(no subject)
I wonder if maybe I shouldn't adjust my approach to this dissertation... Maybe I should just assume that I am going to fail, rather than try to do a "good job" and "earn" a "high mark"... Also, I am sick of my topic. So sick. Here's a hint: never chose a basic assumption as a research topic. Never. You will only be unhappy and tired because of it--never joyous and envigorated.
I've got ten days left until submission, but only 3 of them are reasonably usable. I've got just over 4K of a 12K(+/-10%) words paper. I feel like I'm utterly stabbing in the dark. I literally do not know what I have to do to let them pass me. I feel like I've been told to walk through a minefield mingled with quicksand to retrieve some one's special disposable napkin. This whole experience has been so maddening, frustrating, and crushingly defeating that I feel like my entire psyche is out of whack and I wouldn't know a good path to anywhere if it fell in my lap and spat in my face. Maybe I'm too egotistical, maybe I'm arrogant, maybe I'm really not smart at all, maybe I don't know anything and I can't learn, maybe I am a social/professional/academic pariah or a leper or something like that, maybe there's just no way not to be any of those because somebody has got to be...
Recently, I've been reading Learned Optimism to try to improve my life; the test in that book says I'm already optimistic (not top-level, but second-tier optimistic), but it's descriptions of learned helplessness ring familiar when I consider my life in Japan, and especially my experiences teaching in most of my regular junior and senior high schools, and especially doing this program. I want to finish so I can be done so I can get myself into a somewhat more favorable condition, with some reasonable expectation of stability until I chose otherwise. I feel ragey about "nothing contributing to a positive state of mind" and even the so-called good things in my life being major sources of repeated--and, worst, pointless--upheaval. But I also feel like I can't deal with fallout from bringing things to a head right now. I have the distinct reaction in my gut of wanting to take shelter from a fast-moving storm spotted on the horizon.
I want to feel more secure in what happiness I do have. I want to power my life with the motor of gratitude--but right now my mileage just is not cutting it. I want to be confident in a favorable outcome to my endeavors. I feel like I'm just not as resilient as I once was--like a rubber band that's been left under the windshield for the duration of a summer, and is cracked and dry and useless for anything... I'm so tired of feeling like I've got to scrabble for straws to feel thankful and like trying is worthwhile. Playing to my superiors and coworkers like I'm happy where I am when, no, I don't want the trouble class, and no, I'm not a cheerleader or a game master or a rental friend or any other perversion of substantive and meaningful human relationships or satisfying work. I don't want to have to always wrack my brain for alternatives all the time.
Oh, and I MOST DEFINITELY DO NOT want to be in Tokyo when the Olympics come here.
If I could have the perfect conclusion to this program... I would have a good sleep tonight, during which I somehow clicked something in my brain in such a way that what I'm doing made much better sense to me; how to present that was so much clearer to me. Then I'd have a good, energetic hour in the morning and hour in the evening of productive writing through the rest of this week and next week. I'd get at least four good hours of quality writing and editing in each day for the three remaining full days I have to get this done. I would do a good job, I would feel good about the job I did. I could turn in my paper satisfied the the product balanced the effort which exceeded the demands. I would get a super-high score and be able to graduate with merit, at least (it's just unreasonable to expect to do so, but if I could actually get distinction at this point, I want that). I would have a good presentation. I would have more fulltime job offers in desirable locations than you could shake a dead cat at. I would have a publication and offers for funded seats in doctoral programs (programs that would actually be experientially and factually good for me!). Things in my personal life would suddenly go much, much better relieved from the stress of all this. I could be together with the people who requite wanting to be together, and rid of anybody who doesn't. I could have friends and sociability, pleasant intellectual stimulation and fun...
I guess there are two ways, really, that I can deal with the utter failure of my research: discuss it in terms of action moving forward, and examine it in terms of fundamental assumptions not having been met. I guess...
Time for bed. Morning train tomorrow.
I've got ten days left until submission, but only 3 of them are reasonably usable. I've got just over 4K of a 12K(+/-10%) words paper. I feel like I'm utterly stabbing in the dark. I literally do not know what I have to do to let them pass me. I feel like I've been told to walk through a minefield mingled with quicksand to retrieve some one's special disposable napkin. This whole experience has been so maddening, frustrating, and crushingly defeating that I feel like my entire psyche is out of whack and I wouldn't know a good path to anywhere if it fell in my lap and spat in my face. Maybe I'm too egotistical, maybe I'm arrogant, maybe I'm really not smart at all, maybe I don't know anything and I can't learn, maybe I am a social/professional/academic pariah or a leper or something like that, maybe there's just no way not to be any of those because somebody has got to be...
Recently, I've been reading Learned Optimism to try to improve my life; the test in that book says I'm already optimistic (not top-level, but second-tier optimistic), but it's descriptions of learned helplessness ring familiar when I consider my life in Japan, and especially my experiences teaching in most of my regular junior and senior high schools, and especially doing this program. I want to finish so I can be done so I can get myself into a somewhat more favorable condition, with some reasonable expectation of stability until I chose otherwise. I feel ragey about "nothing contributing to a positive state of mind" and even the so-called good things in my life being major sources of repeated--and, worst, pointless--upheaval. But I also feel like I can't deal with fallout from bringing things to a head right now. I have the distinct reaction in my gut of wanting to take shelter from a fast-moving storm spotted on the horizon.
I want to feel more secure in what happiness I do have. I want to power my life with the motor of gratitude--but right now my mileage just is not cutting it. I want to be confident in a favorable outcome to my endeavors. I feel like I'm just not as resilient as I once was--like a rubber band that's been left under the windshield for the duration of a summer, and is cracked and dry and useless for anything... I'm so tired of feeling like I've got to scrabble for straws to feel thankful and like trying is worthwhile. Playing to my superiors and coworkers like I'm happy where I am when, no, I don't want the trouble class, and no, I'm not a cheerleader or a game master or a rental friend or any other perversion of substantive and meaningful human relationships or satisfying work. I don't want to have to always wrack my brain for alternatives all the time.
Oh, and I MOST DEFINITELY DO NOT want to be in Tokyo when the Olympics come here.
If I could have the perfect conclusion to this program... I would have a good sleep tonight, during which I somehow clicked something in my brain in such a way that what I'm doing made much better sense to me; how to present that was so much clearer to me. Then I'd have a good, energetic hour in the morning and hour in the evening of productive writing through the rest of this week and next week. I'd get at least four good hours of quality writing and editing in each day for the three remaining full days I have to get this done. I would do a good job, I would feel good about the job I did. I could turn in my paper satisfied the the product balanced the effort which exceeded the demands. I would get a super-high score and be able to graduate with merit, at least (it's just unreasonable to expect to do so, but if I could actually get distinction at this point, I want that). I would have a good presentation. I would have more fulltime job offers in desirable locations than you could shake a dead cat at. I would have a publication and offers for funded seats in doctoral programs (programs that would actually be experientially and factually good for me!). Things in my personal life would suddenly go much, much better relieved from the stress of all this. I could be together with the people who requite wanting to be together, and rid of anybody who doesn't. I could have friends and sociability, pleasant intellectual stimulation and fun...
I guess there are two ways, really, that I can deal with the utter failure of my research: discuss it in terms of action moving forward, and examine it in terms of fundamental assumptions not having been met. I guess...
Time for bed. Morning train tomorrow.