taking stock
The good news is that, as some of you may recall, I got a job. I'll be teaching at a nifty liberal arts college come the end of August, and I couldn't be more pleased.
In the interim, I have a lot of work to do.
Let's break this down:
In order to be settled in by mid-August, when things start happening, I need to have moved by August 1 or thereabouts.
In order to start work with any peace of mind, not to mention in order to have Assistant Professor status, I have to deposit my dissertation before moving.
In order to deposit my dissertation, I have to finish it.
In order to finish it, I have to defend it to my committee.
In order to defend, I have to a) assemble a committee, b) find a date on which we can all meet for the defense, and c) get a nearly-complete draft of the dissertation to the committee at least two weeks before that date.
At the moment, it looks as though I will be defending around the last week of May (hopefully before Wiscon rather than after, for the sake of my sanity). This means I have to plan on getting the draft in by, say, May 9th.
Between now and May 9th, I therefore need to do the following things:
- write a 40-page draft of chapter 3.
- re-read the novels I'm writing about in chapter 4.
- read secondary materials about same.
- write a 10-page sketch of chapter 4.
- rewrite chapter 1, which is currently in such terrible shape that I am essentially starting from scratch.
- revise chapter 2, which is in rather better shape, but still needs work (for one thing, it needs to be about 10 pages longer).
- write a 20-page draft of the introduction.
- write a 10-page notes-towards-a-conclusion sort of thing.
If this list looks to you as if I have six weeks to write two-thirds of a dissertation, you're not wrong. I also have to write a paper for the most important conference in my subfield, at which I am presenting in, let's see, just over two weeks, and if you suspect I'm feeling like an academic imposter about the lack of thought I've put into that presentation so far you're not wrong about that either.
I have worked out a timeline by which I can get all this done. It is a realistic timeline, I hope. It also has absolutely no room for error. If anything goes wrong, I am toast. While the drama of this situation does appeal in some ways to my inner adolescent slacker, who manufactured excitement in a boring life by riding the ragged edge of disaster as far as academic achievement went, it is not actually a situation that a sane adult would describe as good. On the other hand, the not-goodness of it isn't something I can waste time fretting about. It's not that I have no other choices; it's just that all the other options are much worse.
Staying on top of the timeline requires sticking to a daily schedule that I've made up, and which I have in fact been sticking to for the past several days. It is as sane as I can possibly make it, and involves, basically, the following:
10 hours dissertation (or, for three days, conference presentation)
half hour breakfast
one hour lunch
one hour dinner
one hour e-mail bureaucracy (often less time-consuming on weekends, hence having time for this post)
half hour walking or biking
half hour personal hygeine
two hours personal time
half hour reading before bed
7 1/2 hours sleep
I am hoping to spend some of that personal time either finishing up my notes on Farscape S4 or watching Battlestar Galactica and posting about it, or both, because I am going to be in desperate need of interaction with other people and yet am not going to have much time to leave the house.
I'd say it's going to be a long six weeks, but as a matter of fact I'm worried that it's going to be all too short.
I am contemplating making myself publicly accountable for my work by posting daily what-I-got-done tallies, a la truepenny, but honestly I'm not sure I want to give up any of my personal time to the effort.
Any and all expressions of encouragement and support accepted on a rolling basis between now and May 10th. Particularly welcome: positive thoughts and reassurance from those of you who have actually completed dissertations of your own.
In the interim, I have a lot of work to do.
Let's break this down:
In order to be settled in by mid-August, when things start happening, I need to have moved by August 1 or thereabouts.
In order to start work with any peace of mind, not to mention in order to have Assistant Professor status, I have to deposit my dissertation before moving.
In order to deposit my dissertation, I have to finish it.
In order to finish it, I have to defend it to my committee.
In order to defend, I have to a) assemble a committee, b) find a date on which we can all meet for the defense, and c) get a nearly-complete draft of the dissertation to the committee at least two weeks before that date.
At the moment, it looks as though I will be defending around the last week of May (hopefully before Wiscon rather than after, for the sake of my sanity). This means I have to plan on getting the draft in by, say, May 9th.
Between now and May 9th, I therefore need to do the following things:
- write a 40-page draft of chapter 3.
- re-read the novels I'm writing about in chapter 4.
- read secondary materials about same.
- write a 10-page sketch of chapter 4.
- rewrite chapter 1, which is currently in such terrible shape that I am essentially starting from scratch.
- revise chapter 2, which is in rather better shape, but still needs work (for one thing, it needs to be about 10 pages longer).
- write a 20-page draft of the introduction.
- write a 10-page notes-towards-a-conclusion sort of thing.
If this list looks to you as if I have six weeks to write two-thirds of a dissertation, you're not wrong. I also have to write a paper for the most important conference in my subfield, at which I am presenting in, let's see, just over two weeks, and if you suspect I'm feeling like an academic imposter about the lack of thought I've put into that presentation so far you're not wrong about that either.
I have worked out a timeline by which I can get all this done. It is a realistic timeline, I hope. It also has absolutely no room for error. If anything goes wrong, I am toast. While the drama of this situation does appeal in some ways to my inner adolescent slacker, who manufactured excitement in a boring life by riding the ragged edge of disaster as far as academic achievement went, it is not actually a situation that a sane adult would describe as good. On the other hand, the not-goodness of it isn't something I can waste time fretting about. It's not that I have no other choices; it's just that all the other options are much worse.
Staying on top of the timeline requires sticking to a daily schedule that I've made up, and which I have in fact been sticking to for the past several days. It is as sane as I can possibly make it, and involves, basically, the following:
10 hours dissertation (or, for three days, conference presentation)
half hour breakfast
one hour lunch
one hour dinner
one hour e-mail bureaucracy (often less time-consuming on weekends, hence having time for this post)
half hour walking or biking
half hour personal hygeine
two hours personal time
half hour reading before bed
7 1/2 hours sleep
I am hoping to spend some of that personal time either finishing up my notes on Farscape S4 or watching Battlestar Galactica and posting about it, or both, because I am going to be in desperate need of interaction with other people and yet am not going to have much time to leave the house.
I'd say it's going to be a long six weeks, but as a matter of fact I'm worried that it's going to be all too short.
I am contemplating making myself publicly accountable for my work by posting daily what-I-got-done tallies, a la truepenny, but honestly I'm not sure I want to give up any of my personal time to the effort.
Any and all expressions of encouragement and support accepted on a rolling basis between now and May 10th. Particularly welcome: positive thoughts and reassurance from those of you who have actually completed dissertations of your own.