Chocolate Day!

Happy chocolate day all!

I have/am having the most fabulous day - have been out and climbed a massive hill in the sunshiney natural wilderness - and currently have a quiet moment while cooking our roast lamb (with lots and lots of garlic and rosemary!) Easter dins so thought I would post a catch up!

DB and I had a bit of a chat about my work last night and I surprised myself with how down I am about it all. I don't really care about my topic any more, or my discipline, and don't see myself pursuing it as a full-time, full-on career after I have completed. It may be symptomatic of a rough patch when work is boring and uninspiring but generally at the mo the idea of a quiet life, working for a charity, doing pottery at home and art in my spare time and being a writer (want to write more than anything!) and a Mum is what I want. The idea of a full time highy-flying career using my PhD and travelling the globe, doing development work or policy or research does not appeal to me at all. I dunno. It is strange. But I do love my work, my research most of the time - I don't know where this lack of interest comes from. I love thinking about it and working out abstract notions of relationships etc. I just don't reality and nitty-gritty! Silly really.

I also realised that I am definitely going to finish this PhD, and must think more about how I am doing this for *myself*, not for my Sup or DB or whoever and so deadlines should also be for myself, not for someone else. I think I have been putting myself under pressure imagining what my Sup must be thinking of me having not handed in any new chapters yet, which ends up being a nagging thought and feeling of failure - and totally counter-productive. So I will stop that and work for me, and as I get stuff done I will hand it in. So work should start flowing easier now. (I hope!) I also realised that perhaps, theoretically, I have been barking up the wrong theoretical tree with total conviction (again) and so have been more than daft. I forget so easily how flexible this PhD is, and that I need to be flexible and open to new ideas too to get the most out of it. I shall carry on reading about this theoretical direction, and some others, and shall probably end up with a hodge-podge that I am comfortable with (po-mo ideas tempered with critical theoretical authors methinks). And as I realise this I think it will be ok.

I am not really working today - well it is 5.30 already! These lighter, longer days are flummoxing me! I shall work tomorrow though and go for a run. I shall go to Uni on Wednesday I think, swap my books and get out other ones that are more relevant. I think it would also benefit me to stay in the library for a few hours and read through a stack of authors to do with different theoretical directions and see which grab me - speed reading of course - and take them home and make something of them. Aye. Maybe get a kiddies book on development theories too.

So much to learn! I wonder if I am spreading myself too thin and amongst too many disciplines. Atm I have to read literature on international relations of rmy literature review, theory, environmental security, India, humanitarianism, and now development. One could say it is too much! Arg, well development I only need to know enough to say why I did/didn't use a certain approach or know buzzwords. And environmental security is the same.

It all seems very, very daunting and just too BIG. I think it may be valuable to sit down and work out my niggles, write each one out and then deal with it, and make plans for each chapter or section of work I hope to do for the next few months. Not timelines, but plans of action which may make me feel more in control. Maybe I am asking too much of myself before I go out to India again and should just calm down and take it easier (work 'demand'-wise, not actual workwise, I couldn't take it much easier!! Maybe not get out of bed?!!) and then work will probably start flowing again and stop being in such a jam. You know, I think that is it! I shall cut out one of the things I have set myself to do before India and I think this will calm me down a lot. Woooooo! I feel better already!

Panic is soooo useless and, irritatingly, unavoidable (I find). And your stress levles, at a certain point, can be useful but beyond that you get plugged up and your mind becomes blocked and you just pace, pace, pace and can't see any way out. And then you do no work, get demotivated, feel out of your depth, and struggle to get back on the horse. Ug, this PhD is ridiculous!!

It will be OK. Whatever happens, everything nearly always works out to be OK. Not necessarily great, or even fine, but OK. Which sometimes is all you need.

x J