Ah ha!

Today I have been working like a DOG (a butch, dedicated working dog, not an itsy, obese, sleepy lap-dog. Just to clear that up). I am feeling like a proper worker now, thank goodness because I wasn't allowed to finish today until I did.

This morning was horrible, I felt really blue and like this PhD was getting the better of me. I realised that I really ought to read some more journal articles properly because I love them and they really influence my analysis. Anything less than thorough knowledge would not do. So I realised already that I was not going to start on the next stage of my chapter yet AGAIN. I have so little time! My stress level was getting to the stultifying level, where you sort of sit and stare out of the window and just feel despair. Usually when I am like this I think about food that may jolly me along for the day - a kind of bribe to keep me at my desk and not just leave and get more miserable - but today that wasn't working really. I just felt overwhelmed and blue about it all. I think it is because of this wedding weekend - otherwise I could just tell myself I will have to work at the weekend and would know I had the opportunity to get some momentum going. But I will be away from it for three entire days and then I will be in Cornwall where it's hard to work (someone else's house is never that easy to work in I find)...

I carried on reading the articles anyway and then went and posted the visa applications (half yay, half hmmm... am convinced they will be sent back with red pen all over them) and went for a half hour run. The run was NOT something I wanted to do but I really want to do this half marathon and have to get used to running asap. Jiggling about in public is so not cool when you're miserable and good for little else other than a massive hoodie, hot chocolate, real chocolate and knackered joggers... Anyway, I felt loads better afterwards so I did! I knew I would but wasn't interested in this particular method of self-improvement... Upon returning I had to finish one last article, read through an email from my Sup re: overseas fieldwork application and then, at around 4 opened my chapter again.

And I am glad to report that I did something productive and have got over that sticky bump I was facing. I just coudn't move on with it and so kept going to the intro. Finally I realised that I was approaching it all wrong and deleted about 1500 words (saving onto a new page of course!) and felt MUCH better. I had it in two sections which was silly; I can easily condense it into one, with the themes I have been banging on about as part of the main text rather than having it as its own special section. Focussing on these themes was the cause of my impediment! And now they have been banished (well, subsumed...) I feel much better. Also, I was doing my fantastic trick where I assume all 'old' work/notes are rubbish and nonsense and started looking at the primary material again only to realise I know this inside and out and canNOT read it again. So the old notes will, thankfully and naturally, suffice.

Basically I have gone about this chapter in exactly the same arse-about-face way I did my last one. Except it took me three weeks to work out my problems in my lsat chapter and about... hmmm... two (?) with this one. Progress!!

So, hopefully, I should get stuck in tomorrow. Unless I have to go to uni which will take half the day. No, I will not go, I have to work alllllllllllllllllll day tomorrow and get stuck into this work for when I come back to it next week. Thursday we are off at around 4pm so won't have much of the day to concentrate and we may even take some stuff down for storage when we are away. All of a sudden though I look around my house and need everything...

DB is home with some random stories. Ah! A human! Conversation!

x J