#it's 2:45 pm on a monday i have crossed everything off my to-do list today

[numinousnic]

not to sound like a music snob or anything, but. the experience of listening to a favorite album on vinyl is truly unbeatable

[nicosroom]

Slowing it down...

Like most pet projects, I came at blogging about my comp exam with a lot of ambition. It was July. I woke up at 7am most days and had the whole day stretching before me for reading, drinking iced tea, and writing about it on my blog. As the semester set in, as my daily schedule filled up with teaching, meetings, events, and the things on my to-do list, that two hours every Sunday for blogging quickly fell by the way-side. Now it’s December 4 and there are 12 days left in this semester.

For most people, all the stressers are moving into high gear. I, on the other hand, find myself in a pleasant state of slowing down.

Toward the end of this week, I had a really productive email exchange with my advisor. She’s in India, visiting her family and I’m sure also doing some research. She’s on sabbatical this year. This means that I’ve been mainly self-directing my progress through the reading list (with occasional check-ins with my other committee members and a once in a while email to my advisor). This week, I was bugging her about my comprehensive exam. I asked her what she thinks of February. “Exam” is a misnomer for the comps process, which takes place over the course of two weeks: Seven days for writing. Seven days for the committee to read/you to digest. Oral exam. I was really confident in my proposed date of February. I explained to her about the reading calendar I made and how I would finish reading everything by mid-January and have two full weeks to review.

So, late Friday (you know, time zones) when I read an email that said February seems early, asking me if I really think I’m ready, I was a little bit crushed. I took a shower with my stress-relief eucalyptus infused shower gel and fell asleep at 10:15 pm in my towel with my soaking wet hair on the pillow. And I slept through the entire night.

That was a new experience. Normally, I would have tossed and turned all night thinking about how to reply to this email, deliberating on how to put into words that I’m ready and convince her to let me have my way and put it on the schedule.

When I woke up slightly before my Fitbit alarm vibrated, around 6:45 am, I was (1) surprised it was morning; (2) surprised that I felt…kind of relieved. I got on my tablet, which was conveniently next to the bed with a low battery, and started replying. What spilled out surprised me, too. I told her about how I’ve been reading really steadily since July, but that no matter what happens, I always feel like I haven’t read enough. I told her how I read and I write notes, but I rarely just take some time to think about all these things I’ve read and all these notes I’ve written. Even if I make notes that the readings are connected to other readings, they’re pretty passive. I haven’t taken any time to draw out the connections or think about how they could be useful to me. I told her that being out of course work is hard, because time feels unstructured and if there’s no productivity to show for all the time I have I feel guilty. I told her how my greatest fear is being too slow. I told her how much of a relief it was to have someone that I trust suggest that I should be moving more slowly.

Her short reply came a few minutes later (time zones are a mysterious thing). basically it said: go slower, read and think carefully, prioritize taking care of yourself, spend time with your people this holiday, let’s have a drink in January and pick the dates then.

I re-worked my to-do list, crossing off half of the reading I had planned for the day. After breakfast, I took a walk. I came back and wrote a six page free write about the last three things I’ve read. I ate lunch. I did one reading. I felt really accomplished, and it was just 3 pm. I made some dessert batters, took a shower, and headed out to do holiday baking with Jen.

Today was really similar in that everything seemed manageable. None of it felt overwhelming. Nothing zapped my energy to the point that I needed a nap. I not only finished my whole to-do list, but also cooked two meals, vacuumed, spent an hour online shopping, watched football games, wrote this blog post. Getting ready for Monday, I’m not agonizing over all the things I have to do tomorrow and wondering how I’ll make it happen. I’m just calm, ready to sleep, ready to start at things again.

This feeling is weird, because it’s really new. It’s not the grad school norm, but I’d like it to be.