Sunday, April 29, 2007

Crazy Revision Plan

I'm sorry I'm so boring lately, so totally focused on the dissertation. I swear one of these days I'll come back up for air and complain about other things -- like packing up my apartment and the prospect of moving to a new place and teaching classes I haven't even been assigned yet! But for now, I am all about the dissertation all the time.

Most of this semester's work is over -- just some loose ends to tie up early next week. And I've created the craziest revision plan ever: I should have a complete second draft in about two weeks. The craziest part about it is that it seems almost possible. Moreover, it has to be done, because I need to send stuff to my readers pronto -- and May 15 is that fateful day. (Monday, I MUST do the difficult and boring work of writing to my committee members about the defense date. I must, I must, I must!)

So today I really hated everything and everyone and was sour to Witty Sardonic Friend and SO for hours longer than usual. Then finally SO got me talking about stuff remotely related to my dissertation and somehow I climbed up on my high horse and was able to penetrate (or perhaps transcend) the fog that had been between working on the intro and me. I told myself I only had to sit and stew for 90 minutes. 4-1/2 hours later, I was finished with everything but a few citations. I went over to WSF's and watched Spiderman 2 (nothing terribly exciting, but now that Peter and MJ have come to some kind of understanding, I sort of want the story to end there, with the myth that somehow Peter can have a life and be a hero), then came home, looked up the citations, ate chocolate, ended up getting chocolate all over my laptop, and here we are. Second draft of Intro done. A day early. HA!

No doubt, I'll end up wasting tomorrow. But if I could manage a mere ten minutes of washing dishes I swear it would really help the smell of my kitchen. (This is called blogging the shame, folks.) And really, there is no reason why someone whose ass has severely widened during the last year should be eating chocolate. Tomorrow, it would be a very good idea if I'd do even the slightest bit of yoga. After blueberry pancakes, of course. Ooh, and I must go and get DVDs so I can copy some DVDs that a student loaned me.

1 comment:

Sisyphus said...

ooh, ooh! Moving! Packing! Cleaning! Organizing! Redecorating! How fun and exciting (bounces up and down, rubs hands together).

Man, if I had those impending in my life I wouldn't be able to get anything done on my diss for all the fun and the planning and the worrying I'd have to do instead.

Which is why I'm forcing myself to stay put until I finish everything up, rather than hunt for far-away postdocs or VAPs.