Notes from the road.
Nov. 29th, 2001 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI'm in Iowa. Been here just over 24 hours.
Iowa is where I went to graduate school, and in fact am still nominally enrolled as an ABD ("All But Dissertation") student. Prior to yesterday, I hadn't been here in 16 months. It's weird to be back. Also cold.
I came here because my dissertation is not done. In fact, data collection for my dissertation is horribly bogged down, and has been so since I began my internship. I should've made this trip at about this time last year, to spur things along - but that was when Misha was unemployed and I was working as an intern for around $6.60 an hour and we had no money at all for the trip.
Between then and now, what I've mostly done with my dissertation is avoid it. I've felt horribly guilty about my lack of progress - so guilty that thoughts of my dissertation (which usually came up at around 2am, when I was desperately exhausted) would send me into a wild panic. I had to push the thoughts of failure, of ruin, of my advisor's crushing disappointment, clean out of my head.
You see where this is going, don't you? It's hard to get any work done on something you've been avoiding that desperately. It's hard to even think about how to move forward.
So at around 8:45 this morning I marched into my advisor's office and faced him. And he acknowledged, rather unemotionally, that I had screwed things up. And then he started helping me systematically figure out how to pick up the pieces again. All day today I was either meeting with him or working on other dissertation-related tasks: trying to line up an undergrad research assistant to handle the last of the data collection, and trying to iron out my subject recruitment problems.
And along the way, I've been telling everyone I meet: "My dissertation is really bogged down. It ground to a halt when I went away on internship. I've come back to try to get the research jump-started, because I'm really desperate to finish."
I'm finding - and this probably surprises no one but me - that the more I repeat this statement (to the departmental secretaries, to faculty members, to my fellow grad students) the less horrible and painful and shameful it feels. It's becoming just a statement of fact. Telling my advisor about all the problems, same thing: it's a recitation of facts, and it leads to problem-solving.
In short, I'm finding that much of what has made this really, really dreadful has been all the avoidance. I wish I'd put my hand in the flame a year ago, really levelled with my advisor about the problems and started toughing it through the solution process. Because the more I didn't go near it, the longer I was silent, the harder it was to go on with it.
Today was exhausting, and tomorrow will be more of the same. But I still feel better than I did. It's going to be rough work ahead, but at least it's just going to be work. It's not going to be agonizing, soul-draining, shameful misery. For the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful about finishing my Ph.D.
Iowa is where I went to graduate school, and in fact am still nominally enrolled as an ABD ("All But Dissertation") student. Prior to yesterday, I hadn't been here in 16 months. It's weird to be back. Also cold.
I came here because my dissertation is not done. In fact, data collection for my dissertation is horribly bogged down, and has been so since I began my internship. I should've made this trip at about this time last year, to spur things along - but that was when Misha was unemployed and I was working as an intern for around $6.60 an hour and we had no money at all for the trip.
Between then and now, what I've mostly done with my dissertation is avoid it. I've felt horribly guilty about my lack of progress - so guilty that thoughts of my dissertation (which usually came up at around 2am, when I was desperately exhausted) would send me into a wild panic. I had to push the thoughts of failure, of ruin, of my advisor's crushing disappointment, clean out of my head.
You see where this is going, don't you? It's hard to get any work done on something you've been avoiding that desperately. It's hard to even think about how to move forward.
So at around 8:45 this morning I marched into my advisor's office and faced him. And he acknowledged, rather unemotionally, that I had screwed things up. And then he started helping me systematically figure out how to pick up the pieces again. All day today I was either meeting with him or working on other dissertation-related tasks: trying to line up an undergrad research assistant to handle the last of the data collection, and trying to iron out my subject recruitment problems.
And along the way, I've been telling everyone I meet: "My dissertation is really bogged down. It ground to a halt when I went away on internship. I've come back to try to get the research jump-started, because I'm really desperate to finish."
I'm finding - and this probably surprises no one but me - that the more I repeat this statement (to the departmental secretaries, to faculty members, to my fellow grad students) the less horrible and painful and shameful it feels. It's becoming just a statement of fact. Telling my advisor about all the problems, same thing: it's a recitation of facts, and it leads to problem-solving.
In short, I'm finding that much of what has made this really, really dreadful has been all the avoidance. I wish I'd put my hand in the flame a year ago, really levelled with my advisor about the problems and started toughing it through the solution process. Because the more I didn't go near it, the longer I was silent, the harder it was to go on with it.
Today was exhausting, and tomorrow will be more of the same. But I still feel better than I did. It's going to be rough work ahead, but at least it's just going to be work. It's not going to be agonizing, soul-draining, shameful misery. For the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful about finishing my Ph.D.
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Oh, well, good.
Date: 2001-11-29 08:45 pm (UTC)Re: Oh, well, good.
Date: 2001-11-30 05:19 am (UTC)Re: Oh, well, good.
Date: 2001-11-30 07:24 am (UTC)Yep. For some reason I had it filed under "one of those things R has either taken care of or come to terms with." More likely my own self-absorption than any alert assessment of your reaction to the issue.
no subject
Date: 2001-11-30 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-11-30 01:38 pm (UTC)Love,
Bill
two thumbs up!
Date: 2001-12-03 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-12-05 03:19 pm (UTC)Anyway, as someone who left campus in a near-ABD stage and didn't finish his dissertation until four years later, I certainly understand everything that's running through your head, from the avoidance issues to the rushed infrequent campus visits to the strained relationships with your advisor and labmates. Your experiences really seem to mirror mine so far.
Then again, I did eventually finish, so I hope your experience eventually mirrors mine there, too. :-)
Good luck in the future.
Cheers,
Bill (no, that other one)