'd finish the race. I'd dig in and use all of the energy I have to kick it in. So what if my lungs are burning? So what if my legs feel like they are going to give out? Just a little further, and I'll be done and be able to rest.

One problem with this race analogy is that the dissertation process is not a 5k; it is an ultra-marathon. An ultra-marathon through the woods, over mountains, often with trails that lead nowhere that fools us. My thought of the entire painful race gets to me and I freak out.

I also I'm plagued with thoughts that my writing is not good enough. I wonder how I managed to pass my classes, finish my thesis, pass comps. I forget I've even done that. I feel as clumsy with this whole dissertation process as I did with my first grad class – no idea what the hell I'm doing. I feel like I've regressed on the "smart" scale…like all of the previous education in the past doesn't count, or that I couldn't do it now. Deep down though, I know I have the ability. I've always had the ability. I just don't always have the motivation, concentration, confidence to do things to the best of my ability.

Seriously, when I think about what I'm doing right now (with the teacup replacing the view of the struggling writing's ashtray) I know that I'm being unreasonably anxious. Seriously, I'm sitting in front of a computer screen and can't seem to get a simple list of questions and comments appropriate for the meeting tomorrow. That's another thing; I never really know what he expects every meeting. Should I always have questions, or have some amount of writing done? I'm not entirely sure. I should probably ask. I don't often feel like I have anything "together enough" to turn in. Sure, I may have 6 pages of random notes and ideas, but it was probably make no sense to him. Email only advising is what I'm used to, and what I'm most comfortable with.

Ok, 1am and I'm on my 6^th cup of tea. And I feel like baking cookies or something. Must come up with a list of points to discuss/questions to ask. I think I've got most of it in different forms of notes –scribbles, outlines, etc. Wish I could sit down and wrote in an organized, coherent fashion. Sorry if this post is neither.

Motivation needed; concentration too

I've not been especially good at staying motive or beings as productive as I'd like. I have worked on stuff a little more, but not nearly what I could do. At this rate, I'll be graduating in 2038.

I think I may need more structure, or at least some routine. I have routines for absolutely nothing. If it is not scheduled, I don't do it on any predictable basis. I don't have a particular time that I get up or that I go to bed. So essentially, nothing in my life has become automatic. It is rare that I feel like I'm having an odd day, that I'm doing something other than I usually do. So you could call me a free spirit or whatnot. Without that automaticity, however, I don't "just do" anything. I have to think about it and decide what to do. So I need to think less – save it for the dissertation.

I think way too much about everything. Today I woke up early and wanted to do some laundry. However, I was concerned that I might want to go somewhere after I started a load. And I didn't really HAVE to do laundry; it could wait. Took me about 10 minutes to decide that I was, in fact, going to do laundry. When I get to the laundry room however, there was someone using it. So I had spent all of this time making this small decision and it didn't even work out.

I think about small things in the same way I tackle bigger problems. A bit too much analysis for daily life. Perhaps that's why I can't concentrate on anything; every little decision seems to be a big deal.

So, I'm going to try to stick to some sort of schedule. I hate conforming to schedules -way too limiting. But I have to admit that when I had classes I was much better about getting things done and generally did things at the same time each week.

So I'll see how this works. I'm only going to schedule week-by-week and reschedule "appointments" if I don't do things when I am supposed to. I have a new color-coded calendar – hopefully I can put it to good use. I love to create calendars and schedules, but I'm generally very poor at sticking to them.

Chugging along…

I had a good meeting with my advisor last Wednesday. I've got some direction and some suggestions on how to move forward. One such thing I'll need to do is to do a literature review of P-O fit. Ok, I can do that. I meet with him tomorrow…and I've only got a page done. Well, it is only 3:30pm; I've got until 11am tomorrow. I don't think he expects me to have it completely finished. Not sure what I'm going to say. I'll probably send him what I have and tell him not to look over it; I just wanted to show him that I am working on it.

Teaching has been eating up a good amount of my time. Not really the actual teaching part or preparing the material part. Mostly emailing students and asking for make-up exams, dealing with strange situations. Oh, and posting of things on Springboard. I really need to focus on my dissertation more – like work on it exclusively T, TH, & F. Although there are student issues that keep coming up and I like to deal with them as they come.

So I'm doing pretty well overall. Teaching is going well. They didn't seem to hate me because of the test like prior classes have been. Ended up talking to a few students after each class for awhile. Dissertation is progressing slowly, but the general forward trajectory is good, even if the velocity is slow. I'll worry about the speed later. Right now I need to focus on being consistent; working on it a bit every day, or at least 5 days a week. Even it is only one article I read, 2 sentences I write, or gathering more articles, it is progress. Progress is good.

It isn’t what you say; it’s how you say it.

I've had a couple of instances in the last couple of days for which inspired this post. The first was a chat with a friend. The second was an email I received from a student. In both cases, while I didn't LIKE what they wrote, the sentiment itself didn't piss me off. What pissed me off was how it was worded. "You can't leave it be, can you?" [something to that effect…definitely including the 'can you?" which I find offensive] in reference to a situation in which I hadn't fully described. Immediately, I became defensive. I was also quite upset before this whole thing started. I was just looking for someone to listen/read since I had had quite a bad day. While I don't believe what he meant was malicious, it came across as a scolding, a lecture. Not what I wanted to read at 3am. Thus, I got pissed and signed off, saying I was going to bed (wasn't really).

The email I received was very accusatory, stating that I was very unfair. Note the *I*. In my many years of grad school, I learned that feedback is best given at the task level (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). Thus, a better way of getting the message across without making me defensive would be, "I feel that [whatever the student thinks is unfair. i.e. how the homework is graded] is unfair. Not referring to me, my personal characteristics, but to my actions. Big difference. I spent several hours this evening really pissed off about it.

Using email/chat to convey emotions is tricky. While something may not be meant as malicious may come across that way. It is based on how the reader interprets it, which can be partially influenced by current mood. I overreacted to both, no doubt about it. However, people should be conscious about how they come across to others, particularly through written communication. I'm sure I'm guilty of this as well; perhaps coming across a little blunt. I'm terrible at ending emails, so I often sign off without any sort of closing. I need to work on that. And stop overreacting.