Bullets of Dissertation

• I'm back in the library.
• I'm going to be posting a lot the next few days as I force myself to come in and work. Be careful you don't die of boredom reading my posts.
  
• This morning I worked from 9 to 10:15 in the coffeeshop, when my computer abruptly and unexpectedly died. I did some errands on the way to pick up the power cord and that ate up an hour. Bleah.
• So far I have almost finished up a paragraph. That and I wrote The Footnote That Ate Cleveland. I'm not sure it's quite big enough ---- I want to make sure it has a fighting chance against Godzilla, and right now I think it would only be able to take on Mothra in rigged fight. So it's back to feeding it some radioactive, mutated growth food!
  
• You wouldn't think it, but Joy Division actually works as writing music. What does it say about me though that my favorite song of theirs is the one where they quote the sick Nazi novel about the sexual experiments in the camps? In my defense, it has the best drum riffs and is nice and clangy sounding.
  
• It's very nice outside but I can't find an outlet for my laptop. It is extremely stuffy in my library cubicle and it's freezing out here where I have internet access.
  
• lit review goes here Oh wait, this is my relaxation writing, not my work. Never mind.
• I'm getting a little tired. The good news is that I have tons of mindless quote-checking and book-pulling now to get this passage up to complete beauteousness. The bad news is I have tones of mindless quote-checking and book-pulling on my to-do list now.
• I still need to swim today (I skipped yesterday.) Maybe if I can force myself through most of the afternoon I'll be able to swim in the late afternoon and avoid the horrible feeling of swimming on a full stomach.
  
• My life is boring and I have neither interesting goofing off stories nor actual interesting chapter work to show for this latest period of boringness. Grumph.
  

Dissertation Jail

I have sentenced myself to the library to serve out my time on chapter 5. It is only somewhat working. So far I have written for about an hour ---- I took a paragraph that I roughed out on Wed. and rewrote it, and spliced in the critics I am responding to (now it is a nice paragraph). But now I am restless and my brain is loose, like how after a really hard swim or run you can't even clench your fist any more. I went and returned some keys and videos as a break. Now I still feel blah. It might be because the lib. is so stuffy in here --- perhaps I shall go and work on the next section, which I have printed out, outside in the fresh air. I might get another hour out of that, and then I can break for lunch.

It is hard going from "an hour or so here and there" to "now you have a full open day to dissertate for 8 hours or more." However, I have deadlines, people, and I can't just go on at my turtle pace for this home stretch. Gar. Grah! Bleah!

I also have the final papers from my students but I won't even touch them today. I can do them on Sunday or something, after having really driven myself nuts on the chapter writing.

Ok ---- pushing myself away from the table and going off to stare at a different section of my chapter now. Any words of encouragement and silliness are appreciated, as I'll probably be back here for another break in a little bit ---- but not until I turn this blob of notes and quotes into another paragraph!

Update: Ok, so where are all my supportive and helpful comments? Tphthththththtth! You all are either falling down on the job or have gone off to have fun this Friday, and I am grumpy about both those options.

What I have done: I wrote for another hour outside and typed it all in. That was another roughed-out paragraph that needed fixing. Then I took a short break, then I tweaked a mostly-done paragraph. Then I ate lunch. So that's three crappy paragraphs turned into actual paragraphs! (Ok, I write sloooooow. I usually either rough out or write up a paragraph a day, so it's more like a 1/2 paragraph every day in my "little bit at a time" system. If I were to continue at that pace I wouldn't have everything cleaned up for another year, I feel. Anyway.)

After I ate, I felt all tired and blah. I've been "puttering" more than working ---- I grabbed some books, played with the biblio for a while, pulled more quotes and dumped them here and there ---- nothing really substantial. Then I took an internet reading break, and here I am.

What next? that is the question. I could do some more biblio work and some more checking details against this book I got out (I hate it when I take notes and then the topic shifts, so that I don' t have exact notes on the new stuff I want to reference.) I could also print out what I've got and stare at it a while. (Or I could take a nap.) Who said that? WHO? Don't you go napping the day away missy! You've got craploads left to write!

Righto!

Taken from yesterday's post----

Stuff that Has to Happen:

1. write intro (I got some sketchings)
   
2. insert historical refs on page 3 (three spots)
3. tie swerve off topic to main point on page 8 (3 spots)
4. streamline/chop long P on page 9
   
5. fix center ---- paste in end of pt 1 and finish resoundingly (a big job, requires actual thinking)
6. cut or fix the framing comments at beginning and end of pt 2 (will take from the intro sketchings)
   
7. fix end/conclusion of chapter
8. footnotes are a mess!
   

Also:

• read for class
  
• prep section (I'm on it inna second)
  
• grade cubic fuckload of bad student papers (siiiiiiigh...)
  
• get finals, same as above, grade

Righto, I am blazing through my piles of crap to do! As long as we develop a special form of blindness that prevents us from seeing student papers.

Now it is my slump time --- late afternoon. Time to hunt down some caffeine and a salt-delivery system. Aww yeah! I'm off!

to-do lists up the wazoo

Alrighty then, it is morning, I need caffeine, and I think that I have a bajillion things I need to do --- on three or four different lists. Last week was not my own, for reasons that may be revealed later, but I really really need to get back on top of things. You probably don't want to read this post; I'm going to blog my to-do lists like Earnest English used to do when she plowed through her dissertation so successfully.

Ok: I need breakfast and coffee, I also have no groceries, I need to clean my apt esp the Kitchen of Filth (otherwise known as the Pit of Despair and Dishes), I need to do laundry, I need to return (possibly copy and return) two overdue ILLs, I need to write a massive project that is immanently due, I need to email two profs, I need to fix a couple grading snafus from summer, and, of course, make progress on my job materials. So, to rearrange:

• breakfast at neighborhood coffee shop and
  
• plow through massive project (at least figure out where I was when I left off),

(this is what I hate about writing --- I wrote on it, does that mean I can cross it off? I didn’t “finish” or come to a stopping point. Sigh.)

• then groceries once I'm too jittery to write
• dump off ILLs at school while I'm in the car
• then throw some laundry in and
• clean at least the kitchen

(I finished pile of dishes of despair and cleaned my bedroom. The kitchen still is disgusting, though.)

• fix grade problem
• email my committee

I hope I make it through all those. The market will have to wait another day. Now, off to whiz through all my work with speed and productiveness!

Update: (and I balanced my checkbook and picked up drycleaning, which has been ready for two weeks now. Go me!)

Now I will cook something delicious. I may also need a manicure to counteract the nastiness of a mountain of dishes.