where am I, where am I going

I've been Home for a week and I can feel that I'm starting to settle into my surroundings - the people, the places, the language and accents all seem more and more familiar. Although I still can't get used to the 'invasion of my personal space' at the supermarket check-out. Why won't the till operator just wait for me to pack all my stuff and be ready to leave 'her' space before she calls the next customer...just like they do in at Tesco? You've got to love South Africa.

I had a bit of an incident on Friday morning that freaked me out big time. I forgot to send a revised version of a presentation abstract for distribution. Just by chance I had woken up early and was sitting at my computer before 9am and so picked up the e-mail and was able to pull the situation together. But it made me panic. I can't ever remember being so 'los kop' before. I was worried my being in Cape Town had allowed me to take my eye off the prize. If I hadn't gotten up so early on Friday because I wanted to do some writing before my day of visiting with my previous research participants started, I would have been in deep trouble. I was really bothered by this incident and later that day sat down a wrote up a detailed list of all the things I needed to do over the next 2 weeks - the list is now stuck up on the wall - I worried things are falling apart around me. Not least the slow pace of my analysis writing; my sub-conscious Catholic guilt has been working overtime about how I haven't been devoting enough time to this activity since arriving in Cape Town.

So it's been rather remarkable that earlier this week I stumbled upon a very interesting and seriously motivating blog on writing in academia (see Get a Life, PhD)...something is conspiring to guide my path to PhD success I tell you, what a pity I don't believe in God...
TG-B is a successful academic who suggests that the best way to be productive in your writing is to write everyday for two hours, yes only two hours! My approach to getting the PhD had always been informed by working consistently even if it meant working only 2 hours a day - this 'approach' of mine was informed by a former colleague telling me about a similar method of getting a PhD based on working 2 hours per day 24/7. So if I'm to believe TG-B, then maybe I was onto something all along. I certainly agree with her observation that you can't sustain writing 6-8 hours a day for long periods of time - this has certain been what I've experienced, especially the feelings of frustration, burnout and despondency and the major distractions (aka random surfing the internet especially clicking on FB pages etc) when nothing seems to come out of my head and pour onto the blank page or screen in front of me. I'm going to try her advice over the next week and see how it works. I need something urgently, to shake things up inside my head, to restore my confidence and drive and get me going in the write direction.