What Not to Say...

Years ago, well before I'd even finished my Masters, I remember asking someone how his dissertation was coming. He physically winced, then politely told me that was a question you simply don't ask. At that time I couldn't understand why, because, it seemed to me, that after years of classwork it would be wonderful to finally get a chance to write about your topic without anyone telling you when it was due or giving you an real guidelines. Now I understand why you shouldn't ask how someone's dissertation is going and it's time to change up the question and answer.

The first thing that non-dissertation writers must understand is that a dissertation is, for all intents and purposes, a book. There are exceptions of course, but if you want a PhD in the humanities, then plan on writing a book. Most people that I know and have met aim for the 200-300 page range, however I heard about one person that managed to get a 120-page dissertation approved (people roll their eyes when they talk about that), and I've heard professors discuss the dreaded 400+ page dissertations. You'll also hear about the freaks of nature that manage to write their dissertation in a semester, but it seems that for most people it takes a year of full-time writing. And here's the thing about this book, it needs to be original --you're not writing a 200-page summary -- you're putting your own spin on your topic.

In many ways, deciding to write a dissertation is like climbing to the highest high dive, walking out to the end of the board and standing there -- it's both exhilarating and terrifying. Every time that someone asks "How is your dissertation coming?" or "When will you be done?" is the equivalent of them bouncing the board of that metaphorical high dive; it shakes the board and depending on the person can cause a writer to lose their balance. Sadly, too many people get to the end of the diving board then spend the rest of their lives stuck there. Professionally, especially when the market is supposedly glutted with PhDs, ending up as one of those people who never finished the dissertation can stall a career (I actually had someone in an interview tell me that she did not want to hire someone who wouldn't finish their PhD).

The second challenge, and one that I did not expect, concerns the shift from the classroom to the proverbial prison cell of writing. When I was taking graduate classes for the most part, they were discussion based. There was an exchange of ideas, even if you didn't agree with them. When you finish your PhD exams, it's almost as if your committee says, "We'll see you when you're done with that book." If you've got a good committee (and I'm very lucky that I do), then their doors are always open for you to come ask questions, but most of the time you're left alone with your own ideas. This results in a lot of doubt, worry that you've made a mistake, and internal dialogues about how stupid you are. All I can say about that is that it does a lot to build your character.

The final and most frustrating challenge is the dissertation writing process itself. What no one seems to tell students (or perhaps I missed the conversation that covered this) is that when you are writing a dissertation that if you can manage five pages a day, then you're in great shape. A great deal of time is spent revising (for every page I write, I feel like I revise 10 pages) and reading. Over the course of the last few months I remember the times when I could sit down and crank out 10 and 20 page papers over the course of a weekend without getting particularly stressed. Now, I find that after a few hours of writing I end up with a headache that can only be likened to the way my legs feel after running five miles.

While I now understand why it's not necessarily wise to ask someone how their dissertation is going, those of us writing need to change our responses. I admit that I do snap at some of the people (generally family members who can't understand why this is so difficult because they think I'm so smart), I frequently find that most people have no idea what's involved in writing a dissertation. Occasionally, I run into former students and they will ask how things are going, followed quickly by the question: "What exactly is a dissertation." Coincidentally, these are students who plan on getting their PhDs, but have no idea that they'll be expected (eventually) to write a book. This needs to change, and the quickest way to do that is to change how those of us being asked how our writing is going is to change our response.

Rolling With It...

The first time I traveled internationally (excluding Canada) I went to Venezuela. This was well before Hugo Chavez (1994 to be exact); it was interesting, educational, and then at the end everything went to hell mostly because I didn't speak Spanish. As a result I got stuck in the Caracas Airport for three days, which is horrible unless you like Mariachi music (there always seemed to be a Mariachi band playing at the most surreal times). The next few times I traveled, I always seemed to have some kind of difficulty at the beginning of the trip. As a result I've developed this attitude that if something is going to go wrong (and it invariably will), it's much better to have things go wrong at the beginning. That's what I've been telling myself the last few days.

I moved up to this cabin on Saturday, and for the last few days it seems like something unexpected has gone wrong. For example, the woman who owns the cabin is a good friend and she came over for dinner on Monday night. When it comes to cooking, especially when I have guests, I'm pretty organized. I had everything prepared and ready to go, when my friend texted to say she would be coming and hour early. No big deal, I just threw stuff in the oven earlier than expected. She arrived and we were having the appetizer, the vegetables that needed to be roasted were done, dessert was in the oven, and the grill was heating up to cook the lamb chops. 

Suddenly the oven started flashing and sparking -- the heating element in the oven (it's electric) blew. No big deal really, dessert was moved to the toaster oven to finish and the stove was unplugged. I went to check on the lamb, and discovered that the grill had run out of gas... and guess what I had no refill tanks (it takes those little propane tanks). So dessert came out of the toaster oven, the toaster oven was then cranked to broil, and the chops were put in there for five minutes. Voila! Dinner was saved.

Even if the toaster oven hadn't saved the day, I subscribe to the philosophy (I think I heard Ina Garten say this once) to always keep a few extra bottles of wine on hand. That way if something happens with dinner, you can get everyone drunk. 

Sadly, something must have been a little off with dinner, because during the night both of our stomachs were bothering us. I ended up spending most of the day commuting between my bed and the bathroom. Fortunately, I got a lot of reading done.

Then yesterday my sinuses welcomed in the change of season (it snowed on Monday night as well). I don't ever recall having such a serious sinus problem. If you'd seen the way my nose was running, you would have thought it was some kind of comedy skit. Then last night my nasal passages completely closed. I tried using a sinus rinse (a disgusting but effective tool), but they were so clogged that the saline just ran right out of the same nostril (it's supposed to go in one nostril and out the other). Despite the fact I spent most of the night mouth-breathing, this morning I feel much better.

The good part is this is all happening now. I figure that if everything that can go wrong does so now, then come February life will be grand!

Why I'm Writing

While I've occasionally assigned blogs to students to write, I've steadfastly refused to start a personal blog myself, but since I've been making a lot of changes in my life in the last few months I thought I might as well try.

So, why have I been so reluctant to write a blog? In part because, I'm a extremely private person (more than most people think). In general I don't share my personal feelings very often nor do I share my personal problems.  The result, particularly in the professional arena (I think), is that I come off a bit brisk and inflexible -- which isn't helped by the fact that I have one of those voices that carries (seriously I think my whispers can be heard miles away) -- when I'm in the office. A former colleague (we had a mutual dislike of each other) and I attended a social even thrown by a vendor. She later told our boss that she was surprised by my behavior -- in the office I'm all business, but outside of work I was relaxed, open, and fun. Go figure.

Similarly with the rise of the internet people have a tendency to misinterpret things. Facebook and Twitter epitomize this. For example, if I were to write an update on one of those platforms saying that I was dancing naked to Iggy Pop's I Wanna Be Your Dog (great song, by the way), while I would definitely be listening to Iggy Pop, and there's a good chance that I would be dancing, I would only be dancing naked in my mind. Also, I incredibly bad at proofreading my own writing. Seriously, put something in front of me that another person has written, I'll find all of the grammatical mistakes, typos, and problems in terms of the argument, but I'm just horrible at doing that to my own work. It's a major fault, I know, but I'm smart enough to ask others to proofread what I've written just to make sure there aren't any problems.

Most importantly, I've always felt that once you put something in writing it suddenly becomes real (or more real). Professionally, things need to be in writing and that's great, but when it comes to your personal life I'm not so sure I want to allow others to interpret my feelings. For example, a few years ago a colleague and I sat down to discuss some things, at the end of the meeting he said, "I'll write this up and we can give it to our boss." I told him that I wasn't comfortable with that just yet, so we should wait until we'd met with our supervisor and then we could write things up. Sadly, when we met with our supervisor he had gone ahead and written everything up. Needless to say I was caught completely off guard and rather angry (particularly since some of the things weren't true). Obviously we worked through it, but still...

If I have such an abhorrence to sharing my personal thoughts and feelings in writing, why am I writing this? First, because so many people that I greatly respect use blogs as sort of a writer's warm up before sitting down to a day's writing. I'm hoping that blogging (particularly first thing in the morning) will loosen me up for a day's worth of dissertation writing. Second, because once again I've been given the opportunity to live in this amazing cabin for the next six months, so this is a finite experience. If I like it, perhaps I will continue with something else, but who knows. 

I think the primary reason though, is because I'm really trying to make some positive changes in my life. As I said, I'm not particularly open about my personal thoughts and feelings. Part of this is because I love to observe people (Baudelaire's The Painter of Modern Life is one of my favorite essays), but more so because I'm more introverted that most people realize. The result, friends have told me, is that I have a tendency to make a bad first impression. I need to change that and hopefully this will help.