As a university student, I've always had a struggle with summer. All of these months of unstructured time get to me. Most years, I just don't know what to do with my time and then I get depressed. Or I've had a terrible job and it wasn't what I expected of my summer. This year, the whole idea of "summer" has been even more difficult because I'm not on vacation.
At the end of the last semester, I complained a lot that no one seemed to understand that, after I handed in my final essays, I wasn't "done until September." In my PhD program, "done for the summer" doesn't exist. Completing those courses meant that I finally had the time to stop putting off: a.) the construction of my comps reading lists; b.) reading the books on those comps reading lists; c.) learning German. I've never taken "vacation" to mean "read 200 books and master a language."
Now I'm starting to wonder if I'm the problem. Yes, it's difficult to explain to people what I'm doing, if I'm not going to school and taking specific courses. ("Are you in classes right now?" "No, but now I'm working toward my comprehensive exams." "So you'll be getting back to it in the Fall?") However, I find that I'm treating my time as if I'm on vacation. It's so hard to make myself work. It's especially hard because I just got back from Regina, and I'm returning to Saskatchewan in a little over a week. Oh, and Meg and Karl are arriving tomorrow. We also have a steady stream of visitors over the summer. And now it's not like I have an essay due in two weeks, or any other tangible work that people can understand I now have to go away and do. Instead, I have this book sitting right here, which I'm having trouble reading because it's so much more interesting to do something else.
Today, which ought to be prime getting-things-done time, I have: talked on the phone for an hour; put in contact lenses for the first time since I got married; attempted to put on make-up and style my hair, because my face looked so empty without my glasses; spent inifinite time blogging. And now I'm wearing contact lenses for the first time in a year and my sight is kind of blurry, making reading difficult. I'm not the smartest PhD candidate in the bunch.
How did I write and defend an MA thesis without learning how to structure my time?
6 comments:
Reading 200 books in the summer would be awesome. Of course I suppose it depends largely on which ones.
I'm not sure you learned how to structure your time during your Ma.
Hahaha. Ma makes it sound funnier.
And cramsey, sadly I don't have to read all 200 this summer. I just have to get a good and solid start on them, so that all 200 are read by April. And you totally would read all 200 books. In your spare time, while maintaining a 100% average, getting a new scholarship every other day, and also keeping up on all of Karl's assigned reading. (I love when we stereotype each other. Remember when I got the reputation for writing final exams in 45 minutes?)
If you can figure out how to structure unstructured time, let me know immediately. Not only do I sometimes manage to accomplish nothing, I feel so guilty and unproductive that I don't even feel like I had any sort of break!
Limon, you just described the entire process of writing my thesis.
My situation was very different than yours, but I ended up taking every Friday night to Saturday off. It gave me a day where I could relax without feeling guilty and gave me more energy so I could be more focused during the week. I'm not sure how well it would work for you right now, but it made a huge difference for me. Jiayo, Mary!
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