OK, I’ll admit it. I am tired. I have been going like hell the past several weeks, juggling work-home-family-school, flying off to West Palm Beach on assignment, sleeping an average of 3.6 hours per night for several nights in a row, yaddah-yaddah-yaddah. Boo hoo, poor me.
Get over it.
I’m not doing anything that any number of other people aren’t doing. I may even be a slacker compared to what some folks are juggling, what with their child-rearing activities and all that. We all lead ridiculously busy lives. I just happen to be trying to squeeze in a research project as well. No big whup.
So where the hell am I with it? Grinding the gears, baby. Yup. Two days of my five-day respite from work (I would use a little known term called “vacation” to identify it, but judging from the way some of my colleagues continue to reach out to me via Blackberry with work requests, clearly I am using an outdated definition of the word. Doesn’t anyone out there respect the phrase, “I am on vacation” even if it means I have not left the country, the state, or even my home, to do this so-called vacationing?)
Have we Americans gone mad, relinquishing our ability or even our inclination to relax? Has the world’s exacerbated economic funk driven us to such a state that we cannot risk taking a handful of days off to find that pleasant life balance that we need, for fear that we might be discovered to be replaceable in our jobs? News flash: No one is irreplaceable in the work place. Move on. Live your life on your terms.
It has taken me well into this second day of my week off -- a week, I dare say, that I had planned to fully dedicate to my research -- to start to feel human. The need for sleep and for a slower pace were apparent by Sunday night. I needed Nyquil to stave off impending flu-like symptoms. Yesterday, I needed a nap by 3 in the afternoon. It’s times like these that you have to listen to that inner voice that’s saying, Something’s got to give, child.
If there is one thing I have learned over the years, it is to listen to that voice. The body knows when it needs a rest, and if you don’t succumb, it will shut you down anyway. You may as well surrender willingly.
So as I sit here noticing that the calendar now shows just three precious business days left in my week off, I am slightly panicked. The good thing is, I am feeling fairly healthy and sufficiently energetic to pick up the ball and start plowing up the middle like Brandon Jacobs. (Look, if I could think of a better runningback on a team other than my embarrassing N.Y. Giants, I would have used it. It just so happens, Jacobs made the news highlights this week so he was fresh in my brain. Besides, it’s a metaphor, for crying out loud. Work with me. Or I’ll throw my helmet at you.)
Reality check: I have just three days this week to get on my horse and get my dissertation proposal in order. That’s because this dissertation process has many hurdles: committees that must approve your topic, deadlines for presentations, and so on. There are many things that slow down the work, even when the student is doing her damndest to speed it along.
Here’s where the panic is coming from: Last week, the new semester started. As a doctoral candidate, I have four opportunities per semester to trek up to Newport and meet with my colleagues in the program. This is an opportunity to air out my topic, ask for suggestions, be inspired by others, etc. Last semester, I missed all four meetings due to work obligations that had me away on business or preparing to do so. The missed meetings set me back considerably for finishing my presentation and obtaining formal approval to move forward.
I am determined not to let the job get in the way again -- even though I am aware that it is my employer who is paying my tuition. I’m sure my employer would like to be finished paying that bill at some point as well, so he would not argue with my desire to achieve that work-life balance that we hear about, if it means I will graduate before I reach retirement age.
I made a point to get up to campus early to meet with my dissertation mentor, Professor One. I had emailed him a copy of my proposal in its revamped form, and was feeling really good about it. I practically stayed up all night the night before, editing it, revising it, rereading it, making sure I had addressed previous concerns from Prof’s Two and Three, while staying on course with Prof. One’s initial comments.
So when I sat down in One’s office, I didn’t expect to hear that I had much more work to do. It wasn’t all bad, though. He recognized the shift I had made in my approach: I am looking at the evolution of the grief memoir, and how technology has affected that evolution. He rattled off a number of literary sources to check out; more reading!
No problem. Love to read. Love to learn. Got it. What else?
Add in a couple of other chapter topics: The history of grief -- right, I do need to look at that; also the history of privacy. The way we have grown to share our grief publicly, it does raise the question, why. Why are we opening up these difficult, painful moments to the world?
Indeed, why. It is the “why” part of the process that I need to explore with reckless abandon. My journalism background has taught me to tie up my stories in a neat little package of “beginning, middle, and end.” Academic writing demands that I dwell in the Village of Rhetoric while I pursue this research. If I am doing it right, I won’t be able to give away the ending too soon, because I will still be figuring out what the ending is.
Aha! So that’s how you do it! Another pot of coffee, please. I need to stay on this for a while longer.
Why do we share our grief publicly? My 25 year old nephew died of cancer this year. I left a small tribute to him on my Facebook page. But I hesitated in doing it because I wondered...is death too personal to talk about publicly? Was I violating HIS privacy by doing so? I'm 47 and I did not grow up in the Facebook generation... perhaps I hesitated because I wondered if I had a right to share this information on the Internet. It's one thing to tell your best friend at work how you feel when such a young life is extinguished, how you feel when you see his wife and now fatherless children. It's quite another to tell your 47 "friends" on Facebook. Am I trolling for sympathy? Do I look narcissistic--as though the public posting is more about me than it was about him? In the end, I posted it without his last name...a photo of the the dark outline of a leafless tree against the sunset. I guess for me it was like leaving flowers on his grave--a tangible reminder that he lived, and that his life mattered.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lori, for your comments. You are spot on; the privacy issue is largely overlooked in the new grief sharing via social media. I think about it every time I choose to post a photo that I have taken of a family member - whether he or she is on Facebook or not, would they want to have their image offered up to the world? I always think, "the internet is forever." Once you put something out there, it belongs to cyberspace. So you're on to something with the privacy aspect and it is one of the issues I am exploring in this journey to dissertation.
ReplyDeleteThe other point you made that resonated with me: trolling for sympathy. Because of the tragedy my family experienced with my sister, I think of this point a lot. I have always said that talking about my sister has been a very normal, very regular part of my life, so I do it naturally. However, I do have a sensitivity about it - do people think, "Enough, already?" Do they think it is a song overplayed? Bottom line: I really don't care - no disrespect intended - if people think so. I will always speak of her, which may or may not raise the ugly part of the story for some people. It is what it is.
Your last remark was poetic, and thus, the creative blossom of this exploration. It is metaphoric for what I am pursuing here. Thank you!
I totally agree with you that dissertation proposal do have many hurdles along the way. But, the problem is that if you can’t get over that hurdle. You can find yourself lost on your dissertation research proposal. And worst, might be even discontinued writing it. So, it is good to work on it as soon as possible to avoid mistake in the long run.
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