Writing a Dissertation

in a state of great exhaustion

and sans spectacles

I somehow confused

Le Tigre with

Los Tigres

Both are bands

yet worlds apart

I am cross-posting this piece from another OSU grad student in the college of Arts and Sciences to draw attention to the current funding situation across campus.  Recall a few weeks ago when I asked about funding… well, at that point I was hearing various inklings of some sudden funding cuts in departments: grad students all of a sudden finding themselves without GTA positions for next year with no notice.

Yesterday my committee officially signed off on my prospectus, which means that I have the green light to start the writing! This is both exciting and frustrating. Exciting because I’m excited to work on the project, and frustrating because I’ve done such a good job finding things to keep myself busy while I waited to do the “real” writing that I don’t have any time this week to actually write! I have to get a lot of work done on my paying gigs.

The other thing that’s happened that throws a bit of a damper on my forward momentum is that I lost my job at the university. Arts and Sciences cut a lot of graduate student funding and I was affected negatively. This means that I also have to find a job, which is the other thing that’s taking up my time this week. I have some deadlines to meet for submitting application materials.

But I’m still feeling upbeat overall – I have a project supported by a great committee, and I have a direction! These are all good things.

My next step is to add about 10 pages to the prospectus document where I unpack some key terms and concepts (disability, monster/freak, spectacle, periodical) to give a good theoretical basis to the project. This will become the draft of my introduction. Then, according to my awesome advisor, I can start with whatever chapter excites me the most:)

It really makes me sad to learn that with only a month before her contract runs out, a fellow grad student has gotten her prospectus approved and is so excited to begin one of her chapters only to find herself no longer supported by her department.

Today was good.  Many things got accomplished writing wise, and I’ve set good goals for Wednesday and Thursday.  I wish I had more energy to work on the “article” tonight, but after a long meeting and taking care of some other business while I was in the office, I just did not have the fortitude to drag myself back to the library to resume work. It was enough of an effort  just to bike myself home to curl up on the couch.

Even if I don’t write more, I feel like I should do more of something tonight—run errands, grocery shop, do a load of laundry, fold the remaining laundry that is lingering on the drying rack, dust or vacuum or windex. Or, maybe, none of the above. For the last 48 hours I’ve been feeling like I am developing an ear infection.  I don’t quite see how this is possible as I am no longer a toddler and I do not swim on a regular basis. Yet, the ear pain seems to be ailing me and making me a bit more tired than usual.

The ear issue, however, is not and will not be an excuse for slacking on the writing/editing/rearranging. Right now it feels like the first 24 of the 58 pages are set in place.  Tomorrow and Thursday I hope to get the next section completely and properly rearranged.  That plan will leave me with Friday and Saturday to worry about the last section and write any new content that is needed for the final section. Sunday and Monday will be spent editing the whole thing, with or without the help of editing elves.

Okay, time to go find the energy to at least do the dishes from dinner.

These days I seem to be spending a lot of time moving between different word documents, different versions of drafts of the “article.” Each happens to be labeled at the top via the file name, but at a quick glance I can’t necessarily distinguish between the May 17th draft and the May 23rd draft.

I think it would be lovely in whatever the next release of MS Office will be, 2010? 2011?, if microsoft could see fit to allow me to somehow color-code the backgrounds of the various documents or the panes themselves.  Such color coding would allow me to quickly distinguish between documents as I move back and forth. However, perhaps by the time microsoft accedes to my wishes I will have the lovely set up of two mammoth, linked Apple cinema displays—then I will be able to see all my open documents at once!

I just finished two hours of very good editing and writing. Oh that feels so good! I think I really now like the organization and flow of the first part of my introduction to the “article.” Since I have no editing and errand running elves, I think I shall break now, run some of those errands and meditate upon the next section of the introduction. There will either be one or two more parts to it—not sure yet—but I guess that will have to be figured out while picking things up along the way.

In addition to editing, if the elves could do the grocery shopping, cook for me, do the dishes and fold the laundry, I would be most appreciative.

Sometimes, even sometimes, it would be nice if the elves could attend some social engagements in my stead. Its not that I don’t love all of you, but clearly the spring social season is well underway and that seems to conflict with my writing schedule.

after a dream about a faculty meeting…

this can only mean that it is Friday.

I would like a small army of proofreading elves. I think I could manage with about four or six depending on where I am in the dissertation, but yes, proofreading elves.

This idea came to me the other night while I was brushing my teeth before going to bed.  I was thinking about my upcoming trip to the mountain and a close friend of mine who will also be back on the mountain this summer.  He will actually be graduating at the end of this summer, which is most exciting.  He is an awesome guy and a really great friend, and I think that he would say I have been a very good friend to him over the years.

I am not making that statement in an egotistical fashion because, well, let’s be honest, I have my shitty moments as a friend, too.  Still,  I suspect that he would say I’ve been a good friend to him, for among other reasons, I have read over  every single paper he has written.  I am his designated reader, proofreader, critic, and cheerleader.  Even when I was not on the mountain last summer, he would email me the papers. Even that night on the mountain when I bounded over a table, his paper in hand, to get to the other side of the room and in jumping off the table jumped too high and into a light fixture nearly giving myself a concussion.  Yup, I concentrated hard and finished proofreading that paper before crawling back to my room and wondering just how much of a mark that light fixture left.

In reflecting upon all of my proofreading good deeds over the years, for he is not the only one who loves me for my attention to details, I began wondering what it would be like if I called in all of the proofreading debts owed to me.  Or, alternately, if I somehow manage to acquire a small army of highly literate, grammatically fierce elves.  Each would have a page, and as I worked with the first elf the second third and fourth would be reading.  Once done with the corrections and suggested changes from elf #1, it would be on to #2, and #1 would get the fifth page of the document, and so on and so forth until the whole damn thing was tidy and free of typographical errors.

Yup.  Elves.