Saturday, April 23, 2005

Love-Hate Relationship with New Things

I get all excited when embarking upon something new. For example, I am one of the few people I know who always looked forward to the end of the summer because we'd start a new school year. Am I nerd perhaps? Well, I like structure. My childhood summers were spent at a summer camp in northern Michigan for a month, but then the second half of the summer would essentially involve waiting around for school to start. Sure, we'd do fun things like going to the Ravinia Festival or to the Lake Michigan beaches and stuff, but I couldn't wait to start up a new school year and get back into the routine.

So why do I hate the thought of starting a new paper? I have a dozen outlines, concept maps, notes, ideas, etc all over my office and inside my head. I have a draft of my dissertation proposal due Tuesday. Have I written anything? Not really, so to speak. My colleagues won't be surprised by this: I do tend to write really fast and at the last minute. Perhaps if I wasn't so scared of just starting, then I could take my time instead of rushing against a deadline.

But what's the point of doing something without a deadline? See, I need the structure.

Alright, I need to take my own advice. I can do anything for five minutes: I'm going to focus for five minutes and see how much I get done.

Y'all are learning way too much about how my brain works if anyone out there is actually reading this stuff. But I do appreciate those who are sticking with reading this blog. Doc student land is a lonely existence at times, especially because we're all essentially in this for ourselves. I like coming into "Blogland" for inspiration because the act of writing and sharing thoughts through writing is a shared common interest. Sharing interests like this doesn't happen much in my person-to-person life, unfortunately.

Ho hum.

No comments: