the joys of grad school
well, after parsing out workhours with Ryan this morning on the way to campus, I think I've figured out why I haven't gotten shit done on my dissertation since passing my exams last spring. it turns out that I spend about 32 hours a week (conservatively) on work completely unrelated to what I'm planning to do for my dissertation. huh. guess that explains a lot. kind of puts me in the pits of despair about ever really finishing my degree, to be honest. I'm not the sort of person who can work themselves ragged, spending 50+ hours a week on non-leisure activities-- my mental state begins to degrade even when I'm nearing 40 hours, and there is nothing less conducive to writing a decent and useful piece of literary criticism than a degraded mental state. add to this that, well, I don't have a wife to do the housework and cooking for me (I have a husband for whom I am emotional support since he is rapidly approaching the most stressful part of the grad school experience: exams), and it feels as though I am just completely fucked when it comes to ever trying to finish my PhD. I hate grad school.