As the Worm Turns, So Do the Days of Our Lives

This is the completely mundane and non-funny log of the USS Drowned-n-Unsaved. Here follows an account of our plan to make it around one of the hairiest reefs of these PhD waters.

I am slowly beginning to come out of my spasm of fear over the sheer amount of obstacles I must hurdle this next month and a half (or the amount of plates I must keep spinning in the air, if you will). This calm comes, as all calms do, from actually sitting down and getting some stuff done tonight.

First, I emailed the prof for whom I TA, and I asked he put times and deadlines on all the work and marking I have left for him this term. He has done so, and this has made my time-budget much more firm and less gelatinous - always a relief for the post-BLOB generation.

Second, I finished the posters for my screening and preparing the basic notes for my Believer talk on Thursday night. If I get more time, I will add and polish and practice, but at least I am covered in the most essential areas. I also finished typing up all the outstanding RCS meeting minutes, and emailed them off, along with a copy of my Believer lecture poster so it can be hung around campus.

Finally, I have completed a good deal of research into auto-ethnography for my paper due on the 29th, and have started writing the rough draft. I cleared the angle with the prof via email, and she is all for my treatment of the memoir Paper Shadows (Wayson Choy, 1999) as self-ethnography, so I think I’m on a good track there. I have also completed all my readings for Tuesday, and have started the readings for Thursday (which I will finish bit by bit each night in bed, as it is in convenient book form, as opposed to my Tuesday class articles). Getting these clots of reading done will enable me to finish my marking in a no-holds-barred, full-on marking blitz on Wednesday.

I still have no idea when, exactly, I will find time to do the two major research papers (by the way, PhD term papers here have to contain original concepts, not just research works… I miss the MA). However, for the time being I am keeping my head above water… I just have to keep repeating:

Breathe. Stroke. Breathe. Stroke. (Repeat as needed.)