Saturday morning

When I woke up yesterday morning for the first time since I can remember I didn't think about my thesis or any unfinished work that needed doing. It didn't feel right. My little routine of going to the library to work on a Saturday morning had become a comforting ritual. It grounded my weekend activities and provided a significant way in which I could off-set any guilt I felt about not working enough on my thesis during the week. Yesterday I didn't have to rush to the library, nor would I be able to come home feeling a sense of accomplishment. I guess this is part of the loss and detachment from my thesis I have to go through. It feels strange and while I welcome not having the constant guilt clouding my thoughts, I still feel the emptiness.

the letting go starts

I've been struggling to complete the final touches to my thesis before it goes off for its last proofreading. It's taken me about four days to do maybe three - four hours of thinking work. I just keep putting things off. I just need to concentrate and do these tiny written amendments, but I've been avoiding it like the plague. Maybe I don't want to let go of the thesis. I've been talking about the anticipated loss I know will come when the thesis is no longer the focal point of my whole existence. I won't be able to use it as a 'crutch' or excuse for any bad behaviour on my part. I've been  full time student for the best part of almost five years now. I'm not 100% sure I'm comfortable about the fact that I will have to start the process of negotiating being something else again.

oh so sensitive

I got, what will probably be the last formal feedback (save for the thesis abstract) from my supervisors late last night. I was irritated at what they asked me to do or rather that I had not got stuff right...yet. I'm sensitive and in these last days as I try to get my thesis ready for the final proofreading exercise I cant deal with critique. Why can't you make sense of the diagram and why can't you tell me directly how to make it 'right'? Why won't you try a little? Driving home on the motorway this afternoon reflecting on the irritation and frustration that is pushing me to tears, I said quietly to myself - don't allow these feelings to cause you to act irrationally and do something stupid. Calm down and look thoughtfully at what is being communicated to you and act accordingly. Now I only have to act with such restraint and calm. I'm leaving the feedback and my response to it, to tomorrow - tomorrow will be better.

Tonight I'm shaving off words - my target is just 50 words per chapter. It's almost a mindless kind of job, playing with words, not their meaning. Lucky me!

text history

I've been cleaning up. I found what can only be described as the text history of parts of my PhD. Sure I'll produce this concrete thesis document, in fact I've already created it. But it's so easy to forget or not understand that the thesis started somewhere else. In bits of paper, scribbles, mind maps, e-mails, hand-written annotations on drafts, of drafts, of drafts. An endless pile of drafts. My developing thinking and ideas all captured over time in all the bits of paper and old drafts I've held onto. Whenever I do this kind of clean-up I realise how attached I am to my drafts - it's very difficult for me to let go. Even more so with the scraps of paper, 'decorated' with my handwriting, that documents how I've worked through my arguments, refined my ideas or brainstormed my understanding of terms or concepts. I want to keep them all and for the moment I am.

Another realisation that got driven home tonight - if you can't handle writing many, many, many drafts of your thesis chapters...don't do a PhD. It's just the way it is, absolutely no point whinging about this aspect of the PhD process. My view on this...writing multiple drafts of anything associated with your PhD does not reflect negatively on you as a writer, it simply says you're doing it right!

a touch of panic

I'm starting to realise that I'm prone to panic. It doesn't mean that I have anything to panic about, I'm just prone to it. For example this morning as I was preparing to send off three chapters to my supervisors so they could have a final look-over. I also prepared a list of all the things I still needed to do to get my thesis into a submission-ready state. As I sat at the dinner table in my lounge with the morning sun streaming onto me, carefully writing down each task I needed to do, I suddenly realised my was heart racing away inside my chest. Then I felt slightly light-headed. I had to stop as I listened and felt my heart pounding away. Why was this happening? The act of listing the last 10 or so things I still needed to do, brought home the fact that this 'thing', this four year old project, that has probably occupied at least 10 minutes of my head space each and every day over this period of time, was coming to a conclusion. It sent me into a crazy, uncontrollable panic. I still don't understand why it brought on feelings of panic, it just did.

So the end is staring me in the face. It feels more like a little meander towards the end. I have time, nothing needs to be rushed, I've accommodated a day here and there for 'eventualities', but still I'm confronted by these moments when this almost peaceful reality, is overturned and twisted in my head by blind panic. Where's the rescue remedy?