Finish my PhD

god bless my paper can be accepted…..

How can I do this.. I’m almost there but I still see a vast ocean in front of my eyes and the shore is merely at the horizon.

An incredible thing to do, but very, very weird. Never again, I guess, will I be given such an opportunity, and I’m a little worried I may disappear up my own bum. We shall see.

Yes it totally worth it. If I didn’t have so much fun in grad school, maybe it would have been done in 5. But why rush life?

Okay, well, update on my last entry. I tried implementing the resolution. I set up a 43things reminder that I must do at least 30 minutes, every single day. This is not working. On weekends, I just refuse to work. I think part of the problem is, at home, I do not have a desk, and my laptop is usually put away and hiding some place. I usually never take my laptop out at all, all weekend, assuming I can even find it. And then it’s a pain to find a place to plug it in, etc. So it seems like a desk of some sort, or perhaps a desktop computer or some kind of always set up computer at home, is in order.

But that could just be an excuse.

43things sends me the reminder to do 30 minutes every day, but I just ignore the email each day. Don’t even open it, usually. I also set up a “Don’t Break the Chain” calendar (http://dontbreakthechain.com/) to see how well I can keep up this habit. Answer: not very well. It worked for two days. I had a chain of TWO WHOLE DAYS. Yeah. I know. Great.

I think my main problem is complete lack of motivation. There is no reason why I want to do this. I am not particularly happy doing this. I feel bad and down about myself most of the time, when I am doing this. This does not particularly align with any career goals of mine. This isn’t even all that fun. I think initially, I wanted to do it for the prestige, but now that I’m old enough to realize that prestige doesn’t really mean that much in life, I have no motivation to finish.

I feel like my research is insignificant and stupid. Mostly, I don’t feel like I’m doing research at all. I feel like everyone else is doing such awesome-er things than me. I don’t like the direction my work is going in. I am ashamed to attend any events with other people in my field, or to meet with any researchers in my field, because I don’t want to have to talk about my research because I feel so ashamed of it. And the resulting isolation only makes it worse.

Well, 120 out of 122 people thought this was worth doing… 98%! Maybe when I graduate I’ll find out why this was worth doing. I’m not sure that’s enough of a motivator.

The faster I do my work, the faster I can graduate, and the faster I can move on with my life. That’s about the main motivator for me at this point. That was the motivation I was using for the past year, but it’s not working so well now. I was going to focus on just getting a PhD, forget about doing phenomenal research, just treat this as a day job. Just do the minimum necessary to produce a vaguely acceptable dissertation, and get out of here. That worked for a while, but now it’s not working anymore… Mostly because the research culture around here is starting to make me ambitious. And ambition makes you afraid. Or at least, it makes me afraid. I am afraid of doing anything because I know it won’t be good enough. I was going to attempt to get out of here without publishing any papers, but now that seems impossible.

Well, I think the best I can do for now is: “My motivation is, the faster I get things done, the faster I can get out of here and move on with my life.” Okay. Yeah. That sounds real motivating. I could make a poster out of it and stick it on my wall, behind my monitor. Put it on Post-It notes and stick ‘em to my mirror in the morning. Yeah.

:-( Help. Sorry I sound so sorry for myself. I really don’t know what to do.

Turned in the official passing form to the graduate school!! I have some edits, but nothing too bad. Finally copies due next Friday. I can’t believe it’s really almost over!!

I can’t believe I’m really defending my dissertation tomorrow!!!

A huge, major step completed!!! Next is the defense. I’m really not worried about my committee failing me. My biggest worry is that they’ll give me a heap of edits that I won’t be able to get through before the due date (May 8th), but regardless I know I am very, very close now.

Having a lot of trouble this quarter. Feeling down, lacking concentration, no momentum. Don’t know why, I felt like things were going well fall and winter quarters after I got back from a year on leave to work. Perhaps I should have applied for an internship this summer so that I can keep things in perspective. Going off to work really refreshed me. So I think maybe I should keep an internship in mind for next summer.

From all the “How I Did It” stories, it seems that building a regular habit is key. E.g. s1mr’s “Read one article a day.” And I find it’s true, if I stop working one day (because too many meetings, seminars, random useless crap to take care of, etc.) then the next day, it’s harder to get back into it…so I don’t really get back into it…and then the next day is even harder.

So I think I’m going to have to implement some kind of plan for myself, to do at least one thing every single day. Maybe a commitment to myself to spend at least 30 minutes working each day, even weekends, even if I don’t feel like it, just to keep the momentum going. A concrete goal would be better (like, finish a XYZ each day) but it’s hard to say what I would actually do because each day might be different (one day, read a paper, another day, fix some bugs in my code, etc.). So I think the half an hour a day thing will work. Okay, it’s decided. I will try this then. And set up a 43things reminder for it. :-)

My dissertation is due to my committee tomorrow!
Left to do:
*Read through and edit Chap V, especially figure legends! (never got edits from adviser and I will refuse any changes if he sends them tomorrow!!)
*Write abstract!!
*Merge chapters and format
*Page numbers for Table of Contents, Table and Figure lists
*Print and deliver!!!
It’s feeling doable- just getting tired. I know I could do the rest of this tomorrow, but I just want to get it over with!