I'm happy to be teaching a familiar class again - Social Movements - that occupies only half of my working hours. Having every other day off to attempt some dissertation work is really something special. So am I spinning golden threads of dissertation into the wee hours of every morning? God no. That would mean that I have good work habits, and I intend to dispel that myth right here for the sake of other self-abusing graduate students who think they're alone (I'm not alone, am I?). Between teaching, preparing for teaching, grading, responding to e-mails, feeding myself, keeping my house clean, spending quality time with my girlfriend, updating my blog, walking my dog...you get the picture...I have an amazingly small amount of time for the dissertation! When I do sit down for the expressed purpose of doing that work, I find the majority of that time is spent in deep thought, not deep production. Deep thought, I'm afraid, just doesn't produce the emotional and professional rewards that I covet. So what is to be done. Which of my other activities is going to get cut for the sake of my sociological praxis? Maybe I'll get rid of e-mail - it can sometimes take a good hour out of my day. But...despite the megabytes of absolute crap that I receive weekly, my students, family, friends, and bosses rely on it to exchange social capital that promises to bring me productivity and success at some point in the future. Maybe I'll drop the blog. But...if you'll notice how often it actually gets updated, this one really isn't much of a time drain. How about cleaning the house? I could stand a little more filth, but could my roommate? I could give up dog walks, but then I'd have megapiles of crap around the house, and that's just not acceptable. Or, maybe I should just come to terms with my current practice of stressful, sickness-inducing all-nighters on the eve of every dissertation deadline. It's worked in the past, so why fix what ain't broke?

This entry was posted by Jeff, on Tuesday, September 06, 2005. You can leave your response.