I’ve just been very busy. I have been trying to finish up my final project (which is now a month late), thinking about exams lists & proposals, and trying to finish any work that needs to be done before exam time actually comes. Believe it or not, I spend upwards of 6 hours a day writing (maternal responsibilities and doctors appointments permitting), and I still have about 7 pages to go. The problem is that this paper is related to my research, and I would like to it become a chapter in my diss; and this is what dissertation writing must be like. I know that it seems far off, but I know that it is around the corner, and that intimidates me. I have come to the realization that dissertations are very personal products; they symbolize all of our hard work, frustrations, neglected relationships, and other self imposed abuses along with hours of lonely solitude. And, despite the romanticism of it all, we all want to write something that contributes to the conversation of our choice and reflects our knowledge and hard work. We want to be proud of the work we’ve done, and we deserve to be; the trick is going to be to do it in the alloted time. I can already imagine the scores of phone calls I will be making to my friends, colleagues, mentors and family members (not necessarily in that order).
So if you see my name come up on your caller I.D., please answer it! I will need you to remind me that the completion of this degree is not only for the fulfillment of my dreams, but also the dream of my parents & my daughters. I am going to need to hear that “I signed up for this cruise” willingly, and that I can indeed do it. And of course, I will need you to remind me that there are deadlines that can not be negotiated, and committee members that have invested their time and their trust in me. Will I want to hear all of that? Probably not, but the people that we count on are supposed to tell us what we need to hear and not what we want to hear, right? In the end, you all know I will be grateful, and will finally be able to afford to take you out to dinner…once I get a job, of course!
For those of you whose number I don’t have, feel free to e-mail it to me. I will be happy to add you to my emergency list!
But I guess for all my musings the one thing I better do is get back to writing the paper that will serve as the entry way to all that I have to look forward to…
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