. . . . . entries for 30.3.11 . . . . .
How much do I need to write/do between now and Tuesday morning? Hmmm . . .
-finish intro (finishing the first part plus two unwritten sections - one on climate as a cognitive problem and one on what exactly I'm doing now and how it fits into the existing literature)
-finish methods (including making a flow chart or something; some of the stuff now in methods also needs to go into the last part of the intro)
-write results (requires actually running the stats and figuring out what sort of story, if any, the stats are telling)
-write discussion (including an enviro section that's going to be somewhat discrete in addition to the general reflection-on-what-results-mean-and-what-happens-next bit)
How will I do these things? Good question. I guess probably by caffeinating a lot and locking myself inside Green late at night.
Tomorrow before class I'll go do the stats thing. Then I'll be busy until "late" - then, what, dinner, an hour or two of "deep breaths, you can do this" before it's back to Green for . . . ever? Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday - lather, rinse, and repeat? (I don't even have class this Monday. I'm grateful for that, sort of.)
Tonight I'm going to read a lot for my departmental, that very departmental in which I feel like quite the slacker. But after tonight, oh, it's on. It's on.
Many of my well-intentioned to-do list items got quashed this morning after I listened to a voicemail left at 7:30 AM which advised that she who left it had seen in a dream that focusing solely on my thesis until its due date was a terrible mistake and that I absolutely had to attend to many other things concerning my future, the uncertainty of which makes me want to curl up into a ball and cease to exist about four out of five times I think about it.
I sometimes tell people this, and I think if I were less afraid of the additional emotional fallout it would bring, I would tell her: "I mean this in the nicest possible way, but fuck you."
Near the end of my thesis meeting just now, after we established that I need a draft by Monday or Tuesday, my advisor joined the ranks of other caring and careful faculty here (recall "don't be too hard on yourself" from Dr. Gabowitsch) by saying "cheer up! You look blue" and "is there anything I can do to turn that frown upside down?"
I must have looked so miserable, for him to have mentioned it. I didn't know what to say, I looked off to the side, I managed something like "I don't know, a lot to do, don't worry about it, I'll get it done" - haltingly, the way I'd talk to a counselor to make sure I can keep it together, but moreso, I guess, more careful, you can't fucking cry in front of your advisor.
"I'm less worried about you getting it done and more worried about you being happy," he said, chuckling as he went.
I don't really know what to say about it. I'm thankful for it, I can't stand it, I don't get it, I hate myself for it, I'm crying remembering it.
How do other people do it? How do other people stay happy and motivated and satisfied with what they're doing even when it's going wrong, even when it always seems to go wrong, when nothing feeds back into that one hopeful goal of meaning something to the people who will come after? What is wrong with me?
In the very fine tradition of blogging one's to-do list on this almost-nothing-scheduled Wednesday:
1. Read for stabilizing/brain-warming purposes
2. Check email regularly in case there are more meetings to go to
3. Clean the bathroom
4. Do laundry
5. Put my room in some kind of order
6. Read comments on my methods section before my meeting with my advisor in case there are questions I need to ask
7. What the hell, finish the methods section
8. Do UW financial aid thing
9. Things I'm forgetting
. . . . . entries for 28.3.11 . . . . .
I might be done running psych experiments forever! Or maybe just for a few weeks, or a few months. Who can say. Anyway, now I have a lot of data sorting/recoding to do. Exciting. Or not.
And all the writing I've neglected. And all the little pieces of sanity I seem to drop as I go.
It is really the little things in life that trip one up.
. . . . . entries for 26.3.11 . . . . .
I feel quite poorly configured for everything that needs doing - mostly my thesis and also the Rest of My Life that will follow when it, and here, are over. I must have blogged that before but I'm just saying, it is most of what I think about.
Especially because it looks like all this data I've collected hasn't really amounted to anything interesting. If there were something interesting, I feel like it could've lit a little fire under me to get moving. But . . . hrgl. I sleep too much. I think trivial thoughts. I think heavy thoughts. I can hardly ever bring myself to bear on those middle-of-the-road pragmatic thoughts that I need to think very very badly. I hate the sound of what I'm writing - truly, I hate it, and if it were on paper I would crush it and tear it.
I always wanted to be one of the people in control of the situation, and by "the situation" I mean the best and worst and always biggest things in the world that need worrying about. I didn't want to be someone who was just doing her job, just following orders, just watching as whatever happened happened. But I don't know how to handle myself in any kind of arena at all.
. . . . . entries for 19.3.11 . . . . .
Somehow: here, with a vaguely-though-not-especially respectable resume and GPA, too restless to work, feeling prospect-less and more or less like a failure. And jealous of people I should be happy for - that's always, um, awful.
I'm going outside.
Our planet is practically doomed to cook. Everyone is worried about things other than climate change right now, and even job growth isn't a very popular topic, although people pay abundant lip service to it. Will future generations forgive us, the way we manage somehow to forgive ourselves for procrastinating on those little critical things that only ruin our own chances, our own happiness, our own lives? Perhaps some very understanding souls will look back and point to all the other things we had on our plate, but . . .
Ran some stats. They don't look very promising. Maybe if I had like twice the subjects I'm likely to end up with, but . . .
Okay, I lied: I slept from after I finished my podcast (finally, ugh) until now-ish and am now going for an early morning in McCosh. This is probably better?
. . . . . entries for 18.3.11 . . . . .
Confusing and/or disheartening news from the UW front. Calls for clarification will be made on Monday.
And I? I will be dwelling in that illustrious abode known as "the McCosh cluster with SPSS" this night. That is where I shall be.
. . . . . entries for 17.3.11 . . . . .
I don't think I actually mentioned that Frank visited and that it was nice and we cooked and watched too much Rachel Maddow and House and went to Bent Spoon and T-Sweets and didn't get a lot of work done. But all of that did indeed occur. I miss him a lot. This will be shocking news to you, I realize.
They have no cream for the coffee here which isn't actually bugging me that much. It is coffee!
It is way too early, on this night in Forbes dining hall, to be feeling thesis fatigue this hard.
. . . . . entries for 16.3.11 . . . . .
Tomorrow/today I am going to wake up at a more reasonable time and go to the library to work on my damn thesis. I say this and I mean it, damn it!
(also I still need to do my stupid podcast, but I mean, how seriously can I take that really)
. . . . . entries for 11.3.11 . . . . .
Spring break for Erin and theeee~sis (oh! it's spring break!)
. . . . . entries for 8.3.11 . . . . .
Deadline fail. Again. Inadequacy, misery; feeling sick, panicked, useless, furious at myself, as though my thesis is as likely wrong/non-productive as not, despondent about my future, just . . . bad.
I think I might try to see a counselor soon, like making an appointment tomorrow soon.
. . . . . entries for 6.3.11 . . . . .
Here's the thing, though: I really don't know if I would work out there on a purely academic level. Like, I don't know what they would do with me. I got into the School of Forest Resources (to which I applied because this professor has a position there) and would be in the social science division of that, but there are going to be a lot of policy wonky types who do the forest economics stuff that is, at some level, just too small-scale for the sights I've lately set for my thinking. There are things like this, but that isn't really for people like me either. I'm not sure about my trailblazing (no pun intended) abilities in a setting so awkwardly laid out for someone with my bent.
But the whole world is awkwardly laid out for someone with my bent, with the possible exception of CRED, maybe? There must be other places. Maybe I just need to know who to ask.
I don't know I don't know I don't know.
Hmmmm it looks like I might have to make my way out to the Northwest sometime soon to figure out whether I'd want to spend the next several years of my life there!
If you think I am useless and what I'm doing is pointless, say that instead.
. . . . . entries for 5.3.11 . . . . .
Mad, sad, despondent, irrelevant, totally unprepared to resign myself to be a cog in a machine that is broken, broken, broken - and I don't mean capitalism or something ridiculous like that, I mean this environmental movement.
. . . . . entries for 3.3.11 . . . . .
Word from Columbia: no. And "no" to all of Elke's other prospies, too.
Shouldn't they have just not invited us, if they weren't planning to admit any of us? Shouldn't they have figured that out ahead of time? Wouldn't that have been . . . simpler?
. . . . . entries for 2.3.11 . . . . .
Pawing around on grad app websites and discovering:
1. No answer yet from UIC.
2. No from Yale. Shocker! :P
3. No answer from U Wash.
4. No answer from NYU; apparently they only send decisions via snail mail, and usually around mid-March at the earliest.
5. Basically the same thing for Boston College.
Hrgl!
. . . . . entries for 1.3.11 . . . . .
Probably my biggest deadline-fail to date. Granted, I do not have many deadline-fails in my record. If only I knew how to deal with such things better - or just, you know, deal with great big enormous assignments better.
Ho hum.
I hope I never become the type of activist who wants to be invited to Davos, or who makes it a mission to be invited to give a TED talk, or basically who wants power or fame or money for their own sakes. It's hard for me to imagine me changing that way, but people do change. It just baffles me that anyone could want those things, and just those things, but evidently most folks in politics do.
come home?
.:people:.
{ting}
she looks like the real thing
{mari}
out and about
[kelsey]
THIS IS AMERICA
{yianni}
stop being depressed
{alisa}
other
[shannon]
close and far
{frank}
islands where no islands should go
[cassie]
eating knowledge
{colin}
my dm
[emily]
shoulder to the wheel
[brian]
nostalgic for fantasy
[nicole]
industry insider
{elle}
angry enviro
[matt]
never heard of miyazaki
[pirate dan]
are you reading this?
[olga]
distracted
[messiah dan]
messiah/believer
{max}
approach focus
[natalie]
wait a minute
[susan]
solitude
{greg}
manbeargreg
.:past:.
April 2002
May 2002
June 2002
July 2002
August 2002
September 2002
October 2002
November 2002
December 2002
January 2003
February 2003
March 2003
April 2003
May 2003
June 2003
July 2003
August 2003
September 2003
October 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
February 2004
March 2004
April 2004
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
February 2010
March 2010
April 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010
September 2010
October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
January 2011
February 2011
March 2011
April 2011
May 2011
June 2011
July 2011
August 2011
November 2011
January 2012
February 2012
March 2012
June 2012
April 2013
May 2013
June 2013
.:skin:.
turtles! turtles! by araglas
(heavily modified by yours truly)